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I’m currently on a 3 (or so) month backpacking trip with my wife, which will be mostly through Europe, before trying to find work in Canada for the rest of the year. It’s a completely new feeling to me, being the first time I’ve been out of the country and honestly, out of my comfort zone.

We both have a backpack with “the essentials” – clothes and toiletries basically.

When we were first packing, it didn’t seem to be enough – it was as though we were leaving all of this “stuff” behind. We felt as though we would never survive without it, but within a day or so that feeling completely left us. All of a sudden I realise the freedom that a light backpack gives you.

At home, when you are tied to many things – friends, work, possessions - it’s very easy to say no to things, because of all of these other external factors, but it is such a feeling of freedom when you remove them from your life. We can make last minute decisions on changes to make; we can literally get up and move in about 2 minutes if we want to.

I’ve only realised the power of freedom over the last few years. With so many possible commitments in life, it’s so easy to become intertwined in things that most people consider “life”. Contracts are a huge one – phones, internet, etc. Car loans, home loans, etc. They lock you in, and as a result, your decisions for the next “x” number of years.

I have no ongoing commitments at the moment – I’m tied to my wife and that is about it. It’s such a breath of fresh air, and I’m loving it. Who knows, maybe my opinions will change, but to be honest I doubt it. Life is great right now!

Freedom is probably my favourite word. If there is anything that I want from life, it’s freedom. True freedom.

It’s interesting how we change during our lives. As a child we are completely free. We are happy to attempt anything, laugh and play and run and smile and whatever happens happens. Never thinking of the consequences, just acting in the moment.

As we begin to grow up though, we learn that there are consequences to our actions. While this is healthy – learning for ourselves that we can get hurt from jumping from something too high – we also learn a lot from our parents. We are told not to climb too high – “you will fall and hurt yourself, come down please”, told to slow down on our bike – “don’t go too fast, you will hurt yourself” and told not to eat too many lollies – “you will feel sick if you eat too many of those”. It’s not a negative thing – parents look out for the well-being of their children.

From the innocent advice given by our parents when we were young, we are then bombarded with why not to do things. Fear on TV, fear in the paper, fear everywhere. If we aren’t given the advice directly by the TV, our parents are. Stay in line and everything will be ok, you will be safe, but be different, and who knows what will happen!

Most people, myself included to an extent, grow up into people that just conform and do the same as everyone else. We no longer laugh and run around and jump and do whatever we choose. We know that if we laugh at the wrong thing people can be offended. We know if we run around and jump up and down we will look like an idiot, so we take the safe option.

We all call it “growing up” and “being sensible”, but from my experience most people hate the constraints in which they live… They crave the freedom that they had as a child, it just takes a long time to realise this.

It seems almost a textbook lifestyle cycle for the Baby Boomers – my parents’ generation. They were born, free spirited fun loving children, then “grew up” and did the “sensible” thing and bought houses, had families and so on. Now as the kids are moving out, they are wanting their freedom back. Some may be rich enough to buy a holiday house, some travel around the world by plane or on a cruise ship, while others buy a caravan and drive around, stopping wherever they please. It’s becoming less and less common for them to just grow old in their house nowadays.

It’s been something that I have been aware of for a few years now, but only now am I piecing it all together. Humans are creatures that are born in nature. We need our freedom to be sane. Early this year my fiancee and I made the decision to lead a life of change. We will still buy a house. We will still “be sensible”, but we will force ourselves to retain some level of freedom in our life. By “mixing it up” we hope to lead an exciting life, with plenty of choice and an easy going lifestyle. We don’t need a lot, but we need our freedom.

Last weekend started off pretty average. I had a massive hangover despite how much I don’t want to drink alcohol any more. Go figure. It was an average night in the end, and I paid the price for it on Saturday.

Come Sunday though, the boys and I got together early in the morning and drove up to our local downhill track – Fox Creek. Fox Creek has multiple downhill trails, that you can “shuttle” with a car and a trailer. While I love my fitness, pushing a downhill bike up a hill is just too hard, and leaves you with no energy to barrel down it again.

We got around 12 runs in, and I had an absolute ball. While I’m well and truly rusty at doing jumps and drops at speed, it didn’t matter. I did what I felt comfortable doing (and from time to time what I wasn’t comfortable doing) and got such a rush all I wanted to do was hit it again and again!

