This was originally published on my old blog BackpackBook (Livro de Mochila), a project that blended literature and travel, sometimes just traveling in my lucid dreams. It ran as âMinha vida eu ponho para viajarâ on August 10, 2007.
Freedom to live, to roll and to travel, to put a life out on the road.
How badly I want to free myself from time, or from the weight, or from the weight of time. And if that isn’t possible, then I free myself to make better use of the time. The ropes aren’t strong. All it takes is courage, and maybe a little common sense?
No common sense, not now!
Basically the courage is already a challenge. Courage to free yourself from whatever bothers you, from the things imposed on you, from the small slaveries, from whatever they say is fashionable, from the humiliation and the pressure.
Courage guided by pressure, the kind from the heart.
Motorcyclists are brave. Some of them out of obligation, others guided by the freedom of the heart and the emotion, though let’s admit that common sense isn’t the strong suit of these brave people who like having freedom in their faces. Very good for making a trip through storms, on a slippery road, with water running down your back, your body stiff and sore and the destination nowhere in sight. A genuinely thrilling trip. Ask Che Guevara.
Working with that feeling, the people at Heads Propaganda put together a simple and accurate campaign, Minha Vida Eu Ponho Pra Rodar, whose main piece is a deliberately homemade video of moments of freedom on two wheels.
Forever young.
How good it would be if our life came with a soundtrack like that (and if it didn’t rain during the trip) :D
Jokes aside, this discussion about freedom was started by Cezar Calligaris on Webinsider, commenting on how little attention we pay to our first life. He was talking about the advertising world, but the trip clearly goes further than that, since what he’s discussing is the freedom to live.
Free us from the ropes of not having time, or from that excuse, so we can put our lives out on the road, whether on two wheels, four, eight, on foot or on the rails, on foot along the rails.
All that’s left for me is a backpack, a book and the freedom to live.
One day I’ll put my life out to travel.