I woke up awhile back…
And I stared myself down in the mirror…
It was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do…
Because what I saw reflecting back at me wasn’t an image of today or tomorrow, but rather an unfolding series of event leading me straight into the future.
It was a story about the evolution of my life…
But it wasn’t my future… And it wasn’t for me…
That morning I realized that I was watching was another person’s personal narrative unfold.
Someone I didn’t want to become and someone I didn’t recognize as me.
On each successive day since no matter how much I might try to rationalize what I saw that morning, I keep finding it absolutely impossible to shake the feeling that this was not the odyssey or adventure I was destined for…
What is it that we ask of ourselves in the future?
Who is it that we want to become?
Where do we want our paths to lead?
And when you look in the mirror and see two divergent paths standing before you how do you choose which one to take?
These are questions to which I do not have any answers at all. Only the vaguest hints of thoughts… But none of them even remotely begin to result in a solution to the puzzle of my life.
And yet!
And yet! I feel the clock ticking in a way that I have never felt it move before.
Because as of today a third of my practical life is now over.
And it feels like it has rushed passed me as if I were standing on the edge of the track and watching bikes roar right past me at two-hundred miles plus. I see the blur of motion, I hear the whine of the engine, I feel the rumble beneath my feet… But I don’t feel in control. I don’t feel like I am the rider.
And to be honest, I’m having a very, very hard time with that.
I find little comfort in science, less in organized religion, and absolute none coming from the people whose council I’ve depended on for decades.
Everywhere I turn lately it feels very, very lonely.
And not in that glorious break-of-the-dawn twilight emptiness… Rather it feel black. Very, very black. As if there’s heavy contrast everywhere I look and someone intentionally crushed all the blacks to nothingness…
Everywhere I look, I see the walls surrounding life and they’re bearing down.
The hands of time have flown by with a speed and a vitality that completely freaks me out… In those deep, dark places we don’t want to go at night I find myself doing the math and I can see how things are headed and it seems pretty clear to me that a number of term limits are about to expire in the near future.
Life it seems is capable of moving surprisingly fast and without you even realizing that it has gone anywhere at all. And now where I used to see an abundance of limitless possibility, well, now I find myself resigned to the fact that there are no exit strategies that tie up all the loose ends, just doors that lead right back to newer, bigger, brighter, boxes of the same choices..
And I find myself wondering what the struggle is worth… There’s so much turmoil – all the time – whether it be the job, the deadlines, the economy, the various parts of living, the various parts of loving, the endless parade of bills & deals & facts & figures & people you only vaguely know… Are we a species that simply feels compelled to jump from fire to fire? Does this thing called life ever actually slow down? Do we ever get time to take in the vista and deeply exhale? Or does this circus just keep moving faster and faster?
I’m now old enough to realize that there are some practical definitions and limitations to our lives that we cannot change. They are the guardrails that surround our route and define the corridor of how our lives turn. The idealistic nature of my youth has fallen away as the maturity of the mid-live rises and that saddens me. I liked it better when it bright-eyed and shiny…
Life as it turns out is much harder than it used to be and I don’t know why that is or how it changed so radically… But everything these days seems ‘heavy’ — Everything seems like it requires instant analysis and definition. What happened to just having ‘fun’?
And all of this makes me feel rather jaded when I don’t think that’s a feeling I ought to honestly have yet.
The oddity is that on a professional level, it’s never been better. I have never felt prouder or more satisfied with the work. The shows, the films, the stories, the crews, the utter lack of bs in the field. It’s all come together in a beautiful, beautiful way.
And I have never felt so destined to do this particularly task at other point in my life.
It’s all happening… In a good, good way…
Yet for some, work can be everything – and also the only thing – but after much deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that’s not at all what I want out of life…
The brighter the worklights have become the more obvious it has seemed to me that I needed to make a change for my soul. Because while I don’t mind working nights & weekends, or long hours, I do mind feeling like the walls are deathstar-han solo-squeezing me to pieces on a nightly basis.
