But….it’s a good one, and it raises the question…or provides the instruction….to question “madness”.
What’s madness?
Is it pursuing an obsession to a crazy degree? Doing things that don’t make sense to most of the world? Doing crazy stuff?
Or….is it living the life of “quiet desperation”?
My life is beautiful….my job is good.
What do I have to worry or complain about?
Nothing, really.
(My job is really good….kind of hard, but….really good. I case my mail and then go drive around out in the country and bring it to the people. That’s a good thing. I’ve worked in a cubicle….worn a tie all day….so driving around out in the woods is a good thing….I know that.)
I think what’s crazy is how much it chafes to be on someone else’s schedule all the time.
But….again, but…they pay me to do that.
They rent me….and I let them.
Being “out there”….a new breeze on my cheek….ocean wind and falling water…..gershhhhhhhhh.
“But then I got better and enjoyed an awesome party.”
In this video, though, it’s pronounced “PAHRTAY”.
If I could not read, I’d just have to enjoy the scenery and wonder what this fellow was saying.
How many videos can I post about riding somewhere that is different from the place I am?
The place where I am is pretty great….why all these videos?
Because….the whole world is pretty great!
Not better, necessarily….but great in its own way.
I want to see more of it.
I want to show my children a whale that isn’t in an aquarium.
I see so much of great worth on each of my daily 72 mile drives around the countryside delivering the mail….turkeys, deer, maybe a bear….leaves turning, crazy majestic views that I didn’t really understand until some of the leaves fell from the trees….new people to say hello to.
I have no reason for my wanderlust….my plate is full.
This is the first part of what (now) is a nine part video series.
The first part is in two videos….and I may have used this first part in an earlier blog…but it’s worth a repeat just to get the ball rolling again and to start the series at the beginning.
It’s pretty amazing.
I think that the guy making these is from Canada (shows that I haven’t watched all of these very carefully….I’m not even sure where he’s from) and he’s traveled all over the world on his bicycle.
I like his style….easygoing.
His name is Iohan Gueorguiev….
Seems like a pretty decent fellow.
I was going to run these concurrently…..but I think that, if I remember, I’ll run one of these videos every Sunday.
It’s kind of sadistic to put all these long videos on the blog….but these are so good.
Nate went to the park with Jenny last night and learned how to turn and start out on his own and (sometimes)….stop.
That’s on a bike, of course.
Jenny taught him how to ride a bike!
Nate told her that now he could ride his own bike on our bike riding trips now.
When Jenny told him that he really wasn’t ready for that, he replied that he needed to start riding his own bike because “Dad makes me do all the work when I ride the tagalong behind him”.
That’s what I get for making him push me for a bit….now he’s convinced that he was the ant pushing the elephant, even though I only made him do that once…..or twice.
That’s when a joke goes too far…when your child is anxious for independence so that they can get away from your “bad behavior”.
Oh, well….I think that it’s pretty darn cool that he knows how to ride a bike now.
Sparrow was talking to Jenny about how good they both smell yesterday, and when Jenny asked if Daddy smelled good, Sparrow told her that I smelled like “sweaty hats”.
Sweaty hats?!
I guess that I do probably smell like sweaty hats.
Darn.
I need to pamper myself more….use something more fragrant than Lava soap (on my hands….I’m not tough enough to use it in the shower….or that dirty that I need to use Lava soap all over….) so that I don’t smell like sweaty hats all the time.
Sweaty hats?! That’s pretty funny.
(Aren’t bikes cool?)
And….what did we do before GoPro? I remember a canoeing video I saw back in the early 80’s where the guy took a camera and filmed himself paddling out in the “wild”. I thought that was pretty amazing “back in the day”. It was nothing like all these guys are doing now, though. We can record everything. I should get a camera and record a day on the mail route…..but….they’d probably fire me. I don’t think that you’re allowed to film a “day on the mail route”.
It’s called “Being Here”….produced by Outdoor Research.
(A disclaimer: I don’t always have time to watch all the videos that I post on here. Who has time to watch an hour-long video of some guy rebuilding his Jeep engine? Maybe me if I need to rebuild my Jeep, but not a normal person. Nobody normal would watch that! Nobody….normal….would.)
I watch this and think about wanting my family….and, because of the video content, my wife and daughters, to be able to feel comfortable out in the world.
Comfortable….and, because the world is the way it is, and, because it’s not always “safe” to even just live….even if there’s nothing to harm us, really….brave at the same time.
(I want to feel BRAVE, too….)
I want their world to feel BIG!
I want us….whether we’re male or female…to feel all the potential of a big world.
What does the person who made this video say early in the film?
Something about “feeling trapped….over domesticated…..soul hungry…parched….like I might wither away”….and how getting out into the world frees her from those feelings.
I made our world small because it was hard to get out and experience it sometimes.
That was pretty crummy.
We need an adventure.
We need more of an adventure than going to Costco and hitting all the thrift stores we see.
This is the story of a railroad, a robbery, and a train crash….the building of a guitar….and, a song by an artist that I have always enjoyed, L.J. Booth.
Does it get any better than that?
We had a rare (like, once a year or so…) “date night” last night….a night without the little ones where we could do “adult” things like go out to eat at a grownup restaurant and walk around downtown Asheville for a while.
That was kind of refreshing.
Maybe once a year is enough?
No.
No….it’s not enough.
But….if we got a bunch of them, we’d probably be upset if they didn’t come like clockwork and we couldn’t exercise our God give right to be individuals for a moment and not just “parents’.
Who am I kidding, though? We missed the little guys….and we miss the big guys who helped us have a night on the town, too…..all the time.
So, it’s kind of like me posting all these videos of guys living in their vans or riding their bikes all over the world or traveling by donkey to an exotic place or…..
I have wanderlust that’s fueled by the responsibilities of staying in one place and holding down the fort….but I do love coming home to a house full of activity and all the people I care so much about.
Not getting to wander makes me want to wander….but I don’t want to live in a van all by myself (no matter how beautiful my parking space “down by the river” is).
Anyway….I ramble.
We got a new used keyboard and the sticking keys and weird browser popups that we experience when we were using the old keyboard have seemed to stop for the moment.
Did the juice spilled into the old one, and the sticky keys that followed, lead to all the “computer problems” we were having?
Nice to upgrade the old computer with a two dollar thrift store keyboard replacement.
Asheville is a weird place.
We ate at a place that was right on the square downtown….and were “entertained” watching the street people twirl around and yell at the sky and at each other while we ate our meal.
Is that what “al fresco” means? That you can watch the deranged hoboes scream at each other while you put more spicy sauce on your Pad Thai?
There is so much more life….messy life….crazy life…up in Asheville than in our little town to the South….but some of it is life that I’d like to avoid if I can.
I’m glad we don’t live up there still
Crazy is entertaining if you can bail when it’s time to put the little guys to bed.
It’s good to get away from “bad crazy” when you feel like it.
