Czech Republic — Values
I almost missed the Czech border sign as there is no border infrastructure. In the first kilometers after the border there were some “cheap booze this way” signs and what I believe was an advertisement for a waterbirth clinic.
I cycled south towards Trutnov and then turned south-east towards Nachod. The Czech Republic made a relaxed impression so far.
Wouldn’t it be cool to live here!? I’m sure there are great running opportunities in the hills around the city.
In Nachod a man recognized me. His name was Lukas and had seen me a couple of hours earlier while he was driving somewhere for work.
We chatted and he invited me to stay in the home of his parents for the night. For dinner they cooked delicious sausages and a soup with self-made liver balls. And with the Google Translate App we shared many stories from our lives.
Thank you – Děkuji!
Would you spontaneously invite a foreign cyclist to sleep in your home? Would you feed this smelling cyclist dinner, give him a room, and serve him breakfast the next morning without knowing anything about him?
This was the first spontaneous invitation of my bike tour and many more followed across the countries I cycled through – helpfulness and trust seem to be woven into the human species across cultures.
But how do such values form in our consciousness? How do we become who we are?
Many theories of brain functioning and models explaining human behavior have been proposed but so far no dominant personality development theory has emerged. Aren’t we all individuals?
Perhaps one pragmatic way to choose a life path is to first imagine the world we want to live in, and then translate how the required values look in our daily behavior – no personality development theory required.
But any value reflection remains only a dry exercise as long as one key element is missing in our life: action.
People may say that they live their lives authentic according to their individual self, for example based on the values “helpfulness” or “generosity” or “love”. But if in reality they let their lives pass and never help others in a selfless manner, never really care for the well-being of others and never really act aligned with the values they “say” they want to live their life by – then they fail to fill their desired values with life.
Given the choice to invite me or not, the family in Nachod did spontaneously choose the action to invite me. Had they chosen not to invite me, they could have had a long philosophical debate over dinner about the value “helpful behavior” – but I would still have camped another night in the forest.
Today I crossed back into Poland for a day, then tomorrow I will cross back into Czech Republic. From Nachod I could have directly cycled south towards Olomouc in flat terrain. But this route would not have been aligned with the principles I realized made sense to put my goal “cycling in nature whenever possible” into targeted action.
First, I was committed to consistently ride the higher route in all countries if given alternatives. Second, I wanted to ride through diverse landscapes and where possible cycle through national parks, nature reserves, or generally beautiful regions.
This principles meant from Nachod I cycled east through the Stołowe Mountains National Park and it’s rock formations formed by million of years of sandstone erosion. Then southeast climbing up again through Śnieżnik Landscape Park towards the border.
Soon after leaving Nachod I was back in Poland cycling through untouched forests with lakes still partially frozen.
Values manifest through our action but some value reflection may be helpful for us if our goal is to align our actions with the values we cultivate in our consciousness.
But when we start to analyze our values deeper, when we start to analyze our cognition and reality in general – what can we know for sure?
Skeptics have pointed out that we cannot know things for sure. In response, the French philosopher René Descartes argued that even when we think fundamentally skeptical by doubting the certainty of all knowledge, there is one thing doubtful thinking logically proves:
“I am thinking, therefore I exist.”
We exist as a logical consequence of the fact that we think. All further consciousness self-reflexion builds on the foundation of the existential realization of our existence – that’s safe!
This may have a calming effect on your and my consciousness as we don’t have to wonder whether we fundamentally exist at all, at least according to the line of reasoning of Descartes. No more existential fear is logically justified if our existence is guaranteed through our thinking self.
However, this still leaves the question which set of unique values we individually cultivate inside our consciousness … waiting to be filled with life through our actions.
We probably know two things pretty sure. First, we have only one life in our current biological body so this is our one opportunity to make something with it according to our values – to leave a trace we are proud of. Second, our biological lifetime is limited.
Having only one life and having a limited lifetime are two good reasons to cultivate courage. If we wait to take action only after having no more doubts or fears regarding our values and “who we are”, this would mean waiting a lifetime without taking any action at all – an element of uncertainty and doubt seems to be a natural part of life just like our natural capacity for courage.
Does it makes sense to prioritize action over planning in life? Probably there is a sweet spot, something like a continuous balance.
Perhaps another pragmatic way to choose a life path is to first observe our flow of actions and then articulate which values our actions reflect – and if we like them.
You and I should make no mistake on our journey: each time our consciousness dives into deep self-reflection, for example when we meditate on our values, our limited lifetime is ticking away.
So what do you and I individually strive for in our life today? Which individual values do we want to guide our actions and why?
Given that our life is flowing from cradle to grave, perhaps continuous action and continuous value reflection in parallel is a pragmatic way to conceptualize life.
