Nonfiction

• Yuval Noah Harari: Homo Sapiens, Homo Deus, 21 lessons for the 21st century
• Jeremy Rifkin: The empathic civilization, The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society
• Michael Foley: The age of absurdity
• Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, fast and slow
• Everything by Tim Urban at waitbutwhy.com
• Hubert Dreyfus: All things shining
• Matt Ridley: The rational optimist

Fiction

• Michel Houellebecq: The possibility of an island
• Jonas Jonasson: The hundred year-old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared
• Gabriel García Márquez: One hundred years of solitude
• Jonathan Littell: The kindley ones

Self-help / philosophy

• Aldous Huxley: Brave new world
• Benjamin Hoff: The tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet
• Jon Kabat-Zinn: Wherever you go, there you are
• Stephen R. Covey: The 7 habits of highly effective people
• Eckhart Tolle: A new earth

Besides: I'm very eager to keep reading, and would love to exchange titels! It would be great to hear about your favorites!

So I had this picture up in my Instagram drafts for a week or two now. The text I had put with it: 'make me surrender nature'.
Looking at it having quarantined myself at home for the last couple of days made me realize nature did excactly that. It made me surrender in an unexpected way.

Yes, this is my corona story.

February 29th. I join a group of 50 single people on a wintersport trip to Flachau, Austria. The week is full of fun, snow, snowboarding, apres-ski and sun. Heck, I wear a mouth mask to the proud-to-be-fout party, posing for pictures holding a Corona beer. Very fout indeed.

In hindsight one thing strikes me: the more the week progresses the more people complain about not feeling too well. The busride back on March 7th sounds like a coughing orchestra. And yet, no one suspects anything. This isn't too strange considering the intense strain (a lot of sport combined with a lot of partying) we had put on our bodies that week: a little illness was to be suspected. I broke down in mild fever on the day I got home, March 8th. Slept a lot. The next day I feel better. But a couple of buddy's from the same trip develop high fevers and serious coughs. When they reach out to their doctors and the GGD, they get to hear that Flachau wasn't a corona struck area, so it couldn't possibly be that virus. We all feel relieve.

I get to work on Tuesday, I'm not feeling 100%, but I don't have fever nor am I coughing or sneezing. A cloudy feeling in my head and a burning tickle in my throat keep me highly suspicious though. I'm keeping a distance from anyone I meet.

We all know what came Thursday: heavy measures by the government. I decide to quarantine myself. Strangely, none of the well over 25 people who have symptoms in the wintersport group has been able to get tested past week. I decide to call my doctor and the GGD on Thursday morning and get the same story: your symptoms are not bad enough and you are not vulnerable enough to get tested: oh and btw, Flachau, Austria has not been a dangerzone (even up until March 12 this is what I get to hear!). 'But I'm representing a group of 50 people of which several have more severe symptoms. We need to know.' I hear myself try. It won't help. I won't know whether this tickling/burning sensation is corona or not. And by now it isn't relevant anyway.

By now it's up to myself to make sure, if what I've got is corona, there is no way it can spread to anyone else. However mild the symptoms are for me. I'll be at home for some time.

The lessons I've learned so far are:

• If what I've got is Corona, it is deceptively mild
• The numbers of cases are wildly underreported in the media, simply because so many are not getting tested

I guess all I want to say is: lets take this thing serious. Lets take it as serious as badly I misjudged it previously.

Over the past couple of years I've come to learn that a feeling of freedom revolves around freeing myself from (negative) thinking. Once being replaces thinking I believe one can feel free in the most constrained of circumstances. Such mental version of freedom is something no one is able to take away. It grants joy, fearlessness and gratitude. Society widely appreciates this freedom by celebrating historical figures like Ghandi and Mandela who've shown that freedom of mind can be detached from physical freedom. Moreover, they've shown to be highly productive and one could argue happy in the most dreadfull of circumstances. How on earth are people able to detach mind from their surroundings to such extends that they find happiness in misery?

I regret bringing up the big names of history because I by no means dare to think I'm even 1% of the way there. I do think however there is a couple of tools I've explored over the couple of years that have began to relieve me from a troubled mind & body heavily influenced by circumstantiality. I've described my first steps of questioning my self-image, I've written about how these initial steps let to an incredible adventure through which I've deepened my self-understanding and lastly, I've described how through a meditation practice called vipassana I've come to conclude that everything that is mind is body and vice versa. I've come to understand that healing can be approached both ways, through mind and through body.

Understanding that body is mind is but the first step, a step that for me has been facilitated mostly through meditation. The second step is to try to incorporate this understanding in daily life. To try to continuously be concious of body and mind throughout whatever life throws at you. On, but more importantly, also off the meditation pillow. To, not only cognitively understand, but to feel what that conversation with a collegue, parent or friend does to you. To understand how the body & mind respond to that lady yelling at you for reckless cycling. And to feel where in the body stress arises the moment you realize you've lost your wallet. This has proven to be a hell of a challenge upon returning home from my world bicycle trip. And I've been looking for places to practice.

Surely, I was able to retreat from life through meditation, but important as it is, that didn't give me the opportunity to practice feeling while interacting with people. Moverover, 'regular' life itself and the people around didn't always provide a safe enough space for me to dare to dive into feeling while interacting. So I stuck with meditation mostly. However, some time after returning home, I got lucky enough to be introduced to an awesome activity by Lisette Stuip, an amazingly talented friend of mine. Dance. And specifically something called estatic dance.

ecstatic dance

Ecstatic dance is expression through movement. Nothing more, nothing less. Guided by a simple set of rules (no shoes, no talking & no intoxications) and a DJ, it is best described as a wild 1,5 hour rave. Venues & times differ although I most commonly visit the Marktkantine on the early Tuesday nights. There is space to get rid of the shoes and to change into comfy clothes; there is an unlimited supply of infused waters and teas; and a team of volunteers puts down soft floor tiles across the venue before every session. The session gets opened by a host after which the DJ will start his/her set.

I have to admit that I've wanted to escape that place the first time I attended. The consequence of the simple set of rules is that I felt completely left on my own. There is nobody to talk to and the bare feet somehow made me feel completely naked. I felt super vunerable and almost afraid to be looked at. Even before the DJ starts and a pre-set playlist is on, I started observing some of the most intense dancing by some of the most funky looking people I had ever seen. Some shake seemingly uncontrollably, some decide to start rolling over the floor and over eachother, and some practice yoga closed-eyed in the corner while other sip their teas looking at the bunch. There's no way of expressing my amazement and replaced feelings of shame with a neighbour, or even if I had brought one, a friend. I think anyone in the room could have caught my omg where the hell am I face throughout that first session.

Fighting the urge to flee the place, I ended up being an awe-struck observer for this entire first session. I sat on the side of the dancefloor trying to process what was going on, both externally as well as internally. Externally, I saw this bunch of way too happy people doing crazy dances on their own and with, or I should say on top of eachother. Admittedly, I loved the music from the start, and it left me rocking throughout the set. Besides, I was drinking some good tea. It was the internal journey that left me quite dazzled. I noticed that my mind jumped around like a xtc-fed kangaroo. It just kept producing judgemental thoughts at insane speeds. A mixture of joy, disgust, envy, shame, fear and a plethora of other emotions slammed me in the face: What the hell are these people? How on earth do they not feel ashamed? God damn! I just had to step aside for this crazy grandma aged lady wildy summersaulting past me across the floor. And why do they seem to be so happy doing all this?! Is there something wrong with me not enjoying this as much as they seem to do? I want to be like these people! No no no, hold up, you don't want to be like these people: nobody you know will ever take you serious anymore when you reveal you've even been to this place! Let alone you start being as crazy as they are! Dang it. Is anyone looking at me? I bet these people can read my thoughts. Lets just get another of that tea.

It took another session to dare to throw out some moves. Another to do so a little more wildly. Another to slowly dance my way to the center of the dancefloor. Another to understand why these raves are referred to as 'journeys' by the ecstatic dance community. And over the next year or so I got to understand that a place like ecstatic dance is exactly that save space I was looking for: a place to feel what is happening on the inside while expressing myself in movement. Besides meditation, I've discovered dance to be a fascinating way of eliminating thinking. More importantly, ecstatic dance has been a place to feel what is happening on the inside when interacting with others. And yes, I've eventually been able to exterminate thinking to such extend that co-creative dances with others take me and the other person rolling across the soft-tiled floor. Only to realize what happened afterwards when thinking kicks in for a moment unintentionally. Heck, I've even attended the first 5 day ecstatic dance festival in Holland last summer. What an absolute bliss those days were. The concept beautifully blends artist performances and partying with the tranquility of a retreat. It's like any festival but it's not. It's like every mindfulness retreat but it's not.

Just like meditation, I believe (ecstatic) dance to be another way of freeing myself from thinking. It is an highly enjoyable and active method for me to forget about all circumstances, to express my internal life and to practice interacting at the most funerable and honest level possible. And just like in meditation, its purpose being to dare to carry over this funerability and honesty into every day life. So that perhaps in the end, one can feel as free as on the Marktkantine dancefloor in any other set of circumstances. I hope never to be confronted with the constrains that mr Mandela or Gandi faced, but if I ever do I hope I would still be able to dance freely, if only internally. Turning the hypothetical situation around: I would have loved to see the energy and moves that both men would have brought to an estatic dance floor. Unsuprisingly for a guy with such positive mindset, Mandela actually had his own dance.

This letter to my parents has been an important step to show my parents gratitude for what they've done in my life. This post about my second vipassana retreat provides its context.

English follows Dutch

Lieve pap, lieve mam,

We zijn vandaag niet zonder reden naar het scheepvaartmuseum gegaan. Op één of andere manier ligt hier een waardevolle herinnering voor mij. Ik weet enkel nog het volgende: een groepje zeelieden stonden destijds in een van de zalen zeelui liedjes te zingen. “Jan, Piet, Joris en Corneel, die hebben baarden, die hebben baarden” zongen ze. Wat vond ik dat prachtig als klein mannetje. Wellicht kunnen jullie je het ook herinneren. Ik vermoed dat het een dagje uit was met elkaar op een zondag.

Waar ik heen wil is het volgende: deze ervaring is slechts een minuscule fractie van een jeugd en opvoeding die zo ongelofelijk rijk en extreem liefdevol is geweest. Vanaf moment 1 hebben jullie je 100 procent gegeven om het mij en Iris zo goed mogelijk te maken. Mam gaf haar carriere op om bij ons te kunnen zijn en ons 24/7 onvoorwaardelijk liefde te kunnen geven. Pap was niet alleen de oneindige bron energie als hij bij ons kon zijn, hij gaf tevens een dusdanig stevige financiële ruggengraat aan het geheel dat het ons aan prachtige ervaringen tezamen nooit geschort heeft. Zo konden we niet alleen op zondag naar het scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam maar hebben we gezamenlijk grote delen van Europa ontdekt in de zomer en maakte we elke winter weer pistes onveilig van een groot aantal wintersportgebieden in de Alpen. Dat mochten we meemaken, met elkaar als gezin. Man, man, man, wat een oneindige rijkdom.

Lang keek ik op naar je pap. Zo veel energie en passie voor de zaak. Stevig voor jezelf opkomen en altijd een woordje klaar. Ik legde mezelf de druk op ook zo te worden als jou. Of op z’n minst: even hard te werken voor succes als jou. Dus ik werkte me suf op de middelbare school en op de universiteit. Met resultaat. Alles mocht erop en eraan zitten. Van ontelbare reisjes en unieke ervaringen tot goede inhoudelijke resultaten tot een prachtvrouw van een vriendin. Maar er knaagde wat. En dat begon harder te knagen. En harder. Het was de vraag: waar word ik gelukkig van? Word ik gelukkig van deze moeite om het maatschappelijk-succes-plaatje compleet maken? Ben ik op het juiste pad? Het begon me leeg te zuigen. En op het randje van de afgrond kon ik nog nét m’n studie afronden. De periode van verwarring begon.

Als dat pad het niet was, wat dan wel? Als ik jarenlang zo in m’n kracht heb mogen staan zonder dat het me echt gelukkig maakte, wat miste er dan? Welke aspecten van mij zijn onderontwikkeld? Ik begon kritische blikken te werpen op alles om mij heen, en de wereld werd er niet mooier van. Ik was alles om mij heen aan het afbreken op zoek naar mijn probleem. Door afstand te nemen van m’n vriendin leerde ik dat ik zeer beperkt kon spreken over mijn gevoel en emotie, ik hield alles wat ik dacht altijd in mij, ik kropte dingen op. Door afstand te nemen van verschillende werkgevers leerde ik dat ik op werk zat met een gevoel van ‘wat ik hier doe moet ik perfect doen’, ik moet mij suf werken, mijn status, mijn succes hangt er van af. Ik was ongezond perfectionist. Deze inzichten in mijn zwaktes gaven me stap voor stap weer levensenergie. Maar het deed nog iets: ik begon in te zien waar deze mankementen vandaan kwamen: ze kwamen bij jullie vandaan, en ik zag ze in jullie. Een fase van oordelen was aangebroken, en ik weet dat jullie dat gevoeld hebben. We voelden ons er van beide kanten ziek van. En ik deed wat ik moest doen. Ik moest mezelf verwijderen van dat oordelen. Ik moest me verwijderen van alles en iedereen. Ik stapte op de fiets en reed naar Singapore met een energie die ik nog nooit had gevoeld. Met elke trap op het pedaal weg van mijn oude routine en gewoontes voelde ik me energieker worden.

Ik ben nu 9 maanden terug en heb met de reis mee nu zo’n 2 jaar gewerkt aan het verwijderen van mijn mentale oneffenheden. Er was de fase van inzichten verwerven, er was een fase van oordelen, een fase van verwijdering, en ik kan nu zeggen dat ik van mijn kant klaar ben voor een fase van toenadering. Sterker: ik heb nog nooit zo sterk de drang gevoeld om er nu ook voor jullie te zijn. Jullie namen mij mee vroeger naar het scheepvaartmuseum, ik hoop dat jullie vandaag hebben genoten van het feit dat ik jullie meenam naar dezelfde plek.

Ik hou van jullie.

Bas

Dear dad, dear mom,

We didn't visit The National Maritime Museum without a reason today. Somehow a valuable memory lies here for me. I merely remember the following: a group of sailors were singing songs in one of the exibition rooms. "Jan, Piet, Joris en Corneel, die hebben baarden, die hebben baarden" they sang. I was so impressed, the little fellow I was back then. You might remember this day too. I suspect it was a Sunday we spent with the four of us.

My point being the following: this experience is just a tiny aspect of a youth and upbringing that has been so incredibly rich and affectionate. From the very first moment you gave yourselves 100% to accommodate me and Iris as best as possible. Mom gave up her career to be able to be with us and provide us with her unconditional love 24/7. Dad wasn't only a endless source of energy when he was with us, he also provided all of us with a solid financial base allowing us to experience all sorts of incredible adventures together. We didn't just visit The National Maritime Museum on a Sunday, we explored big parts of Europe in summers together and caused trouble on a wide variety of ski-arena's in the Alps in winter. We were fortunate enough to be able to experience this, as a family. Gosh, what endless fortune.

Dad, I've been looking up to you for a long time. Such amounts of energy and passion for the company. You know how to defend yourself and you're never out of words. I pressured myself to become like you. Or at least work as hard for success as you've always done. So I worked my but off on high school and university. Not without results. It was as complete as it gets. From numerous trips across the world to great academic results to an amazing girlfriend. But something was nagging at me. And it nagged louder. And louder. It was the question: what makes me happy? Will I be happy exerting effort to complete this image of success? Am I on the right track? It started to drain me out. On the edge of collapse I was able to finish my studies. A time of confusion started.

