A Mantra For the Ride

Somewhere before Menzies, which was more than 1000 miles back from where I am now (I am currently in Alice Springs), the question– which is now my daily mantra– started to appear.

When I ride, I do not have music playing in my ears. Rather, I spend time in silence, allowing the sights and sounds to direct where my mind wanders off to. Somewhere along the way, the following question kept recurring: How Can I Be a Responsible Person in This Modern World?

Somewhere on the Great Central Road, I took less photos and videos– every scene started to look the same. The images, out of context, will start to look redundant. But, within my mind, ideas, thoughts, and questions begin to be shaped by the external images. So I’ll share my internal thoughts, too.

My mind wanders to my grandchildren, whom I love dearly. After I am long gone, I want them to have a world in which they can live happy, content lives. But I am saddened that they might not have a stable world in which to live,

I am quite aware of the environmental havoc we humans are causing. The effects of climate change now seems irreversible. The chaos– economic, social and political– arising out of climate change repercussions seem to be getting worse. Much of the turbulence in the world can be traced back events rising out of the effects of climate change.

Meanwhile, people roam the outback, mostly for pleasure, in their heavily petrol-dependent trucks (many use trucks as their main outback cars because of their high center-of-gravity and high horsepower). I met one man from Switzerland, who converted a commercial diesel truck into his personal camper (pictured here), shipped it to Australia, and is now taking a year to roam the harshest regions of Australia for a vacation. This conversion is not uncommon out here.

There is no recycling here in the outback. Plastics, metal, paper are all considered rubbish (trash)– too costly to even consider a recycling program. And these things cover the landscape as I ride. I am not exaggerating to say that whenever I stop, even for a brief 5-minute rest, there is always some unsightly trash near me. Rubbish remains where it is dropped.

The lessons learned by the aborigines of keeping the world as it is for thousands of years is quickly disappearing within one generation. In the meantime, the new inhabitants have done much to wreak havoc on a land which they think is big enough to absorb the harm that is being caused.

I realize I am living in a world where even my own actions can’t escape the ramifications of me contributing to the earth’s demise. Although I am riding a bicycle, which is the least environmentally damaging of all the vehicles on the road I am traveling on, I am also aware that I used a jet to get here, a form of transportation which spews an inordinate amount of carbon into the atmosphere. All that for my pleasure.

Consensus is now building that we have now crossed the point of no return as far as reversing climate change. The only action left is to figure out how to manage it so it would do the least amount of damage to world societies, that is, figure out how to transform into the new realities that will be there.

So what is my part? It is something for me to ponder on. The mantra– How can I be a responsible person in this modern world?– repeats itself every day. I just know that my heart aches when I imagine my granddaughters suffering as a result of the new realities– and that, as a human race, most of us have done little to try to make a better world for my grandchildren.

I won’t be around to see the havoc that will come. But my grandchildren will.