Paving Our Own Path

We did it guys! More importantly, we did it OUR way! We live in an enormous world that has somehow managed to squeeze all of its ooey-gooey magnificence into just a few rigid, little boxes. 

   Selfish interest coaxes us into these spaces like a snake charmer, luring what it knows would otherwise be deadly into baskets woven together out of conditioning, narrative, and fear.  

   We see the instruments. We see the box. We didn’t even have to bite the charmer to slither out of it.

   We live in a world that says money over morals. Ambition over relationships. Safety over freedom. Safety over experience. Seek control over stuff you can’t. Control is what you need (like the Skyrizi commercials). Desire things you don’t need and that don’t belong to you.

   Find fulfillment, belonging, and happiness in the pursuit of immediate gratification, like with “The All-new Kia Sportage!” or this new space-age bed you HAVE to have, because if you don’t get it THIS way with the rebate, you’re basically losing money buying something else.

   The human condition has been exploited into the manifestation of truly terrible social conditions. We are losing our humanity and trading it for cost-effective efficiency, so we can try to shove the square peg of stuff we don’t need (entertainment included) in the vacant holes of relationships, meaning, and purpose. 

   This walk took a huge leap of faith! We didn’t hop on the trails others take. We carved our own path, both literally and ideologically. We could have accepted sponsorships and business deals and sold merch and STILL accepted donations like other content creators. We said, “Nah, we’re going to make an example out of it.” 

   Many of us believe we have to compromise. We have to compromise our morals, our experience, our careers, our happiness, our expectations. We have to for our families and to be pragmatic… We don’t. 

   We couldn’t show anyone that, ourselves; YOU DID. 

   This is what you have shown: that we can trust each other to take care of each other. We don’t need 20 layers of contractual obligation to make something happen. You trusted us (PAID us) to walk from Canada to Mexico. We trusted you to take care of us as we did. 

   We don’t have any material goods. Our purpose has simply been to help the world get along better and away from its lesser habits. We don’t belong to anything anyone can count on. No charity, no organization, no religion, no political movement; we’re just a couple who decided everyone needed to be reminded of their humanity. 

   This couple who, almost by accident, put a near-blind faith in the humanity left in the world, and soon decided to show it what a different balance can be had between safety and experience, money and morality, self and other.

   Because it’s our own brain child, it is met differently than those charities and movements backed by consensus and believers. It goes deeper than can be easily understood in a label, a line, or a few articles, and “training healthier thoughts” still remains so abstract as to confuse people at first.  

   But this is what the world needs! It doesn’t need clickbait titles, slogans, platitudes, and definitely not anymore thought terminating cliches; it needs nuance, understanding, and gray area more than ever before. 

   And here you have it! Our thoughts rule our experience! Years of documenting a resilient and positive disposition beneath a year of showerless camping, two years of sleeping in strangers' homes, 28 states, a walk from Canada to Mexico, and 600 strangers-turned-friends later, I think we’ve made our point! 

   Correction! YOU MADE OUR POINT!

Thanks for giving us all reason to hope!