If this wasn't the path to happiness, what is? I have been so seemingly happy and successful for so many years without real fulfillment, what is missing? What parts of me are underdeveloped? I started observing my world with contentious eyes, it didn't get more pretty. I was breaking down everything around me in search of what was bothering me. By loosing my girlfriend I learned that I've always cropped up my feelings and emotions, I wasn't able to express myself in these area's at all. By removing myself from multiple jobs I learned that my working state of mind had always been: whatever I do here needs to be done perfect. I have to work till I can't anymore, my status, my success depend on it. I was an unhealthy perfectionist. These insights into my weaknesses gradually gave me back my life-energy. But it spurred something else. I discovered the origins of these weaknesses: they came from both of you, and I saw my weaknesses in you. A period of judgment from my side came next, and I know you guys have felt it. We were sick from the distance it created between us. I did what I had to do: I removed myself from being able to judge. I removed myself from everything and everybody I knew. I got on a bicycle and cycled to Singapore. It sparked an energy I had never felt before. Every turn of the wheel removing me further away from my old routine and discipline made me come more and more alive.

I'm back home for about 9 months now and I've been working to remove my mental defilements for about the past 2 years. There was the period of gaining insights into my weaknesses, a period of judging their origin, a period of removing myself, but I'm ready for a period of reconciliation now. Moreover: I've never felt the urge to help you guys out this strongly before. You took me to The National Maritime Museum as a kid, I hope you enjoyed me taking you to the same place today.

I love you.

Bas

Hi, I've been quiet for a while. But I found a new push of energy to start writing again. I'll get to the reason why later. Let me for now tell you and actually, let me for now tell myself what has been going on ever since I got back from my bicycle trip.

landing at home

I felt like writing in a great wave of post-intense-experience energy when I got back to The Netherlands. So I did. During the first few weeks after getting back home I was writing my most important words ever when I drafted the post on spiritual growth and my vipassana experience. I experienced writing, finishing and uploading that post as an enormous relief. I had captured the essence for why I had gone on the insane bicycle trip, and with that I had pooped out half a theory on philosophy. I was done, done with the trip, done with all of my past. It felt good. My ego wasn't quite done with the trip yet though. For a month or two after completing that post it was insisting I would write a book, create a movie and sell myself for public talks. But (luckily) at that time not a drop of energy was available to get started. I departed these ego-driven plans somewhere in summer. I told myself I would start looking for a job in September.

I've been in a very curious state since returning home. I've been telling people that I felt like an incredibly satisfied grandpa sitting by the fireplace ruminating his rich past. This feeling was only so often intercepted by feelings of how weird it was to be feeling this way at age 28. September came around and with this state of mind I started responding to all sorts of vacancies in the sustainability sector: the sector I had been working in before my trip. So there I went, an old satisfied granny, off to job interviews, suited up sometimes, business casual other times. High on life I would enter into the most interesting, and awkward at times, job interviews I've ever done. Did I want a job? Hell no, I was as satisfied with life as an enlightened monk in a cave is. No one would be telling me what to do or what not to do.. ever. I secretly knew I didn't care for a job. So I had fun talking to and looking for the human behind the interviewer. It was fun to see the interviewers process the odd kind of vibe. I had fun seeing them think: "mmm, this guys is kind of interesting.. but wait.. did we discuss any aspect of the job he is here for at all? Wtf, we didn't... ok, not a chance we take him onboard." And so interview after interview I was rejected. And I smiled. I loved it. I trusted something that would light a spark in me would come my way some day and I trusted that when it did I would know.

BTW: throughout this period there has just been one occasion at which I reopened my bicycle-trip memories: two talks at De Vakantiefietser in October for people that were preparing for longterm bicycle trips. I mention this merely to share with you a video I made for these nights. I decided to simply edit the prettiest drone images into one video. Anyway, as said, the cycling trip is not part of what I want to discuss in this post. I do feel some curiosity whether such a simple video has any reach on YouTube.

So I'm an old satisfied grandpa. It is honestly an amazing feeling: I could spend all day sitting in my house drinking some tea and perhaps reading a couple of pages from a book without any feeling of wasting time. Good times. But pretty passive. It was when I quit meditating for 2 hours every day in November that a slight nerve caught on. I had increased my meditation time to an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening since I came out of the vipassana center in Malaysia in April 2018. When I loosened the discipline somewhere in November the thought that I should start doing something to not loose all connection to 'regular people' and 'a proper socially accepted life' was persistent some days.

Don't I need work to pay my bills and rent? Yes, I do. But I have been able to live off savings I didn't spend on my trip. Moreover, by living minimalistically I keep costs extremely low. I'm able to afford a couple more months of rent and food. I will have to start earning something though. Luckily, my dad runs a garden center that gets super busy in the months running up to Christmas. I sold Christmas trees in November and December. Me happy, he happy.

vipassana 2.0

At the end of summer I had signed up for another 10-day vipassana course to take place during the first weeks of January. Christmas came and I got ill. Shoulder pains seemed to cause fever and a heavy cold. I recovered a bit and left for a 10-day silent offline experience on a location in the heart of the country. Now, before I move on, this retreat is the exact same setup as the one I joined in Malaysia at the very end of my bicycle trip in March 2018. And since I already wrote about the technique of vipassana in that other post, it would be best to read the vipassana section in that one previous to continue reading this one. I'll actually do that myself now too.

...

Ok, so a short recap: vipassana teaches you that negativity in body and mind build up and get stored whenever you are in disagreement with reality. Both any form of craving or any form of aversion are negativities. Whenever you want something you don't have or whenever you dislike something that is part of your reality, you build up shit in the mind and body. It's an interesting thought experiment: am I okay with reality at this moment? Able to answer with a resolute no? You're probably converting these mental tensions into physical tensions as you're thinking of it. And how about the past? Have you been in disagreement with your circumstances for extended periods in the past? If yes, it's highly likely these tensions are stored in your body ever since.

So here I went again: sitting on a small pillow sensing all sorts of bodily pains and fighting all sorts of resisting thoughts for 9 hours a day for 10 days. But truth be told: I knew what was coming and I knew it all was a good thing. On the previous vipassana I remember running away from the meditation hall often the first couple of days. I also remember getting to understand that smilingly diving into the pains sped up the healing process from day 5 or so. And this is what I had remembered: whatever might come as pains, it is a blessing, and a chance to heal. Whereas the pains on the previous vipassana experience mostly touched upon the periphery of the body: the outer layer of my upper back and my legs, this vipassana made me dive into the pains at the deepest level: tensions around the hip joints, organs and spine. This made the whole experience similarly tough even though.

The meditation teacher I exchanged some words with in Malaysia told me it isn't common to be able to link certain pains in the body to their corresponding mental defilements. And for most of the healing I haven't been able to trace back the origins of the problem. I did share a couple of explicit examples from the first vipassana and I'll similarly share a couple connections I've been able to make during this one:

• food cravings - a slight difference for new students vs. old students in vipassana is in the available food during the daily rest moment at 17:00. New students can drink tea and milk and are allowed to eat two pieces of fruit whereas old students only get some lemon water. I was able to grasp the reason for this during the final days of my first 10 days: a lot of healing is processed in the stomach. The emptier the stomach the more effective the healing. Besides noticing this again, I was able to examine the feeling of being hungry more closely this time. It's fascinating how this feeling simply disappears if you just sit and observe it for a while. Big chance the body doesn't need food when it's requesting it in regular life. Big chance a lot of us are tricked into eating a lot more than necessary this way. Think of the following scenario for example: you miss out a lunch because of some work that completely absorbs you. You probably only start to actually feel hungry the moment you realize you missed lunch. The mind affects the body, and we feel like reacting, in this case by running to get something into our stomach. By understanding this mind/matter relationship it is easier to overcome these cravings. The fact that fasting is traditionally part of almost all religions makes a lot of sense to me now.
• stomach pains - one of the more shocking discoveries I made has to do with a very silly decision I made when I was a young teenager. A thought of a specific location near my parent's house popped up multiple times when some strain in the belly arose during meditation. After a couple of moments I realized I was visualizing myself being around 12 years old standing right on that spot and deciding I wanted to grow into a strong masculine body. I remember deciding to start with my belly. I perceived it to be too round. By simply retracting the belly inward a bit I felt a lot more muscular, I decided to walk around with a retracted belly whenever I could from that moment onward. I was clearly very much in disagreement with reality. And bizarrely enough, here I am over 15 years later, clearing out the consequences of this decision. This doesn't mean I've been walking around retracting my belly for all those years. I also clearly remember the moment when I was aged 17 that made me realize I had been doing this for a while. It was a legendary snowboard teacher on a school-wintersports trip that in a skilift cabin said: "Do you guys know that breathing is one of the most important things you do in life?", he continued "a lot of people for example breath with their shoulders. This is dangerous! It is important to breath down into the belly". I remember being shocked noticing my breathing occurred high-up in the shoulder area, a consequence of the decision to retract my belly years ago. I changed breathing from that moment onwards, more down into the lower belly. I could have never expected this 5 year period of unhealthy breathing to keep on negatively affecting my body until just last week.
• societal success - A couple of hours before taking my flight with my bicycle back home from Singapore I decided to visit a massage parlor. It was a nice way to enter the plane chilled out, and I wanted to make use of the cheap Asian massage prices one last time. I asked the lady to focus on my shoulders. She did. And she went strong. It was the start of relieving a ton of shoulder tension. During all of the hours meditating from that moment onward until the start of the vipassana 2 weeks ago, the focus has been on my shoulders. Pains and strains have occurred around the shoulders and upper arms over the past 8 months. Now, this one I'm not able to specifically connect to some decision in the past or some specific period of time. However, I'm pretty sure all of the tension in my shoulders have had to do with my endless ambitions in the past. Ambitions and goals are fine if you are able to detach from them, but become unhealthy if you would feel failed if you wouldn't succeed in them (more on this in my post on running a marathon). As to the moment of writing these words I still feel all sorts of sinews under tension in my shoulders. I'm not done yet.
• sexual desires - There has been a time in the past in which I have watched a significant amount of porn online. I remember stumbling upon sexy-bikini-babes websites around age 14 or 15. I remember even exchanging urls with quality pictures and the least amount of spyware and viruses with buddies at school. However relatively innocent these first discoveries where, I have found myself hooked on pornograhpy a couple of times a week ever since. Certain periods the amount of masturbation would increase to start interfering with things I was supposed to be doing: the worst period being during the writing of my master thesis. I think I masturbated daily with the aid of porn. A bit depending on whether I would see my girlfriend any time soon. I would be calculative as to when or when not to masturbate. I would 'save up' a day to be able to have sex with her. I was oblivious to the fact that it could potentially affect my sexual relationship with her. And I was oblivious to the fact that it could harm my body. I'm pretty sure it did affect both. Ever since I got a job after graduation things took on more acceptable shapes (maybe watching porn and masturbating around once a week or so) and porn has not been in my life since I left on the bicycle trip. Now, this might perhaps sound familiar to a lot of guys out there. And the big insight I'm about to share is important for anyone that watches porn occasionally or either has an unhealthy approach to sex. Any approach to sex involving a significant amount of craving and desire and excluding genuine feelings of love are unhealthy in my perception. Now, I've felt all of my organs releasing stress during the 10 day vipassana, the rhythm the same: I felt them glow up, providing discomfort for quite a while to get at ease and provide relieve after. I've consciously felt the lungs, intestines, kidneys, liver ect., I felt their exact space in the body. And I was able to recognize a ton of discomforts they have brought along throughout my life: from the occasional heartburn stemming from the stomach to intense feelings of dizziness I only experienced in nightmares when I was younger stemming from the large intestine. I wasn't able to connect much of the strains to their mental counterparts though. The ten days past and I was relieved of a lot of strain in the torso. Upon arriving home though I started getting curious: what got resolved? What mental trash caused them? In processing the 10 days I scanned my past for periods that weren't my best. One question quickly came to mind: did the low-energy period when I was writing my thesis have anything to do with the excessive amount of masturbation at the time? I also figured there was only one way to test this: I would have to masturbate to porn now that I'm ultra-sensitive to my body to find out. I cautiously opened a browser and typed in pornhub.com. I opted for some solo lady undressing. I started the video and this lady directly looks me in the eyes sensually. I felt weird. I felt different to what I'm used to, I normally would get aroused quite quickly. Now thoughts pop up like "why is she doing this?", "how much would she earn?" and most importantly "would this make this lady happy?". She starts undressing while still looking at me. Setting aside the questions I start to feel aroused even though, I unzip my pants and start playing around with my growing halfy. Simultaneously a pressuring pain strikes in the mid leftish area of my back. She goes on to undress completely and starts playing with herself. I stare in the distance feeling blown away by the insight. Masturbation causes some pain in my back. I close the naked lady tab and start searching for pictures of the human organ anatomy. I conclude that it must be the kidneys I feel quickly easing now. Next, I Google "kidney problem porn" and a limited and mixed search results pop up linking kidney and erectile dysfunctions to watching porn. From horror stories to hi-we-the-Chinese-know-that-masturbation-is-bad-since-ancient-times. In this instance my suspicion that my kidneys just suffered from the masturbation attempt get confirmed, I understand that the previous burning of the kidney's during the vipassana period was to get rid of old patterns of unhealthy sexual craving and I vow to myself to never watch porn again. I know that a lot of guys (perhaps girls too?) struggle with watching porn / masturbation / unhealthy sexual habits, and if so, I just want you to know it isn't as innocent as it seems. Quit it if you can yourself or either get help if that is too hard. A tolerant and open discussion about sex and unhealthy forms of sex could break taboo's and could help a lot of people.

My second vipassana experience has been a rollercoaster of recognizing the past, of recognizing every single bodily sensation I've ever encountered and of recognizing why life can feel like it's going in circles. It is your sensations that make you perceive your outside world in a certain manner. It is these sensations that spark their corresponding state of mind. And this loops over and over, fueled by your own set of cravings and aversions. As I'm exploring what it is like to be human I think one neat answer could be: to be human is to run towards your cravings and to run from your aversions. However, I would want to add: to progress as a human is to eliminate your cravings and aversions to make space for generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, effort, tolerance, truth, determination, selfless love and equanimity. Or in real short, and as every wise person has ever taught everyone: to be human is to know thyself.

But besides gaining selfknowledge, meditation and vipassana have given me renewed life energy. I feel better than ever, am more focused than ever, and need less and less sleep while being able to maintain sharpness throughout the day. I played badminton when I was younger and started playing again back in September 2018. Yesterday I was playing for the first time since my 2nd vipassana and yet again, things seemed to be flowing more effortlessly and less tiring. This doesn't just go for sports, this goes for life. It isn't for nothing that vipassana is seen as an art of living.

In hindsight my grandpa state of mind makes a lot of sense to me. It was my body processing the trip / 1st vipassana insights. I fueled further healing with the continued 2 hours of meditation a day. My body knew it was the most important thing I could be doing those days, and thus allowed for a very quiet mind. I remember actually feeling scared for an employer to accept me since I didn't want to be forced out of my grandpa state of mind by some sort of job. Even though it has been the most passive period of my life, I think it might well have been the most important. I'm happy I listened to my body.

now what?

