Going sightseeing on a bicycle is quite different from going sightseeing in a car, especially in the Netherlands, where 95% of the roads have designated cycle tracks and where many purely cycle roads exist. Through forest and field the cycle paths deviate from the roads, allowing for a relaxing time surrounded by nature without the noise and smell of cars.

We chose to cycle across the famous Delta Works, the sentinels of the country. The Delta Works are the latest technical marvel installed to hold back the sea. These great dams open and close allowing sea life to continue within this boundary while holding back the mass of water. Having travelled this long road, the only road along the coast, countless times by car, I thought I was familiar with the skyline of the giant steel structures reaching towards the sky.

This time things were very different, however. Much to my surprise, the cycle path ran over the top of the water works and along the highest point of the dikes. From high up the view is magnificent. To see the land stretching off to one side and the water on the other is very impressive. In one glance it became very clear that the water level of the North Sea is higher than the land of the Netherlands. You see why it is called “The Low Countries”. The difference in level is substantial and, when you see the sea stretching into the distance, quite frightening.

Graham is totally fascinated by the scale of what has been achieved here in regards to the protection of the land. I am too, but not to that extent. Being Dutch I have learned so much about it in school, I have come to regard it as normal. “The Netherlands lies below sea level” has become a noun that has lost its meaning, much like band names such as AC/DC or the Beatles have lost their original meaning. Who thinks of the little animals when we mention The Beatles?

Sharing this tour with Graham has made this part of the Netherlands come alive. It has also left me hovering between feeling proud regarding the giant steel constructions, a tribute to the power of man, and feeling fragile… will this last? One leak and all this land will be swallowed by water…

I went back to the UK for a week and took my bike with me. Going for a long ride I realised I had forgotten the difference with Holland:

In England you are either going up or down, you are never flat. That’s why the Dutch don’t seem to develop muscles when cycling.

In England there are cars – everywhere. (More coming on this!)

In England there are hedges! You can’t see the country you are cycling through. In Holland you have views, great views, even if they are flat!

When I first came here, as a car driver, I was shocked by the danger – to me. The culture is completely different, and difficult to get used to. If you are going to spend any time here you need to get used to it quickly.

1. No matter what happens you, the driver, are at fault. The law states so. This quickly becomes obvious. Cyclists just cycle wherever they want and totally ignore cars. You have to watch out for them or you will have an accident and then you are in trouble!
2. Mostly cycles are on dedicated cycle paths, safe from you, but there are real problems when they cross each other. Generally the cycle paths have priority and are marked as such. This is, for me, a real issue on the exits to roundabouts where I expect to drive unhindered. I was amazed to see that you have to stop, on the roundabout, and let cyclists through. This is dangerous for cars!
3. Often the cyclists were making eye contact with the driver, as they thought! I am in a right hand drive, British, car and they were looking at the passenger thinking they had been seen. Wow, eventually I realised what was happening and I found I had to look everywhere.

I thought I was home and dry until I realised I had an equal problem with other car drivers. Holland still works on the law that cars coming from the right have priority, even if it is a local road. I had a number of close shaves thinking I was safe on a main road.

There’s a lot to understanding other cultures, but once you get there it is great fun. I am getting fitter and browner in the summer sun cycling everywhere. Perhaps Spain will be OK for cycling too – although I have heard the drivers there just completely ignore cyclists – maybe that’s why they don’t really exist.

We’ll see!

The Midnight Coach for London departs. The bright red traffic lights, the road closure ahead – they are all irrelevant. I greet my trusted friends: neck pillow, earplugs & eye mask. I feel so happy inside. It has been a while since we have travelled, I think to myself. After settling into my seat, I lose myself in memories.

Two and a half months in the Netherlands have flown past. Months of working intensively, of joining forces with actors, director, musician, lighting designer and theatre to create my play. A time of drive, of inspiration, fun, learning and growing; of connecting with the other Moon Scouts, a nearby spiritual centre, several women groups; of long cycling tours; of philosophical discussions.

I am woken by the passenger beside me. My eyes squint in the bright lights. The red digi-letters show 3:28. Customs – twice. Back in my seat, I float off again.

Here I am on the bus to London. My project has finished; with raving reviews. The time to move on is approaching. A wonderful circle of friends has grown in a short period of time. I feel at home within the local community. At the same time, I am looking to the next adventure.

