Unshackled Identity: Pursuing your passion through a self-imposed rite of passage

Tim Bolton
Sep 29
11 min read

When people ask me why I decided to embark on a 7,000-mile bike ride from Alaska to Florida in 2025, I usually smile politely and feed them a bold-faced lie.

“Because I’m young and single, I don’t have any kids, and there’s nothing tying me to any one place,” I recite.

Hands grip a bike's handlebars on a path, surrounded by green trees. A basket holds red books. The scene is calm and open.

Those facts are all true. I don’t have any family obligations or professional commitments requiring me to stay anywhere for any length of time.

But they aren’t reasons why a guy chooses to spend six months of his life riding a bicycle across Alaska, Canada and the Lower 48 states.

I could have hiked the Appalachian Trail. I could have backpacked around Europe. Or spent six months at sea.

So why a bicycle? Why Alaska to Florida? And why me?

I was a student of history during my college and grad school days. I was fascinated with the ancient histories of prominent cultures around the world. I still am. They formed the blueprint for how so much of our society functions in modern America.

From the way our government was formulated to the architecture of our most iconic structures, the ancients have played a pivotal role in shaping our modern way of life.

But for all of the advancements we’ve made that stem from our ancient ancestors, we have abandoned one practice entirely. And it might prove to be the downfall of an entire generation of American males.

Classical bust with laurel wreath, surrounded by ornate vases and columns. Green leaves on a pink background with stars and geometric designs.

I am talking about the rite of passage, the period of a young person’s life when he leaves the place he knows and ventures, alone, into the wilderness, eventually returning to his tribe as a man.

It is this ancient practice that I sought to replicate through my solo bike ride across North America.

Grim Statistics

All across our country, young males are suffering from an epidemic of loneliness that is killing them more quietly than gun violence, more diabolically than drugs and alcohol, and more painfully than vehicle collisions.

One in four young American men (25%) aged 15-34 reported feeling lonely based on data from 2023 and 2024, according to a Gallup poll (Fig. 1).

That figure is the highest percentage among 38 higher income democratic countries.

Young men are also more likely to report feelings of loneliness, stress, and worry than other demographics in the US like younger women, according to that same study.

These statistics have risen so much in recent years that experts are now classifying loneliness and social isolation in the US as an epidemic.

Chart showing loneliness percentages in the U.S. vs. OECD for various age groups. 15-34 men show the largest gap, 25% vs. 15%. — (Fig. 1) Source: Gallup

American men and women are spending more time alone than ever before thanks to rising screen times and fewer civic opportunities for young people to experience community life.

These grim statistics affect men in a number of ways, including higher rates of hypertension, heart disease, obesity, and alcohol use. Boys and young men are also seeing negative effects in school. Reading and writing levels among boys have been dropping steadily since 2012.

And, perhaps the most grim statistic of all, men are four times more likely than women to die by suicide due in part to issues like social disconnection (Fig. 2).

Line graph showing rising suicide rates for young men (2001-2023) by age group. Notable increase for ages 15-24 and 25-34. Source: CDC. — (Fig. 2) Source: American Institute for Boys and Men

No Roadmap

Young people don’t know who to look to for help. They don’t know how to ask for help. And they don’t even know that they need help to begin with.

And how could they? The millennial generation was taught that doing well in school, getting good grades, working hard, and securing a good job were the success metrics they were meant to strive for.

They weren’t told that the public education system was created during the Industrial Age to churn out new batches of young adults equipped for a 20^th century economy (Vid. 1).

(Vid. 1) Source: TED

Tech companies have long known that an individual’s grades in school have little to no correlation with their ability to work in tech. And now, other sectors are finally starting to catch on.

So why haven’t America’s schools and colleges – filled with some of the most brilliant minds in the world – managed to figure it out?

The education system is only a symptom of a skewed philosophy we’ve developed in our country. So I’ll shelve the debate over education reform for now and come back to it towards the end of this article.

The real problem lies within the young minds that the education system strives to cultivate.

And it’s precisely this problem that a modern spin on the rite of passage could help solve.

What is a Rite of Passage?

Lion, deer, bird, and wolf running through tall green grass in a lively chase. Rich earth tones and dynamic movement dominate the scene.

When you hear the phrase “rite of passage”, what images cross your mind?

Perhaps you picture a young person setting off into the wilderness, weapon in hand, to kill a lion, or harvest a particularly hard-to-reach fruit, or simply just survive in a harsh environment for a certain amount of time.

Whatever Hollywood or your history textbook might have led you to believe about rites of passage, they are not meant to be barbaric or torturous affairs.

They require great effort and are inherently dangerous, for sure. But a true rite of passage is a deeply spiritual experience.

It is an individual’s declaration to the rest of the community that he or she is capable of contributing to the greater whole.

So, a rite of passage necessarily asks two important questions of the person who embarks on it:

Can you trust yourself?
Can you be trusted by the people around you?