So after understanding a cliché as 'know thyself' on a experiential level, what is next? For me one thing stood out from the moment I left the Malaysian vipassana center: I owe life to my parents. So far my life has been an amazing adventure made possible by them, their unconditional love and their hard work. There is not much I can do to ever thank them for it. I can visit them often, I can express the gratitude I feel and show them my love. I took an important step in expressing myself to them when I took them to The National Maritime Museum last Sunday and gave them a letter expressing how I feel.

Besides, my dad runs a garden center, Life & Garden in Amstelveen, and I've, for now, decided not to pursue a career in sustainability: I'll be working with my mom and dad in their company. It's outdoor work, stress free and I'll be able to bond more strongly with my parents through it. Meanwhile I'll have sufficient time to continue my quest to understand what it is like to be human. I'll continue meditation, playing badminton and other sports, making music, and taking good care of myself (healthy food and enough rest). I'm far from enlightenment but am excited to slowly continue making steps on this path. I'm also eager to help with growing the technique of vipassana in the Netherlands so I might get involved in building a permanent center in Holland.

In the meantime I'll blog a little about the things I like.

Cheers!

Like everyone that spends some time browsing, I've noticed that I get grabbed by some things online. Now this is spread across all of the web, across all kinds of platforms like news sites, video platforms and social media. Surely I can thumbs up here, archive there or build a library of links in google docs, but it is just a pain in the ass to keep a tidy overview of the things I like online. This is until it struck me I actually have my own website. It can do tags. It can therefore serve as my own library. So I'm introducing a tag 'things I like' on this website. This post is a first focussing on the things I like online. I plan to do posts on books, movies, music, series, sports and other things I like. Why? Because I like sharing it.

This library is publicly accessible. The advantage being twofold. First of all, anyone out there with a mind like mine might this way discover a whole bunch of greatness at once. Second, sharing something forces me to think of why the particular content triggers me. I'll include explanations where necessary. Third, I like sharing. It's scary sometimes. I like scary. This is post #1 of this series and can obviously not not include some links. Here is some of my current 'all time' favorites:

• Waitbutwhy - I actually remember the moment an ex-colleague of mine recommended this around 4 years ago. I got hooked on every single post for the next year. But since each post is like a book I think I still got parts of this website unread. Tim Urban has a fantastic mind and even greater style of writing
• Bill Wurtz on YouTube - this man is out of this world. The combination of his darn sick beats and melodies with complete seemingly irrational texts and psychedelic video's suck the viewer in. It is so unconventional and unpredictable that there is no single moment that my attention weakens. It counters all of the predictable mainstream music and video content to the extend it becomes meditative
• @physicsfun on Instagram - a daily picture or video of items that show the miracle of physics. And in the words of the man himself: "Physics describes the real magic of the universe"
• Felix Colgrave on YouTube - this dude creates great imaginary worlds. I just can't imagine the way this man sees the world
• exurb1a on YouTube - Look no further if you want to deepen your existential crisis. This guy is a genius at having you appreciate life while giving you chills for actually living
• Kurzgesagt on YouTube - the more refined version of exurb1a
• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on YouTube - Super American but the best and funniest Trump comedy out there
• Manu Delago on YouTube - I love the sound of a hang drum. It's so mystical
• smallworldonabike on Instagram - If you enjoyed following my trip you'll probably enjoy following this cyclo-climbing couple. I met Noémie and Adam in Uzbekistan, they are the kindest and most grateful travelers I've met on my way. It's incredible they are still on the road making amazing pictures of their cycling and climbing adventures

For the Dutchies:

• Dumpert - Having read The Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin last summer, I've come to see a lot of trends and societal developments along the lines of ever increasing levels of empathy around the world. One of the funnier results of this is the rise of internet cultures, specifically those that revolve around user generated content. Dumpert is a Dutch platform on which its users upload, comment on and rate video's. One mayor factors for the success of any video is the relatability. How much empathy does the video evoke? Be it painful or either feel-good video's, relatability scores.
• Bram in de buurt - I like awkward. This man is king of awkward.

Surely this isn't all, but it's all for now. Would love to hear about your online favorites.

In contrast to the way the babyboom generation got trapped in endless post-war economic growth that caused a lack of conscious career picking, millennials are confronted with a planet damaged by capitalism (think climate change and a shitload of mid-life crisises). It causes the 'Y generation' to question materialism and to seek real value beyond economics. This in turn results in increased consciousness when career picking. We are the generation that has a deep urge to connect a passion, a deep endless source of internal energy, to an activity that earns money. However, we run into corporate worlds that do not facilitate lengthy self-explorations. For those that decide to give it a go anyway and ignore taking the time to ponder and feel: they feel restless, unmotivated and trapped in old-fashioned organizations. This is why the babyboomers perceive millennials to be lazy. They see us getting lost in our attempts to climb hierarchical ladders that we come to see as hindering organizational innovation and agility. We, unlike our bosses, are not driven by social pressures to outperform others, neither financially nor when it comes to one's perceived success or status. We are driven by a longing to know why. Why am I here? What can I contribute? How can I do that best while not identifying myself with my tasks? And, to speak in popular contemporary jargon, where and how can I have the impact I want to have? In our eyes, the world of corporate monkeys climbing trees of paper money glued together by social expectations and perceived status is in despair, we want to be part of the solution, moreover, we feel like breaking that tree down.

That is why millennials quite their jobs so often, or end up in burn-outs and depressions. They see their job as being too meaningless, their supervisors too self-centered. Staying with the company will suck out their soul. It is merely ego driven.

We follow dreams. But discovering deeply held personal dreams takes effort and time. Here is the lucky catch of our generation, most of us can actually afford taking the time needed. I said millennials are spoiled. This is why. Through the hard work of the babyboom generation, the millennials are able to travel for months searching for their purpose, or sit at home for months pondering the meaning of life. Society has gotten rich enough for a generation to take this precious time.

The result of this shift is all around. The existential-life-crises phase is shifting to younger and younger age groups. We are shifting from mid-life crises to quarter-life crises. I see babyboomers end up in a crisis at the end of their career, they look back and realize they've always worked for others instead of following personal passions. At the same time I see millennials struggle in their first jobs, feeling restless and uncomfortable, to end up home with a burn-out.

The biggest point I want to make is that this is fantastic news. Besides meaning that the millennials will actually make sure we don't destroy the planet because they have build sufficient consciousness to realize this is an actual threat, it means that so much more potential is unlocked. Just imagine the gain for the world when a millennial burns out, takes time to find a true passion, and pursues a enlightened career, compared to sticking to the job only to become a dehumanized desk-zombie.

So if you're a millennial in a crisis: congratulations! You've made it out in time. Now the art is to not blame yourself. Just learn yourself techniques to dig into your passion, read my post on how I did that or just ride a bicycle around the world.

If you are a millennial secretly knowing you hate your job: believe me, there is no shame in quitting. At least I'll be applauding you. Everyone you fear will drop you because you're not meeting their expectations: screw them, they are not real buddies (and yes, this most likely is highly painful because they most likely include your parents too). It is now that you have a choice: will you work for someone else the rest of your life? Or will you work for yourself?

If you are a babyboomer that is fed up with lazy burned-out millennials in your company? Blame yourself. Your company is probably not adding much of value to society or at least doesn't understand us correctly. Change it and millennials will likely find purpose in your firm. Stick with current strategy and become useless anyway. For most of you brokers, accountancies, or law firms, don't bother: AI will take over anyway.

I do realize this piece is extremely opinionized and very, very generalizing for larges groups of people. Secretly, and as always, it is a lot more about myself than the words I used suggest. Please realize that, or just be offended anyway. If you are offended though: remember that anger is fear in disguise.

Hello, my name is Bas, but actually I'm a random pile of subatomic particles that for some reason learned how to use a bunch of them to hit keys in some order on a machine with a screen that humans call a laptop. I'm an over-developed monkey sitting on a soft-surfaced 4-legged L-shaped device called a chair in a neatly assorted hump of bricks called a house flying through space at supersonic speeds on a rotating rock covered with water. Good, that got me writing for the sake of starting to write. I've felt an urge to write lately, and just starting writing will hopefully get me into some sort of flow of creation. So bear with me. I'm a: millenial, Amsterdammer, nature fanatic, son, procrastinator, mammal, friend, adventurer, philosopher, male, Dutchman, fan of awkward, entrepreneur, brother, traveler, meditator, snowboarder, ex-boyfriend, consumer, European, introvert, old cheese lover, wanderer, nephew, fingertip-biter, musician, world citizen, and while being all that, I feel pretty insecure about being all that.. and that ladies & gents makes me human. Ok, warmed-up, let me pause for a moment to remember the intended subject of this piece of text to steer my funky five-tentacled ends of my arms to hit keys that actually start making sense.

... pause ...

Alright, sorry for the distraction there. I remember why I started writing now. I want to write about my spiritual growth over the past year in which I rode a bicycle from Amsterdam to Singapore. In talking to my friends and family from the moment I arrived back home a month ago I notice a manyfold of ways in which I can share my experiences. I can share the trip as it was on a physical level: "I then crossed the Chinese border, saw a giraffe sitting in the top of a pine tree. It winked at me. To keep my sanity I decided to ignore it and quickly cycled past." But although I am able to share a ton of crazy anecdotes at this rather superficial level, it isn't these stories that matter most. Lets head deeper into the experience, to the level of thoughts, feelings and emotions. This adds me, the person, to the story: "I felt a bit scared crossing the Chinese border specifically because of the unusual stories I'd heard of the country. And to my horror, the first thing I saw was a giraffe in the top of a pine tree winking at me. I was petrified as I saw my prejudice about the country crystallize. I freaked out, shot into my fight-or-flight mode and started paddling past the creature like I was on fire. When I came to a stop some kilometers down the rode I shat myself out of the fear this would ever happen again." Because of the person being more present in the second story it is a lot more relatable, I mean, anyone would shit themselves in that situation. But still this way of storytelling doesn't touch upon the permanent changes one undergoes on a trip like this. Which gets me to the deepest level on which one can share a story: that of personal development, the level of spiritual growth. Emphasis on this level is put on the permanent effects on my being, which in the context of this rather silly example would translate to something like: "It was the moment I saw a giraffe up in a pine tree winking at me that it hit me: I've been shitting myself seeing giraffes in treetops all my life, but what if, what if I just face my fears this time and build the courage to wink back. Shitfaced, I winked. The giraffe winked back. Ignoring the raging fear throughout my body I decided to wink again, twice. To my surprise the giraffe smiled, and winked back twice. It was a moment of pure beauty. It was right then that I conquered my large-mammal-in-pine-trees phobia. Shat myself out of relieve this time even tough."

In sharing my story I notice that my interest isn't in sharing the first or even the second level experiences so much. It is too much and too overwhelming to discuss over a year full of adventure around physical facts and their short term emotional consequences. But when I dig deep into the third level of experience during a conversation I notice people take better notice for a simple reason: it discusses why I feel much more happy, calm and satisfied now I made this trip as compared to a couple of years ago. This is what people want to hear, reflect upon and potentially extract some lessons in getting more happy and at ease themselves. And exactly this is what I feel I currently want to share with my loved ones, or anyone interested in my story for that sake. This has been the writing urge. And that's the motive for writing this post: to structure my own thoughts and to find words that capture the personal life lessons that came from the 13 month bicycle trip. I will try to grasp the developments that made me come back a more happy and wise person. I will try to describe my spiritual growth of the past year(s). But before I dive in I would like to spend some words on how I perceive spiritual growth.

I perceive spiritual growth as making steps towards getting to know oneself better and better. To get to understand the answer to the question 'who am I?' better and better. I even rewrote the purpose of this blog to revolve around my own search to answering this question. I've seen myself, and many people around me, being caught up in an ego, a concept of self: a collection of beliefs about oneself that embodies the answer to "who am I?" Surely one could be satisfied defining oneself on the physical level like I did in the first paragraph of this post, but what I've noticed in life so far is that any such definition limits the richness of life. It limits being human to the full potential. My reasoning is as follows: identifying yourself around a self-concept inherently creates a belief system of who you are as a person. This belief system in turn limits your ability to be open to what else you could be or already are as a person. Let me give you a personal example. For a long long time (from graduating highschool to my first year into my first job after university) my LinkedIn profile stated:

I'm a hard working, entrepreneurial spirited Dutchy. I aim to combine strategy with sustainability since I believe this to be a necessity in this fast-paced short-term focused world

I thought long about this description back then and decided this truly reflected my deepest being at the time. But by really believing this was me, I unconsciously put a pressure onto my shoulders of 1) having to be hard-working, 2) being entrepreneurial spirited and 3) finding a job that combined strategy with sustainability (which is funny cause I badly wanted to be entrepreneurial simultaneously). Moreover, the description reveals a deep agitation I had with my own world: I found it to be too fast-paced and too short-term focused. When I began extensive self-analysis I noticed that not only had I build enormous mental pressures that were reflected by issues in my body (I'll get to that later), I more importantly had completely neglected parts of me by thinking I was a young, tough, undefeatable man that was on the brink of a super successful career. I lived for the future. What I only saw later was that this self-concept oblitorated my ability to understand my vulnerabilities, feelings and emotions. And since I neglected these aspects of myself, a proper conversation about vulnerabilities, feelings and emotions was far from possible. I would literally shut down if someone genuinely asked me how I was feeling. I starting realizing how much more beautiful life became when I allowed space to grow these aspects though. I now understand expressing vulnerability is one of the strongest bonding mechanisms between people for example. And I now understand the origin of my previous inability to connect to people beyond relative superficial conversations. It was because I held onto a self-concept. In other words, I had limited my human potential because of a deeply held concept of self, my ego. And to put that into a cheesy metaphor: one will never become a butterfly if one gets stuck into believing he/she is a caterpillar. So whereas I earlier framed spirituality to revolve around answering the question 'who am I?', my own experience thus far actually hints towards spirituality to be one's personal path to loose any answer to the question 'who am I?'. Once one loses all answers to the question one is able to open up to the full range of experiences that life has to offer. And no, although realizing this fact is a good start, I'm definitely not there yet.

Because my personal spiritual path didn't begin on my bicycle journey I'll briefly describe the insights I obtained before the trip. After, I'll describe progress made on the trip, divided in growth on the actual physical journey and the growth that came from a Vipassana meditation retreat at the end. I'll round off by describing what it was like to come home.

before the trip

I long perceived intelligence to be aiming for the highest possible career option and controlling the future as firm as possible to achieve that. I lived for the future and expected myself to be able to create it according to my wishes. I even tried hard to control the perception others had of me, trying to make impressions that would confirm their idea of my path of success. It got me totally stuck at some point. Read about how I got unstuck by making my first spiritual steps in this post. During these initial steps I went from being led by a concept of self I fought to maintain to being able to let go of believes about myself. I refound feelings and rediscovered intuition. I was setting myself free from my own expectations. It was in this period I repeatedly told my then-girlfriend I worried about getting incredibly dumb. I seriously thought I had a big problem with a brain getting numbed out or so it felt. I now look back and realize I wasn't getting stupid: I had always perceived intelligence to be the extend to which I was able to control my future, it was in this period that I noticed my urge to control the future slowly dissolve, the continuous I-control-my-future train of thought in my head came to a hold. This made me feel stupid. However, the opposite was true: instead of getting dumb I was more and more able to live the moment. It made me sensitive to what I desired on a much deeper level than the superficial desires produced by the ego. Before I dive into these deeper desires, these initial spiritual steps had a significant impact on an average workday which I'll describe next.

