Thoughts on Fear, The Night Before

For the last time for at least a month, I envelope myself in the comfortable embrace of a warm bed, in the land I was born in. Mexico awaits to be trodded not by my foot but by my wheel; if only I could maintain a veneer of the triumphant confidence of that phrase. In reality, I have sensed creeping fear prickle my skin and shiver my imagination in an ice-bath of anxiety and nervousness for the unknown that awaits me tomorrow.

The truth is that I am prepared as best as I could hope to be. I gave this endeavor great thought and time as I planned these past two years. I understand the challenge that biking Baja California presents, yet the trepidation I feel burrows inside the marrow of my bones, betraying the confidence and strength I have tried to groom. Dramatic? Perhaps. The rational side of me, that slow-thinking System 2 that understands reason and fact and knows that dozens of people, if not more, travel the length of Baja every year without incident, struggles with that evolutionary reaction to avoid danger, to seek the comforts of the life I've built and retreat into personal ignominy, ashamed of quitting, yet safe and comfortable and warm.

Many people will one day confront the fears of their lives, regardless of whether those fears are perceived or very real. In the last few days of thought, the fears I have of Mexico, and of this ride I am soon to begin, are a bit of both. We face danger every day we step from our stoop to cross the street, yet we do so without hesitation. Is that the same as taking a risk to ride into a country that many Americans somewhat wrongly, yet also somewhat rightly, perceive as enormously dangerous? Many will think not, but many people will never have the opportunity to find out and even some of those who do will choose to not find out. The delta between our fear and the courage we have to face that fear is the proof we are alive, that the warm blood which pumps through our thousands of veins and capillaries is not an illusion, but the miracle of millions upon millions of individual decisions made throughout the body of human history. You and I are here today because of fear, not despite of it.

The unknown of the challenges I have not anticipated, of the mental obstacles that await in the yet unwritten chapters of this Baja adventure, is scary. But I anticipate with each passing mile, my resolve will grow. And the fear I have now will pass like land beneath my wheels, like the stars in the night winking at the approach of a dawning day sky.

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