Young males today are refusing to ask themselves these two all-important questions. They don’t even broach the subject.

Person wearing green goggles and holding a controller, playing on a computer with a yellow screen. Background features yellow and white stripes.

And so, they spend much of their efforts hiding behind whatever walls seem most convenient. Work. Porn. Drugs. Alcohol. Hobbies. Sports. TV. Social media. Video games. Money. Fame. Religion. Women. Or even other males.

It is precisely these artificial walls which a rite of passage dismantles.

There are no walls in the wilderness. There is nowhere to hide. And one can’t simply be whisked away into some virtual reality where all the world’s problems dissolve into nothing.

Coincidentally, there are also no walls on a bicycle.

There is nothing shielding a cyclist from anything the big, bad world might throw at him.

Following the Path

I grew up believing that if I worked hard in school, got involved, and was a model teenager, I’d become an upstanding American citizen. A successful human. Worthy of being left alone to do whatever it is I thought adults did in a free society.

My idea of a career – that thing I was told I was supposed to carefully curate over the course of my life – was sitting in a cubicle plugging away happily at my work and contributing all my energy to whatever company happened to sign my paychecks.

Stack of colorful books with a black graduation cap on top, paintbrushes in a cup, and green leaves in the background.

When it came time for me to take the standardized tests and apply for colleges, however, things started to get murky.

Because, despite my model citizenry, I didn’t have a clue what I was to do with myself after graduating high school.

I didn’t give a thought to becoming a doctor or a lawyer. I didn’t have an engineering or a mathematical brain. And I was medically ineligible for military service.

So what did I do? Hum-ho, off to college I go!

Why? To this day, I have no idea.

I didn’t exactly pull out a map, close my eyes, and point to a state to make the decision for where I would go to college. But I might as well have.

I decided on Purdue University in northern Indiana. And what did I study at this world-renowned research and engineering school, you might ask?

Creative writing and classical studies, of course!

I guess I figured I’d been a fish out of water my whole childhood. Why not keep the trend going into my young adult years?

Further Down the Rabbit Hole

Silhouette of a person walking inside a large white ring against a blue background, creating a sense of infinity and movement.

Looking back, I now know that the real trouble I had was simply a lack of enthusiasm.

If I had to choose one word to describe myself during my teenage and early adult years, that word would be “apathetic”.

I didn’t have the drive or ambition that everyone said successful people have. I was just…there.

I went to school. I thought about girls or watched sports. I worried about my tests and if my friends really liked me.

I never stopped to ask myself why I was doing what I was doing, where it was leading me, or who I wanted to become.

And that’s why, after just a few months following my college graduation, I found myself broke and without a path forward.

At some point in college, I started thinking of becoming an archaeologist.

Why? Again, I have no idea.

My classical studies curriculum required that I take a few archaeology courses, and by the time I was ready to graduate, I didn’t know what else to do with myself.

Two archaeologists in hats excavate a site, uncovering a pot with brush and shovel. Sandy background, excited expressions.

People told me I needed to get a graduate education to do anything in archaeology. And so, because I still didn’t know what else I was supposed to do, I applied to several different programs.

I didn’t have a plan with all of this. I didn’t think about job prospects or what I’d be doing after grad school. I just did it because it felt like it was the next thing to do.

But oh boy, was I wrong.

I was accepted into University College London’s Mediterranean archaeology program. Because Greece sounded like it would be a fun place to dig up old stuff when it was a thousand degrees in the summer.

So off I went across the pond. No plan. No job. Barely any money.

By the time I finished my yearlong program, I was completely broke. But what was I told I needed to do after earning my master’s degree?

Yep, go and get a PhD.

Silhouette of a person walking up a gray staircase against a peach background, suggesting progress or upward movement.

Only this time I’d finally learned my lesson. I didn’t have a future because I didn’t know who I was supposed to be. And I didn’t know who I was supposed to be because I’d grown up thinking I needed to become somebody different than who I was.

After going broke for the second time in three years, I found myself living with my parents, again without a clue as to what I was supposed to do next.

It all became very clear what the problem was when I spent one Sunday afternoon in the spring of 2019 sitting in my car staring at a brick building across a parking lot.

I’d never had any sense of direction. I was a rudderless ship sailing in circles. And all the while I told myself I was making progress. Because, after all, I’d done the things that I was told would lead to my success.

The trouble was, I’d never stopped to ask myself what success even meant to me.

But when my life came to a screeching halt in 2019, I finally had a plan: I was going to stomp my car’s gas pedal to the floor and gather some speed. Then I’d ram my car straight into that brick building. With enough luck, I’d be gone in a flash, and I wouldn’t even feel a thing.

I unbuckled my seat belt and floored it.

New Chapter

Of course, that day wasn’t the end of my story. But it was the beginning of a new one.