People know I’m only passing through. That doesn’t mean they keep their distance though, because I don’t.

One of the secrets of being an Earth Pilgrim is to deeply connect with those around you. Connect on a personal level. Connect like you will always be there. Because you are. It doesn’t matter whether it is only for an hour, a day or three months. It is all about how well you connect with people in the moment!

I think most people nowadays misunderstand this. With tools like texting, email, skype, VoIP and facebook, nobody really leaves anymore. You can keep in touch. True, but often these become tools to hide behind. Great, you can talk to people anywhere. But how about connecting to those around you, in the moment? That is still up to you!

This evening, in London, the colouring in the sky was phenomenal. On the train, no one was paying attention, they were all too busy “connecting” on their phones. Occasional glances were just thrown to check if I was watching them. Is that real?

Connecting is more than just texting, or spending hours together. Do you remember that lovely guy or couple you met on holiday? The same kind of people live next door to you, two houses down in the next block.

It is you who opens up when you are on the road. You can do the same at home. When you run into your neighbour next time, make an effort to go beyond: how are you – have a nice day. You’ll be surprised!

Even better: imagine really connecting with your partner – again, or maybe even for the first time. Now there’s a thought!

Spare five minutes, thirty minutes, even an hour and genuinely listen to what others have to say. All they want is to be heard. Your contribution to make the world a better place.

Everyone is an Earth Pilgrim, whether you are on the road or not.

It is frighteningly bold colour that denotes aggression tempered with cheerfulness. It’s the colour of the setting sun with all it’s power and beauty. It’s the colour of fire. The dutch show their total lack of taste in displaying it everywhere.

For me, coming from Britain, it has rather shocking connotations that create a totally different feel from the fun in Holland. My family are from Glasgow and before that Northern Ireland. We from a Protestant family, part of the ‘Plantation’ of Northern Ireland. This started as far back as Oliver Cromwell (1599-1688) who gave his troops tracts of land in Ireland to pay them off at the end of the English Civil War. Thus started a conflict that persists in Ireland still.

The situation was further engrained into popular mythology by the involvement of King Billy, as he is known. King William III of Orange (1650-1702) was ruler of Holland and, in order to defend Holland from the French, became involved with a struggle for the English, Irish and Scottish thrones against King James, a Catholic. He prevailed at the famous Battle of the Boyne in Ireland and became the saviour of the protestant/loyalist cause in Northern Ireland.

So, bizarrely, the colour of fun and pride in Holland has become a colour of hatred and bigotry in Northern Ireland.

So while I celebrate with the dutch football fans I remember the deaths and the hatred over hundreds of years involving the Loyal Orange Order in peculiar homage to a dutch King. But understand it… no, never.

(Thanks to Cheta Urmila for the photographs from Holland.)

Issues of ‘Conscious Living’, ‘Independent Working’ and ‘Travel Culture’.

There is so much writing and blogging in this area that the reader can get quickly overwhelmed, This  glance at what’s going on will help  understand the range of what is out there and help get some perspective.

Alex at Blogussion is a 16 year old with the kind of sharp, pithy thoughts only the young seem to have. In ‘Interviews are Boring, Reviews are Fake & Lists are Kind of Lame. Let’s Get Real‘ he takes a pop at all the bloggers out there who are lay in their writing, and there are many. I plough through a lot of stuff to find the material for this compilation, and sometimes I wonder if I am wasting my time! I love writing and I hope that I am putting me into the stuff I write, I suppose if not you won’t be here reading it.

For most of my life I have been a Lighting Designer, I am currently in Aylesbury, England to complete the lighting of a new theatre. My passion is light and lighting. Dave at Go Backpacking has just posted a great video on the ‘Berlin – Festival of Lights‘. Go and see, I promise you it’s worth it, great filming and cool music. Oh and the lighting’s good as well!

Jonathan Mead has a great site, Illuminated Mind full of advice about creating your own life or, as he puts it,

“To create a revolution based on authentic action. A movement of people liberating themselves through living on their own terms.”

In a recent post, ‘Lessons from One Year of Self Employment‘, he celebrates his one year anniversary of being self-employed. He draws the lessons he has learned. The first is the one I like,

“This may seem like an overly-simplistic lesson, but it’s probably the most important one that I’ve learned. Doing what you want and having your business and life be exactly the way you want it is possible. It just takes continual and deliberate direction.”

