The Thousand Year Journey

In the dead of winter in 2015 and in the depths of a concrete submarine slowly sliding down the side of a coulee, I was in a windowless room trying to find a video to score for a class project. The way that my life changed that day was kind of funny, actually. I suppose it isn’t necessarily easy, or even possible, to sense when you’re on the verge of a big change in your life. This seemed like an unlikely spot to find much inspiration in any case. 

I was on Vimeo searching for something interesting and art-y when I stumbled into the Staff Picks section. Nothing really caught my eye until I saw a wide-brim-fedora-laden backpacker, backlit by the setting sun cresting a mountain range. The title read The Thousand Year Journey: Oregon to Patagonia. That sounded pretty interesting to me.

Jedidiah Jenkins quit a job he loved in his thirties to go on a bicycle trip from Oregon to the southern tip of Argentina. Being in my early twenties and somehow even more unsure of my future than I am today, I was really taken by this concept. I think we sort of dream of running away and travelling the world, especially when things get murky. If you are anything like me, things felt pretty murky at that age. It was around the time that the idea of living a minimalist lifestyle became widely popular, and I was feeling a pull to drop everything and go off the grid for a while. As the video went on, he moved into his justification:

“The routine is the enemy of time. It makes it fly by. When you’re a kid, everything is astonishing; everything is new, and so your brain is awake and turned on. So every passing second your brain is learning something new; learning how the world works. And as you get older and your brain has figured out the patterns of how the world works… once your brain establishes a routine… the alertness goes away; the fascination with how the world works. 

I want to be aware of every day that I’m alive. I want to make it to eighty-five and be exhausted because I have been alive and awake every single day. And I think that’s the duty of being an adult. When you’re a kid everything is new, so you don’t have to work for it; you’re just astonished by it. Once you’re an adult, that’s a choice; you choose adventure for your own life. 

But it’s not about the bike, it’s about getting out of your routine, and that could look like anything. And that’s why I’m doing this bike trip. I don’t want my days to control me. I want to control my days. I want to choose a mind and a soul that’s wide awake. In a sense it turns your hundred years on this planet into a thousand.”

Wow. 

I continued watching videos to find something for my project, but that seed stuck in my mind. It’s funny how sometimes when you’re confronted with something life-changing it can take a little while to fully register. I remember speaking to a friend a few days later who lived a comparatively nomadic lifestyle and tried to remember the name of the video. Thankfully there is a watch history on my Vimeo account and I could once again locate the video, otherwise I may have forgotten it, and perhaps would have never written this song.

Throughout the coming years I kept returning to it. Whenever my creative friends were in a slump or somebody was feeling stuck, I recommended it to them. To me, his thoughts have this very healing quality to them. Something very powerful happens when it feels like somebody else has felt like us and knows what we’re going through. Even without resolve it can be so inspiring. I think what made this even more inspiring is the fact that Jed came from a situation that would be considered conventionally fulfilling and sought to gain nothing more than the opportunity to learn from upheaving his life like this. Heck, this guy probably gave up more than I would simply in order to change the way he thinks. I got to experience a taste of that epiphany in a dingy and dim-lit classroom. For that I am forever grateful.

In the summer of 2018, after graduating university, working, and many months of travelling, I returned to the idea. This time I pursued the feeling it gave me. I wanted to reflect the message that had done me so well. Over the course of a few weeks I put this piece together, later to present it to my band the Minimums where it would take the shape of what it is today. I hope you enjoy listening. It has been a great journey getting it here.

Find the song here.

And the original video here.

Get Jed’s book about the trip here.