You want a social life, with friends

Thoughts on having it all.

What up, Traipser!

I'm lining up my first bikepacking trip of 2022. This one is super remote, so gear needs to be dialed and food planning is kiiinda important. ("Uh, don't worry fellas, I likely mailed our resupply box to the right place...")

Trips like this take effort, but part of the fun is the anticipation. Between ridiculous jesting on the text string with my buddies, reading descriptions of hot springs with desert views, and sampling the decadent trip treats ahead of time, I'm already living it up!

It's the front side of the memory dividends I talked about last week. Reframed, it's a positive aspect to travel, not drudgery.

Speaking of bikepacking, I'm shifting to my 2x/month summer newsletter schedule starting today. Catch you in two weeks!

Bikepacking About, Edition 103 features:

• ​Juggling it all

• Defunking water bladders

• Cutout portraits

• Trees throw shadows

• T Rex. on the playground

Onward!

Dakota

BTW, if you missed last week's post on playing life like chess, check it out here on the blog.

Speaking of chess, I found this old shot of me playing in Christchurch back in 2005.

Juggling it all (read this on the blog)

One of the guys I mentor is in life setup mode and is juggling an incredible amount of obligations and hobbies. When I observed this, he asked me to list them...and was surprised when I came up with nine items immediately.

Yup. Sometimes we boil away in the pot and don't realize how overwhelmed we are.

This reminds me of a quote from Oprah: “You can have it all. Just not all at once.”
There is time to dig deep into many things in our lives, but scattering our energy all at once doesn’t full commitment or success, potentially creating dissatisfaction. Embrace life's seasons for what they are.

Which brings me to this wonderful poem that Austin Kleon shared awhile back. Substitute anything you enjoy for the three activities he mentions…and then choose two.

You Want a Social Life, With Friends - Kenneth Koch

You want a social life, with friends.

A passionate love life and as well

To work hard every day. What’s true

Is of these three you may have two

And two can pay you dividends

But never may have three.
 

There isn’t time enough, my friends–

Though dawn begins, yet midnight ends–

To find the time to have love, work, and friends.

Michelangelo had feeling

For Vittoria and the Ceiling

But did he go to parties at day’s end?
 

Homer nightly went to banquets

Wrote all day but had no lockets

Bright with pictures of his Girl.

I know one who loves and parties

And has done so since his thirties

But writes hardly anything at all.

Hoping for an overnight spot on this next bikepacking trip as cool as paddling out on rafts last summer on the Three Sisters Three Rivers route. Memory dividend!

Clean out your water bladder!

I don't know about your backpack's water bladder, but mine occasionally gets funky. Like Chelsea-won't-share-water-with-me funky.

Except now those days are behind me thanks to a brilliant recommendation from Traipsing reader Barry in Vermont: Bottle Bright fizzing tablets. Drop in a couple of these babies, watch 'em fizz for 15 minutes (or go contemplate an over-scheduled life), and you're set.

Cutout portraits

People create the coolest stuff. For example, cutout portraits of famous people that use the natural world as part of the portrait.

As the artist, Rudy Willingham, puts it: "I use cutouts to transform the world around me. It’s my own spin on street art—combining pop culture people love with the city they love. Instead of using spray paint, I use paper. I’m just too old & slow to be running away from cops."

And by famous cutout portraits of people, I mostly mean I love this one of Big Bird.

Trees cast shadows

I love this quote from Sendhil Mullainathan from the Knowledge Project podcast. (Thanks Jono!)

Trees cast shadows that inhibit growth. And I think the toughest thing in founding things is that you don’t want to cast a shadow, but yet you have ego. So I noticed early on in a lot of things I was doing, I was building more to make myself central inadvertently than I was asking myself the question how do I make myself obsolete.

This absolutely applied to me in the past with my business. "My clients only will work with me, I can't hire people." Pffft...WRONG.

I am also pondering how this applies to other aspects of my life... 

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And so we wind down Episode 103 of Traipsing About and head into the much-dreaded unsolicited advice section:

Ask yourself if you'd be better served punting some of your current projects or hobbies to the future. Remember, you can have it all...just not all at once.

P.S. I rewatched Jono´s video from my Oregon Outback bikepacking trip last year and it drummed up all kinds of excellent memories.

I'm visiting my family in June and look forward to pushing my niece on the swing, her fav thing. Which got me thinking about T. rex on the playground...

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