The end of the year is a natural time to reflect. Usually I even write a blog post, looking at my previous year’s post and seeing if things turned out the way I planned, then writing a new one to forecast the coming year. Having done that several times, patterns become apparent.
The main one is that I have a hard time taking care of myself. I’m either deeply engrossed in something — to the detriment of other areas of my life — or I’m totally without motivation — to the detriment of all parts of my life. That is a good recipe for avoiding monotony, but there needs to be a certain rhythm to life… otherwise it is all just chaos and stress.
I’m not so good at balance though. Looking at 2023, I can at least see more good than bad. I had an epiphany out on the road, where I came to realize my internal monologue was full of shit. I wasn’t the person I was telling myself I was. Moreover, I was a person worthy of having good things happen to them, so long as I sought them out.
It’s not like “poof, all is well with the world” just because I had a revelation, but the real magic of 2023 is catching myself engaged in negative self-talk, politely thanking the little voice for its opinion, then carrying on with what I should be doing and ignoring its influence. Sounds obvious but it really isn’t.
When on the outside looking in it’s obvious — that’s why we mistake ourselves for geniuses when we so easily diagnose why other people aren’t getting what they want out of life.
Well, news flash: if you aren’t on the inside looking out you have no real idea what the other person is seeing. Empathy helps with that, but it is no better than a mirror, which — news flash again — isn’t actually what you’re looking at, but a reflection of it. I don’t want to descend into analogy though.
What seems obvious to an outsider isn’t to someone one the inside. Moreover,even if something is obvious, it doesn’t mean people instantly recalibrate their lives to new information. Being and knowing are not the same thing.
Specifically for me, deeming myself worthy of happiness is a big move. Past experience and guilt for past transgressions have often left me feeling unworthy of joy; no one can punish an intelligent person more than themself. And no lightswitch was thrown: I still catch myself in old mindsets. But that’s the trick: catching yourself before you head too far down an old path.
Be Thankful For Motorcycles
Much of this realization came to me on the road. The meditative state that can be reached while riding a motorcycle is unique because you don’t really have to practice it. Sure, plenty of times I’m on the bike I’m just going from A to B and my thoughts are focused on the same petty needs of daily life, but out there in Colorado I was alone with my thoughts long enough to hear them from the outside.
The same problems still exist, it’s just that my perspective is different. Changing your perspective of the world is far easier than changing the world, and you’ll find the world around you does change when you change your perspective. Looking back on 2023 I can see differences that no one on the outside looking in would see. The way I relate to myself is different. I give myself more of a break on things as opposed to demanding nothing less than perfection.
Using perspective while forward thinking
So what does that mean looking forward? Well, whatever I make it mean, so I better choose something that benefits me. Sadly, the things that will benefit me are the most mundane and cliche of all things. Diet and exercise. Better sleep regulation. Balance between work and hobbies. SO obvious, so boring. But that brings me to the other side of the coin for my thoughts on 2024.
Sometimes the gap between what you should be doing and what you are doing feels close, yet has a chasm between the two.
Adventure is something I actually need in my life. “An undertaking involving danger and unknown risk.” Pretty simple to understand the word. Taking on projects that are bigger than oneself is the main way to go at it for me, as opposed to “canned adventure” like skydiving or whitewater rafting. When you hire a tour guide your essentially paying someone to mitigate the unknown risks for you. Not a bad idea, but also not how I define adventure.
The Go-Fast Formula
For me, the outlet for years was racing. Motorsport allows you to take on risk and learn from it, but never entirely remove the X factors. By its nature, pushing a vehicle of any kind to the point it is hard to control is going to be dangerous. Afterall, you never really know if you are in control, second by second. It’s usually the loss of control itself that let’s you know things are out of your hands, and there is precious little time to regain control before you’re off in the weeds or cartwheeling through a field.
Much of off-road racing has a low barrier to entry and a big payoff in physical fitness.
As great as racing is at providing adventure, you still do it in a semi-controlled environment. Most races are on closed courses, medical help is somewhere nearby, and the people you compete against are at least on the same page. Desert racing is a bit different, but help is still there looking for people on course, even if they’re far away.
Before I digress though, racing has been — since at least 2006 — how I kept myself sane. With a brain going a million miles an hour, the only time the world isn’t frustrating and downright grating on my soul is when the world gets sped up to the same speed my brain is working…hence racing.
Racing is also a damned expensive endeavor though. And so no, I don’t plan to dump all my energy into it, but for 2024 I do want to do some one-off competitive events. Off-road racing is quite a bit less expensive than racing on asphalt, and I have very little experience, and therefore more to learn.
The types of events I’m looking at also don’t require me to roll up with a trailer and tons of tools and spares. And for the types of events that do require that, you can sometimes find groups within the organization that will act as your pit crew for a set fee.
But That’s Not All
Of course travel is the main focus, as it has been for the past three years now. Travel is not adventure by default, but when you aren’t sure where you’ll be from day to day, you are taking on the “unknown risks” part of the definition. It’s a way to adventure daily that doesn’t require fighting bulls or trekking through uncharted territories…or dumping your savings into a race team.
The unknown future is always shifting between opaque fog, shimmering horizons,and foreboding storms. Our willingness to meet it is more important than what is actually out there to meet.
Low key adventure, with the world showing you new sights, introducing you to new people and various cultures, and a chance to broaden your personal understanding of the world. The biggest “unknown risk” in this type of travel is that your understanding of the world will be forever changed through the people you come into contact with and the sights you see.
That is why travel abroad is generally more effective at creating adventure, but of course the United States has a far wider swath of cultures than most Americans realize. The level of homogeneity is much stronger in the parts of Europe I’ve been to, along with the borderlands of Mexico and the tiny slice of Iraq I saw when I was able to get outside the wire.