That continual and deliberate direction is one I am following.

Josh Fulmer at The Wander Project created a ‘Travel Blog’ before he started travelling. He has just posted that ‘The Wander Project is Dead‘. He does not find it interesting and worries about how it is going to affect his trip, he wants to just travel. For me this is a perfect example of the need to be authentic, only write about travel if that’s what you do, and the need for passion, only write about what you feel passionately about. I am passionate about travelling, it’s what I do all the time. Come back to it, Josh, when you are on your journey.

Nancie (LadyExpat) over at Budget Travellers Sandbox has a great time around South East Asia. I love her recent post, ‘Are Koreans More Polite When They’re Naked? — A Visit to a Korean Bathhouse’. I was interested in some of the comments about the problems of getting naked for Americans! I am staying in Holland at the moment where it is very acceptable to spend all day naked at the local sauna. You sit around in the sun, swim, sauna as well as drink and eat, all naked and mixed. It’s all very normal.

Anil Polat at Fox Nomad has been writing extensively on travel for four years now with a lot of great stuff there. He recently list ‘9 Unorthodox Travel Heroes‘. Despite what was said above of list posts I like this one because he takes the rare step of giving us some role models in our travelling. Let’s have lots more of these.

They have been working on the concept of ‘Transition Town Tilburg’. This is an initiative to make Tilburg part of the Transition Network. This network was started in a small town in the UK, Totnes, a town not many people know or have heard of, but one that started a worldwide movement.

As the Transition Network admits, they don’t know if their initiative will work. They see it is a social experiment on a massive scale, based on the idea that if we wait for governments to act, it’ll be too little, too late; if we act as individuals, it’ll be too little; but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time. It is a response to what they see as the pressures of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and economic contraction.

They believe that you can only create what you can first vision. If you can’t imagine a positive future you won’t be able to create it, a positive message helps people engage with the challenges of these times. They see that change is happening and that we have a choice is between a future we want and one which happens to us. Their primary focus is not campaigning against things, but rather on positive, empowering possibilities and opportunities.

There are two important concepts behind this initiative, sustainability and resilience. Sustainability is the  capacity to endure, the ability for biological systems to remain diverse and productive over time. It is the potential for long-term maintenance of well-being for humans dependent on the well-being of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources. Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from change, the capacity to deal with shock in a positive way, particularly in areas of food, economics and energy on a local and a national scale. It’s about the need to develop the basic skills needed for life.

It’s a worthy approach to the problems that are perceived to exist in the world but is it realistic or is it small-scale idealism that makes people feel good but does nothing to change the real world?

Looking at one local initiative I have come to the conclusion that it is good and worthy but doesn’t really do anything. There is an initiative for ‘Sustainable NE Seattle’. It’s mission is “to support the transition of our community toward resilience and sustainability”. They have goals of raising awareness, promoting pathways to the future, learn to share, connecting and cooperating and participating. Their values are inclusiveness, relationship to nature, celebration, respect, communication and creativity.

These are all fine words, created by a committee, but they seem to add up to no more than talking together, growing vegetables and some small scale, local energy discussions. This is not going to change the world and is not dealing with the significant large-scale problems they say we face in terms of climate, change and energy depletion. This is not to criticise the approach but just to realise that a bigger idea is needed.

In the recent climate change film, Home, there were examples of where things are changing, showing that it is possible to make a difference. The examples were all common in that they were all small! If anything is happening to the climate, and I mean if, then big issues are at stake and big solutions are needed. Growing your own food is not the answer!

I don’t have the answer except that I know that Planet Earth will survive but, maybe, we, as humans will not. The planet will, if necessary, take the ultimate revenge and kill us all, then it will re-balance itself. However, I won’t be here to see that happen. I do what I can to mitigate my journey here on earth, but I don’t pretend it’s about saving the planet.

To get a flavour of the scale of the Transition Initiative see this vidwo from their 2010 conference. There’s some great stuff being talked about, but world shattering it is not!

“It’s been an amazing year! You have helped me and nurtured me as I took my baby steps. You have given me space and supported my crude efforts to take the world by storm. You have given me a path to follow and lit my darkness.