Previously, I would start my day in a hurry: waking up, checking phone notifications, jumping under the shower, getting dressed, quickly prepping some breakfast, and racing my bicycle to work. During all this my head was at work already, in the time-frame of waking up till getting to work a 15-itemed to-do list had stacked itself up in my head: the mind overflowing already. I got to work pretty stressed, rewarding myself with a coffee first thing, slowly sipping it at my desk to build the energy to get started on the 15-itemed list. When at the end of the day I would have finished 3 out of the 15 to do's, I would condemn myself, work an extra hour overtime, and get home grumpy. When I got rid of this unhealthy goal-oriented work style mainly by means of meditation, my rhythm slowly progressed to the following: I get up early to have about a 3 hour period from waking up to getting to work. I try to remember any dreams or special experiences during the night first thing. After, I meditate for about 30min, then shower, get dressed and cook all the meals for the day. Most of the time I have some minutes left to read or do some stretching before riding my bike to work lazily. Up till the moment I sit down at my desk I haven't thought about work yet. The mind is spacious and calm. Magically though, through intuition, I figure out the top 3 out of the 15 to do's within 2 minutes and get to work straight away, aiming to finish all three that day. Having worked productively I am able to finish 4 out of 15 to do's before 5pm, I feel satisfied, decide to go home early, have spare time to do sports, hang with friends or just sit on the couch at home being happy.

Besides increased efficacy, focus and concentration, this extra time and energy had a way more impactful effect. I had always had a dream to make some sort of extreme journey, but I never felt the space, time and courage to actually start researching what form that should take. The extra time and additional energy provided the necessary mental space to start seriously researching what this dream entailed, why it was there, and how I could make it come true. It provided the space to allow this seed to grow in me enough to decide to chase it. It was the moment I decided to cut back work to 2 days a week to start preparing for what would become a 13 month bicycle journey that life really sucked me into a flow. A flow towards living my dream. Read about this effortless period of preparation and how my flow even sucked in Discovery Channel to become a business partner on this journey in this post. Relevant here is that, for the first time in my life, I had discovered some source of energy in myself that seemed endless and was incredibly powerful. I noticed that this flow-of-life kind of energy was highly contagious: whenever I spoke about my dream, the journey, my energy would enthuse other people who would in turn jump in to help make it come true.

I think I can sum up my spiritual path up to the bicycle journey as follows:

• I am not my ego - I had realized I had been stuck in a self-concept for a long time. Unshackling from a pressuring self-concept provided me with more energy, more positivity and more powerful ways to connect with people
• I am not my perceived intelligence - I experienced how spare mental space previously occupied by planning for the future allowed for deep desires to surface
• I am not the product of my past - I had realized that my deep desire was profoundly unrelated to anything I had done before. I realized the ego causes inertia, fear and resistance to follow a dream. It took a bunch of courage to go from 'I'm an high-potential career tiger' to 'I want to be homeless and cycle the world for ambiguous reasons'. It set me free once I dared.

Most importantly, I had experienced how life can feel like a wrestling match vs. how it can flow effortlessly while being more productive at the same time. High on life I left Amsterdam on my bicycle on March 26th 2017.

during the trip

In search for the answer to the question 'who am I?' the tour on the bicycle was as much a journey outwards into the big wide open world as it was a journey inwards into the body. Surely there are physical barriers like getting lost, a bull blocking your way or a freezing hail storm at 4000m altitude, but there is continuous choice of how to deal with it mentally. Like emphasized in the must-read post for everyone considering a bicycle trip, it's mind over matter. Therefore, although it sounds impressive to cycle the world, the physical journey is a lot less important than is the inward journey of discovering your own mental limitations. Through this journey, I've actually come to see running into mental limitations as a blessing since it notifies potential areas of growth.

Wandering the globe with nothing more than a bicycle and the gear to stay alive dissolves the ego and frees one from any attachment unconsciously built up during a previous lifestyle. Having come back to Amsterdam, I feel there is nothing that ties me to anything, which in turn makes it impossible to define who I am. I feel this is ultimate freedom and am working hard to keep up this state of mind. For myself, in other words, I've more and more come to believe it is incredibly healthy to have no answer to the 'who am I?' question. Therefore as a way to share my lessons I will state 'whom I'm not' certainties like I did at the end of the previous section. Those certainties are just as valuable in getting to know oneself better, especially since I feel the following are common traps in today's high-speed society. Renunciation, i.e. distancing myself from a previous lifestyle and environment, provided a ton of important insights into what I'm not:

I am not the product of my past or the plans for my future

Unconsciously everyone carries a frame of reference that is determined by one's culture, childhood, parents, peers, work, lifestyle, etc. It's the shortcut the brain makes to not have to think about the unnecessary details of life. Drop this frame of reference completely and you'll have a hard time functioning. Water from a tap or an airplane passing by overhead appears to be magic instead of something self-evident. These shortcuts create expectations as to what we consider normal in our lives, it's everything you unconsciously take for granted. A longterm trip on a bicycle is the ultimate way to drop what you consider to be a normal rhythm of life. It is the ultimate way to distance yourself from your own frame of reference. It is the ultimate way to discover all the things you've taken for granted unconsciously. On my bicycle journey I've lost all fixed idea's of what anything should look, hear, smell or taste like since I've been confronted with changes on all these aspects on a daily basis. This became apparent whenever I had friends or family visit me on the trip. They brought with them the Western frame of reference and noticed all the differences compared to home, I had lost mine in the meantime and observed reality without opinion or an urge to compare. Changing all aspects of a rhythmic life (what to eat, where to sleep, who you meet, etc.) on a daily basis breaks down a frame of reference. I.e. it breaks down any expectation of the future based off patterns from the past. Without a frame of reference, I found myself not longing to a past phase of my life. Neither was I creating expectations for the future. I was merely facing reality from moment to moment. I was forced into the now continuously. Continuously residing in the now without thoughts into the past or future allowed me to see that thoughts are easily controllable. I found there was a choice of what to think every single moment, and I even realized I was able to decide to not think at all. In this state of mind, life becomes highly steerable, unrelated to one's past and without longing for a certain future. More significantly, with zero expectations, I came to see everything on my path as a gift. Every meeting with a local, every meal, every drop of drinking water, every pretty camp-spot, and yes, I even came to see every mental and physical struggle as a gift in the form of a challenge or test to be overcome. From the moment I departed on this trip life has felt like one big rollercoaster of gratitude.

I feel small & invisible. I pass silent as the night. I observe; soak it all in. I like it.. a lot.

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Feb 25, 2018 at 10:05pm PST

I am not the things I own

Obviously, the biggest detachment from my belongings occurred the moment I left. I detached from all the stuff I owned, caring only for the functional gear I needed on the road. It had to be as small and lightweight as possible to fit in 6 bags. I had bought high-end gear and some of the newest camera's around to shoot the D TOUR footage. At the start of the trip, I was having tough times detaching from that gear since I carried a firm believe that all of it was necessary to make the journey, the dream, come true. Especially the first nights of wildcamping in Eastern Europe got me on my nerves. It was hard to leave the thought that I was a complete moron to pitch my tent somewhere random and leave gear worth close to €15.000 "up for grabs" while I closed my eyes. The more the trip progressed though the more I was able to detach. Losing things was incredibly inconvenient (like the time I left my rain jacket and pants a day before we would be riding through yet another snowstorm on the Tadjik highlands or the time I lost a crucial part of my stove that prevented fuel from leaking. I used it anyway and almost set our campsite on fire in Uzbekistan) or got me stuck somewhere for a while to find replacement (like the time the rear rim of the bicycle cracked in Kazakhstan and I got stuck waiting for a new one to arrive for two weeks) but never stopped me on my trip. I came to realize that even in the most remote places there would be ways to survive without any gear. However cliché the lesson: life goes on, even if you own nothing. Conversely, I would argue life gets easier, more free and light the less you own. The less belongings the less chance of attachment, the less chance of ego building up. Dissolving the ego is the motive behind monks not owning anything and going around to beg for food in their neighborhoods for example.

I guess these two lessons, not attaching to one's past/future and not attaching to belongings, have been the most important lessons this trip has brought me. It might come across a bit daunting I do realize. I'm basically saying it is a good thing to not attach to any idea one has about oneself and to not attach to anything one owns at all. It begs the question: how can it be that when I empty myself of just about anything that makes me feel human, it makes me an even happier being? Without me realizing it at the time, I wrote part of the answer to this question on the wall of the abandoned Russian military base that me, Daniël and Marc (fellow cyclists) used as a base camp to climb a 5k mountain.

Don't mind the SpongeBob, I just really enjoy contrasting deep spiritual philosophical stuff with the apparent superficiality of kid cartoons (although SpongeBob seems pretty enlightened I have to say). Honestly, it's the only thing I've learned myself how to draw. Point in case here is that once one empties his-/herself of any attachment love, compassion and yes, fascination remain. Thus, in my experience the more distanced one is from any concept of self and the more one is able to detach from belongings, the more someone resides in unconditional love and compassion. Surfacing during the most desolate stretch on my journey, this quote therefore holds wisdom pertaining to the physical world as well as to my spiritual path. I've felt my heart open and open more and more during my trip. The more empty I felt, the more I was able to truly connect to locals (most of the time without using words). The more I lost any idea of who I am or what I carried, the more grew the fascination and wonder for the beauty of the world.

The Tadjik highlands are bringing me to a new level of fascination. Fighting the freezing cold at night and the high altitude sun during the day while riding fields of gold makes one ever more humble to the wonders of nature. I have seen just one car over the past week.

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Sep 14, 2017 at 11:05am PDT

Like for all lessons coming from impactful life-experiences, I've not been able to articulate them right on the spot. They always start making sense after some time. Actually, I think I would have never been able to be so keen on them so soon if I hadn't taken 10 days to sit still on a pillow for 10 hours a day.

Vipassana meditation

Around 10 years ago I had heard of a Vipassana meditation retreat from a friend. It sounded so incredibly irrational and just plain stupid to sit closed eyed for 10 days back then. A complete waste of time. I completely ignored even the possibility it could have been a good thing for him. But experiencing the benefits of daily meditation myself years later, I remembered his story and promised myself I would try once. It was on my trip in China and Vietnam that I came to speak about Vipassana with four backpack travelers on seperate occasions. One had just done it for the first time, one went twice a year and two others were gonna go soon. It felt like there was no way back: I clicked so well with these people specifically, it was the signal I had to do such a retreat on this trip. I subscribed to a 10-day course in Malaysia that would take place three months later. I guessed I would make it in time there on the bicycle. I rode through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and got to the Eastcoast of Malaysia in time.

Now, I don't want to get too much into the specifics of my experience during the retreat because hearing about anyone's experience might create expectations for your own, if you ever decide to do something like it. Since everyone's spiritual path is unique, any of my specific experience will not be too relevant for your own. I will however share an Instagram post that I shared afterwards that captures the core of my experience. I'll try to share a generalized story of the experience after.

Vipassana is a meditation technique that allows you to experience that your karma (all of your past positive & negative actions, words, and thought) is stored in your body. First, you train your mind to stop thinking, allowing it to focus your attention inwards. Next you train yourself to objectively observe any sensation throughout the body. By not giving the unconscious mind a chance to react to the sensations you are able to face them. The law of nature is such that this equanimity allows the body to start healing the stock of negativity. Practically seen, you are sitting 10 hours a day for 10 days with continuous pains while trying to smile at them. A small personal example relating to you as an Instagram/Facebook follower: on day 7 my right arm was struck with a ferocious pain that started in my thumb. Expecting it might have to do with a craving for attention online, I tested the hypothesis by thinking of a new post after the arm was healed. By playing around with thoughts on how this post should be build up, slowly but surely the exact same area in the arm started glowing again, creating a new pain in the long run. This is just a minor example of all the mind/body impurities that got resolved during the past weeks. Realising how ill my body still was at day 10 I applied to serve on the next 10 day course. The meditation center accepted and I was able to heal further. With a renewed body & mind I'm cycling my way south to Singapore now. Unlike before, I'm highly aware on the bike looking for a posture that doesn't allow the buildup of any negativity. With the same caution I'm clicking the share button for this post, diving into my body straight after to observe potential harm done. I want to get this out there though because it has been one of the most powerful things I've experienced in life. With this experience added to the journey, it has given me everything I could wish for. I'll be flying home from Singapore soon to be reunited with my friends & family. If this post has sparked a curiosity with respect to the Vipassana technique make sure to check out dhamma.org for all the center locations around the world. Be happy.

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Apr 22, 2018 at 2:39am PDT

Vipassana meditation gave me the insight that all mental defilements correspond to bodily defilements. So like in the small example from the Instagram post above, every bodily pain has an unhealthy thought counterpart. They in essence are one and the same thing: if you get rid of the issue in the body, you'll notice the unhealthy thought pattern dissolve too, if you change your thought pattern, you'll notice the physical issue to disappear. So what are problematic thought patterns? Thoughts are unhealthy and create bodily strains when they can be subdivided into one of two categories: desires and aversions. To provide an example for each: one likes a sensory input and creates a desire for more, like when you open that Pringles can for just two chips but find yourself finishing the thing over the next 5 minutes, or one dislikes a sensory input and creates an aversion against it, like when it's cold and you actually get colder because you start complaining about it. Wim Hof aka The Iceman is the extreme living proof of mind over matter in that sense. The more you get stuck in desires and aversions, the more issues will build up in the body. Besides, not only current impure thought patterns are creating problems in the body, all past impure thinking patterns have been stored in the body. Problematically, there is no way of noticing this process at first. The unhealthy bodily sensations occur at the unconscious level: you don't feel them at all. This is why some of us get to doctors way too late for an issue to be properly taken care of. Similarly, I thought my body was pretty healthy, I never had serious complaints: I mean I was able to run a marathon and cycle to Malaysia with my body so it has to be healthy, right? Well, not quite.

During the Vipassana I learned my body carried a lot of trash at the unconscious level. It was right there in the body, I just hadn't learned how raise my consciousness to be able to feel or treat them. So for 10 days I practiced mind-control and aimed the increased attention inwards. I discovered the desire to establish my I'm-a-high-potential-at-the-start-of-a-successful-career self-concept to reside in my shoulders as enormous pressure for example. It had manifested itself as large energy blockades that made parts of my body highly insensitive. I even discovered an aversion and a fear for death in my right foot. This I realized got build up between the age of 7 and 9 when I was confronted with the death of close relatives multiple times. By not generating new sensory input and unhealthy thoughts during the long days of meditation, my body set out to cure these impurities, even ones from the far past. This is what the meditation course has brought me: a technique to not only purify the body but a technique to purify the mind simultaneously.

To put the core of my Vipassana experience in different words: karma isn't something that is controlled by some higher power or isn't floating around randomly. You are literally carrying around your own stock of negative karma in your body. Exactly this is what hit me on a experiential level when I meditated at such intensity. Not only was I able to stop the mind's continuous train of thought, I was able to stop the creation of new desires and aversions and with all this time in perfect equanimity I've been able to dissolve a large stock of negative karma in my body. It takes tremendous time and effort, but this is why I meditate. By purifying my body I purify my mind, I detach from a concept of self and am left with love, compassion and fascination. At the same time I experience a heightened level of energy, a deep feeling of satisfaction and calmness and a much stronger determination and sense of direction in life. I could share a lot more of the specifics of my body and the desires and aversions I got rid of, but I prefer doing that one-on-one with people. As for an introduction to the strength of the mind relating to bodily illness I recently watched the documentary HEAL. I think it's fascinating to see how Western scientific medicine is generally struggling with accepting 'impossible' cases of curing through methods like meditation. There is a lot to learn in the West. BTW.

