Zvone – Inner Dialogue

Begin to Fall Apart Without Meaning? The Strange Heaviness of Doing Nothing There were periods in my life when I physically did almost nothing. No difficult expeditions. No long bicycle rides through deserts. No marathons. Just days spent sitting in front of a screen, drinking coffee that slowly lost its effect somewhere around the third cup, scrolling through endless streams of information that I would barely remember an hour later. And strangely, that kind of exhaustion often felt heavier than cycling eighty kilometers under the strong sun. That always fascinated me. Because logically, rest should help. If a person feels tired, they should recover by doing less. That sounds perfectly reasonable. Sometimes it is true. Physical rest can be wonderful. Sitting quietly by the sea, watching birds circle above the water, can feel deeply peaceful. But there is another kind of inactivity that feels completely different. Not restful, but empty. The strange part is that the body may tec...

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 Wrong Measure of Suffering Many years ago, I knew a woman who had a simple explanation for almost every human problem. Whenever somebody was hurt, disappointed, anxious, depressed, heartbroken, exhausted, or simply struggling with life, she would shrug her shoulders and say something along the lines of: "Life is hard. Nature is cruel. If you can't handle it, that's your problem." Sometimes she expressed it even more bluntly. I remember sitting there listening to her and wondering whether she actually believed what she was saying or whether it was simply a habit she had developed over the years. At the time I didn't argue with her. There was little point. People rarely abandon opinions that have accompanied them for decades. Still, her words stayed with me long after the conversation ended. Not because I agreed with them. Because I wasn't entirely sure why they bothered me so much. Years later I think I understand. The problem wasn't that she believed l...

Why Advice Rarely Helps an Addict Most mornings, while drinking coffee, I spend a few minutes scrolling through social media. Not because I find it particularly useful. Mostly out of habit. Somewhere between photographs of people's lunches, political arguments, sleeping cats, and advertisements for things nobody really needs, there is always an endless supply of advice. The internet is overflowing with advice. If you drink too much, somebody has a solution. If you are anxious, somebody has a solution. If you are depressed, lonely, overworked, unhappy, exhausted, unmotivated, emotionally unavailable, emotionally available, too optimistic, or insufficiently optimistic, somebody has a solution. The advertisements are everywhere. "Do you struggle with alcohol?" "Are you suffering from anxiety?" "Do you feel stuck in life?" "Join our program and transform your future." "Take control of your life today." "Become the best version of y...

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...

Where Did My Laughter Go? The Smile That Stayed Behind  A few weeks ago I found myself sitting at a table with a group of people I have known for years. It was one of those completely ordinary gatherings that seem so unimportant at the time that nobody would think of remembering them later. Someone had made coffee. Someone else had brought a cake. The conversation wandered wherever conversations among familiar people usually wander. A little about work, a little about children and grandchildren, a little about politics, and a little about how things used to be better, although nobody seemed entirely sure in what way. Then somebody made a remark. Today I have no idea what was actually said. The joke itself has long since disappeared from memory. What remained was the reaction. Around the table people burst out laughing. One man almost spilled his coffee. A woman beside him bent forward and wiped tears from her eyes. Even the person who made the joke started laughing at his own co...