Let’s see if I can distill it down into as few words as possible. Here we go:

Simon. Iffy childhood. Left home 15. Walked Brisbane to Sydney. Found hope. Later. 44. Has 3 young kids. Diagnosed Stage 4 cancer. Six months. Chance to beat it. Got lucky. But cancer doesn’t just attack body, also mind, spirit, relationships. Was broken. Couldn’t come back. Waiting to die.

Remembers walk at 15. Feeling of hope. Rebuilds hope around idea that if he walks again he can heal himself. Decides to ‘superhero up for science’ and dedicate it to a charity. The Kids’ Cancer Project. (No child should have to face it).

Dresses up as boofhead homebrand superhero. Walks Brisbane to Melbourne. Incredible waves of support from the public. Finds the walk also helps others to see a brighter world, overcome their own struggle. Is healed and nourished. Gets better. Declares ‘kindness is the antidote to sorrow’. Raises $165k for cancer research. Goes home.

Gets COVID. Spends months with long-covid fatigue. Ponders what he is supposed to do. Has a sense of urgency and agency, but doesn’t completely want to face up to it. Realises he was supposed to keep walking, do it to a point where he wins the regard of as many people as possible, so he can say “we, all of us are in free-fall and slow decline, but we CAN stand up, we CAN get better and move forward. So you MUST.”

Feels his own suffering, struggle and recovery can help others by seeing concretely that a broken life can be fixed.

Feels that his own struggle also reflects the general feel of western society these days. Mired in decline, confusion, a slow darkening, a sense that things are wrong and no sense of how to fix it.

Wants to walk all the way around Australia by himself, and use that feat as a way to show that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things, and therefore we don’t have to permit fear, isolation and confusion to control the narrative.

Hmm, that still was a lot of words, wasn’t it. Below are links that basically break it down into:

WHO I AM (The Origin Story) / WHAT I DID (The Big Walk journal) / WHAT I INTEND TO DO