Every night during the Vipassana course around an hour of theoretical and anecdotal discourse was given. These were the moments when the experience of the day aligned with the theory. This in itself was so powerful that I cried pretty much every night during these discourses. During one of them ten mental qualities that aid one in his/her effort to purify mind and body were elaborated on. This session made me see the immense spiritual value of not only the Vipassana course but specifically of the preceding bicycle trip. I'll run through these qualities explaining how both the retreat and the bicycle trip contributed to each.

mental quality #1 - renunciation

This is the mental trait that the bicycle trip contributed to most as I described earlier. Long term bicycle touring is the ultimate way to renunciate from a fixed lifestyle, a self-concept and possessions. Renunciation is done for the purpose of dissolving the ego. And just like monks go around to beg for food, I've been knocking on doors to ask for food, water and places to stay. A Vipassana course in itself enhances this quality since the whole experience is made possible by the charity of others. Old participants donate because they selflessly want others to experience the benefits of Vipassana too. This in my eyes makes Vipassana the purest form of spiritual retreat/program/course I've participated in. Accepting whatever is offered as food, accommodation, or other facilities, one gradually develops the quality of renunciation. Whatever one receives in the meditation center or when knocking on someone's door while bicycle touring, one makes best use of it. Since Vipassana is free of charge, you realize you are working hard to purify the mind not only for your own good, but also for the good of the unknown person who donated on your behalf.

mental quality #2 - morality

Morality encompasses abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, wrong speech and all intoxicants. The first three feel obvious and are easy to follow. Wrong speech is more ambiguous, but basically means: no lying or no speech that is not aimed at helping others. No intoxicants means no drugs, alcohol or anything else that influences the mind. In the meditation course, there is no opportunity to break these precepts, because of the heavy programme and discipline. Only in speaking is there any likelihood of one's deviating from strict observance of morality. For this reason one takes a vow of silence during the course. In this way, at least within the period of the course, one keeps perfect morality. To a lesser extend bicycle touring will force one to keep his/her morality too. For the simple reason that you're alone most of the time, there is not much opportunity for wrong speech, and since you're highly sensitive to your body because you practice sports every day, taking intoxicants can be disastrous for your riding. My tolerance for alcohol dropped to getting drunk from just two beers over the course of my trip. And worse (but for the better), I was feeling the effects of two beers for up till three days after.

mental quality #3 - effort

In daily life one makes efforts, for example to earn one's livelihood. In a Vipassana, the effort is to purify the mind by remaining aware and equanimous. This is right effort, which leads to liberation. Cycling the world takes effort, and if your intention of the trip is to grow personally this falls under right effort too. In that sense, I believe it is best to stick to personal growth as the main motive behind such a trip.

mental quality #4 - wisdom

In the outside world, one may have wisdom, but it is the wisdom one gains from reading books or listening to others, or merely intellectual understanding. The real mental perfection is the wisdom that develops within oneself, by one's own experience in life or in meditation. One realizes directly by self-observation the facts of impermanence, suffering, and egolessness. By this direct experience of reality one comes out of suffering. When practiced right, Vipassana meditation and long-term cycling, or any other endurance sport in that regard, share the practice of continuous self-observation, and thus fosters experiential wisdom.

mental quality #5 - tolerance

During a Vipassana retreat you live together in a group silently. You may find yourself becoming disturbed and irritated by the actions of another person. Tolerance is the quality that makes you realize that the person causing a disturbance is simply ignorant of what he is doing, or a sick person. Tolerance replaces irritation for a person with love and compassion for that person. Tolerance is most definitely developed while bicycle touring too. Complaining fellow cyclists, locals dumping trash on the side of the road and bribing border officials have all tested my ability to replace frustration with compassion.

mental quality #6 - truth

Every step on one's spiritual path must be a step with truth, from gross, apparent truth, to subtler truths, to ultimate truth. There should be no room for imagination. One must always remain with the reality that one actually experiences at the present moment. Staying with your own truth is what you do when you meditate, and, as I emphasized in pyramid analogy in the hurdles-in-bicycle-touring post, staying with your own truth is similarly crucial in enduring a bicycle touring lifestyle long term.

mental quality #7 - strong determination

When one starts a Vipassana course, one makes a determination to remain for the entire 10 day period of the course meditating 10 hours a day. One resolves to follow the moral precepts, the rule of silence, and all the discipline of the course. In bicycle touring one develops a strong determination mostly before departure. It was before my trip that I decided I wanted to stay away from home for a year. In avoiding a journey that would be too goal-oriented, this determination of time was more important than the determination to reach some place. Like I described in the post on running a marathon, it is though sometimes to balance between setting ambitious goals and when to decide the persistence to get there becomes unhealthy. Bicycle touring is an ultimate test in that sense.

mental quality #8 - pure, selfless love

In the past one tried to feel love and goodwill for others, but this was only at the conscious level of the mind. At the unconscious level the old tensions continued. When the entire mind is purified, then from the depths one can wish for the happiness of others. This is real love, which helps others and helps oneself as well. Although I cannot say I've purified the mind I can say that the trip on the bicycle opened my eyes to the selfless love people all around the world are able to give to strangers like me. Receiving selfless love like that substantially builds the ability to give back yourself.

mental quality #9 - equanimity

In meditation one learns to keep the balance of the mind not only when experiencing gross, unpleasant sensations in the body, but also in the face of subtle, pleasant, sensations. In every situation one understands that the experience of that moment is impermanent, bound to pass away. With this understanding one remains detached, equanimous. In bicycle touring staying equanimous is a lot more challenging because of the manyfold of sensory inputs that create sensations to which one reacts. But when one sees each difficult situation as a challenge to stay equanimous, one could actually start to enjoy pitching a tent in a dung-covered cowshed at -10°C in a highly remote mountainous area of Kyrgyzstan. Damn, even thinking about that night gets me exited again.

On a trip like this, the last days of riding shouldn't be the last days if they were easy: today some water machine swallowed my last coin while refusing to give me water, an unfindable glass splinter made me have 2 flats, temperatures rose to 40° again and this whole being-100%-honest-to-all-sensations-in-the-body Vipassana thing makes me more sore than ever. It is exactly these micro challenges that I will probably miss most though. Bicycle touring equals being tested mentally day in day out. It is one of the most beautiful ways of learning how to smile at, and even appreciate, misfortune. Which is an absolute art. One could say it's the art of living. The awas (=warning) sign on the second picture seems to warn for ups and downs. But are ups and downs really there if you appreciate both? I'm currently mentally prepping to extra extra enjoy the final 70km into Singapore tomorrow. Thanks Malaysia, you've been so good to me.

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Apr 25, 2018 at 2:43am PDT

mental perfection #10 - charity, donation

Every person has the responsibility of earning money to support oneself and any dependents. But if one generates attachment to the money that one earns, then one develops ego. For this reason, a portion of what one earns must be given for the good of others. If one does this, ego will not develop, since one understands that one earns for one's own benefit and also for the benefit of others. The volition arises to help others in whatever way one can. Whatever one receives in Vipassana is donated by another person; there are no charges for room and board, and none for the teaching. In turn, one is able to give a donation for the benefit of someone else. As you might have noticed, the Vipassana meditation has been extremely valuable for me, both in direct personal growth through meditation as well as providing me a way to see the value of the entire bicycle trip in light of personal growth, as this entire post exemplifies. In no way am I able to donate this value in monetary terms (I gave €100 euro's), neither was I able to repay this value in terms of helping out at the center (I made a drone video for them and stayed to serve on the next 10 day course). I however instantly felt like sharing this method of self-healing and self-purification with just about anyone I love back home. I realize that there can be no greater help to others than to help them learn the way out of suffering. Surely the last thing I should do now is to go around demanding all my loved ones to sign up for the first next course. This would be counterproductive. The only thing I'm able to do is to share my story and keep it as close to my experience as I can. That is what I aimed to do with the words in this post: I am clarifying and structurizing the story for myself to be able to share it in an impactful manner. This is the only thing I can currently do to repay for the magnificent experience that was cycling to Singapore and doing Vipassana on the way. I cannot avoid thinking this is the perfect place to sneak in a link to the the global organization behind Vipassana courses for if my story sparked interest though :)

after the trip

I'm back home for just over a month now, and wow, coming home has been a journey in and of itself. On the time frame of a human life, of someone who has a static daily rhythm, 13 months isn't that long. I therefore don't see a whole lot of significant personal development around the people I love. However, everything is different at the same time. I feel I'm bringing a new way to connect to the people I love. I've changed, therefore everyone is changing their behavior towards me, changing them in my perception too. Fact is that I perceive everyone as having become more lovingful, positive and compassionate, probably because I'm able to see those qualities in them better. Changing your world is that easy, and yet so difficult, most certainly when it comes to people you've known for a long long time, like family members for which social dynamics tend to be pretty stuck. Fact is, and let me give you another cheesy cliché warning first, that you change your entire world by changing yourself.

When it come to getting back home after such a journey, it is also a big risk to forget about all the lessons you've learned quickly and sink back into old habits and old lifestyles. It has been very clear to me for example that I should tell all people asking about my trip about this spiritual journey more than any other aspect. Partly because it is most impactful but mostly to keep myself close to the state of mind I obtained on the journey, and to signal to people that I've changed and will not accept falling back into potentially negative social dynamics.

I feel eager to continue my spiritual growth. Searching for the right words for this post has been an important way to stick to the calm and clear state of mind I'm in. Besides, I've continued practicing Vipassana meditation twice a day for an hour ever since I left the meditation center in Malaysia. Due to instant results, I notice it requires no effort or discipline anymore. It's much easier to detach from all sensory input and thoughts after a day when I take the time to meditate at night and much easier to start a day positively and clear minded when I meditate straight after waking up.

Next to meditation I feel interested in other methods of spurring spiritual growth. Since I've noticed sports to be a significant method of self discovery, I started running again. Besides, I've gone to ecstatic dancing, I've drawn mandela's, I'm meditating and plan to pick up playing an instrument again. If you would have told me this a couple years ago in my I'm-a-high-potential-at-the-start-of-his-highly-succesful-career phase I would have absolutely not believed I would ever become this hippy. But now that I see hippy equals more happy, I'm absolutely stoked to go explore more hippy activities. I'm happy. Darn it, I just said I was something. Now the challenge is to not identify myself with happiness.. wow, life is complex.. no wait.. I mean fascinating.. you know what I mean.

To sum up:

• In my search to answer the question 'who am I?' I found that the less of an answer I've got the happier I am
• Bicycle touring has been an incredible way to detach from my frame of reference and from a concept of self
• Vipassana meditation has been a key enabler for me to understand the above two points and provides me with the technique to forever stay in the egoless domain of love, compassion and fascination
• I realise now all of the above has been in preparation to become the happiest man alive eating a krentenbol met oude kaas first thing after I got back home from the monstrous 13 month bicycle journey across the world. It's in the small things.

Home sweet home & a tribute to a krentenbol met oude kaas

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on May 4, 2018 at 5:20am PDT

Hi, welcome to this blogpost. Good you're here: it either means you're considering ever doing a bicycle-touring trip, you might be on the road currently or you're just curious what the hell motivates people to even consider. I'm sure this post will give you important insights either way.

Before I dive in, I would like to explain the relevance of the picture above. The image captured the moment we (me, a German cyclist & a Swiss cyclist) were hesitant to continue cycling because of a massive bull blocking our path. It happened in Tadjikistan at 4000m altitude on a off-the-map USSR military track we were following. After a stare-down of about 10min we decided to approach it carrying rocks in case it would charge (and no, you don't have to tell me that that's naivety at its core: it is). We managed to pressure it off the road though and decided to ride our bikes past quickly. It worked; he didn't charge. Although you'll encounter many physical hurdles like this while bicycle touring, those are peanuts compared to the mental hurdles. I mean, mind over matter is what they say. That's why I focus on mental barriers in this post only.

consider this before leaving

Now, although I was writing a post myself called "The mental hurdles of bicycle touring" in which I lined up the biggest mental hurdles before departure and the ones popping up on the go, halfway down I remembered a post I read 1,5 years ago before my trip that very closely resembled my writing. It is a post called Planning your first big bike trip? Ask yourself these 7 critical questions first by bike-touring guru Tom Allen on his absolute biblical website. Since his post so accurately captures personality aspects important for bicycle touring, it feels more relevant to share his post in combination with some of my insights. So please do read his post first before continuing.

...

Good, hello, welcome back. Hope you enjoyed that. My name is Bas.

Before heading out on a bicycle on a world tour, Tom in short says the following:

1. You better be chill being alone, for longer periods on end, with little to no external input
2. You better be chill with limited comfort, sleeping in a tent at -5 °C in the middle of nowhere while half your muscles ache like never before
3. You better be able to be pro-active when sh*t hits the fan underway
4. You better try to loose the habit of wanting to know what will happen (the goal-orientation flaw I wrote about in my post on running a marathon)
5. You better be able to stop the continuous train of thoughts in your mind and be able to truly enjoy the now (which for me was very much part of the start of my spiritual path)
6. You better not crave recognition for what you are doing
7. You better accept you'll come back a different person

I got lucky to run into his post a couple of months before my own departure in 2017. Reading it gave me a massive boost of energy because I felt ready to face the personal challenges posed. But no worries, besides an energy boost his post freaked me out as much as it might have freaked you out. Specifically I doubted my tolerance for discomfort, I highly doubted my bicycle-repair skill and my on-the-spot problem solving capabilities in general. In hindsight my close to indestructible bicycle made most those worries irrelevant. Besides the energy and doubt his post gave me, the insights of his 6th point in specific made me extra sharp in the conversations with Discovery Channel about a collaboration for a public video project I was having with them at that time. Looking back on my Amsterdam-Singapore adventure now, I have to say I still agree with Tom on every point he makes. So Tom, if you happen to be reading: thanks for sharing!

Besides Tom's list I've learned of a couple hurdles that keep people from going on an bicycle-touring adventure. I'll share these first after which I will share some of my personal frustrations that I, despite the pre-departure willingness to face all my flaws, encountered while on my journey. Lastly I'll share a tool that made overcoming my biggest personal challenge a lot more easy.

pre-trip mental hurdles

The following is a list of doubts I've heard from people during and after my trip that keep them from going on a bicycle trip. I'll follow the doubt with my reaction.

• I can't leave my job/house/family for a long time | This is an argument I have nothing to bring in against. Simply put: this is very true for most people. The financial and social opportunity cost of leaving home for a long time are higher than the perceived benefits of a trip. That said however, I have not met any bicycle tourer on my path that regretted leaving it all behind.
• I would go crazy being on my own for such long periods. It is such a lonely endeavour | This too is a valid argument that Tom touches upon for a reason. For me personally I can merely state that I've not felt lonely at all on my one year trip. It simply was a lot less of a lonely adventure than anticipated: partly because of the contact with locals you'll have everyday, partly since I've met many other cyclists and cycled together with others for most of my trip, but absolutely also due to the comfort I feel being alone. And whether you feel lonely when you are alone depends on the person and differs for everyone. You can test yourself on this with the following thought experiment: would you be comfortable with spending a night alone on your couch in your house without excess to your phone/a TV/any other form of entertainment? If only the thought already makes you feel uneasy, you might want to work on why that is first before heading out on a solo trip. A much better test would be to start meditating. If you can't handle your own train of thoughts, I wouldn't recommend going on a longterm trip alone. You should at least be able to objectively observe your thoughts and have some experience with reshaping negative thoughts into positive ones.
• I feel like the countries I want to cross are too dangerous. The world is a scary place | Surely, there are a couple of regions in the world currently (think Syria or Afghanistan/Pakistan) that wouldn't be a smart place to cross by bicycle. But on average our perception of worldwide safety is skewed negatively by continuous stream of negative news exerted by the media. Surely I cannot guarantee safety to anyone, but I can say that if you're alert and sensitive to potential dangers, you mostly control your own safety. Besides, there are hundreds of cyclist cycling from Europe to Asia and vice versa every year. I found myself added to a Whatsapp group of 250 cyclist cycling the globe, and very very rarely was there bad news reported. I like to uphold my perception that the world has never been more safe then it currently is. Not quite in line with that: here is a warning sign for tanks I encountered in the North-East of Turkey.

