Former Trekker continues his ride… around the world: Part 2

Part 1 is here: http://bike-america.org/2010/02/20/former-trekker-continues-his-ride-around-the-world-part-1/

Sorry for the delay on Part 2. Jack has been traveling through some internet deserts and it’s been hard to keep in touch.  Imagine that? Life without the internet.

Jack Clayton rode his bicycle across the country with us last summer. When our ride ended however, his was only just beginning. Jack continues to fight for bike-america’s mission as he rides around the world. Bike touring is amazing because it gives us the potential to live out our most ambitious dreams of travel in an economical way. Jack exemplifies this.

Q: What challenges do you face when bike touring overseas? How do you deal with them?

A: Language barriers would have to be the number one challenge. For this I do my best to learn how to ask for the things I need in the native language. Humility and gratefulness takes me the rest of the way.
There are little things like knowing which roads bikes are prohibited on, cultural customs, bad food, poisonous creatures that make homes in your sleeping bag, non-sensical traffic signs (squirrel caution?), large dogs that eat cyclists, etc. Nothing a little sense of humor, and advice from locals can’t help you overcome though.

Q: How do you think you’ve changed since the trip began?

A: So much that it would be easier to say how I haven’t… but one that I would like to mention here is how this journey has helped me connect with the distinction between want and need. Thus having the net effect of bringing me closer to reality. I mention this because generally speaking all of us believe we have the ability to articulate and easily distinguish between the two. But the problem is that consumerism culture does a lot better job at dissolving that distinction than we are collectively or individually aware of.

Advertising and media campaigns effectively push us further and further from our connection to reality. The powerful symbolisms and imagery that defines us, manipulates our own identity, and pushes us further and further from the connection with each other and ourself. Our models of philosophy, economics, science, etc. further act to remove us from ourselves, or communities, and reality itself. The more I travel, the more I learn, the more and more bizarre and unrealistic the western-culture’s lifestyle is beginning to look.

Q: 3 words or less, what’s the _______ of your last 10,000 miles…..

Best food… anything I have grown, picked, or slaughtered myself.

Worst food… anything American/processed

Longest one day mileage…. nothing too exciting, 130 maybe

Scariest moment…. definitely the tornado that started forming as it
passed over my tent in Nebraska.

Thing you miss most about home…. my loved ones.

Biggest regret… stereotyping/judging people

Most amazing place no one has heard of.… West Virginia

Q: Do people think about sustainable food and energy differently overseas?

A: That’s an interesting question, because to ask it in that way a lot of
unspoken premisses must be assumed. And I think that right there
illustrates that our generation is suffering from a huge deficit of the
right questions to ask our culture, our policy makers, and ourselves. What is unsustainable about current food and energy production? Okay we know this, but why do these unsustainable practices even exist? What kind of culture produces unsustainable lifestyles, and what are the forces or philosophies that create and nurture lifestyles that are antithetical to life itself? How as sentient life forms have we become capable of mass ecocide and ultimately species suicide? If all you can come up with is “greed” then you’ve really been fleeced by the superficialness and lightness in our culture that covers the unseen concepts that are at work within our current models of science, philosophy, religion, economics, and of course politics.

If we don’t understand the root of the issues we will never be able to
heal the problem, just the symptoms.

It is key to understand that sustainability as a concept doesn’t exist
outside our destructive consumerism culture. Indigenous cultures have no concept of pollution, environmentalism, conservation, or sustainability. There is no need for it. There is just life, if you’re against it (as with examples of tribes living unsustainably on Islands) you die. I think it’s time we as environmentalists cut through the bullshit. Sustainability as a concept is a huge paradigm. It is unsustainable by it’s very nature. It’s like a product someone is selling you that has a “green” or “organic” sticker on it. Sustainability as a word was the natural way of life for most all indigenous cultures before our culture came in and destroyed theirs.

So to answer your question… in this light no, of course not. In places
where consumerism culture has had it’s foot hold long enough to allow for the sustainability concept to come in it’s the same damn product, maybe a different colored label. I am working on an essay for my website right now that really takes a close look at the origins of the sustainability concept, why it won’t work, what it means for us environmentally minded folks, and what we need to make a tangible lasting difference. Dare I mention revolution?
Q: Pretend you can only take one memory away from your trip. What is it?

A: Well the memory I am thinking of is not translatable into words… at
least not with this language. But if I had to pick one that was more
physical it would be living beneath a lemon tree in a hammock, on the side of a mountain, by the Mediterranean Sea.

AWESOME