Life has a way of crushing the life out of you, doesn’t it?

In all seriousness, I never understood or saw any value in “vacations.” A day trip, or a weekend away, sure. But an elaborate and expensive vacation? You still come back to your life (and when you get back, you’ve lost all that time and a lot of money!)

If you need a break from your life so badly, aren’t you better off putting all that money and effort into changing it?

Maybe “depression” is the weight of all the lives you haven’t or couldn’t live, all the opportunities missed like exits or billboards, the crushing weight of all you could’ve been flattening your spirit like roadkill.

And it’s a different thing for each of us, and for each of us it may change each day. But fending off loss is a constant energy suck whether we are aware of it or not.

Maybe it’s the holidays, or me trying to justify how much money I’ve been spending, or how selfish I feel, but this poem by Delmore Schwartz bubbled up in my mind:

May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz, “Calmly We Walk Through This April’s Day

We don’t spend enough time mourning the loss of time because, ironically, we’re too busy keeping ourselves busy.

If you’re not pursuing selflessness in silence, you’re doing it wrong.

There is no better high to ride than one fueled by a new idea.

Well, that’s a wrap. We raised a lot of money and awareness, Joe. Thanks for riding with me.

Special thanks to CrossCountryPowersports.com, Gentlemansride.com, and Movember.com.

Watch the full ride video (from my perspective).

More info can be found at https://www.gentlemansride.com/rider/forJoe

We all know the end of our lives is inevitable and the length of our lives is unpredictable, yet we spend the time we have as if we live forever.

We eagerly turn a blind eye toward our common denominators, ignoring what we know to be true.