That small amount of foreign travel is a reason I want to do more, despite there being so many excellent places inside the United States I want to see. We’ve got damn near every terrain you could want from plains to scrub forest to desert, mountain forest to swamp to chaparral to dune land. And damnit, we take for granted the vast array or cuisine we have available due to the diaspora of cultures that have been coming here for hundreds of years.
Nepalese food in Colorado? Sure. The Rockies may not be the Himalayas, but you can fake it for a meal’s worth of time. Foreign travel still has to remain high on my priority list though…approximations are exactly that.
Where to Next?
Alaska is the central focus of 2024, but I don’t know that I will go just yet. I may be involved with Veterans Charity Ride again, which is in June, giving me an abbreviated time to visit such a vast and far away place as Alaska. I’m still looking at it, and I’ll make my decisions when the time is right.
The other stand-out is Nepal. I’ve wanted to ride the Himalayas for years now and never thought it possible, but I have found information on buying a bike locally and being able to cross between Nepal and India without difficulty (crossing national borders is extremely difficult when your passport and your machine’s registration are from different countries…sometimes impossible).
I could spend several months exploring the highlands and ancient passes that connected India to the Silk Road for so long. Culture, cuisine, and the overlapping of cultures combine with so much history and natural beauty. If I am willing to put up with some of the monsoon season I can spend even more time there (rains are less severe further north).
There’s a metaphor about the difficulty of forward progress in life here, but I’ll let you come up with it on your own.
Like much of the world though, the improvement of roads brings change, and those areas are changing because of it. This is even true in Alaska, as muddy roads have turned to gravel, and are turning into pavement. This phenomenon usually turns quaint and unique places into towns that cater to tourists, and therefore become a sort of caricature of themselves, like a theme park.
There’s nothing wrong with a small village wanting to turn away from poverty and isolation an embrace the opportunities of the modern world, but I’d like to get a peek at the world before it changes forever. I mean, the poor bastards don’t even have taco trucks…talk about living rough.
The point is, seeing rural life before modern life invades a place has a lot of advantage. Isolated cultures retain uniqueness, poor roads mean fewer tourists and less crowds, and the locals are more likely to see you as something novel instead of just another mark that needs to be separated from his paycheck. No, I don’t need a cheap plastic bauble made in China, thanks… I can get those at home.
Wrap up
Seems simple enough, right? Ride motorcycles to places, and also do some races. It even rhymes, so it must be smart.
Of course the boring, painfully obvious things remain. “Diet and exercise.” Even the words make me angry. Just so obvious, so simple, and constantly an area of total failure in my life. I see no reason 2024 will be any different in that regard, but the thing about life is it is not linear. Things do not change at a constant rate. It seems for now though, the only thing I have that promises a breakthrough in diet and exercise is hope.
Hope is the thing you cling to when you have nothing else. It’s basically a bookmark to come back to when you are ready to take action. Because of this I hold hope in very low regard. The best workaround is to ride more. Riding off-road at least, because it requires more physicality than riding on pavement. Ever notice bikers almost all have paunches? Yeah, if you ride a motorcycle on pavement to the roadhouse for barbecue and beer, you aren’t getting much of a workout. Take a look at motocross racers, on the other hand. Even amateurs who can’t train full time are generally thin.
This shit is exhausting, I tell ya…
The point is, there aren’t any physical activities I’m interested in anymore besides riding motorcycles, which even then is only physical if you are going off-road and at a decent clip. I’ve never much cared for stick-and-ball sports — not since probably the 6th or 7th grade at least. I once upon a time liked running, but that ship has sailed. Hiking is still a pleasure but you need to be out there for hours and hours to get major benefit…especially if you drink beer and eat tacos for your other hobby.
So, better to add good habits than to eliminate bad ones. It’s easier to add healthy food than eliminate the grease-bombs you normally eat. The goal isn’t perfection, and for me specifically the goal will never be to eliminate good food from my diet, and good food for me is almost all unhealthy if you eat like that regularly.
A Final Thought
That’s a simple 2024. Notice I mentioned little about writing, one of my other passions. That’s not to say I’m ignoring it. The problem I’m having is the needs of publishers. Nowadays you write to an algorithm. No one cares if the work is good if it doesn’t make it to the top of a search engine to be read by someone. That turns writing into a highly formulaic effort, where things become quite repetitive.
The only answer is to look for different outlets, and try to create projects that are more difficult but more rewarding. That’s a pretty scary thought, as I can’t muster up the energy to do simple interview pieces. We’ll see how I do, but I feel far more compelled to focus on the book I’m writing, so if it feels like I’m choosing between time for articles and time for the book, the book wins.
That part will just have to be played by ear. Living cheaply allows me to more or less float on VA disability and an occasional odd-job, which can be writing or filing or fixing someone’s lawnmower. Oddly, my biggest pitfall is the wide-open possibilities of life. Much like the lioness chasing down a zebra, if you can’t identify the single target from the herd, you will end up with nothing for your troubles. An embarrassment of riches I know, and I prefer these problems to the restrictiveness of life when everything revolved around a 9-5 job I didn’t want to be at.
Better to be writing a blog post to try and understand where my priorities are as opposed to bemoaning life for pushing my priorities down below artificial priorities. Problems are problems though, and finding your place in this world is a universal one no matter what station you were born into. Not all who wander are lost, but most of them are.
And so good people of the interwebs, once more into the breach, or for me I guess it’s once more into the breech(es) — I have to put some pants on and go get groceries. Here’s wishing everyone an exciting and prosperous 2024. May the Force be with you and all that, and remember it is you and only you that can make your world into one you want to live in.
Or, if you want something a little more theatrical to round out the year, you can always look for the final scene of Terminator 2’s theatrical release:
Johnny Killmore 
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