Of course one could reject both starting points altogether and decide to “just live life” without any conscious self-reflection. But even then we probably live our lives based on our values, just subconsciously.
Coming out of the Stołowe Mountains National Park I enjoyed a long, stretched-out downhill. The air got warmer and the landscape changed to flat farmland – I felt hungry and found a welcome food restocking point in a small shop in Krosnowice.
Over lunch I used the opportunity to dry out my tent. Realization of the day: it’s better to invest the time and pack out and dry things during the day than to pitch camp with wet equipment at night.
In the evening I filled 8 liter of water in my waterbags in Lądek-Zdrój and rode the first time into the night. Night-cycling feels calm, peaceful, and a bit magic.
The last 2 hours cycling up towards the Polish-Czech border no traffic passed me so I just camped some meters away from the road. There were only about four cars until 10am the next morning when I left camp.
First sub-zero night but well within the gear comfort zone – and a night sky with a million stars shining in deep dark blue space.
Relaxed morning, I got up late and took my time over breakfast. I knew I was just 2 serpentine turns away from the border pass and then hours of gentle downhill lay ahead.
I crossed back into Czech Republic at a small pass. Nobody around.
One reason I came here was the interesting mountain Králický Sněžník where three draining areas touch. Basically if you pee on it’s top in different directions, your pee drains either via the river Elbe into the North Sea, via the Oder into the Baltic Sea, or via the Danube into the Black Sea.
From leaving the pass in the morning until the afternoon, I rolled slightly downhill most of the time, enjoying the scenery. I saw mouflons on the fields at lower elevations and was surprised how daytime active they were – the deer in Germany are more shy.
In the afternoon I saw a good camp spot some kilometers before Olomouc but didn’t want to be seen setting up my tent so I drank tea in another place until sunset. A first touch of springtime lay in the forest.
Today I got up with the birds before sunrise … but I didn’t feel much like cycling.
I cycled slowly through the countryside and stopped to do some bike and equipment maintenance in the sun.
Why did I not feel like cycling? I realized it wasn’t the tiredness from the last mountain days but something deeper: on tour day 9 I had doubts whether I would really enjoy life on the bike long-term. To “cycle the Silk Road” sounds romantic but as a solo rider you spend most of your time alone in the saddle or alone in camp. Did I really want to do this?
Normally I stay away from cities but today I decided to cycle into Olomouc for a change. Olomouc dates back to the Roman empire, has about 100,000 inhabitants, and a large university whose buildings dominate the historic town center. This is clearly a student town.
Why again did I cycle to Asia? Was this tour something meaningful to do in my life?
I drank two lemonades, listened inside myself, and realized that all was good. My motivation to cycle and camp in solitude was still there, for some reason I had just had a morning of doubt. This was me, this was what felt right to do in my one precious life.
I cycled out of the city into the night and the best camp spot I found was a thorny patch next to a highway. I felt happy, I felt free.
Cycling eastbound from Olomouc towards the Slovakian border was mostly flat and sunny. I followed some small rivers and stopped by a beer garden in the afternoon, where I met two gentlemen.
When they heard that I was on my way to Asia they extended their beer garden bike tour by at least 20 km to guide me towards Rožnov pod Radhoštěm – cycling so hard that I could just keep up with my loaded touring bike.
In the afternoon I stopped at a restaurant near a skiing area. Off-season it functioned mainly as a bar for locals and for food it offered only frozen pizza – of which I ate two.
I chatted with the owner and even though he also had hotel rooms available, he happily let me camp in his garden for free.
The two gentlemen cycling with me in the afternoon, the hotel owner letting me camp in his garden – today I experienced more of the value “helpfulness” in action.
How is our human value system functioning? Where do values come from in our biological brain? Does every human consciousness perhaps have an individual “ethical compass” steering how we act?
I didn’t know any answers but perhaps this was not relevant. Breathing in, breathing out … and taking action helping others.
Was that what life was all about?
Yesterday evening one of my tent poles broke and unfortunately at the connection point bearing the most tension. I could blame it on lightweight tents saving weight and material but it was probably my mistake by not fully connecting the two segments and therefore the aluminium ripped out.
At first I got angry realizing that my tent was fucked. Then I fixed it with cable binders.
I packed up camp and cycled a long uphill through the forest towards the Slovakian border. Zero traffic on the road.
The forests here look healthy and well-managed. Every year the Czech export more wood but their overall timber stock keeps growing – operating in life with the value “sustainability” is always kind of sexy.
Czech Republic, I thank your inhabitants for putting values like “helpfulness” and “generosity” into action. Perhaps it’s a good idea to balance our consciousness exploration with action too.