The following was written before this journey by bicycle began, as part of a funding application. Despite my ambivalence about applying for funding I wanted to try and articulate why the journey felt so necessary.
I have thought about posting this before, but have put it off because I’m embarrassed or scared of saying what I think without apology.
Today I read about the Declaration of Rebellion happening in London tomorrow, and wished I could be there to participate. I asked myself whether I, like some of those protesters, would be willing to be arrested in order for real change to happen? I don’t know, I hope so, but being safely thousands of miles away I dont have to find that out.
But the least I can do is stop being scared to say what I really think.
So here it is, without apology.
What is the driving motivation for this adventure?
The world is going to shit. The climate is changing, and it is changing fast. We’re seeing the catastrophic effects daily, if we choose to look. We, as a species, have caused devastating harm to this planet.
This isn’t news.
The future looks bleak.
We have to make decisions about how we are going to behave. We have a choice, many choices, to make.
We can choose to carry on regardless, and why not? Everyone else seems to be doing so.
Or we can choose to make changes.
We can protest.
We can act.
I’ve made some choices. Some are good things. Like choosing to ride a bike instead of owning a car. Like cutting down on meat. They make me feel better about myself, they are healthy and just. They are the right thing to do.
Some choices are not choices that make me happy. I’m not proud of them. I can’t even get a kick from the height of my moral horse. They make me sad and angry. Hard decisions, like the decision not to have children.
This journey is my peace-making with these decisions.
I know that this journey is an opportunity to change the atomic structure of my life.
I have the health, fitness, circumstances to do this, and the feeling that if I don’t I will regret it for the rest of my life. I love my job, I value my colleagues, I believe we do good work. But I can’t spend the rest of my ‘youth’ sitting in front of a computer screen.
I want to get out and see the world while it still is possible. I want to experience it powered by my own two legs. I want to come back fit and healthy with my mind blown open.
I want to make peace with myself.
—
Today I might say it this way instead.
I want to return home armed for the inevitable and difficult decisions that await us there, and prepared to join the uprising that surely is about to catch fire, even if it is decades too late.
I cannot see a single thing more important in this world than tackling the crisis that is climate change. Every other concern depends on there being a functioning, healthy ecosystem within which society can operate.
I hope that there is a solution, but I believe that it involves such a hearty revolution of our systems that maybe we could address a multitude of the world’s inequalities as we rebuild it. Maybe there is a version of this story that builds a better, more fair and just world than this catastrophe that we are currently inhabiting.
That’s my hope.
My fears are too many to mention.