To be truly challenging, the Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure,
like life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise it would be doomed as a routine
traverse, the kind known to tourists who are coddled between resorts with their
bicycle. The Adventure belongs to the
idealists of the world who refuse to accept such extravagance at the expense of
decent living conditions for those less fortunate. If you are contemplating financing an epic
bicycle tour and have the means, reconsider how your wealth can be better used;
if you dream of the adventure but don’t have the means come join us- rich and
poor become noble in practicing Millard Fuller’s charity.
“I’ve always dreamt of bicycling cross-country but can’t afford
time or money”. What we cannot afford is
not to go. We are enmeshed in the
cancerous discipline of “security” and in the worship of security we fling our
lives beneath the wheels of routine- and before we know it our lives are
crushed.
What does a person need- really need? A bit of food each day, shelter, a spot to lay
down- and altruistic activity that will improve this world. That’s all, in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system
to selfishly consume until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time
payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our
attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.
The years thunder by.
The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked with dust on the
shelves of patience. Before we know it
the tomb is sealed.
Where then lays the answer?
In choice. Which shall it be:
bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
Adapted by Mark Major for the Fuller Center. Inspired/copied
from Wanderer by the actor,
author, and sailing adventurer Sterling Hayden (1916-1986)