“But now it has to end. It’s time for me to move on, time to find my own way. I need to shape my own destiny and manage my own efforts. I can no longer be one of the masses, one of the crowd. I need to shine in my own light and be seen for what I am.”

So what’s going on? What’s happened?

Bluehost is one of the best bargains on the market. You get space and bandwidth, unlimited domains, wordpress, and other, scripts. It just works! What else would you need?

You want to start a blog, launch your product, carve your niche in the virtual world. It couldn’t be simpler than Bluehost. That’s where I was a year ago. Wondering how to get it going, wondering what to do. WP seemed endlessly complicated, a CMS for geeks. Then I found Bluehost, they took all the pain away and made it happen.

But a year later I find my sites being strangled. They take ages to load, time we don’t have in this instant world of the internet. My customers and readers wait… NOT. I wait… NOT. I scream and tear my hair out… HELP.

Trying to work on the sites, designing or writing and publishing content becomes an exercise that is too painful for words. If I am having so much trouble, what is happening out there.

So I decided to off-load content that was slowing things down. My videos were already off the host at Bits on the Run, so now my images went as well. I setup S3 Amazon and took more load off the host. This helped, the sites speeded up, a bit. But it was just not enough, the speed was not reliable enough.

So I made the leap… from shared host to virtual private server (VPS). My writing, my blogs are real, they are a business, they deserve a professional infrastructure to run them. But wait a minute, you have to do everything yourself! There is just a blank disk drive and… nothing!

This is where I looked for help. I researched and, having found that VPS was the way to go for speed and efficiency, I found there was help out there. I found the Guvn’r and VPS Bible. WHat an amazing resource. He takes you through every step with video, notes and copy/paste code. A snip at $15 for lifetime access. The best money I have ever spent.

So now I have domains and sites running from Linode on my own shiny new VPS. The difference in speed is amazing. Now I can work in peace, no screaming, no hair tearing. Now my customers can get to see what I am talking about. Now I can really motor.

It has taken me two weeks of intensive effort but I am there, I am happy and all is running smoothly.

Thanks Guvn’r!

Issues of ‘Conscious Living’, ‘Independent Working’ and ‘Travel Culture’.

There is so much writing and blogging in this area that the reader can get quickly overwhelmed, as I do. This weekly glance at what’s going on will help me understanding the range of what is out there and help you, the reader, to get some perspective.

My aim is to keep it to a couple of items under each issue, to highlight not necessarily the best but certainly good, interesting and possibly quirky work. If you have suggestions of where I might look or what I am missing please let me know in the comments.

Enjoy reading.

Leo Babauta at ‘Zen Habits’ has an amazingly clean and uncluttered blog. It takes great confidence to do that, as well as being so well known that he doesn’t need to keep people on his site. He writes about some interesting stuff and his recent “The No.1 Habit of Highly Creative People” is a typical, well-researched, masterpiece. Read it and go away somewhere and think about it. Then start writing…

Everett Bogue is another Minimalist Guru. At ‘Far Beyond The Stars‘ he is currently pushing at helping us all to become more minimalist in our business life. In “How To Pursue The Work That Matters” he is moving down the same path as Leo but focusing on what we do in the process of our business. “I’m absolutely convinced that most businesses fail because entrepreneurs insist on spending time on assumed requirements of doing business instead of actual necessities of doing work that matters.” See Seth Godin below for another take on this issue.

Sean Ogle at ‘Location 180′ is having an amazing time working out in Bangkok. I met him there recently and had a great time. He wrote an amazing piece recently on the troubles in Bangkok and his reaction to them, “Deadly Riots, Tropical Paradise and One Very Dingy City“, but the piece I want to highlight is his last post on “The Evolution of Confidence“. He talks about how his confidence has grown over the past year of writing, out in Bangkok. It’s a lesson to all us writers, keep going, it only gets better.

Seth Godin is a Jedi Master. If you’re in any doubt see “But What Have You Shipped” on his blog. Wow, that really hurt, and it was meant to. Well, what have you shipped? For that matter, what have I? Maybe I should stop writing this post and get my products out…

(Actually I did stop and get an eBook out on ‘Male eXperience‘, go to ‘men and.. Male Energy‘ and have a look!)

Cindy Peterson at ‘Briefcase to Backpack‘ has an interesting interview with her husband as goes back into corporate life after travelling. In, “Trading In Your Backpack For The Briefcase” she looks at how Bill is adjusting back to a home and working life back in the US. I find this interesting because I only travel and have no intention of going back to an ‘employed’ life. Which are you?

