The Time Of My Life
Two posts ago I said I didn’t think I would finish the TA. I wasn’t lying when I told you to bet against me, but over the next few posts I’m going to tell you how I hope to beat the odds.
Technique #2: Buy Buddhism. I’m not a religious person, but when you’re drowning you can’t be too choosy about life preservers. So please forgive a brief philosophical foray into Buddhist metaphysics. I will include pretty pictures so you don’t get bored.
The TL;DR version is this: the past and the future aren’t real. The only thing that’s real is the now.
To say past and future aren’t real sounds controversial, but I bet you already believe it. They definitely aren’t real in the way the present is real. The future is what might happen, maybe even what will happen, but that means it ain’t real, it’s imaginary. (Which isn’t to say it’s unimportant. Santa is imaginary and he drives the entire US economy.)
The past isn’t real either, even though we see its effects in the present. The photos I post here were taken in a remembered past, but they’re seen in the present. Even remembering the past when I took them doesn’t make the past real. It used to be real. Now it’s memory, which only ever happens in the present.
I’m only skimming the surface here, and we could go a lot deeper with all of this stuff, but for now the only thing I need to beat the 9:1 odds I laid against myself two posts ago is to get rid of my self. Past Me wrote a TA itinerary for Future Me to ride, and neither of those guys exist. Not in the way Present Me exists. Present Me has memory and imagination, and that’s all Past Me and Future Me really are.
The upshot is when I said I can’t finish that original, fantastical itinerary, I’m not lying. The me who typed that didn’t have the strength or endurance to finish that ride. Neither does the Present Me typing this right now. This me is getting his ass kicked by 60 km rides, and that itinerary includes days of 80-plus. But he’s a bit stronger. He has reason to imagine a Future Me who’s capable of a lot more than Present Me can do.
The best that Present Me can manage is to get his ass kicked every day and keep getting back on the saddle. Prior to coming down here, I had never biked more than 50 km in my life. On Saturday I biked 60. On Sunday, 63. Monday, 55, of which 30 of it was uphill and into a relentless headwind. Tuesday was originally scheduled (by Past Me) as a rest day, lounging around in this gorgeous kauri forest. Present Me’s idea of a rest day is very different. He expects a restful Tuesday because the ride is “only” 52 km, almost all of it downhill.
As I’ve said before, these are laughably short distances by bikepacking standards. But the Buddha would have me judge myself only by the standards of Present Me. According to those standards, success is Future Me getting into camp early enough on Tuesday to do laundry. Because this long-sleeve shirt, which Past Me has been wearing every day to avoid sunburn, is now crusty with sweat-salt. Present Me doesn’t care about mileage goals. He just wants Future Me to find a damn washing machine.
But the kauri forest is certainly worth taking a rest day for, and Future Me may decide to stay and just give his nasty-ass shirt a good rinse in the river. (Present Me got us a sweet campsite right on the water.) The most famous tree here is Tane Mahuta, New Zealand’s largest living kauri. At 2,000 years old, it’s almost a contemporary of the Buddha’s famous Bodhi Tree. Tane Mahuta is the symbol of Tane, lord of the forests and protector of all life. Cameras can’t do it justice. This tree is 167 feet tall and 45 feet around. I’d call it breathtaking, but it’s breath-giving, isn’t it? Given its sheer volume, I must have inhaled some of the oxygen it exhaled, and that’s a cool thought.
Someday I hope to do the same in India, at the Bodhi Tree. Until then I’ll just take the Buddha’s advice and keep having the time of my life. Which is only this one time, the present time, where there are no itineraries. Future Me can deal with those. I’ll just try to be present.