Today has been utterly surreal.
My body was thankful for the shorter day I had yesterday and I rolled smoothly for four hours without a stop or worry. I originally planned to ride seventy-eight miles, but the Universe is strange.
My first strange interaction of the day (because apparently the Universe thinks I have a quota to fill) was with a fellow tourer. He was also on tour but heading East. He crossed Florida 98, a fast moving rural highway, with zero regard to traffic or his well being. He yelled for me to stop. He "spoke" at a decibel level similar to that of a jet engine and spoke in sentences that spent the first-half re-iterating what his last sentence just conveyed to me. He began to scream-tell me that there was a woman ahead, also on tour, that I should try to catch. He was worried that by virtue of her being a woman that she was incapable of safely defending herself on a trip from Florida to Las Vegas. Immediately afterwards he told me that she had done a solo tour across China, was an accomplished tourer, and, in his words, "built well in the chest, so you should make sure she's safe."
Huh.
I incredulously stared at the human bullhorn and wondered "this is some weird prank, right?" I understood his concern, but she was fifteen miles ahead and I had no idea what she looked like. Not to mention, she had more experience than me so I doubt I would do anything but slow her down. To be honest, I didn't know how to process the entire interaction and was trying to wash the sexual implications and latent sexism off of me by trying to focus back on my trip. The man yelled for me to have a great day and continued on his ride back from where I came, presumably an early `00s romantic-comedy. I pushed West.
I was then immediately handed a second plate of weird.
While I was stopped at a convince store to stock up for the next few days, a gentleman was admiring my bike. I walked out and following the rules of Midwestern Politeness I nasally said "hey, how ya doing?"
Shakespeare once wrote: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely [actors]." I wasn't aware that me asking "hey how ya doing?" was the verbal purchase of a ticket to the weirdest performance I had seen thus far.
So the man and I began talking. He asked through the same three questions I typically receive on this trip--where'd ya start, where ya goin', and why are you doing this?--and I answered him honestly. His face lit up a bit and he told me that he really liked the idea of my trip. He insisted he show me the area and that we talk about mental health and how to understand and deal with it. He even offered me a spot to camp in his backyard, something he does frequently for hikers on the Florida Trail. Or so he claimed. I was suspicious. He seemed pleasant. He was a bit eccentric, but seemed to have a positive attitude that radiated relaxation; but, I also had no clue who this stranger was; but, I also was tired of biking for today.
I agreed to stay the night at a complete stranger's house.
Sorry mom.
What entailed was interesting.
The man is named Jim McCormick. He was a former “real estate investor” and now helped run a music school with his wife. He showed me the local area, we had some good cheap food, and he talked. Extensively. I learned more than I care to about Jim and some thing's I'm not sure I believe--or actively work to not believe. I deeply regret not recording our conversations because Jim is such a character on the stage of life that there is no way to script him. He is life's version of improv. The recordings would also prove that everything I write after this point was indeed told to me by a man named Jim McCormick. That this is not fake.
Jim's philosophy on life, well existence, is simply complex and complexly simple. From what I can gather, his basic life philosophy comes down to:
⦁ Love everything, for we are all everything
⦁ Wake up in the morning chasing your "Supreme goal" (peace, happiness, or bliss)
⦁ Have thoughts and actions that only allow you to attain that goal.
It's a philosophy that has cropped up from Zoroaster to Jesus to Walt Whitman. It's a fundamental base of a lot of hokey motivational memes that pop up across the Internet, but it's also a huge basis of the current mental health field: meditate, live in the now, and replace negative thoughts and actions with positive ones. Mindfulness. This is where Jim immediately veers the discussion to the odd.
Jim, however, has an extra touch of madness in his outlook; and this madness became clear as the sun began to set behind the horizon. This madness lies in his first point. I can't describe it like the eccentric, health conscious Colonel Sanders I know as Jim can, but I'll try. Essentially, everything that exists (rocks to humans to space itself) were all connected from one inter-dimensional being. This being disintegrated itself, out of sheer boredom, creating life, the universe, and everything else. The being sees it as a game to re-assemble itself and that's all any of us on this "plane of existence" are doing. To simplify this idea down, Jim calls his concept "Dream Sport." Everyone is just playing "Dream Sport" until the being we are all a part of re-assembles. A very peaceful apocalypse he assured me.
Jim told me he got the idea after reading some books about Paramahansa Yogananda.
And after dropping seven hits of acid in a hotel room in Pensacola. He told me that the acid helped him to unlock the ability to remove his consciousness from his still-living body and transport it all across the galaxy. He claimed to see stars light-years away while also living once as a butterfly. He also claimed that he had known "enlightened individuals" who could float and turn dirt to meat before his--Jim McCormick, not the eternal being--eyes. These were things he believed, down to his "red-blooded American pumping heart."
I prodded Jim on his ideas. I would ask questions regarding religion and philosophy. I even flatly asked if his whole ideology and beliefs were built upon the basis of a crazy acid trip. I will admit fully, I was trying to trip up Jim. Trying to find some sort of weak point in his logic. However, Jim countered with a new level of ridiculous that I didn't know how to counter. Jim claimed that these were not ideas, they were facts. He had seen it himself and it's clear as day. Then Jim began to rant about how my upbringing, education, own beliefs, political ideology, and everything else was clouding my ability to see the truth.
After his rant, he turned to me and asked what I thought about now knowing the truth.
I believe I responded with no response.
At this point Jim told me more about his life as we drove back to his home. Before real estate he slyly mentioned he did imports. "Well, specifically it was the narcotics trade." Somewhere in my head a tiny little voice called out: "Ya should've listened to your mom dingus!" I was now an unwitting passenger on a ride down the rabbit-hole of a former drug dealer's history. Jim told me about his background, how he got into the "narcotics trade," how he laundered money through his real estate, and his subsequent end to the drug game after his opponent tried to kill him but was arrested with piles of guns and money in a hotel room. And I was absolutely fascinated, but now worried.
As Jim told me his harrowing tales as Marijuana Jones, I formulated my escape plan the next morning. As I headed towards my tent, Jim followed and asked me if I would like to be his business partner.
"Excuse me?" I asked with confusion and a tinge of panic. He excitedly told me his plan. He wanted to write a book about his theory of Dream Sport and use it as a self-help book. He told me that "we'll be partners 50/50. I'll take the smiles and be a smile-millionaire. You can have the money or we can donate it or do whatever!" After telling me this he loudly proclaimed we would call the book "The Gospel of Dream Sport." He wanted to sell the book to show the truth to the masses and create a group that would want to discuss how best to begin reassembling the inter-dimensional being we all believe to. I had been asked to create a cult.
The morning can not come soon enough.