• I just can't do it physically. I'll need to train for ages before I could start a journey like that | First of all: I wasn't a cyclist myself before I left. And since my bicycle was only delivered 1,5 weeks before I left, I didn't have time to train at all. Surely I'm Dutch, so yes, I do own a bicycle and I do use it almost daily to get to place in and around Amsterdam. But I never used to cycle for fun in my spare time. Second: I've met grandpa's aged around 75 on the road that were cycling the world for whom their physical strength wasn't a big barrier. The point is: the potential problem is not a physical one: everyone can do it. But physically the big challenge for beginners (like I was) is to actually start a long trip very slowly. Since your body is not used to cycle 6 hours a day, you need to treat all the sensations consciously. Make sure to be 100% honest to what your body is telling you every moment. The friction here comes from the excitement the start of a trip brings. This excitement might make you want to ride out super fast while the body needs calm consciousness in order to sustain in the long run. This is something all endurance athletes understand is key, but it is also extremely difficult in practice. One absolute key advice I would give here though is to stretch at least your legs every day after you're done riding. During my period of training for a marathon I was stretching along the lines of this lady's post running stretch routine. That actually suited me well during my bicycle trip.

Surely there is a ton of other reasons not to go on a bicycle trip but I've heard the above ones most. Combined with Tom's post I feel this gives a relatively complete overview of pre-trip considerations. If by now you've decided to go ride a big trip, there is a couple more hurdles I would like you to be aware of that are specific for on the go.

hurdles I encountered on the road

The largest issue I've had to deal with on my trip is something I had been working on for a couple of years before my trip already: my goal oriented mindset being a hinderance to live in the now. I actually devised my own cycling 'pyramid of energy' on the road to be able to deal with my tendency to over-demand myself. I'll describe the pyramid in detail later.

Another on-the-road frustration I bumped into as soon as I crossed into unknown territory was my eagerness to understand expressions of cultural differences. Surely at times I was able to ease my curiosity by learning a lot from a museum visit, or through an extensive in-dept conversation with a local. But since you are so exposed to all activity on the street, there is going to be a ton of things happening around you that you'll just not understand. At times you won't have the energy to stop cycling and ask a local about something you're curious about, at other times you're not able to communicate with anyone at all because of language barriers. At those moments you'll be lucky to be able to ask a local farmer if he minds your tent on his plot of land by means of Google translate. No way you'll able to ask him what he thinks of his country's president who apparently, as you've observed through the presence of his photoshopped portrait on just about every street corner, cares a lot about his self-portrait. That sort of question in itself might not be a very smart thing to ask in some countries btw. It doesn't take away the fact that you're wondering in the first place. I clearly remember having to accept the fact that a bicycle trip is mostly a sensory trip: a trip during which you'll see, smell, hear, taste and feel just about everything a country has to offer but will understand very little of all the input. This hit me as soon as the first unexplained cultural fascinations passed me by in Eastern Europe. I was frustrated for some time and tried to intellectually grasp as much as possible by reading about the cultures online. But at one point I realised I would just stay frustrated if I would keep on wishing to understand. I had to settle into not being able to explain everything that intrigued me. Moreover, not understanding things you see has its own perks. Throughout my trip I got to understand the value of wondering without understanding more and more. In a way fascination without longing to understand why things are as they are draws you into the moment (Tom's number 5). Likewise, accepting (weird) things as they are is a crucial aspect of letting go of a sense of control we Western human beings like to think we have. Tom's number 4 stems from the same wish to control all aspects of our life. Messed up as it is, our Western closed-minded way of living allows for a great sense of control. Anyway, go read The Black Swan if you need some intellectual tickling regarding our illusion of control. My point in short is: see a Chinese bloke take a shit on the street in some Chinese town? Don't worry about it. Just go with it, move over, take a dump next to him, discuss the weather, all good, you fit right in.

The monuments of the anthropocene are staggering. We humans are masters in blinding ourselves with a feeling of control. Danger hides in the knowledge we don't possess. Ask yourself the questions we don't have answers to and you'll keep being intrigued and fascinated. Stop wondering and life drifts off senselessly. *Continues reading The Black Swan*

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Mar 18, 2018 at 10:10pm PDT

the energy pyramid

Like in regular life I've had periodical ups and downs on the road. I've felt happy, exhausted, thrilled, useless, useful, and above all hungry like never before. All the experiences and emotions resulted in continuous fluctuations in my level of energy. Whenever I had the mental space to do so I've been scrutinizing my own energy levels to try to understand why I was having an up or down at the moment. Obviously it turns out it is close to impossible to analyse all factors contributing to your current state of affairs. But generally I have been able to identify four levels of energy and their respective consequences on the road. The reason I'm writing about them is because I found it incredibly useful to be able to accept my level of energy by simply labelling it. Accepting how you're feeling is not only relevant for bicycle touring but is a general life lesson I previously touched upon in a post on running a marathon. It is very human to want to be on top of your game every single minute. This may result in overpressuring yourself however when your energy is just not up there. Not expecting too much from yourself is specifically important in longterm bicycle touring where you will want both your physical as well as your mental condition to be healthy over extended periods of time. You do not want to be at the end of your game in the middle of a dessert or on a 4.500m mountain pass. Riding a bicycle all day while overpressuring yourself mentally will result in pushing your body into unhealthy territories. To accept and forgive yourself for your current level of energy therefore provides much needed mental ease.

See the following description of the energy levels in the same way as you would look at Maslov's hierarchy of needs: the most basic level of energy must be met before you will desire the secondary or higher levels of energy. I'll describe the energy levels alongside some examples on my own trip.

energy level 1 - body & bike

Naturally, the first step in getting anywhere on a bicycle is a functioning body and a mechanically sound bicycle. Energy level 1 in that sense symbolises the choice to ride out that day or not. I've had days where I just felt too ill, hungover, or broken from previous riding days to even start. Accepting this lack of energy is the most important of all. If you push yourself and ride out on a day you actually know you shouldn't the situation will turn against you at some point in the future. A personal trip example: I was food poisoned in Vietnam. It took me out for a day or two. Still not fully recovered I decided to ride out the next day thinking the riding might speed up my digestion and would get rid of the problem sooner. Two days after, the stomach problems turn into a general malaise and I strand somewhere having to recover for a full week. So when you don't feel at least 80% awesome, don't ride, just wait a day. There is time. Moreover, ok-I'm-below-energy-level-1 acceptance will actually make you recover faster. A second hinderance for riding could be gear related. A malfunction on the bicycle could prevent you from riding out too. Or when a defect hits on the road, it could seriously eat away at your energy and motivation. I remember getting incredibly frustrated over my brake pads hitting my rims at every circulation of my wheel in Georgia. I tried fixing it 5 times that day without success. I cursed at everything around me creating a funky scene on the side of the Georgian highway. Stuck at energy level 1, I was not at peace with the situation at all, blurring my ability to think in a problem-solving manner. I later found out a poor aluminium composition of the rim made it crack. I was only able to fix it when Santos send over a new rim to Aktau, Kazachstan. To get to my point: only if the body and the bike are okay you can hop on and start riding. If not, don't worry, accept it and take all the time needed to get exited about riding out again. If body and bike are good to go, congrats, you made it to the minimally required level of energy in bicycle touring. Hopefully you're quickly able to move up to energy level 2 because getting stuck in energy level 1, being busy with just keeping your health and gear at the minimum required level to ride a bicycle, during long periods of bicycle touring will slowly suck out your soul.

energy level 2 - looking up

So you feel good and you're on your bicycle that seems to function: it's time to look up. Energy level 2 merely concerns your ability to observe. To observe your surroundings with all senses. The magic of bicycle touring is that you're out in the open, exposed to all elements. You see, smell, hear, feel and yes, taste, your environment continuously. Whereas in a car only one sense, seeing, is stimulated, on a bicycle all senses provide continuous input. To be able to truly observe and appreciate your surrounding requires energy, but is a great source of energy simultaneously. From riding the desserts of Uzbekistan to riding the Kuala Lumpur city center, if your energy is right, meticulously observing both types of landscape should be an endless source of wonder and fascination. I remember days at which my energy was just enough to start riding out and to be able to look around, but not high enough to actually care about smiling or waving a people. That is why energy level 2 is not the ideal level to get stuck in.

energy level 3 - interaction

You're on your bike, you're enjoying the scenery and hell yes, there is enough energy to put effort into making contact with the locals on your way. This is energy level 3. This is the feeling you've longed for: the freedom to go where ever you want to go, the flexibility to stop whenever you feel like it, the spontaneity to meet whomever catches your attention. You're in the zone. It allows you to be humble and grateful towards everything that crosses your path, and more importantly: you're able to share your energy with whomever notices you passing by. A little smile here, a wave there and a brief exchange of words easily ends up in a invitation to have a tea, coffee, breakfast, lunch or even a stay-over for the night. There is all the time in the world and nothing pushes you to want to continue cycling. No way you're missing the chance to an authentic meet-up. You feel like learning, like exchanging stories and you notice the feeling is mutual. I call this 'the zone' because when it comes to interactions with locals all the energy you put in will come back twofold. On my trip I think I've been in the zone for about 70% of the 13 months. I've experienced closing myself off from local interaction for some time in Eastern Europe, China and parts of South East Asia due to different reasons. And I feel thankful for having experienced so much sincere interaction with amazing individuals throughout my trip.

Turkish hospitality is truly unequalled. I cycled up a steep road when Mohammed, guiding his herd of cows home, ordered me to stop to have a extremely elaborate lunch with his wife and mother at his house. Since spoken communication was limited to an extensive monologue (he didn't quite seem to grasp the fact that people exist, like me, who don't speak Turkish), I was pulled into an amazing hospitality rollercoaster: ending in Mohammed throwing my bike into/onto the back of his car, taking me up the rest of the mountain and giving a private tour around his valley. I think he thought biking up was simply impossible. Admittedly: it was damn steep. These first 'cheating' kilometers were totally worth it :) Looking for a place to sleep in the small town of Keskin after Mohammed dropped me off, I was aided by this friendly gentlemen who helped me to a place to sleep in a teachershouse & invited me to his house to have an iftar meal with his friends. I learned my first Turkish words from his 4 high-energy kids :)

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Jun 17, 2017 at 8:24am PDT

energy level 4 - capturing

Energy level 4 is specifically applicable for those who want to capture their trip on video. Since I made a decision to capture my trip (till China) for a YouTube collaboration with Discovery Channel, I have been busy making video for about half my trip (read more on how I got to collaborate with Discovery Channel here). I've already described the pro's and con's of this decision in this post and just want to make the following point here: being able to shoot authentic interactions with locals while on your own is close to impossible. Your energy needs to be very pure for someone to not be bothered by your effort to find the right angle to film the interaction you're having at that moment. This challenge made me pick my moments to ask someone: only if my energy was right, and I estimated the person wouldn't mind ending up on camera, I would actually bring up my film project. This has resulted in many many meetings not caught on camera because I felt the filming would disturb the authenticity. So in line with Tom's postscript to his 5th point: if you decide to make video on the go, please show a fair picture of the trip. And please don't ruin the local's experience of bypassing bicycle tourer by being an insensitive asshole who only wants to get his/her video shots. Be gentle, ask permission, share your good vibes :)

Took a picture of this beautiful old man at the bazar in Samarkand. Walked up to him and showed him the picture. Old as he is his eyes were breathing life. After a broad smile he stroke his beard with his hand and then his heart area. He took his hand up to my face and lightly stroked my beard and then my chest. We had spoken no words, and no words were nessecary. A kid came up to me explaining it was a sign of deep appreciation and a wish for good fortune. He needn't have explained.

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Aug 9, 2017 at 10:38am PDT

Practical preparations

Practically seen there is already so much material out there. I'll share some of the sources that helped me out most:

• tomsbiketrip.com - for just about anything
• stantours.com - helped out obtaining visa's for Iran & Uzbekistan
• De Vakantiefietser - rich website full of relevant info on gear, but even better is their Amsterdam based store, walk in, check out their products, talk to the staff and get exited
• De fiets en wandelbeurs - massive yearly fair on biking & hiking. Awesome to go and get inspired

Besides I purchased the following books in my preparation.

I wouldn't say it is absolutely necessary to prepare like I did, however, I noticed it did give me some advantages gear-wise and route-wise over some of the people I met on the road. For most cyclist riding West to East China is close to impossible to get a visa from on the road. I was prepared by applying for a second passport in time in Holland. You'll need prove of the fact you need it from an employer which for me Discovery came in handy. By leaving the second passport at a Chinese visa agency in Holland I was able to start traveling with my first passport, and arranged the agency to send the second passport (now including the Chinese visa) to Kyrgyzstan for me to be able to enter China a couple weeks later.

So the film making for the D TOUR Youtube show has come to an end: I made it to China. I have extensively written about how the collaboration with Discovery came about just before my departure. And since the D TOUR filming has pretty much taken all my 'spare time' attention on the trip I have ignored this website for a while now. It is therefore time for some thoughts on how I experienced the project and to see whether I would like to keep this tiny online island afloat.

