Man on Monday – Todd Tyrtle

Happy New Year! Our first “Man on Monday” of the new year is Todd Tyrtle, whom I met (virtually) through his partner, Sage Tyrtle, who hosts an excellent podcast called QN. We’ll be speaking with Sage later this year, but for now, we’re focusing on Todd and his 500 Kindnesses project which involves a tandem bike ride (with his son) from Toronto to New York (and back) fueled, at least in part, by donated Acts of Kindness. We can’t imagine a better way to kick off a new year, and we encourage all of our readers to participate by donating their own Kindnesses to Todd’s cause.

Tell our readers about yourself: who are you, what do you do, and
where might we have heard/seen/read your work?

I’m Todd, and by day I work with the engineering and quality departments at various pharmaceutical companies. I help them make sure that the facilities, equipment, and software they use to manufacture drugs are designed properly and work the way they should. So in that case, you probably have at one time or another indirectly experienced the work I do when the drugs you take or the vaccine you were given does its job.

Many years ago I blogged regularly at Tyrtle.Wordpress.Com, most often when my family and I lived in a yurt in the woods without electricity. Lately my online activities have been a bit more focused, primarily in support of the charity bike rides I’ve done, the most recent being Long Ride East. Other than that, I’d say my biggest passion as of late is long form improvisational comedy which I perform at least once a week.

What was the first step on your current path; what led you to doing what you do today?

The attitude that made me even consider doing my latest project probably traces back to our years in the yurt. Specifically, I remember dreaming for many years of living in the country very simply, but it was always stuck in the idea stage. There was a nebulous plan of “someday when I have everything figured out I’ll do it.” This may have worked had I stuck with it, but one night my partner’s mom, Kite asked me why I wasn’t just doing it right away. I gave her all the excuses I had in my head: “I need to save more money up so we can live on our own for a year or two while I find a job.”

She encouraged me first to trust myself, and then to know that I had tremendous support in the community where she lived to do it. And so, instead of saving up a few hundred thousand dollars and taking the leap, I took more of a leap of faith. With only enough money to buy a yurt and a few months of groceries, I quit my job, we moved out of our house and took the leap. And in the end, it worked out just fine. This isn’t to say that there weren’t many, many challenges. There certainly were. However, we’re stronger than we think we are and don’t always need to engineer our lives to remove all possibility of discomfort or challenge. And let’s be honest – it just isn’t possible.

Many of us have a role model or mentor who has helped us along. Who is yours, and why?

My partner, Sage’s mom, Kite really was a role model in this regard. She was always one who knew what she wanted and did what it took to make it happen even if it wasn’t the social norm. In her case that meant living much of her life in a tipi in the woods with very little income but lots of time to do the things she loved and spend time with the people she loved.

Seeing her willingness to think, and even live, outside the box in order to do what she wanted was inspiring – especially when compared to the only other life I knew which was to live a conventional life and then either find a way to shoehorn your wants in around your obligations or to just be disappointed that you’re not living the life you want.

So really what I learned from her was two things: First off, if you think you’d be happier doing something else, just do it. And second, that when you are able to look with a critical eye toward all of society’s conventions, there are a lot of things that we take for granted as being unchangeable or immovable, when really we might just be able to leave them behind entirely.

At the same time I also had a boss many years ago who sat me down one day when I was particularly overwhelmed by an upcoming project. There was just so much to do, so many different things to keep track of, I had no idea how it could be done. He told me about his after-work job where he played bass in a band. He would often be working until last call at 2AM and then they’d turn up the lights and when they did you’d see the piles of gear you had to load in to the van, the tangled wires and cords across the floor – so much work to do, and you were already tired. And what he did was to just grab one cord and start winding it up and only focus on that. And then take the next cord, and do the same thing. Eventually the van would be packed.

The same is true about a long bike trip. The trip from here to Montreal is not a 600 km journey. It’s a series of 30 km journeys – each 1-2 hours long. At the end of each of those journeys is a snack, drink, and break. And that really is the secret to doing any long term project. Whether it’s training for the ride, doing the ride, helping a friend move, or hiking the Appalachian trail. It’s just a series of small simple tasks.

Talk to me about 500 Kindnesses. What sparked the idea?

For the past two summers I participated in the Friends for Life Bike Rally to raise money for the Toronto People with AIDS foundation. The ride goes from Toronto to Montreal – just about 600 km (370 miles) over about 5 ½ days. Last year, in an attempt to raise more money for the cause I pledged that I would continue onward after the official ride ended – the more money I raised, the farther I would ride. In the end I rode to Quebec City – 1,050 km (just over 650 miles). It was an amazing and wonderful experience. Over those two years, I raised about $7,000 in pledges.

When I got back from that ride, I knew right away I wanted to do an even longer ride. And the experience of riding on my own, staying with strangers I met through CouchSurfing.org, was such a wonderful one that I knew I wanted to bring my son along the next time. Unfortunately at his age (13), he’s not allowed on the charity rides. So the answer was to do a ride on our own.

I also found over two years of fundraising that for every person who pledges to your ride, there are several who would love to pledge but aren’t financially able to do so. However, anyone can do something good for someone else. So with this ride, I decided to make it both a ride that my son could ride in, and that literally anyone could make a pledge that could make a difference.