Yet whatever today is, I know it is fleeting…
Whatever this is, is going away…
I can see the expiration date that lies ahead. The great get-off for both myself, and the ones I care about, may not be tomorrow or the next day or the one after that, but it is most certainly coming this way. Amidst the change another era looms on the horizon, just over that ridge, and while I can’t see it just yet, I can certainly sense its approach… I can feel it in a way that I have never felt it before.
The only real question now is how long it’s going to take between the ‘here’ and the ‘there’.
The more I’ve processed this sensation, the more acutely aware I’ve become that life feels like it is desperately slipping through my fingers and above all the other fears that I have in my life, my greatest fear is quite simple…
I am deathly afraid that one day I will wake up and find myself wishing I’d done it all differently.
It is a feeling I cannot stand.
Nor one I want to be a witness to.
There’s no longer a reason to wait and there’s no reason to wonder.
Life is just to short.
So tomorrow I’ve decided to hit re-boot in big, big way.
And to restart my life in a whole new direction.
Tomorrow I move the bikes, the dog, and the business to California’s Central Coast.
Change of course is never easy – it’s a concept that we as humans seem to inherently fight. The status quo often seems like the best course of action because it’s the easiest course of action and as a species we seem to intrinsically desire the path of least resistance.
But if the last few months have taught me anything of value, it is that the easy choice is rarely the right choice. Or the best choice.
And blowing it all up and starting over wasn’t an easy choice by any stretch. Quite the contrary, as there were a multitude of variables that I’ve been sorting through for a long time now. It’s only after months of pondering and introspection and deliberation, that I’ve come to the conclusion that this is something that I had to do for me.
At its most simplistic core, I suppose the most basic truth is that I never quite jived with California’s Inland Empire. Certainly it was worth the attempt and the trial. I’m glad I gave it a shot. As an area the IE has a lot going for it, but want it never quite captured was my soul.
So now I’m ready to reload and restart the machine once again.
To try and enjoy this thing called life.
Because there’s an adrenaline kick that’s been missing in my life. A buzz and a beauty that I ache to feel again in the worst of ways. A nostalgia for the days when my only concern was where I was going riding this upcoming weekend. Back then there were no worries or agitations over being a grown up. In Greek the word nostalgia comes from the phrase nostos, which literally means to ‘go home’ and while I am not going ‘home’ figuratively, I certainly feel like I am emotionally.
Among all my travels if there is one spot on this wondrous planet that has always captured my soul, it is the middle part of the California expanse. No part of the world has ever encapsulated so much of what I believe defines me quite like the Central Coast. I’ve written about it extensively here on the blog and I think what comes through in that writing is that I believe that this area is simply Gød’s country. For years I’ve used the Central Coast as a place to escape to, a place to find myself and my thoughts… Now I’m just escaping here permanently.
It’s not a choice about money or friendships or a judgment call on people or places – rather this is a choice by me and for me because I’m tired of doing the LA hustle. Beverly Hills, The Sunset Strip, The Westside, Malibu, the endless sea of traffic and congestion — these things just don’t interest me any more.
And the Central Coast is a place that I always thought I’d eventually call home – So why not now? Why not today? Why not do it while the clock still is ticking?
There is a personal narrative that I have yet to write. A story of soul and searching and seeing and doing that I haven’t put down on paper. One that I’m gonna alter and edit and revise, and go over and over and over again until I get it right.
Because life is just to damn short.
So starting Tomorrow the ride begins at the end of the driveway with the beginning of the best part of the Pacific Coast Highway. Head inland and you’ve got countless avenues of adventure sprawled across gorgeous mountains. Go even further east and you’ll cross into rural and undeveloped classic California at its finest. The kind of vistas that made John Wayne famous. It is a location-based panacea for riding.
And as of tomorrow it’s home.
