stuff

So I decided to go on this crazy year long bicycle journey to Brazil with Mestre Acordeon 2 weeks before the thing started. Yes, I know it may have been better to plan this a little longer. Or not. If you are new to this blog you can check the ridicolous chain of events here and here. The first inkling of what I was getting myself into was an excel sheet that I received from Bebum - "why do today if you can do it tomorrow". It was a monster of an equipment list that the B2B crew had put together to ride to Brazil. I also needed to get a bike.

Clearly a bike that only a guy standing on his head would think is fit to ride to Brasil.

It was, in one word, intimidating. I stopped counting at 200, and started thinking of what I could do tomorrow. But it had to be done so I'd go to four different shops and buy… exactly none of the items. Insect repellent, biodegradable soap, water purification methods. Stove, pot, which fuel to use? 500 and one things for a medical emergency (!) kit, clothes, sleeping bag, tools, patch kit, replacement parts. Bear spray, dog whistles, bike bell, reflectors, pepto bismol. It had no end. Though at least it did not recommend diapers for Montezuma's revenge.

I don’t know how (thank you, helpful friends), but two weeks later as I lined up on the first day of my new lives with all the other crazy riders I managed to have everything packed in my panniers and strapped to my ridicolous Recumbent Bike. I was prepared! Nothing could harm me or my trusted steelhorse from here on out.

Sorry, not authorized to go to Brasil!

Of course on that same first day Bebum and I camp out on the beach in San Francisco and the rest, especially Bebum’s bike, and gear and half of my stuff were, as they say, history. I still wonder what the bum did with my greencard. I mean, if he is one thing, he is legal to be a bum in the USA.

So after being robbed of all our stuff Bebum had nothing but his tent, sleeping bag, Chapul's Cricket Bars and some cash left while I had been liberated of my wallet including some cash and all my cards, my clothes, sleeping bag and bike stuff. Fate is an ironic bitch. On the day we left Bebum probably had as much stuff as fellow B2B rider Tora. A day later, not so much. You can read how we stayed positive throughout that crazy second day here. We did not have access to any real resources until my replacement cards came, which was four weeks later in Los Angeles. We could not buy clothes, gear, or tons of food. The little money that Bebum had was spent on a bike for him and fixing it. So we made do. And making do we learned that we didn’t need most of the stuff that was on that monster list. For a month a used Trader Joe's re-usable plastic shopping bag was my second panier. It was a pain in the ass. It worked. I also went shopping with my big ol' five Dollars at Goodwill.

Didn't buy this ridicolous hat.

This one seemed much more stylish at the time.

M. Mago clearly approves.

Before I left my swankily located yet sparsely inventoried apartment to sit my butt on a bike for a year I did not own a lot of stuff either. I had been moving around the world since high school, twenty years by now. Naturally, if you are moving from Austria to Australia as I did, you don’t bring more than what Quantas allows. When I moved to LA a six years later I had two medium sized bags to my name. Another twelve years, five cities, endless road and world trips later I packed up all the belongings that I wanted to keep after the year I was planning to be riding bike. Everything else I gave away.

I remained with two bags of clothes, a bunch of books and a blender. I seem to have an essentially functional relationship with stuff. I need to wear stuff, I like to read stuff and I blend stuff since I recently found out that I can’t eat most things normal in a western diet.

How much stuff someone needs to be happy varies widely from person to person. Some of us need more stuff to be comfortable, some of us need less stuff. Since it was me, not a horse, not a dog, not a woman or a slave carrying my stuff, I was rather sensitive about how much stuff I had. And yet, over the course of a year of riding bike stuff accumulated, again. It's as if stuff, like mana, magically appeares out of thin air. Periodically, I would have to go through my stuff and, you guess right, give stuff away. If you are tired of reading the word "stuff" a lot, you can stuff it.

That fourth t-shirt that a really nice capoeirista gave you in San Salvador? Sorry, donate it, you only end up wearing one to three shirts. Remember him in your heart instead. The biodegradable soap? Donate it, its lighter to use normal soap. Stop washing your hair. The third pair of sports undies? Donate them to Sondermüll. The headlamp? Donate it, you have a bike lamp that miraculously gives light too. Toss the cutting board, are you kidding me? Toss the tent, get a hammock. Keep the knife, stove, pot and your girlfriend’s spices. Keep the sleeping bag. Keep two of every clothing item. Keep your bike tools, a sowing kit and electric device chargers/adapters. Go ride. Still getting to many flats because your bike is too heavy? Throw some stuff out.

The lighter I got the easier I felt.  Bike riding is not only a gloriously meditative and healthy see and smell the world activity. It’s also a direct feedback loop on why possessions are bullshit. Because, like you, I ask myself: Other than clothes, food and a place to sleep what do I really need on a bike? And to take this to a logical conclusion, is my normal life any different?

So, get rid of stuff. Move into a smaller house. Be Dutch. Channel your inner Japanese. Live small. Do what you love, instead of wasting time on work so that you can buy stuff you think will make you happy but that you never use because you have to work so much to pay for it. Work 30 hours instead of 50 and hang out with your kids more.