I swerved away from the building at the last second. And after that day, my life also took a hard right turn.

Illustration of an open book with bold black lines, teal edges, and pages slightly fanned. Radiant lines suggest focus or discovery.

I listed those loneliness statistics earlier because I’m included in them.

"All I ever wanted was a little log cabin in the woods."

I said those exact words on the day I returned home to my parents’ place.

In that time of complete uncertainty, the one thing my brain told me it wanted was a place I could escape the rigors of everyday life and write my books and novels.

But now, I want that same thing for other people, too. I want to build a global network of wilderness retreat centers, outdoor survival courses, and cultural exchange programs.

Why? Because in our modern world, it has become so easy for us to escape into the digital realm and tell ourselves we matter more in the context of virtual reality than we do in our physical reality.

I moved to Alaska in 2023 because that’s where I intend to build my first retreat center and my log cabin in the woods.

I left the state in 2025 and set off on my bike ride because, before I help other people live the kind of outdoor lifestyle we’re losing in our modern world, I first had to learn to do it myself.

My bike ride is the first of many self-imposed rites of passage I intend to embark on through my thirties and forties.

That's the real reason I chose to set out from Prudhoe Bay, AK.

Facing the Dragon

Dark blue cloud with raindrops and a yellow lightning bolt on a black background, illustrating a storm.

After months of riding across North America, I have faced snow, rain, hail, cold, heat, hills, wind, bugs, bears, bad drivers, stolen food, illness, injury, mechanical breakdowns, and broken equipment.

But all of those challenges pale in comparison to one hurdle in particular: A deep sense of aloneness.

I have had to put up with myself throughout my entire journey. And I have experienced the full range of emotions an individual is capable of experiencing since setting off on the road.

I have also had to trust myself the entire way. Meaning I’ve been forced to turn inward when things go sideways in order to find a way to solve my problems on my own.

But I have also had to face the perhaps more terrifying idea that I, in fact, cannot accomplish everything by myself. I’ve been forced into situations where my options were to either ask for help or remain stagnant.

And here especially is where young males, myself included, have gone horribly wrong. We’ve grown up believing that masculinity is synonymous with individuality.

Our ancient ancestors knew that nothing could be further from the truth.

Leaving the Familiar

In hunter-gatherer times, being spurned from the tribe meant almost certain death.

If you weren’t eaten by a Smilodon or trampled by a woolly mammoth herd, you were likely to die of disease, dehydration, an infected injury, exposure to the elements, or a million other things.

Silhouette of person in a boat on a lake under a starry night sky. Mountains in the background, and a large moon above, creating a serene mood.

But an individual’s ability to survive a rite of passage and return to the tribe told the rest of the community’s members that that individual was worthy of their trust.

Why? Because that young person returned with the understanding that he needed to be someone worthy of trust.

If he wasn't, then he wouldn't be accepted back into the tribe.

If he ever decided that he didn’t want to go hunting with the others one day and provide food for the rest of the community, then he could very easily be banished for good.

And then it was back to nature’s death trap. Only this time, there would be no coming back.

This practice at first glance might appear barbaric. But it’s actually the very medicine that could cure the loneliness epidemic currently waging war against America’s youth.

Young people in America have no notion of what it means to trust themselves. Which makes it impossible for the rest of the American “tribe” to trust them, either.

The First Step

Two hands with pink nails hold a globe against a white background. The globe shows green continents on a light blue ocean.

My decision to embark on a six-month bike ride across North America was the inflection point I created for myself in order to clearly define my transition from adolescence to adulthood.

And as I continue on my journeys around the world in the coming years, I will be helping other young people create their own such adventures.

My aim is to help young men design and implement their own unique rites of passage. The idea being that, in doing so, they will learn to trust themselves.

And their self-trust will help them develop confidence that they can contribute their unique abilities to a society craving authentic human connection.

Now, let’s be clear: This miracle drug can’t be swallowed. It doesn’t come from a needle.

It’s difficult to define. Harder to prescribe. And it most certainly won’t lead to whatever desired outcome the patient initially sought.

The article you are reading now is the first step I know how to take in helping other young males define their own similar transitions to adulthood.

And it is a task which we as a society should consider a top priority if we are to cultivate future generations of leaders, businesspeople, creators, and champions of the ideals that made America a country worth creating in the first place.

Two hikers with backpacks and walking sticks explore a cliff edge. Background features mountains and trees under a clear sky.

If we don’t continue cultivating the desire for a relationship with the great outdoors among our young people, they will migrate into the digital realm Possibly never to return.

And they will simply avoid the very real, very daunting problems of our current world.

At that point, it wouldn’t matter where we are as a society. Because we will have lost all interest in facing reality at all.

So, how might we begin such an important journey?

Well, by first going where the people are to begin with. And then slowly leading them back into their natural environments one step, one survival skill, and one outdoor trip at a time.