Jodi at ‘Legal Nomads‘ is still travelling after nearly two years on the road. In, “Why I Quit My Job To Travel Round The World“, she talks about why she left and why she is still going, “and so here I am in Thailand, almost two years of travel later. I am a happier, more relaxed person with thousands of stories and pictures from some of the more fascinating places on earth.” She talks about the pressure from family and friends to explain why she is doing it, why is that people don’t understand?

In it I detail the practical steps I take to enable my travellling life as an Earth Pilgrim. Concerning luggage, I say, “Get 2 (and only 2) bags that are tough and not too big, for all your travel ’stuff’. In today’s increasingly difficult travel world baggage has become a dirty word with airlines. The big one, for check-in should be a maximum of 20kgs and the small one 7kgs, although I’m usually around 10kgs.“

You see I am not a backpacker. I stay in houses, apartments and hotels. I take my life with me, and I love it.

I had a comment on the site that said, “No one with any sense would ever carry up to 27 kg of bags around the world. I’m planning a trip at the end of the year and my target is 7 kg (just a carry-on).” Well I hate to dis-abuse this commenter, I am in right mind, and I do take that luggage around with me. Why, just because I am travelling, should I be subject to the luggage police for whom ‘travel‘ is about fighting through dirt and chaos with your load on your back.

I take my hat off to people that do it and I don’t criticise them, so please don’t force your model of the world on to me!

Oh, and BTW, you can buy an extra bag on your journey.

An authentic life means being true to who you are and what you feel and believe. It means being willing to go where your life takes you and it means knowing what that direction is.

Many of us (I include me because that’s where I used to be…) seem to drift through life without any great vision or purpose. We live from day to day and let others take control. We lose the ability to decide for ourselves and, worse of all, we don’t even realise it. We make money, or not, we have relationships, or not, we enjoy ourselves, or not, but we are left feeling unsatisfied with ourselves and our life.

We wonder how we can change this, we wonder how we can turn our lives round, we wonder if it’s too late. We look for motivation, we look for someone to help, we look for someone to tell us what to do.

I found Tony Robbins and he helped me to help myself. He, metaphorically, kicked me in the ass and made me look at my life anew. Through his work I found myself, through his work I found my purpose, through his work I found life. But that approach is not for everyone, indeed it puts many people off. Recently Chris Guillebeau was writing on ‘How to be a Motivational Speaker‘ in which he said: don’t…. He quotes a lady called Colleen who said,

You can’t just BE A MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER. No one likes that shit. What you should do is BE PASSIONATE ABOUT SOMETHING. Show up and talk about something you give a damn about. Your passion will be motivational in itself.

And how right she is. Passion is what I found, passion is what drives me now.

I love seeing passion in people and I love experiencing that moment when what’s deep inside a person takes them over. It’s that moment that they become passionate, that moment when their life takes on meaning, that moment when they start to live consciously.

Today I read a blog post by my son, Robert, in which he talks about the growth of this over the last year. It was fantastic to read of his passion as an artist and the depth of his commitment. I quote from it below along with a song by my other son, Richard, on the same subject.

Before I moved to London I started working as a Youth Social Worker.  At this time in my life Art was very much on the back burner as I felt the need to do something that seemed less ridiculous and indulgent.  The job turned out to be massively negative and only strengthened my passion for being creative, making me feel less guilty and selfish about the artistic pursuit.  Quitting that job finally drove me to move to London and commit myself to making art, and now, just over a year on, I have no regrets, am making work that excites me and finally feel I am moving closer to living a more authentic life.  Thank you to my brother, who wrote this song.

Fuck this job.  It’s not everything I want, I thought it was but now it’s not. Good faith ruined me, now I’ll ruin good faith.  Safety nets, in a bad place. I’m going to move to the city and dedicate my life to art. A life drawn outside the lines, anything else would be a lie. Plateaus, the middle, shades of grey.  I can’t and I won’t live my life this way. I’m going to move to the city and dedicate my life to Art. I’m going to draw outside the lines.

So my message to you is find your passion. Live consciously in your life and follow where that takes you.

And finally, let me know about it. How does this work for you, where does it take you? Travel, work, letting go? Let me know about it all.