Zvone – Inner Dialogue

Somewhere Along The Way I Became A Project When Life Still Felt Natural There was a time when life felt much simpler. Not easier.   Just simpler. Back then people still worked hard, worried, fought with life and carried responsibilities on their backs, but somehow there was still room left for ordinary existence. People sat outside in silence without immediately needing to optimize the experience. Nobody measured how many calories they burned while carrying wood or whether staring at clouds increased productivity. Today even relaxation feels like unpaid work. Sometimes I sit with coffee and realize that my mind no longer knows how to simply sit. After three minutes some invisible manager inside my head clears his throat and asks:  “Good. And what exactly are we accomplishing here?” Nothing. That is the whole point. But modern life has trained many of us to feel almost physically uncomfortable when we are not  progressing,  improving,  solving,  bu...

What Should I Listen To – My Mind or My Body? The Comfortable Wisdom of Home Before I left for a month-long bicycle trip through the Mexican deserts, I spent quite a lot of time thinking about what would happen when my mind and body eventually started resisting the journey. Not in some dramatic movie-hero way, but practically. What do you actually do when your body says it’s tired and your mind starts producing convincing arguments for why stopping would be the smartest thing imaginable? At home, the answer is simple enough. If I feel exhausted, I sit down. If I feel drained, I make coffee and stare out the window like the main character in one of those slow European films where nothing happens for seven minutes except rain sliding down the glass. If everything hurts, I tell myself that the body needs rest and that should be respected. It sounds healthy and reasonable. Fatigue settles into the legs, the back, the shoulders. The body becomes heavy, almost too heavy to carry from one...

The Slow Way Out Of Anxiety Three Steps Forward, Two Back I move forward slowly these days. Three steps forward, two back.   Sometimes the opposite. Progress is painfully slow, almost ridiculous at times. Occasionally I notice that I have finally moved a little ahead, and just when I begin feeling proud of myself, something drags me backward again. Then I stop and think: " What pushed me back this time?" Usually the answer is not very mysterious. Exhaustion.   Overthinking.   Isolation.   Bad sleep.   Too much sitting.  Too much thinking.   Too little movement. And somewhere behind all of it, anxiety quietly waiting like an old tax collector who never fully leaves town. I know now that I was deeply anxious for years. At the time I did not fully understand it, I thought I was simply tired, stressed, perhaps too thoughtful, maybe even more intelligent than average. Anxious people often secretly flatter themselves this way: “I think de...

Do What You Feel Like Doing. Without Guilt. When Energy Was Not A Problem There was a time when I had endless energy. At least that is how it seems when I look back today. Maybe I did not actually have endless energy. Maybe I was simply too young and too stubborn to notice when the tank was getting empty. Either way, life moved forward at full speed. There was always something that needed to be done. Build a house. Support a family. Buy a car. Learn new skills. Advance at work. Repair things. Help people. Solve problems. The list never ended, but somehow I still found time for things that had no practical purpose at all. I could jump on a bicycle and disappear into nature for an afternoon. I could spend time by the sea, swim for no reason other than enjoying the water, stop to look at flowers, watch birds, admire some strange insect crawling through the grass or simply sit somewhere and enjoy being alive. Back then I never thought about whether these activities were useful. I simpl...

When Morning Anxiety Quietly Takes Over A Strange Kind of Absence   The morning began slowly, wrapped in fog that still lingered between the trees across the road. The sun was already somewhere behind it, trying to break through, but everything outside still looked pale, soft, and half asleep. I had woken up slightly too late for my liking. Not terribly late. Just late enough for that unpleasant thought to immediately appear: "You are already behind." I lay there for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling. I had actually slept fairly well, although I woke up several times during the night. Still, compared to some periods in my life, this counted as decent sleep. Then the brain started. "You need to get outside before it becomes too hot.  The flowers need watering. The fan still needs repairing.  You forgot to answer that message yesterday.  You should really stop postponing things." Within ten seconds, my mind already felt crowded. Coffee, Cigarettes, and Noise ...