I fell off my bike. It turned into an existential crisis.
It finally happened. After years of cycling around my neighborhood without a care (or a helmet), I decided to be responsible. I strapped on a helmet for the first time in forever, hopped on my e-bike, and set off for a 20-mile loop.
Then, the ground came rushing up to meet me.
The Anatomy of a Spill
If you’ve ever been in an accident, you know about the "stretch." That split second where time dilates. I was navigating some construction, transitioning from grass to sidewalk, and hit the concrete at exactly the wrong angle.
It was a strange, immersive first-person experience. One moment I was riding; the next, I was watching a version of myself skid across a gritty sidewalk. VR has nothing on the sensory overload of a real-world wipeout.
The Damage Assessment:
The Hip: Took the brunt of the impact (and the bruise is currently a work of art).
The Scuffs: Legs and elbow shredded.
The Weirdest Detail: Sitting under a tree afterward, I noticed whole tufts of leg hair that … just weren't attached to anything anymore.
As the adrenaline faded and the trembling started, I understood perfectly how someone—especially once you hit middle age—could have one spill like this and decide to never touch a bicycle again.
The Zero-Sum Reality
I was miles from home, not even at the halfway point of my ride. I had two choices:
Turn around and beeline for the safety of my couch.
Push through the throbbing in my hip and finish the 20-mile loop.
My brain didn't even process it as a choice. It felt like an inevitability—a zero-sum reality. I had to ride to get home anyway, so I might as well finish what I started. I went into autopilot.
That feeling is what’s going to stick with me long after the scrapes heal. It wasn’t necessarily optimism, and it wasn’t quite pessimism. It was just the realization that, well, what else are you going to do?
Life as a Sequence of Misery Mitigations
The fall off the bike felt like a metaphor for everything else lately.
My brain feels broken. I’m struggling to find the creative spark that typically fuels my existence. I’m navigating a job market that feels designed to make humans miserable. It’s easy to look at modern society and see it as nothing more than a sequence of misery mitigations:
Work Stress? Mitigate with a drink.
Cost of Living Anxiety? Mitigate with a distracting movie.
The Void of Existence? Mitigate with a shiny new gadget.
We try to fill the "gaping maw" with things that don't fit, and the act of trying becomes just another layer of the cycle.
Keep Going Anyhow
"Tough shit. Keep going anyhow."
It’s not a glamorous mantra, but it’s the only one that works. Life will throw you off the bike. You will skid across the grit. You will find yourself sitting under a tree, shaking, wondering why you’re even doing this in the first place.
But you’re already out there. You have to get home. So you might as well finish the loop.
My brain might be broken, and my hip might be purple, but at least I was wearing a helmet. Finally.
###