For those of you who already do this >> great stuff. For those of you, who want to tell me fuck it, I like stuff, that's cool too. Everyone is different. Tora had every item under they sun, just in case. He spent two hours every day organizing his stuff - and it made him happy. I on the other hand did not have so much, went for many swims, did unnecessary bouldering, played flute, wrote some crap that nobody wants to read and watched that grass grow or that small mexican city plaza flow - and it made me happy. Bebum had a didge. And two bikes more than all of us.

I am not the keeper of your spare time and Tora is not the judge of your effectiveness. I can not tell if that 20th pair of jeans really made you happy and Tora doesn't know if that snake venom remover kit should have been in my bags after all. We all are the makers of our own happiness.

That being said. Get rid of some stuff. One day you might have to carry it.

one year before B2B

One year ago I barely grasped that Capoeira might not be just another martial art. Mestres keep talking about how Capoeira is like life, life is like Capoeira. But when I tried to esquiva (a dodging maneuver in Capoeira) my next deliverable at work my boss just laughed at me. Right now I try to remember every day that I know nothing. Which is probably a good starting point for any human endeavor. 

Saying that Capoeira is like life and that life is like Capoeira draws two kinds of responses from an audience. Head-nodding agreement and blank stares of incomprehension. Now I know that this will happen most times when Capoeiristas and none-Capoeiristas discuss Capoeira. But The Now is not the topic of this topic Herr Tolle. Instead you should know that back then I did not think that I could just join a journey such as Mestre Acordeon's. You would be justified to expect Mestres, Contra Mestres and players with their books written full of stories about life and Capoeira to be polishing their bikes, packing their survival gear and reading up on how exactly Montezuma's revenge affects the digestive tract of white people.

So I looked on in envy how Mestre and his group started to prepare. I even knew one Capoeirista out of Salt Lake City who was going to try go on the trip. Bebum, who trains with Mestre Jamaika at Volta Miuda. Every day I trained my butt off with Professor Fenix's Grupo Candeias in Seattle's International district to become better in all aspects of this complex art form. Every day I went to a job that had become stale, not because the work or the group I was in was bad, but rather because I seem to require constant fresh and interesting input. Most jobs don't provide that. Once you figure them out, you go on auto pilot.

I had moved to Seattle on another Software Localization Contract, my 5th,  in 2009 right after a six month trip around the world. I was hoping to go to Marocco for at least as long afterwards. I thought I was going stay 8-12 month before going to Africa but then the pesky world economic crises made me face reality for once and I decided to take the full time job that Microsoft generously offered while Paulson called the Hammer down on 99% of us. You want to know about the fulltime job? Mom was happy. I was feeling old. I did love the challenges of working in that Type A personality zoo called Microsoft. And settling into Seattle was like traveling to a new country for me because growing roots was definitely a new experience.

Seattle grew on me like moss on a rock. Tim Robbins, a native, provides ecclectic if slightly whack imagery if you'd like some nice descriptions of that rather moist part of the world. I liked it. It seemed, for a short while at least, that it could break a certain rythm that constant moving had established. After I went to Australia from my homeland Austria in 1995 to attend University for three years I flew to Tokyo on a one-way ticket with 50 bucks in my pocket and ended up staying for two years. Met a girl there and moved to Hawaii in 2000 before finally arriving on the West Coast and living all up and down that amazing part of the world. I had been a waiter, a barrista, a night club party organizer, a bar tender, a florist, an event planner, a stage builder, an orchid small business owner, a translator, a computer localization tester, engineer, project manager and finally in my last job a Release Manager on the Windows Phone Team. Only in America is it possible to move from working a 4AM to noon minimum wage job in the Downtown Los Angeles wholesale flower market to working a badass job in one of the most successful companies in the world. The USA, like most countries, has many good and bad sides. But it is uniquely great in that sense. 

Yet still, it is not enough. I really wanted to go ride bike.

when leaving your cushy job at Microsoft

... you usually write a farewell note to all the people who contributed to your success or misfortune, have become friends and the ones whose face you just need to rub in the dirt one more time. Mine looked like this: 

Dear Mircrosofties,

My time with you has come to an unexpected and early end. Its not you. Its me. I have received an offer that I cant refuse. No, I am not going to the competition. I am going to ride my bike to Brazil. Check Mestre Acordeon's journey and project out at b2bjogacapoeira.com and also on FB B2B Joga Capoeira - A  Project of Mestre Accordeon. Riding with this legendary Capoeira Master is like hanging out with Bruce Lee for a year. Please donate a little something to the good cause that drives this project.

<leaving out the thanking and face-rubbing>

 I wrote this email a little late by MS standards. 5 days after I was supposed to return from a 4 week vacation. Circumstances to be explored later prevented better actions. Nevertheless it seems that the vibe in the office about me leaving my job this way is rather good, if a little envious of my utter disregard of financial and career consequence. Both rather not so admirable motivators for any decision making process. But maybe its just a clear manifestation of the common midlife crises, my Mom's preferred interpretation of these events.

So, how did it happen? How did I toss my job, my phat apartment right on Puget Sound and the life I built in Seattle. A city that I called my favorite in the world.