1 May, 2023

An 8 year old mountain pass

Throughout the development of The Journey, I have crossed many mountain passes; real and imaginary, psychological and physical. Whether walking or riding the bike, to me, reaching a mountain pass is the moment I know my legs or Athena’s engine can take a break until the next stage.

8 years, 96 months, 2922 days, 70128 hours, 4207680 minutes

Take any of the above that helps you better understand the magnitude of this effort, project and journey. Around 200,000km covered, almost always on my own.

This journey/project had many difficult moments along with joy, sadness, rise and falls.

This text was going to go inside my Patreon channel as a way to commemorate another year on the road and as a thank you gesture to those who support me there with a subscription. However, I will take this opportunity to also share some thoughts and reflections as not everything that glitters is gold.

The challenges to produce a project like The Journey are many. I sometimes think that we often don’t consider the consistency and persistency necessary to develop such a thing. Please note that there are many like me who are their own multitaskers who are their own community manages, producers, editors, sound engineers and filmmakers. These are roles that consume plenty of time. This is why I would like to emphasize that the financial support from current, or would-be, subscribers is immensely important in order to complete these projects.

I’d also like to share that I’ve had bittersweet moments while in The Journey. In these times of immediacy; short clips in social media and little transcendence, dialogues and jokes repeated ad nauseam by different people, the attempts at making a reel or video go viral, poorly acted or produced.

The endless scrolling of photos without stopping to appreciate or to contemplate. We deliver likes on selfies and backs turned toward us gazing a vast landscape. Long term projects which require a lot of effort end up drowned in the sea of social media cliches. This makes me reconsider what I can share online or whether to close all of my social media accounts. Do not worry, I will not open an OnlyFans account. Or maybe I will, as long as I can finish this project.

Sometimes I feel like I am drowned inside a jungle, so dense that impedes my knowing of where I am or what I am doing. I feel as if I am lost and I need to take off, fly out and observe, from another perspective, as if I was an eagle.

The times I have done this throughout these years I’ve felt that although the journey is a solitary endeavour, the effort in its development is not. But I do wonder whether what I am doing will be of any interest beyond the few crazies that have supported me all these years on the road.

Whether it would be with information, contacts, housing me at their homes or supporting the project financially (by buying a photo or helping me set up workshops along the countries I’ve been) their support has been instrumental to reach the point where I am now.

I also feel that the workshops have, besides generating revenue, the added benefit of inspiring and sharing experiences with those who wish to start their own projects and stories. Their own journeys.

 And thus I wish to extend my most heartfelt gratitude to those who have made the impossible, possible with their support.

Without their help I would have not been able to get to this point. It would also be impossible to continue this project further to a closing I feel it’s not too far off.

As I said in the beginning, reaching a mountain pass gives my body some rest and a break. However, a project like The Journey does not allow the head to rest. Thinking and planning. All possible scenarios are carefully considered: visa timing, routes, places to visit, oil changes, tyre changes and mainly finding ways of funding this endeavour. Like in a chess game, a multitude of opportunities are open in every play, so every move must be considered carefully.

Therefore, this commemorative set of thoughts put on text becomes an invitation to subscribe to my Patreon channel. Any support, however small it may appear, will go a long way to continue moving forwards and finish this project. And you, to me and my heartfelt gratitude, would be the foundations upon which it was built.

Thank you very much