About 3/4 through the day we took a break and I had time to think – “This is what I want from life!”. Every day we do such mundane tasks to pass the time, but getting a solid dose of adrenaline just removes all of the negativity in our life. Doing things that make us feel alive is what helps us to break the mold. I personally want to go to the grave knowing that I have truly enjoyed my time on earth. I’m not saying that it has to be to the “extreme”, but just doing things that you genuinely enjoy.

Everyone has their own hobbies that give them something. For me, riding makes me feel alive, and gives me a sense of freedom. Freedom is so important to me. When I’m barelling down a hill, I can choose my lines, hit one of the three jumps, and so on – freedom in a sense. Whatever you need from life – just do it.

For me, I live to ride, and ride to live.

Sex is a taboo topic, right? But what makes a topic taboo in the first place?

Growing up as an average Aussie kid, I’d say I was in the same situation as most. While it’s not as though I would get in trouble about talking about sex, it would just be plain awkward, and obviously you don’t want to actually talk to your parents about it. That then extends to friends and other people you come across, and as you grow up you end up talking to maybe a close group of a couple of friends about it. Throughout your childhood you are “protected” from it and it is always just implied that it’s not something that should be spoken about. Going to a Catholic school probably didn’t help this either!

But why? I know us Gen Y’s are meant to be a really “out there” generation, but are we really? Everyone has sex in some way shape or form, and it’s human nature, so why is it such an issue?

Humans are sexual beings, and looking at ancient times it is obvious that they used to embrace that, rather than hide it in their closet. Sex was considered to be an important part of humanity’s existence on planet earth. Greek paintings show young men and women naked and having sex, the Romans had their festivals, releasing their inhibitions and abandoning their shyness, while the Egyptian women wore at most a transparent cloth, their slaves only wearing beads! The Egyptian men usually wore a short kilt.

It’s such an interesting thing, sex. Talking to friends about it can be eye opening, shocking, or just plain hilarious, so once again, why the taboo?

I don’t consider myself a sexual deviant in any way (though I’m probably a deviant in other respects), but it does trouble me as to why things such as sex are so off limits. At the end of the day we are all on this earth to procreate, and not do much else. We spend so much time worrying about our money, our image and so on, but never the core aspects of our life.

Freedom in life is something that is becoming increasingly important to me. Part of this freedom is the ability to be able to talk about anything to anyone. I rarely hold back when talking to most people, and it’s still obvious how certain comments can shock some people, even what that is not the intention – I’m just making conversation.

Embrace life, and embrace sex. Both of them are here to be enjoyed, not cause grief.

I wrote in my first blog entry that I’m a hypocrite. It’s the easiest way of saying what I’m about to say.

I have a heap of ideals in life, but almost never meet any of them. For instance, ideally I would be a raw vegan. It is my belief that the healthiest diet to have is when eating raw plant based food. With that said, I eat way too much processed food, and still eat a lot of meat (probably once every two days). Ideally I wouldn’t drink either, would be fit enough to race mountain biking in an elite category, would spend my days outside rather than watching TV, never drive to work, and not even think about drinking coffee.

While some people call me soft for not acting on my ideals, I have learned that I tend to think about all of the options, and make my decisions slowly before actually acting on them. Right now I am in the “evaluation stage” I suppose you could say. My opinions and decisions have been made, I am just waiting to act on them.

Part of the reason why I am slow to act on these decisions is because of where we are at in life. A lot of the decisions that I want to make will impact on my fiancee’s life, and while she is happy with how it will impact her, I’m not ready to put her through it.

Next year we are heading overseas. No rules, just freedom. I don’t want to be in Italy and refuse eating a home cooked dish because it has meat in it, or not drink some grappa because it’s against my decision to stay away from alcohol. We will be in Europe, then North America – how can we not do as the locals do?! How could we not have a ultra king size burger with a two litre cup of Coke in the fattest country in the world?

Freedom is key to my short term life, and I’m fine with that. So for the next two years, take what I say with a pinch of salt. I will form my opinions like I normally do, but chances are I’m not actually going to act on them for at least another year or two.

So now that I have explained my situation, what do you think? Am I a hypocrite?