I keep whining about how unproductive I’ve been in these months following the walk – but it is a real problem. You see, the walk taught me that time is a precious commodity – in fact it’s the only currency in our lives that really matters. Everything else, we can get MORE of. Time is forever dwindling, and we only have an unknown finite amount.

So we should be mindful how we spend it.

In these past couple of months, I’ve been spending mine on trivial amusement, resting, healing. Yes, I’ve been productive, but it’s bursts of productivity, little sprints spread out between long periods of sloth.

So it’s time to snap out of that, I’ve decided to get up at 6am every day, and greet the dawn until I feel my head is on straight. That will give me an extra hour and a half or so every day to spend on exercise, reflection, jeez – basic hygiene. Anyway, a step in the right direction.

When COVID hit, my travel insurance company (www.simplytravelinsurance.au) was put into an induced coma .. hibernation .. call it what you want. I was going through my post-cancer struggles, and we just started to live off the money I’d put into the mortgage over the years. That’s starting to dwindle, but I still have a bit of time up my sleeve before we’re at real risk of losing the house.

So for the next few months, my focuses (foci ?!) are three-fold:

Personal Health: mental and physical – I need to monopolise on the gains I made in Captain Australia’s BIG WALK , not let any of the things I learned and the ways that I grew wither away. In my sloth, I’m regaining weight, and losing focus, so my declared intention is to remedy that.

Journal 84: continue, escalate and finish the write up of the walk. Yes, it started out as a morbid exercise, telling a story of who I am to my future children after cancer comes back and kills me. But it’s not that any more. I mean .. it still includes that, but now it’s about finding those themes of hope, healing, kindness and harvesting and sharing them for anyone who benefits. I love that there are people who got something from the walk.

Storybooks: I’m working on EINSTEIN & CAPTAIN AUSTRALIA SAVE THE WORLD, the first in a series of storybooks framed around people I met on the BIG WALK. I’d like to finish Draft One of the first book by the end of this month. I think I’ll give the books away for free – publish them in a way that whoever wants them can have them .. but I do declare total ownership of all rights and intellectual property, it’s all Copyright (c) Simon Harvey 2022, and Captain Australia ™ is actually a protected trademark. I don’t want anybody gouging or profiteering or anything.

But yeah, I’m pretty excited about creating some books that are fun, and deliver those themes – hope, kindness, lifting each other up, overcoming the shadow we see in the world around us. Here’s an example of some draft one words and images (being aware that it’s protected intellectual property, and that it’s also rough concept work at present):

I guess I love the idea of creating something that is fun, and that a child will hopefully enjoy. I don’t like the idea of commoditising it, making money from it – but if it were ever published my plan is to share profits with the individual included in the title (eg Einstein, Archer, other friends from the road) and The Kids’ Cancer Project, on a 50 / 25 / 25 basis. Going to ask a lawyer friend about how to memorialise all of that stuff. But free at the start. I think I like that.

I’m loving the process, I just hope the end product turns out well.

Oh yeah, haha, one other thing. When I rang my mate Einstein asking about some photos I wanted from him for the book, he sent me THIS:

Yep, apparently he’s been running around agitated to get me nominated as Australian of the Year, an idea that both shocks and amuses me in equal measure. He’s recruited the lovely Natasha from The Kids’ Cancer Project to get onboard – and he asked me to ask you .. if you got something from the walk, if you saw some purity or righteousness in the act – please consider nominating. (Haha, but if it actually did happen, some kind of recognised category nomination or something, I’d be mortified, and I’d also have the bizarre issue of figuring out whether I’m supposed to accept it dressed up as Captain Australia, or suited up as Simon – all my suits from my old life don’t fit me any more !)

They’d probably want Captain Australia – he’s goofy but he’s much cooler and nicer than me 🙂

Anyways that’s m’update – all the best to you.