Reboot, Reload, Restart
I woke up awhile back…
And I stared myself down in the mirror…
It was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do…
Because what I saw reflecting back at me wasn’t an image of today or tomorrow, but rather an unfolding series of event leading me straight into the future.
It was a story about the evolution of my life…
But it wasn’t my future… And it wasn’t for me…
That morning I realized that I was watching was another person’s personal narrative unfold.
Someone I didn’t want to become and someone I didn’t recognize as me.
On each successive day since no matter how much I might try to rationalize what I saw that morning, I keep finding it absolutely impossible to shake the feeling that this was not the odyssey or adventure I was destined for…
What is it that we ask of ourselves in the future?
Who is it that we want to become?
Where do we want our paths to lead?
And when you look in the mirror and see two divergent paths standing before you how do you choose which one to take?
These are questions to which I do not have any answers at all. Only the vaguest hints of thoughts… But none of them even remotely begin to result in a solution to the puzzle of my life.
And yet!
And yet! I feel the clock ticking in a way that I have never felt it move before.
Because as of today a third of my practical life is now over.
And it feels like it has rushed passed me as if I were standing on the edge of the track and watching bikes roar right past me at two-hundred miles plus. I see the blur of motion, I hear the whine of the engine, I feel the rumble beneath my feet… But I don’t feel in control. I don’t feel like I am the rider.
And to be honest, I’m having a very, very hard time with that.
I find little comfort in science, less in organized religion, and absolute none coming from the people whose council I’ve depended on for decades.
Everywhere I turn lately it feels very, very lonely.
And not in that glorious break-of-the-dawn twilight emptiness… Rather it feel black. Very, very black. As if there’s heavy contrast everywhere I look and someone intentionally crushed all the blacks to nothingness…
Everywhere I look, I see the walls surrounding life and they’re bearing down.
The hands of time have flown by with a speed and a vitality that completely freaks me out… In those deep, dark places we don’t want to go at night I find myself doing the math and I can see how things are headed and it seems pretty clear to me that a number of term limits are about to expire in the near future.
Life it seems is capable of moving surprisingly fast and without you even realizing that it has gone anywhere at all. And now where I used to see an abundance of limitless possibility, well, now I find myself resigned to the fact that there are no exit strategies that tie up all the loose ends, just doors that lead right back to newer, bigger, brighter, boxes of the same choices..
And I find myself wondering what the struggle is worth… There’s so much turmoil – all the time – whether it be the job, the deadlines, the economy, the various parts of living, the various parts of loving, the endless parade of bills & deals & facts & figures & people you only vaguely know… Are we a species that simply feels compelled to jump from fire to fire? Does this thing called life ever actually slow down? Do we ever get time to take in the vista and deeply exhale? Or does this circus just keep moving faster and faster?
I’m now old enough to realize that there are some practical definitions and limitations to our lives that we cannot change. They are the guardrails that surround our route and define the corridor of how our lives turn. The idealistic nature of my youth has fallen away as the maturity of the mid-live rises and that saddens me. I liked it better when it bright-eyed and shiny…
Life as it turns out is much harder than it used to be and I don’t know why that is or how it changed so radically… But everything these days seems ‘heavy’ — Everything seems like it requires instant analysis and definition. What happened to just having ‘fun’?
And all of this makes me feel rather jaded when I don’t think that’s a feeling I ought to honestly have yet.
The oddity is that on a professional level, it’s never been better. I have never felt prouder or more satisfied with the work. The shows, the films, the stories, the crews, the utter lack of bs in the field. It’s all come together in a beautiful, beautiful way.
And I have never felt so destined to do this particularly task at other point in my life.
It’s all happening… In a good, good way…
Yet for some, work can be everything – and also the only thing – but after much deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that’s not at all what I want out of life…
The brighter the worklights have become the more obvious it has seemed to me that I needed to make a change for my soul. Because while I don’t mind working nights & weekends, or long hours, I do mind feeling like the walls are deathstar-han solo-squeezing me to pieces on a nightly basis.
