damonjustisntfunny.com

I require a certain amount of purpose in order to function. My life is defined entirely in terms of importance and productivity and, as a result, a pervading feeling of inadequacy and failure. I have trouble simply relaxing and watching the television because I find no purpose behind it — it is unproductive and unworthy. After a feature length film I am left depressed and miserable and mope around wondering if there wasn’t something better I could do with my life — such as end it.

The five-week bicycle trip that Ben and I have been planning since earlier this year runs the risk of creating a similar dilemma for me. How can I justify not working for five whole weeks merely to ride around the Western Seaboard of the United States on my bicycle with my best friend Ben? How can I attribute enough purpose to make my journey enjoyable? How can I not spend every waking moment thinking there was something more meaningful and productive I could be doing with my time than pedaling on a bike and looking at the trees?

I believe I have solved this problem. What you are reading is the prologue to the solution of this quandary. I am In Search of #6. It is a noble undertaking and, as if that wasn’t enough to propel myself forward mile after strenuous mile, I shall chronicle this experience in this: my poignant travelogue and memoir. Simply taking five-weeks off of work and bicycling from Seattle to San Francisco is not enough; throw in the notion of writing a entire book does not suffice; however: if you add in the mystique of this ephemeral #6 — all of sudden I have purpose.

Ben doesn’t need purpose. Ben is the guy swallowing his own vomit during a marathon so he doesn’t lose any valuable nutrients. His life, having been recently dedicated to the field of medicine, is a blur of textbooks, dead bodies, examinations, and anxiety, splattered with bi-weekly outdoor activity which he clings to like a junkie clings to scheduled visits at the methadone clinic. Ben could break both of his hands, develop acute glaucoma, and lose functionality of one of his legs and we would still be going on this trip and he would demand that he carry at least his fair share of the equipment all the while having the best time of his life because: no matter what: it would be better than medical school.

I have long held that if God ever mustered up the courage to come and strike up a conversation with me and, during that casual interchange, He suggested that it might be humorous to pluck an ass hair off of the devil himself inside the fiery gates of hell that Ben would want join me just to get outside for the day. And I would take him, of course. Because he is incorrigible and would never turn back once we got started and has many of the same opinions regarding purposeful behavior and is sure to see taunting the devil as meeting all the necessary criteria.

And: because Ben doesn’t believe in God.

That’s probably the main reason, come to think of it.

Just being able to introduce him to the Good Lord Above and have Ben sit in on the conversation for a few minutes would be worth the entire trek through Hades and back. In fact: any quest I undertake in search of God comes back to my simply wanting to be right about something before Ben is. God, at this point, is perhaps my only hope. Ben has been right about almost everything else thus far.

But then again: I don’t believe in doctors. So fair is fair.

But then again: I have met quite a few people who say they are doctors and I have met less people who claim to be God. But that is neither here nor there and I don’t believe it proves anything either way and we are both entitled to our own opinions.

Ben and I have had, up until this point, two months to prepare. Here is our pre-trip synopsis: I bought a bicycle and Ben covets it. I drove it into the garage while it was still on top of my car and Ben shed three tears: one for the bike, one for my destroyed roof rack, and one because my bike is still nicer than his. He and I have been on a few bike rides both together and apart — I have pedaled perhaps five hundred miles on my brand new (recently mangled) bicycle. We have tents and gear and tubes; we have muscles and mettle and munchies; we have lists and maps and plans. We should be ready to go.

There are two items that shall be mentioned here and then again only in times of the deepest and darkest despair during which I will bemoan my existence and reign curses on my best friend. They are: Ben’s new gore-tex sleeping bag and the twenty-seven gears on his bicycle. The sleeping bag is self evident: it is covered in a layer of gore-tex and, while slightly heavier, any rational human can discern the glory inherent in said gore-tex. He will remain dry no matter what; I, on the other hand, may not.

As for the number of gears on Ben’s bicycle: it is not, in particular, the fact that Ben has nine more gears available to him. I care very little for that. It is, actually, one single cog in the entire works which I have already begun to devise ways that I may pilfer it from him. It is known as the granny-gear. This is the cog that he will entertain most while maintaining upward momentum on hills and mountains. It allows Ben to rotate his pedals through one sweeping revolution while only requiring his tires to spin 1/360th of a turn. I, on the other hand, during a single revolution of my pedals, in my lowest of low gears, propel my bike forward one quarter of one mile. To the layman, this may not seem important. To an enthusiast — nay: anyone who has ridden a bike up the smallest incline — it means: I am in for a considerable amount of discomfort. Whereas Ben will be gliding up hills at one half of one mile per hour while snacking on energy bars and sipping leisurely from his filtered beverage bottle, I will be applying the equivalent of four hundred pounds of pressure upon each pedal, struggling to keep my bike from sliding backwards down the mountain, all the while cursing every God Ben doesn’t believe in and wishing my bike — nay: everything — had been destroyed when it hit the garage.

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