Bicycle Tour – Did it change my life?

Having done this circa 5-week-long venture of mine, it suddenly put my whole life upside down. I still ate, slept and brushed my tooth, like usual, but in a completely different context.

For the past year my life had been waking up to my "job" in the civil service, and finally upon getting it over, I left almost immediately in under a week.

Now I'm back, and in a way this 5 weeks has been like a reset button that has created this empty space in the continuum of routine and life, and I now realize that I have an opportunity to introduce some new routines with more ease (until they get disrupted again for the duration of Steemfest). As much as I could get induced with videogames and series, I'm staying away from them at least for a while, and instead I think I will start reading more, now that I actually have a lot of time and energy to do that without any obligations. Not that having a job would be a good excuse to neglect that, but now I actually feel like doing that without needing to force myself into it. I have one book to be finished now, non-fiction, but when I'm done with it, I think I'd like to read some good fiction, which I haven't done for a while, but I don't have much idea where to start, so I'm open to suggestions – give me the best you can recommend.

I don't know about you, but for me the views aren't necessarily "the thing" – even if they're great – of the trip, but it is equally, if not more, the trip into my mind. "Finding oneself", or whatever cliche way it is described. It is true though.

It was an experiment in a sense, because I was interested to see how my mind would react to it, and what this new – bit extreme – activity would potentially change in it. I like good views still though, and the variety of different scenery helps to make the ride more enjoyable. Even though I like to be efficient with traveling by using big straight roads that usually have much more general and flat profile, sometimes a not so straightforward one could be a better choice if it has less traffic and a more diverse scenery.

And on these big roads it happened that I occasionally started going "mental" if you will; Sometimes I was having a monologue where I was discussing the absurd nature of life itself and how do my cells create this thing called a living human with wide experience of emotions and all. Like what the hell all this really is? At other times I did more standard activity and just sang to myself... trying to drive the earworms caught in gas stations away. Sometimes when I was pedaling through heavy rain I literally just screamed out my frustration and would've swore the gods – if I believed in any – that gave me constant headwind or rain. This usually happened on the big roads, so like I said, sometimes the small although longer road could be a better option. And when I saw a dark forest, I started to imitate a parrot: "Murky woods... murky... murky woods." Yeah, I know how crazy I must've looked, but what can you do when your brain wants to entertain itself?

^{Most of the time I actually wasn't a mental caravan on two wheels though, don't get me wrong.}

But the main thing it has done is probably the changed perception towards work and time, which I already touched with discussing patience. So, with extensive cycling I've been able to develop a more long-term approach towards it, and I believe it'll transfer to other aspects too, to an extent.

So, to answer the question proposed on the headline that @kryptik also asked in chat,

did it change your life?

I'd say that perhaps not by itself, but it has the potential to have long lasting effects, depending how I decide to use my time now after.