LLW: The tenth instalment of your videolog showed you hitting some low moments. I think that feeling of loneliness is a common emotion solo travellers often have to deal with. How did you make sure feelings of solitude and the weight of the kilometres ahead didn’t get the best of you on such a long adventure?
Rob: There is a quote that I read recently in a book called Moods of Future Joy by around the world cyclist Alastair Humphreys that goes like this:
“Commitment is doing the thing you said you would do, long after the mood in which you said it in has left you.”
Loneliness is a funny thing. While on my bicycle in Kyrgyzstan, I went five days without seeing another soul, cycling through mountain passes and deep untouched valleys. During that time, I never once felt lonely. My mind was absorbed by the wonder and awe of nature. I was excited about my adventure, and I could not imagine wanting to be anywhere else.
I cannot recall feeling as lonely as I did once I hit eastern China approaching Shanghai. Cyclist Rob Luxton, a veteran of cycling in China, once told me “Eastern China is a killer!” and I couldn’t agree with him more. Surrounded by millions of people, stared at by millions of people, I felt disjointed from society and the environment around me. It was a very tough period of the journey.
The thing that kept me going was a pure commitment to finishing what I had started. I said I would skateboard across China. By hook or by crook I was going to do it.
(from here, about a dude skateboarding across the world)
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