Going on an unplanned biking adventure

Why pushing through the but's and if's is sometimes the biggest challenge to getting what you want, and what doing it anyways can teach us about the power of reciprocity.

One of many unexpected encounters on my cowboy journey through the US southwest.

It’s been 15 years since my first biking trip through southern Chile. Since then, I’ve dreamt of hitting the road again.

But there’s always an excuse, innit?

I don’t have the time; I don’t have the money, I don’t have the gear; I don’t have the company (in my case, they all applied).

Sociologist Hartmut Rosa has noted how the modern recipe for happiness teaches us to first accumulate the resources and then go for what we want. The danger, he warns, is that we get stuck in an eternal preparation—kinda like the protestant deferral of happiness to the afterlife that Max Weber noted was at the heart of the spirit of capitalism.

The solution—my solution—has been to push past the excuses my mind makes up, my inner naysayer, and trust that the universe aligns to meet me halfway when I go for what I want with determination. In this case, to go on a biking adventure through the US desert during my visit to Las Vegas in September.

Importantly, I’m practicing how to apply spiritual teachings—universal laws or principles—to see if there is an easier way to move through the experiment of life.

Ventura won me over, and kept the bike that crossed the Atlantic ocean and had hoped to carry me through Guatemala and Mexico. It will serve a far greater purpose now, and the universe has its way of replacing that which we let go of with something even better.

Let go of the old in order to receive the new

One of these principles is the idea that we need to let go of our attachments before we can receive the resources we need to reach our goals.

So, ahead of my trip to Vegas, I left my rickety foldable bike—my only obvious means of transport—with my buddy Ventura in Guatemala, trusting that I would find a better solution than the amusing-bordering-to-ridiculus idea of biking on a bike built for someone half my size.

And surprise—as soon as I had let go of what seemed to be my most likely means of transport (at the time), I got a text from my buddies Dell and Cerissa, who live in Vegas and upon hearing rumors of my planned adventure, offered to equip me with a roadbike, lightweight tent, and camping gear—even the food I needed for my mini expedition.

Spiritual principle confirmed.

Camping a la Americana involves lots and lots of gear, funny faces, crazy fingers, and US hospitality—which is near unrivalled, I must admit.

As if in a nod of acknowledgment that you can really manifest whatever you set your mind to, Dell, Cerissa, and our mutual friend Caleb, decided to drop me off at Bryce Canyon in southern Utah, joining me for the first leg of the adventure, and leaving me at the starting point of a route of scenic highlights that took me through some of the most stunning natural monuments in America.

Bryce Canyon with my buddy Caleb was a feast for the senses and a treat to the eyes.

My spiritual journey through Grand Staircase Escalante included several punctures, road assistance, dehydration, and a newfound respect for the power of the desert.

The contemporary cowboy wears padded lycra

From Bryce Canyon, I biked my way south through the landscapes Hollywood transformed into the mythos of the Wild West. In American popular culture, they may epitomize the fantasy of the self-made, tobacco-smoking, gun-slinging cowboy-man. And in a sense, this was the role I had unwittingly assumed.

Although I didn’t ride a horse, I rode a bike, and although I did not wield a gun, I did eat canned beans under an immaculate starry sky.

Not “the wild west” but Navajo Nation. With sceneries like these, Native American reverence for nature should not come as a surprise.

However, technology was not what primarily distinguished my cowboy story from those of the past. Rather, my journey through the desert took me to what I soon realized was not the US at all, but the Navajo Nation. And my encounter with the Native Americans was not a gun-blazing battle, but a meaningful encounter between fellow humans.

Stopped for ice-cream and was tapped on the shoulder by Oscar, who wanted to pray for me and cancelled his plans to give me a ride and guided tour of his ancestral homelands.

The transformative experience of receiving help

Some cancelled their plans to give me a ride. Others shoved me dollar bills “for the road”. They shared their food, their stories, their music, their hopes and fears, their faith, their prayers, their wisdom, and their places of worship to the land with a dehydrated and sweaty white bro on a roadbike.

“When I saw you at the side of the road, I hesitated,” one of the truck drivers who gave me, my bike, and my flat tire a 20-mile ride to Tuba City. “I thought you might be like the white dudes I’ve met in the past.” He’d had a bad experience with a hitchhiker but decided to practice kindness nonetheless. “I’m glad I picked you up,” he said as he set me off on the road that marks the border between the Navajo and Hopi tribes.

Where there’s a will there’s a way, and why not open a souvenir shop in the middle of the desert? This new buddy of mine gifted me a cold drink, and I found the gifts for my friends that I was looking for.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the fact that despite centuries of resistance to colonial violence, the Navajo of today received me with generosity and warmth.

Note to self: the next time I’m about to be swayed by my white savior complex—the Navajo helped me, not the other way around.

Lesson #1: Money is not the prerequisite for getting what you want

Summing up: once I got past my own excuses (and let’s be honest, after almost a year of kamikaze sailing, it wasn’t that hard), I learned that when you think of currency and resources as abstract terms—as flow of energy—the world is ripe with possibilities.

But it requires letting go of that late capitalist belief that to pursue our passions and follow our dreams, we first need to accumulate money and resources. You might object that downplaying the importance of money sounds a little daft, and it would not be entirely untrue.

But also, through my eleven and counting months of travel, I’ve learned that monetary exchanges are not the only kind of exchanges we humans make, and that giving and receiving help freely can be one of the most radical acts in a world where energy exchanges are increasingly quantified and transformed into monetary value.

Made it to the Grand Canyon after a week of biking and hitchhiking my way through the Navajo Nation.

Lesson #2: Relationships are built through reciprocity

Among anthropologists, such “energy exchanges” are analyzed as “reciprocity”, and friendships are not just resources we tap into, but relations that emerge from the willingness to give or receive without immediately balancing the scales.

Meaningful relationships are built through the trust that balance will be restored over time. We have all heard some iteration of the phrase “I trust you’ll return the gift when you can.”

The time it takes between the initial help, support, or gift is given to the moment it is returned can even be a symbol of the strength of a relationship. Perhaps, then, the giving and receiving of help and support between categories of people who have been pitted against each other is the antidote to current conflicts.

Grand Canyon: mission accomplished!

Lesson #3: Abandon the measuring cup

But also, the next level of reciprocity might just be found in the idea of “paying it forward” and the acknowledgement that we’re all part of an interconnected web of relations that flourishes when we give and receive freely—without having to rely on the measuring cup.

And maybe, when we trust that the universe has its own way of balancing the scales, we will finally be able to free ourselves from our current compulsion to put a price tag on everything, or to see accumulation of resources as the necessary precursor to freedom and joy.