Yesterday the last D TOUR episode was posted. It is briljant to be reminded of a share of the memorable experiences this trip has brought me. Thanks @discovery_nl for the help in making this trip possible. And thanks @bruutamsterdam for the enjoyable weekly flashbacks. I'm appreciating my trip in a more private manner now which is absolutely recommendable if you have the means. Online sharing is a great way of letting people know what you're up to but since external appreciation is proven to be a driver of people's happiness, it could also turn into a dangerous unhealthy mind trap. So hell no, I'll not continue vlogging upon getting back home but hell yeah, I'll continue shooting scenic drone footage and capturing stories of locals.. and share them ;) Took this pic while riding and making up this post which by the looks of it make me regret spending time on my phone over the past minutes. Anyway, my road continues. *Shuts off internet connection and puts away phone rather quickly*

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Nov 15, 2017 at 9:43pm PST

In short: it has been good. Let me sum up why.

financial

This project has extended my financial means: not only directly through the contract I signed with Discovery but also by making in-kind sponsor deals relatively easy. With thanks to Santos Bikes, Ortlieb & Agu. It has allowed me to go on this trip with high quality gear. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to get this far without the financial and non-financial support.

the fun of filming while filming

Secondly, I've enjoyed the creative process of film making. I've learned that I enjoy looking at my environment with an eye for the right angle for a good shot. And by bringing the drone there have been no limits to the amount of angles on a situation. A continuous creative juice eruption. Surely it has taken a lot of mindspace, but travelling slowly on the bike I feel I've had the time to both capture and enjoy a scene. More on that later. Only in capturing interactions I've experienced the difficulty of keeping it authentic vs. capturing it on video (which requires you asking the subject for permission which in turn could ruin a potential genuine meet up). I've picked my moments carefully of when to film and when to keep the interaction for myself.

the fun of filming after filming

No need to create a photo album back home. A paradox hides in the capturing of a moment on a picture or video: it distracts you from truly experiencing the moment while it allows for easy reliving of the moment afterwards. I've valued the weekly reliving of my experiences during the trip. The episode made me go from "ohyeah, that was great fun!" to "wow, did I actually film that?" to "man, this guy was the best cycling buddy yet". It was nice to be able to share the footage with the people that were actually featured in there. And I think I'll appreciate being able to relive this trip in so much detail for the rest of my life. BUT I still feel that all that does not weigh up to the distraction of the moment that a camera brings. A vivid memory is worth a thousand times more than an amazing photograph. Sounds like regret? Well, yes and no. I think there might be moments I missed because my eyes were following the action on a camera screen. But to share a vivid memory with impact requires face-to-face interaction, which is in sharp contrast to the easiness with which video's with impact can be shared online. This is where my last argument comes in.

the response

This project has had some impact. No matter how much I might have disagreed with the vibe and style of the episodes, after the uploading of the last one I was overwhelmed with public and private reactions of viewers (read Instagram post below). They ranged from school kids telling me that they didn't mind cycling to school anymore to people that shared their grand ambitions to also go on world cycling trips. Precisely this impact made it worth to have spend a lot of time filming. Before I left I told myself that it would be fine if my mom would be the only viewer of the show. I am grateful for the fact I've been able to inspire some more people :)

1,5 week without a wash or bed, severe stomach aches (must have been that funny tasting canned fish of last night), fever, crazy headwinds and a stream of horn-sounding traffic passing by on a never ending uphill: yesterday wasn't my best day physically. However, I had just had some time to read through some responses and pm's on the last D TOUR episode. What a feelgood frenzy that was (and is). It gave me chills. During my physical low I was on a mental high. So what to do as a tough cycling tourer? Ofcourse: I got on my bike, started pedalling, and cried. For a couple of minutes. And then some more. They were tears filled with humble pain. It helped. Thanks for everyone that made that funky moment possible ❤️ So is this post all soaked in vulnerability? No. The second picture is me climbing a 2800m Chinese mountain pass. Woa. So cool. and irrelevant. Oh and: I made it to the city of eternal spring today!

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Nov 17, 2017 at 7:45am PST

downsides?

Yes, there have been three real downsides to the Discovery collaboration on D TOUR. Firstly, although I was looking forward to travelling through Iran, I decided not to upon approaching. I estimated the risk of being considered a spy or journalist too high: 'working' for an American firm, carrying a drone and having to send GB's of data back to Holland wouldn't really debunk that upon first inspection by Iranian officials. A shame, since I'm highly interested in the country.

In general I think I would have had some more time to cycle weren't it for the hundreds of GB's I had to upload or send home via micro SD's. I stayed at hostels some days longer because my uploads were running and I searched for post offices and postcards in the most impossible areas. I think I wouldn't have had to take the trains I took in Uzbekistan and China if I had spared this time for example. But these ofcourse are very foreseeable consequences that I considered before agreeing to a collaboration.

The third downside has been some struggles that carrying a drone bring. I've spent time researching legislations in different countries, mostly to find out there is just no or limited info available. In Baku, Azerbaijan, I've spent 2 days looking for a shipping company that would ship it forward on my route, only to find out none of them are willing to ship drones. Why? Because I had learned at that moment on my trip that it was illegal to bring it into Uzbekistan. They would make you destroy it with a rock at the border. So, there I was, stuck with this awesome device that was turning more and more into a liability. To conclude that story: I decided to just take the risk of taking it with me in the hope they wouldn't find it. Took some breathing exercises and a massive amount of luck, but got the drone in and out of the country. What precisely happened at the borders is a story apart. Oh, and all this excludes the stress that flying that device actually creates sometimes. Like crashing it in Georgia, landing it in Chinese ricefields or blocking a tiny Bulgarian mountain village's electricity supply by flying it into, and actually snapping, an electrical cable.

So would I do it again? I don't think so. Besides a fit with my intentions and personality (more on that in this post by Tomsbiketrip.com that gave me a lot of energy before I left), I was able bring up the enormous amount of energy needed to ride a bike to China and film the whole thing simply because it was an deeply held dream of mine. It was because of this honest motive that I was able to convince Discovery to step into my dream, instead of the other way around (we had a very interesting period of contract negotiations :)). So in other words, would I cycle the pan-American trail and film it for Discovery to make another series out of it? No. Because that would not be a dream I hold.. yet.

Would I cycle the pan-American trail, film it and make it into a self-directed documentary wherein the locals I meet speak about their dreams? Much more likely.

I am currently thinking about what to do with all the raw footage I've gathered on this trip when I get back. Ranging from nothing to a series of short films. I'm open for suggestions :)

I tried to capture my motivation for cycling East in words to include on this webpage. It became an endless text before I even started the trip. It was full of arguments to want to cycle: it's one big physical and mental adventure that will provide personal growth, I'll get to truly taste the cultures I'll cycle through, I'll travel the world powered only by my own legs, etc. etc. It felt unnatural to put up because it wouldn't grasp a deeper alibi. Something that feels so natural shouldn't need arguments was my thinking. So I decided to leave out a 'why' page. I actually did write a post on how the collaboration with Discovery came about. But more importantly, I wrote a must-read post for anyone considering a longterm bicycle trip that indirectly answers the 'Why would you?' question.

I'm halfway my trip as I'm writing this and I decided to not share the text but a video that motivated me before I left. It captures the magical atmosphere, the state of mind, and therefore the reason of traveling by bicycle.

With thanks to the cyclist featured and the maker of the video for the inspiration.

On the one hand it's incredibly relax not to worry about having to edit the footage for D TOUR myself. On the other, it feels crazy to go onto YouTube to watch my own show. And yes, believe me, I've shot enough weird footage to make me into a complete moron on the show if my beloved editors would wanna do that (I did tell em that a slightly retarded representation of me is okay.. since it reflects.. well.. me). It was a friend of mine that notified me last week on the second video that was just uploaded.

@the English visitors of my site: I'm sorry, the show is produced for the Benelux, and will therefore be fully Dutch spoken. Perhaps YouTube's auto-translate offers a slight (often extremely funny) option to understand. AND obviously: once I pass the Dutch-German border my Dutch is useless in conversations with locals, so I'll do that in Swahili for you.

I'm happy with the first 2 video's. Thanks BRUUT Amsterdam and Discovery NL for making it awesome. I've got full confidence in our collaboration for the coming half year. Thanks for that!

As the video's came online, the media frenzy around my trip began. I was at RTL Live last Tuesday (they subtitled me as cycle-noob.. true story), tomorrow morning I'll be called by Mattie & Wietze on their morning radio show, Het Parool will publish an article coming Tuesday, NH Nieuws will broadcast an item coming Sunday at 7pm, RTV Amstelveen's item broadcasts tomorrow at 5 pm and my hometown's Amstelveenz magazine publishes an article in their April edition.

Meanwhile I can't wait to leave. I would like some ease of mind the first couple of days. Unplugging from the internet, media and other continuous information inputs. In my mind, I'm only thinking about that first morning I wake up in my tent with just a single thing to do.. cycle east.

In de RTL live studio met de fiets #vooraldehaardmaakthetzogezellig

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Mar 21, 2017 at 3:53pm PDT

make your world bigger

It was the start of fall in 2014, when my buddy Jordi and I swiped past a sponsored FB post by Discovery Channel. The post said something like: "Discovery celebrates its 25 years of presence in the Benelux! Make your world bigger is our new slogan. Complete a challenge and win a snowscooter safari to the northern lights!" As most of us would normally react reading posts like these, Jordi and I went: "there's probably a thousand of professional photographers and filmmakers participating.. so no chance of us winning a competition like that. Plus I don't want to go around looking cheap by begging people to share or like our entry." I say photographers and filmmakers since we soon after found out that the competition was build around sending in footage (either a photo or a video) of completing one of 25 challenges. I say cheap because a lot of millennials now see gathering likes on social media as a unhealthy way of building self-esteem. The challenges varied from 'finding gold' to 'fetching the first random train in the morning': they were all build around the new Discovery company slogan 'Make your world bigger'.

So we sat there staring at the screen, doubtful. But when our heads turned towards eachother I signalled a slight smile on Jordi's face. F*ck it, lets just do this. As Jordi had just taken his first big steps in building his film production company I knew the two of us would be able to create something worthwhile. We decided we were in. But not just in, no.. we promised ourselves to make something that would win with a certainty of 95% when compared to the uploads of our competitors so far. We got to work. We spent an afternoon making a chart of all the challenges, matching them up with video content we had already shot on previous trips (like this ski trip in Madesimo, Italy, and this vid of a mountainbike ride in Bergen. Not this one, we had fun making it though.. I hate soccer.) and writing a script for the challenges we still had to shoot. We then planned two days to shoot all the material we still needed. I remember asking an employee of an Albert Heijn bread department for the beastliest loaf of bread he sold (Albert Heijn -or better: de app- is Holland's largest supermarket chain). He recommended tigerbread. That made sense to me. Next thing I know I was tying a loaf of bread to a fishing line and started imitating Discovery's Bear Grylls on camera while Jordi was pulling the loaf of bread through some bushes of a small park in the Amsterdam city centre.

Next up it was Jordi to edit the movie into something that would blow away Discovery and make us the unquestionable winners of the competition. It took him about a week to make all the footage into a perfect 4 minutes. The remainder of the story unfolded quickly. We got called by Discovery soon after sending in our video: "hey guys, we would like to invite you over to the Discovery offices sometime after the competition deadline. You might be one of the potential winners". We cooly answered: "sure". But freaked out completely together after hanging up the call. It actually meant Jordi had to re-edit the full movie for a Discovery branded version of the thing (as shown at the top of this page). Meanwhile we tried to keep down the optimism/expectation that the invitation meant that we were the winners of the competition.

Cool on the outside but extremely stoked on the inside we entered the Discovery office on a Friday afternoon in November 2014. We heard some employees whisper something about winners before we entered the boardroom.. and soon after we were toasting to champagne with a bunch of Discovery managers for winning the trip. But not only did we win the trip: our video would be broadcasted on-channel for about 20 times over the next week reaching about a million people. A dream scenario for Jordi and the launch of his company!

BTW: Jordi did a post on 'how to win a video challenge' that is worth the read. But more importantly we were about to embark on a week full of adventure in the north of Finland. The first week of March 2015 turned out to be one of the craziest cool weeks (quite literally) I've ever lived through. And how to better share this experience than by showing you the aftermovie we made that perfectly sums it up:

Audacious and ambitious as we were, we sent the aftermovie to Discovery along with a proposal suggesting we could become their new-media content creators; traveling the world and shooting content for them. A brief email back said something along the lines of: ...ehm.. no. In hindsight this adventure has been key in the development of D TOUR years later though.

dream come true

Skipping forward in time 1,5 years, I was considering my future options early fall 2016. I had been working on the circular economy at two NGO's in the meantime: at Circle Economy I was part of the team that pushed The Netherlands to become the world's circular hotspot and I worked on creating a European Remanufacturing Network. At De Groene Zaak I managed to gather 100 best practices of the circular economy in The Netherlands. But both a growing hatred for deskwork and a nagging misplaced feeling made me bring back work to two days a week by Oktober 2016. I did not need a lot of time to realise now was the time to dive into the feasibility of one of my oldest recurring dreams: biking to China. I needed time though to figure out why I wanted this. Isn't this an insane thing to want? Were does this wish come from? I soon figured that primitively slow traveling the globe at low cost while meeting its people was a deep longing that among a thousand other reasons made this feel such an intensely logical thing to want to do. Check out a brief 'why' webpage here.

The next steps I took were in the direction of:

• Knowing whether biking from Amsterdam to China was possible in the first place
• Knowing whether I would like riding a bike to China as much as I thought I would based talking to as many world-cyclists as I could and reading as many how-to's as I could (yes, there is multiple books that could be titled 'How to become a world-cyclist for dummies')
• Figuring out whether I actually had the financial means to undergo a trip that I learned would take half a year minimum.

So yes, I soon found out that actually a lot of people ride bikes round the world. I found out my dream is certainly not unique, and is possible for sure. I spoke to all time bike legend Eric Schuijt and to Theo Jorna who runs the Benelux's largest annual hike 'n bike fair. The thing got a lot less scary straight away, especially when I found out that additionally there is a ton of online resources that guide you through your preparations. So all seemed smooth until I ran into the monies-part of things. With the limited amount I saved it would become an incredible harsh trip, meaning that with 2nd-hand gear and daily wild-camping I would perhaps make it to China. Perhaps. So I figured I needed sponsors to ease my budget. I started probing local bikeshops to see whether sponsoring had any chance of succes. After getting yet another 'no' over the phone, I remembered Discovery's by then two-year-old slogan: 'Make your world bigger'. It hit me that 1) this slogan was pretty applicable to what I was about to do, 2) they might still sort of remember me from the competition and 3) I still had some contact details of Discovery managers.

So I send an email. And it pretty much changed everything so far.

D TOUR

Two days after having send an email that in short said "hi, I'm Bas, remember me? I'll bike to china, perhaps you'll like that. Bye" to two Discovery email adreses (of which one bounced), I got called by Discovery's Marketing Manager. He thought it sounded like a pretty damn big adventure and wanted to talk about it face to face. So a week after, I re-enter the building were I had been before once (good memories) and I chat with three young Discovery gents. Their words enter my head but only get to me once I get home. They told me that they are not interested in having their logo on my amateur personal website visited by only my mom (hi ma! I'm doing good! at the time of writing I'm actually still at home, not all alone biking a 50degrees remote desert... yet! Oh and sorry Bas! I don't actually think this website is amateur! *Bas is a good friend of mine who wholeheartedly helped me out with this website. Yes he has the same name as me, I'm not talking to myself on my own website. That be weird. 7lab is his awesome IT company btw and this text in parenthesis is getting way too long). They told me I was potentially going to be their first Youtube 'star', if I choose to collaborate with them on making my trip a public Youtube show.

.. wait, say that again?

They asked me to film the whole trip to make it into a Youtube show. I told them I had to think about it. I told them that I wouldn't have time to edit the show on the road. They said they would take care of the editting of the show in Holland. They asked me whether I made vlogs already. I told them I hated vlogging. We laughed. Awkwardly. I also told them I didn't like Discovery Channel anymore because it only broadcasts scripted unnecessarily-sensational American sh*t shows. We didn't laugh. It was just really awkward. I told them I had to think about it. They told me that in case of succes people could be waiting on bikes in capital cities along my route to join me for a little while on my way. I told them that was the most absurd thing I ever heard. They told me to think about it. I told them I would think about it.

I thought about it.

I thought about it. I tried to consider the potential consequences for the rest of my career. I couldn't. I tried imagining biking to China while trying to film the whole thing. I couldn't. Was it practically doable to carry loads of film gear along? I didn't know. I spoke to bikepacking guru's. They didn't quite know either: "It would probably be possible, but I don't really know anyone that has made a trip like that." I tried vlogging with a lot of people around. It gave me the most narcissistic feeling I ever had. I made a list of all the hurdles I would encounter on the way. The already existing list of the general hurdles of biking to China without making it into a Youtube show now expanded to 237% the size..