Yet whatever today is, I know it is fleeting…
Whatever this is, is going away…
I can see the expiration date that lies ahead. The great get-off for both myself, and the ones I care about, may not be tomorrow or the next day or the one after that, but it is most certainly coming this way. Amidst the change another era looms on the horizon, just over that ridge, and while I can’t see it just yet, I can certainly sense its approach… I can feel it in a way that I have never felt it before.
The only real question now is how long it’s going to take between the ‘here’ and the ‘there’.
The more I’ve processed this sensation, the more acutely aware I’ve become that life feels like it is desperately slipping through my fingers and above all the other fears that I have in my life, my greatest fear is quite simple…
I am deathly afraid that one day I will wake up and find myself wishing I’d done it all differently.
It is a feeling I cannot stand.
Nor one I want to be a witness to.
There’s no longer a reason to wait and there’s no reason to wonder.
Life is just to short.
So tomorrow I’ve decided to hit re-boot in big, big way.
And to restart my life in a whole new direction.
Tomorrow I move the bikes, the dog, and the business to California’s Central Coast.
Change of course is never easy – it’s a concept that we as humans seem to inherently fight. The status quo often seems like the best course of action because it’s the easiest course of action and as a species we seem to intrinsically desire the path of least resistance.
But if the last few months have taught me anything of value, it is that the easy choice is rarely the right choice. Or the best choice.
And blowing it all up and starting over wasn’t an easy choice by any stretch. Quite the contrary, as there were a multitude of variables that I’ve been sorting through for a long time now. It’s only after months of pondering and introspection and deliberation, that I’ve come to the conclusion that this is something that I had to do for me.
At its most simplistic core, I suppose the most basic truth is that I never quite jived with California’s Inland Empire. Certainly it was worth the attempt and the trial. I’m glad I gave it a shot. As an area the IE has a lot going for it, but want it never quite captured was my soul.
So now I’m ready to reload and restart the machine once again.
To try and enjoy this thing called life.
Because there’s an adrenaline kick that’s been missing in my life. A buzz and a beauty that I ache to feel again in the worst of ways. A nostalgia for the days when my only concern was where I was going riding this upcoming weekend. Back then there were no worries or agitations over being a grown up. In Greek the word nostalgia comes from the phrase nostos, which literally means to ‘go home’ and while I am not going ‘home’ figuratively, I certainly feel like I am emotionally.
Among all my travels if there is one spot on this wondrous planet that has always captured my soul, it is the middle part of the California expanse. No part of the world has ever encapsulated so much of what I believe defines me quite like the Central Coast. I’ve written about it extensively here on the blog and I think what comes through in that writing is that I believe that this area is simply Gød’s country. For years I’ve used the Central Coast as a place to escape to, a place to find myself and my thoughts… Now I’m just escaping here permanently.
It’s not a choice about money or friendships or a judgment call on people or places – rather this is a choice by me and for me because I’m tired of doing the LA hustle. Beverly Hills, The Sunset Strip, The Westside, Malibu, the endless sea of traffic and congestion — these things just don’t interest me any more.
And the Central Coast is a place that I always thought I’d eventually call home – So why not now? Why not today? Why not do it while the clock still is ticking?
There is a personal narrative that I have yet to write. A story of soul and searching and seeing and doing that I haven’t put down on paper. One that I’m gonna alter and edit and revise, and go over and over and over again until I get it right.
Because life is just to damn short.
So starting Tomorrow the ride begins at the end of the driveway with the beginning of the best part of the Pacific Coast Highway. Head inland and you’ve got countless avenues of adventure sprawled across gorgeous mountains. Go even further east and you’ll cross into rural and undeveloped classic California at its finest. The kind of vistas that made John Wayne famous. It is a location-based panacea for riding.
And as of tomorrow it’s home.
Site Supporters
Categories