I wanted to do a bit longer ride this time as the 10 days or so it took for me to get to Quebec went by far too fast. And so our ride started out as a trip from Toronto to New York City. Toronto has a reputation as a rude, unkind city in Canada, and New York tends to share that reputation in the US. Having lived in Toronto for many years, and visited NYC a number of times, I think both reputations are undeserved.

Over time, between friends’ invitations and through my looking at maps, we ended up planning something of a “dream ride”. Our destination is still New York City, however how we’re getting there has changed. We’ll be going from Toronto, east to Ottawa (Canada’s capitol), then further east to Montreal. At that point we’ll turn south to go through Vermont, where I grew up, toward Boston. In Boston we’ll take a ferry to Provincetown, the tip of Cape Cod and from there we’ll head southwest toward New York. At that point, we’ll loop back around through Pennsylvania and upstate New York and return to Toronto. It will be about 2,300 km – close to 1,500 miles and take the entire month of July – allowing for several days off along the way to enjoy our various stops.

In order of preference, we’ll be couchsurfing, camping, and staying in hotels/motels along the way. The preference stems from our preferring to stay in places where we’ll get to meet and interact with other people. What I learned from last summer’s trip to Quebec was that not only are there some amazingly kind people out there, but they are filled with so many interesting stories and perspectives. Spending a few hours over dinner with complete strangers is a wonderful experience.

What do you hope to accomplish with the 500 Kindnesses website? With the ride?

A person reading a newspaper or watching television can get a really strange idea of what the average North American is like. It tells us that the world is filled with horrible people wanting to take advantage of our every weakness. Criminals wait to rob you blind all while the neighbours watch but don’t help because they don’t want to get involved. The only thing that moves them to action is a big sale, and when it comes they’re so selfish that they’ll trample and pepper-spray each other in order to get what they want.

While that image may get viewers and sell newspapers, I don’t believe it tells the whole story. While there may be some people who fit the above descriptions, I believe that more often, the average person, if given the opportunity, is naturally kind and generous. Sometimes we’re so busy we don’t even register other’s needs.

What I’m trying to do with the website is to bring kindness to the top of peoples’ minds. To encourage people to look for opportunities to do something nice for someone, to help a homeless person get a meal, to spend some time listening to people at a retirement home, to volunteer their time for a non-profit. And as I said above, I know there are many, many people who are already doing wonderful things. For those people, I want to encourage them to push what I would call their “kindness threshold” – to do something above and beyond what would normally occur to them.

The purpose of the ride itself is to experience both giving and receiving acts of kindness along the way and to share the idea of the project with people as I go. At the same time I’ll be sharing our experiences with readers at 500Kindnesses.com.

What’s the most interesting Kindness pledge you’ve received to date?

The one that stands out in my mind is one from a mom to the son of a good friend of hers at her friend’s funeral. Her pledge to her friend’s son, now grown was: “I am ALWAYS available to him if he needs a ‘mom hug’, and will send one his way (in person or by mail) every birthday from here onward as long as he would like.“ The pledge also came to me with a very moving story which I posted here: http://500kindnesses.com/2011/10/14/pledge-42-a-moms-hug/.

Do you think you’ll keep the website going, even after you complete the ride? Do you plan any more coordinated events, like Coffee Kindness on Halloween?

That’s an interesting question. I’ve been so absorbed in the here and now of it all that I hadn’t even considered it. But now that you ask, I think that yes, I could see doing this as an annual event – possibly with a different route each time. Maybe next time it’ll be in the American south where the stereotype is that progressive agnostic Democrats such as myself are unwelcome. I also think I’d like to open it up to others as well – whether they share their route or do their own journey of their own.

I absolutely loved the coordinated kindness event. It was so much fun to hear everyone’s stories as they reported back. Nearly 100 people responded to the Facebook event and it was fun to imagine people doing it all over the world. And of course it was fun to participate as well. So yes, I’ve got a few planned already and am always looking for new ideas as well.

In modern life, having a strong media presence is crucial to success. Where can we find you on the Internet (including social media), in print, audio, or video?

Absolutely – the project website is at 500Kindnesses.com. You can also find me at @500kindnesses on Twitter, and on Facebook at 500 Kindnesses.

YOUR TURN: What one question have you never been asked, that you’d like to answer? (And what’s the answer to it?)

Sure. I often feel like a question that many might want to ask is “Do you really think it’ll make a difference? The world’s a pretty messed up place filled with suffering, even if you do manage to get 500 people to pledge an act of kindness, what difference will it make?”

There really are two answers. The short answer is, of course, it will absolutely make a difference for the recipient of the act of kindness.

The longer answer is that acts of kindness reverberate. Just as you might find yourself thinking hours later about an insult that was hurled at you as you crossed the street or the guy who cut you off on the highway and often have part of your day coloured by that, the same is true for acts of kindness. It makes the recipient feel better, it makes the giver feel better, and both people’s interactions with others are coloured by that for some time after. And that makes it worthwhile. Do I think it will change the world? Only if you let it…