Zvone – Inner Dialogue

The Rain Was Never the Problem Expectations, Responsibility, and the Strange Freedom of Letting Reality Exist I was standing beneath a small tree somewhere in Mexico, watching dark rain clouds move slowly across the mountains. A few kilometers earlier it had started with light drizzle — the kind of rain cyclists optimistically ignore because admitting reality too early feels emotionally unnecessary. Then the rain became heavier. The branches above me began leaking larger and larger drops, and my confidence in the tree slowly disappeared together with any illusion that this situation would magically improve within the next thirty seconds. The nearest town was still around ten kilometers away. In practical terms, there were only two possibilities. Either I stayed there indefinitely like some damp roadside philosopher, or I continued riding and accepted that both I and most of my equipment would soon resemble abandoned laundry. I turned toward the mountains and started cursing the we...

Don’t Think, Just Ride I’m sitting calmly at home, drinking coffee at the kitchen table. It’s early morning, and somehow I already feel exhausted. A month ago, I was riding through Mexico day after day, climbing mountains with a loaded bicycle under the sun, sleeping wherever I could, solving problems as they appeared, and continuing forward no matter how difficult things became. Now I sit here with half-recovered pneumonia, short of energy, carrying that familiar modern feeling of helplessness. And I keep wondering: Where did that version of my mind go? What happened to the anxiety, the overthinking, the sleepless nights, the endless internal conversations about problems that may never even happen? How was it possible that, somewhere out there on those empty roads, all of that simply disappeared? And perhaps even stranger: How come, after brutally exhausting days on the bike, I never once felt tempted to “take the edge off” with a beer in the evening? No escape ri...