We sat looking at each other with blank stares; we couldn’t believe what we were hearing. Our best friend, venting his heart out, telling us how the night before he but a plastic bag over his head, grabbed zip ties, and tried to suffocate himself; hoping that he could end it all. With our dinner losing its taste we sat there trying to reason with him. The same clichés that I think people crying out would hear, “you have so much to live for”, “you’re lucky to have friends that care about you”, but none of it seemed to work. We told him to get help but he refused saying “Life is pointless anyway, why can’t a person die if he wants to?” We looked at each other, with our hearts beating in our chests, life pulsing in our veins, wanting to give him the same feeling purpose.

It all started as a joke, I don’t know who said it first but in order to lighten up the mood one of us said, “You know if you’re going to kill yourself you might as well do something crazy.” “Why don’t you go to Colombia and burn down the drug fields, I mean the drug cartel will kill you anyways, so at least you can do something good for mankind.” Our friend smiled a bit, but shook his head “That’s not realistic.” We looked at each other, and the guy across from me said “Well I mean you should stop by the dean’s office and fill up a giant water balloon and throw it at him, you would be the hero of the school.” He laughed again, but again he said, “That’s not realistic”. Then I said, “Why isn’t it? If you aren’t afraid of death the world is open for you to do anything you want.” I looked at my friends and I looked at him, his eyes looking down at his food. For the first time, it all became real.

We are the richest country in the world, but we sit alone at night wanting something more. We are lonely with our riches, following the American Dream. Go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, and repeat. The illusion that our lives have limits causes our massive dependency on drugs, on materialism, and on temporary lusts. We are a society with nothing new to give. We weren’t meant to live a life of routine. This trek, this adventure to Alaska is to prove that humans don’t have limits. You can do anything you set your mind to. Who says you need to go to college to be happy, who made it the law that you need to be rich. Our friend told us that he had nothing to live for, so we gave him something to live for. Sometimes that means grabbing a bike and going to Alaska. So keep us in your prayers, and be ALIVE.

MISSION: The mission of Alive Campaign is to promote awareness for suicide prevention and depression through progressive ideas and actions; to include charity, educating the public, and combining both national and international resources in a unified effort to prevent suicide. Finally to open a forum and build a community on which discussion can occur on the issues of suicide and depression.

In my own life, I can tell you that I’ve hit some extremely low points. In fact 13 years ago, I attempted suicide. Pills. I was depressed about every facet of my life…work, girlfriend broke up with me, I wasn’t being a very good father, I didn’t have God in my life. Life sucked. Hard. I sat down one night in my living room, crying, and poured out a bunch of antidepressants onto the table. The only light in the room was a lit candle. And I took all of those pills, handful after handful, drinking them down with beer.

And I cried more than I’ve ever cried, I think. I just wanted so much for life to be finished. I couldn’t take any more. Within two minutes, though, (and they were long-ass minutes) I thought about what I’d be doing to my daughters. Nobody else entered my mind but them. How fucked up would it be to do that to them? I’d hurt them enough already by being so absent. But killing myself? Unforgivable.

So I went to the bathroom and puked up all those pills. Didn’t go to the hospital. Didn’t call anyone. I didn’t have anyone to call, anyway. Nobody gave a damn about me (so I thought). I just went to bed, crying myself to sleep. And the next morning I woke up and went back to work, like nothing had happened. Just going through the motions of life…work my ass off, come home and crash, wake up, eat, watch TV, crash again. It was an awful period.

I’m really thrilled that Alyson is taking part in this campaign that four of her buddies at school started. They’re going to film a documentary as they bike from Waco, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska in two months. Along the way they’ll stop and talk to people, give lectures at schools and churches, all in the name of showing people what there is to LIVE for.

There are t-shirts available and Ford has graciously given them a van to use for the trip. But what they still need, aside from people spreading the word, is donations for gas and especially for the high-definition tapes they need to film. You can donate money to them using a mailing address on the site (the Google checkout thing doesn’t work) and you can also sponsor a mile of their journey, which starts this coming Thursday at 10am.

If you sponsor a mile (only $1, what a bargain!) they’ll put your name in the credits of the documentary! How cool is that? Even better, you can sponsor 5 miles or 10, or whatever you can help out with.

I talked with Justin, one of the cofounders of the team, when I was visiting the girls yesterday. Nice guy, really nice guy. And I just think this is an amazing project. Good thing they’re all young because that’s a hell of a lot of miles. For the most part they’re doing 40-80 miles a day.

The route is all planned out on their site. If you’re in any of the towns/cities they’re stopping in, I’m sure they’d be thrilled to meet up with you. They’ll be going through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, other parts of Canada, and finally, Alaska. All in two months!

I hope you’ll consider donating something to this worthy cause. Suicide is the leading cause of death in 18-24 year-olds. That’s a scary thing. I’m proud of Alyson and all the guys for doing something about it.

I’m hoping to have them on SecondHand Radio soon to talk about it.

Thanks.

PS: Today I’m going up to Oklahoma to visit Chase, who I haven’t seen since Blogher, 2006. She’s just the most amazing lady…cracks my shit up, and she’s sweet and generous and also getting married very shortly. I’m staying the night there. Much partying and photos will abound. I also plan on whipping her so she’ll start blogging again.