So here I am following a rather bizarre dream of wanting to cycle the globe with zero experience in bicycle touring; considering to make video for Discovery Channel along the way, while neither having any experience in film-making or vlogging.

In the end I simply stopped thinking about potential consequences and started considering the most important thing: does this opportunity feel good? And: would I have fun filming myself and my adventures? I let it rest for a couple of days like I do for most major decisions I make. Meanwhile, the Discovery team was internally doing their side of the research necessary to see whether this plan was feasible, which probably revolved around estimating reach & my filming abilities, defining target audiences and convincing budgetkeepers that the pay-off of the show would extend far beyond the investments.

By the end of 2016 I had the combination of my ratio and my gut-feeling decide that I was game for this crazy and publicly visible adventure. Discovery got back to me around the same time with the news that there was enough internal support to push the project forward. And now about 2 months later I've signed a singable contract (that leaves enough flexibility for a trip that is as uncertain as predicting next year's weather in The Netherlands), Discovery has just decided on a name for the show - D TOUR -, I've got my gear complete, gave a presentation to all Discovery employees on my plans last Friday and am really really really exited to depart. Which was due on March 4th, but due to some delays in setting up a PR campaign, and the Dutch elections overruling non-news like 'another no-life millennial does something completely useless to attract attention', Discovery has postponed my departure to the 26th of March. Which I am completely OK with since it actually gives me some time to realise what I'm about to embark upon. Plus you should be happy since else there was no way for me to take time to write extensive posts like this one, that you've actually fully read through

D TOUR TV promo

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on May 18, 2017 at 8:56pm PDT

unless you miss these final words: cowdung, airfryers, bloatware, electrical equipment, engineering skills, dog.

It is interesting how irrationality truely touches something deep inside and how it is such an attractive thing in this hyper ratio-driven world. BTW.

-2018 AFTER TRIP EDIT- Halfway down my trip I wrote about how I experienced the D TOUR project here.

Although the plan was to cross Iran and Turkmenistan I reconsidered on my trip due to the Discovery collaboration. 'Working' for an American firm, carrying a drone and having to send micro SD's back to Holland did not seem to be the smartest set of circumstances to travel through Iran with. This is the only deviation on the route caused by the collaboration with Discovery. I wrote about other pro's and con's of the D TOUR project in this post.

To be more precise route-wise I have followed the Limes route to southern Hungary. From there I rode the last sections of the Iron Curtain trail that took me southward towards Istanbul. From Istanbul onwards I followed one of the oldest Silk routes through the center of Central Asia to China. After entering China I pretty much let go of any route planning until the morning I rode out of a major city. One gets pretty flexible on a trip like this.

Find the route I rode in the Google maps plugin below. I rode the blue lined parts on the bicycle. The green lines represent other forms of transportation.

I've added brief reviews of my experience with the products. Additionally, to be transparent in how I've gathered my gear I've marked items that I got through sponsoring with an asterisk*

bicycle

My bike is a Santos Travelmaster 3+*. Santos is a Dutch bike brand that is known for its strong durable aluminium frames and expertise in Rohloff gear hubs and belt drives. Besides these luxuries my Travelmaster features:

• a Brooks C17* saddle - this saddle is weatherproof and maintenance free. My butt is happy with this choice as(s)well. Did not experienced major pains or sores on this saddle
• a SON28 dynamo hub* and SON lights. Superb product. The Rolls Royce amongst bicycle lights. Easy while-riding switch-on and very bright light
• a USB-werk to charge my phone/gps. Works moderately. With steady 18kmph+ riding and no too cold temperatures, it will keep my phone battery even when in use and will charge slowly when in airplane mode
• Magura HS33* hydraulic brakes. No problems. Allows for fast and easy brake block replacement.
• Ergon GP5* handgrips. Very satisfied. Multiple grips have allowed me no issues with the hands.
• three Santos Alleshouders* are mounted to the frame to carry two big water bottles and a petrol flask. Simply briljant. Fit even 2,5L soda bottles
• Ortlieb back-roller pro classics* - these rear bags are truly massive: even carrying a ton of camera gear leaves me with leftover space
• Ortlieb Sport-roller classics* - front bags. Sturdy & waterproof
• Ortlieb Ultimate Pro E* - great handlebar bag that connects to my USB-werk to charge my electronics while riding. Waterproof. Allows me to quickly grab and tuck away my camera
• Ortlieb Rack Pack* - The medium size perfectly fits over the rear panniers horizontally
• Ortlieb Light Pack Pro* - for waterproof off-bike equipment carrying. A extra gift Ortlieb hooked me up with. Very happy they did. It's small when rolled up & big when in use. Rain-proof. Ideal for those rainy restdays exploring cities or landscapes. Even used it for multi-day hikes (although it is a bit small for that purpose)
• Repair tools: a Topeak Mini 20 Pro multitool, spare parts: a spare belt, breaking blocks, spokes, Rohloff & Magura maintenance kit, tubes & tire repair kit and ofcourse a pump (the Lezyne Pressure Drive)
• I love the contrast between my high-end gear, the uber fancy bike and my ultra cheap Hema bike computer I got from a friend. I dropped the thing somewhere in Azerbaijan once, it broke it. So had it replaced by a similarly cheap device that keeps resetting for some reason. Sadly, that is why I don't know the exact amount of km ridden on my trip

home & kitchen

My home is packed into the Ortlieb Rack Pack on top of the rear bags. Eric Schuijt of the Amsterdam based biketouring shop De Vakantiefietser was kind enough to provide a solid discount on most of the below items:

• MSR Hubba Hubba HP - super lightweight 2 person tent that fits me and all of my bags easily. Very satisfied. The HP version is slightly warmer (definitely needed at -10C in Tadjikistan) than the NX. And it endures packing it moistly for a couple of days without getting moldy
• Yeti Tension Comfort 800-L - this sleeping bag is spacious, lightweight and extremely warm. I love the fact that the zipper comes all the way down to my feet for a blanket setup on warmer nights. If temperatures below zero are on route though you might want to opt for something warmer. The comfort temperature of -1C of this sleeping bag has left me some cold feet on quite some mornings
• Sea To Summit Comfort Plus - this sleeping mat is double layered so that it remains usable after one side gets punctured. Moreover, it isolates well from cold from below. Very comfortable investment
• Exped air pillow L - I've always had one specifically shaped foam pillow at home. This air pillow was the closes match I could find. It suits me as well as my beloved foamy
• Ayacucho Thermolite - this sheet bag keeps the inside of my sleeping bag clean. Moreover it subtracts about 2 degrees off the comfort temperature of the sleeping bag, making it comfortable down to -3 degrees celsius. Worth bringing
• Helinox ground chair - I actually wanted the new Helinox zero chair but the stores didn't have it yet. Weighing in only 520gr this chair makes my day, at the end of it
• Petzl Tikka+ headlight - solid headlamp with multiple brightness & blinking modes. Love the red light option in case you don't want to attract attention while illegally wild camping in some Chinese bamboo forest

Night 227 - bamboo forest

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Nov 11, 2017 at 3:53am PST

My kitchen is packed into the left rear bag. In there I find a:

• MSR Whisperlite Universal Combo - Multifuel stove that runs on gas, petroleon, kerosene, etc. I am happy with this product. Just cleaned it twice while running it mostly on benzine. It is a dirty job though setting it up, which is annoying because you are about to handle your food and hand-washing water is scarce when camping
• MSR Trailshot pocket-sized water filter - small sized water filter that will allow for filtering water in remote area's. Used it infrequently, it takes about 10min to fill a 1,5L bottle. Definitely necessary if your planning on crossing area's similar to the Pamir mountains in Tadjikistan tough
• 10L Ortlieb waterbag - Used this product once on the Pamir. BUT: one of these will come in handy on longer dessert stretches like in Uzbekistan (which I skipped most of)
• Sea to Summit Xpot 2.8L, Xplate & Alpha lite Spork - Awesome gear. Light, small and functional. Love the folding cooking pot
• Light my Fire Firesteel, Pack 'n Snack kit & Salt & Pepper plus kit - definitely bring a firesteel with you for lighting your stove on rainy days
• Leatherman Rev multitool. Chinese police made me break off the knife at some checkpoint
• Small foldable Opinel knife and a GSI Pack Spatula - love the Opinel. Chinese official took it when I travelled by train

clothing

Important in clothing for pretty much any outdoor sports is the three layer build up. The first layer – the base layer is ideally worn directly against the skin and its primary function is to transport moisture towards the outer 2 layers where it evaporates. The second layer should bring warmth. This insulating layer helps to transfer moisture from the base layer on to the outer layer. The third is the outer layer that provides protection against the elements (while biking, wind and/or rain can be disastrous if the outer layer isn't functioning right). It should breathe at the same time though too, to let the moisture out. Make sure to invest some money in some quality clothing. My technical wear:

• Agu Secco Scandic Shirt* 2x (base layer)
• A thermo long sleeve and thermo legging I still had from wintersports (base layer) - best bring on the trip! Long sleeve tights are useful in all conditions (to either keep you warm, or to protect from getting sunburned). Bring a light and a dark colour one
• Agu Hiberno* (base layer) - long underwear with padding for cold days. Sent it home halfway my trip since it was weighty. I preferred separate padded underwear, a thermo legging and outdoor pants for the coldest of days
• Agu Uomo* 2x - padded boxershorts
• Merino wool socks 2x (base layer) - you can actually wear these for a week without too much stinkyness
• Sealskinz waterproof socks - with the gore-tex shoes I carry these are unnecessary items. Fascinatingly, they are actually waterproof though
• Kiltec down jacket (insulating layer) - this thin down jacket surely saved my life
• Agu Vernio windjack* (outer layer wind) - this jacket weighs only 100gr but makes huge difference during hot and windy days
• Agu Jack Secco Evo Rain Hivis* (outer layer rain) - I'm happy with this rain jacket since it's reflective, breathable and fits my long upper body perfectly
• Agu Tecco* (outer layer rain) - breathable rain pants! Ps. I forgot them on the Pamir with a Tadjik family just before a couple of days of snowy riding. I'm sure the oldest son proudly wanders the Tadjik highlands with it now
• Shimano Gore-tex Bike gloves (outer layer rain) - very good cycling winter gloves
• Agu Line MTB short* - very comfortable padding on this one

The crying stood me closer than the laughter. #icebeard

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Oct 5, 2017 at 8:33am PDT

Casual clothing:

• Ice Tech Lite SS - merino wool tshirt
• Supern Base Tee - merino wool tshirt
• Some shorts - bring one with loads of pockets, you'll love pockets! With zips that is
• Mai Tajo Long - Yeeey, zip-off pants and pocket heaven
• Icebreaker Compass LS Plaid Shirt - the only fancy shirt I carry to decently walk into embassies to arrange visa's. It works
• Some regular socks & boxershorts

Other items:

• Merrel Black slate/Yellow - I choose these shoes because of the thick durable sole needed to withstand the grip spikes on my bike's paddles. Can't go without them now
• Gore Bike Wear Countdown Summer 2.0 - Summer bike gloves with padding. Love these for the hot but bumpy days
• Agu Kerio MTB black* - I first had my eyes on a lighter touring helmet but my head simply is shaped too long front-to-end. This helmet fits perfectly. I admit only wearing it on crazy downhills and into crowded cities though
• Teva flip flops - these are my favourite footwear! But lost them. Got some other sandals that cause zebra feet
• Buff High Uv - Buff is great for cold days as well as protection from the sun, and as a face mask against Chinese smog

electronics

In making the YouTube show on the go I carried three types of camera: a compact camera that does a good job as a vlog-camera, an action camera for close-up action & wet conditions and a drone for scenic overview shots.

• GoPro Hero 5 - I haven't shot a lot with the GoPro. And if, the editors most of the time choose to not use it on D TOUR. Still think it is a valuable addition, and doesn't weigh a lot
• A GoPro case and a ton of mounts (some pre-mounted onto the bike)
• GoPole Scenelapse - a timelapse timer that turns 360degrees in the course of an hour. Should use this thing more. It's potentially awesome
• Canon Powershot G7 X Mark II - one of the best vlog camera's the moment I left. And jeez, this thing has endured. Chronic mistreatment (bouncing around caseless in my handlebar bag) hasn't influenced the quality of shooting. I'm impressed. Still can't believe this thing shot most of a show that ran on television. Drilled a hole though to clean the inside of the lens: a tricky procedure
• Manfrotto tripod - great little tripod with an awesome flexible ballhead. 100% score in combination with the Canon
• DJI mavic pro - the smallest drone with advanced tracking technology on the market. Ok, first of all, this device is amazing. Second of all, this thing is a true pain in the ass to bring on bicycle touring. Mostly because 1) it is stressful to fly. Most people experience quite some stress flying it from their lazy chairs, but I taught myself how to fly it while riding my bike.. in MANUAL mode. The results are amazing, the personal experience doing it: not so much. The first couple of times are great: the adrenaline is racing through your body and the shots are great. But by now I feel it's just a shitload of money up in the air to shoot some 'cool' footage. But maybe at the time of writing I'm just still in my detaching-from-capturing-a-lot-footage phase. Oh, and it is a stressful thing to carry over borders. However, it made it on my trip all the way and endured multiple crashes. In other words, this drone is amazing

Rice field porn. This humongous area is just a fraction of the total amount m² covered by the World's Heritage listed terraces of Honghe Hani. The drone is able to truly capture the magnitude of the landscape. All good, weren't it for the accidental water-filled rice terrace landing. Was close enough to quickly fish it out of the water. Now hope the 5 second rule goes for dripping drones as well.. my love-hate relationship with that device continues.

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Nov 28, 2017 at 5:38am PST

• Oneplus 3T - awesome phone with dash charge, dual sim, a 3.400 mAh battery and good camera's (incl a great front-end camera as a back-up vlog camera). Like myself, this phone has seen the most gruesome conditions and I'm honestly amazed by its sturdiness. Get yourself a very good cover though, I've got mine wrapped in an Otterbox and a screenprotector. I navigate on the phone with the OsmAnd+ app
• 11inch MacBook air - small & sturdy
• Sony Ereader - gotta love books
• A ton of SD's and Micro SD's, a rugged LaCie 1TB harddisk and a 2TB Seagate harddisk - Send most of the SD's and the filled-up LaCie home from Turkey already
• two 10.000 mAh powerbanks of which one is solar chargeable: the Xtorm Evoke. Admittedly, the solar aspect is not necessary. I used it for about 2 weeks intensively on the Pamirs, but it is not must-have
• SkyskrossWorld Adapter MUV USB - great for if you have just one plug to your disposal. Combined with the drone charger I can expand one wall plug to 4 usb outlets ánd charge my drone batteries at the same time

personals

• 2 travel towels - one is plenty
• Toiletry bag
• Glasses cases + a bunch of contact lenses - the contacts are great for both rainy or hot sweaty help-my-glasses-slide-from-my-face conditions
• Powders and cremes for the buttocks - never used any
• Malaria pills & pills for altitude sickness - Good to carry just in case but I didn't use any
• First aid kit - finger-crossed never needed it

Closing in on day 250 and having ridden over 12.000km I'm having a moment of appreciation for the gear that made it possible. In celebration I've updated the gear section on my long forgotten website. Find the link in my bio. Besides, I'm using the opportunity to thank my sponsors @santosbikesnl, @ortlieb_waterproof & @agu_cc for their in-kind support on this adventure.

A post shared by Bas Jongerius (@bcjongerius) on Nov 30, 2017 at 12:19am PST