I like trees. They look great, moderate temperature, generate shade, and even smell good. But I have no desire to be one.

I like trees. They look great, moderate temperature, generate shade, and even smell good. But I have no desire to be one.

Originally shared by Vyacheslav Egorov

Trying to not be a tree.

If you know me for a long time, you also probably know that I am annoyingly lazy person that does not like to move much. 

Well, I enjoy moving my thoughts, and my tongue (especially when drunk), and my fingers as my favorite work requires that, but I’d really prefer to never ever move any other part of my body. I’d love to absorb water and minerals from the soil, bath in the sunlight synthesising carbohydrates and slowly think my slow woody thoughts about C++.

26 years of my life I was waiting for Biology to deliver a breakthrough: discover a way for a human to become a tree. The wait was in vain. I am approaching 27th birthday and it does not look like the solution is anywhere near my grasp. And so, envying all the trees blooming in wonderful Danish spring (which started somewhere in early June and now it slowly turning into Autumn), I said to myself: “Похоже и в этом году не выйдет! Пора шевелиться” (It looks like it is not happening this year either. Time to start moving).

This was a practical decision. Doing my favorite thing, moving thoughts around, requires among other thing a good blood flow and the blood does not flow into the brain through a sheer willpower alone. I have no desire to retire in 30 because my brain is covered in fat and I am unable to think as quickly as I used to.  

But how do I start moving? Running (in Aarhus it feels like half of the city is doing running!) would be too stressful for my knees. Going to the gym would require me to exercise in a closed space with other people, slowly sucking my soul out with their gazes (ok, I have other issues in addition to being lazy). The only thing that counters introvert’s anxiety is alcohol and that is not really compatible with a workout.

The solution is actually pretty simple (you see, I am already getting worse in thinking, as it took me a while to realize it): I have this relatively nice road bike which I bought three years ago and I should just use it more. 

Biking is not that much different from programming: you sit most of the time, standing up for hard times (or when you feel like standing up), you clear your brain and monotonically press pedals down until you arrive to your destination. Sounds easy, right?

It is indeed pretty easy, though I know my colleagues would smile when they read this. My first experience of biking 10 km in Denmark 3 years ago to reach a BBQ party in the countryside was not very pleasant. I died somewhere in the middle of this route and had to take a bus. When telling this story I like to theatrically blame the bike: rolling my eyes, waving my hands and describing how it had wheels of wood and chains of rust. But anybody knows (especially in Denmark) that these 10km would never be a problem for a fit person. 

I’ll be honest. I don’t want to relive that embarrassing experience... 

First I stopped making excuses about the rain and started biking to work everyday (previously I was walking, so excuses about rain did not make sense in the first place.). But the miserable 2km (even with a noticeable uphill) stopped being exciting surprisingly fast. And if you are not feeling “pain”, it means you are not improving anymore. 

So I artificially increased my daily commute to 10km by taking a detour (though I still allow myself to bike 2km if it is raining or I have an early meeting). That is also not painful to me anymore either. 

Now I am doing 20km rides during the weekends with a plan to double it yet again when I feel completely comfortable with that and I hope to reach 60-100km rides this summer. (I am still not sure what I am going to do in the winter, I doubt I’d really enjoy riding a bike in the snow... Maybe I should think for real about transferring to Google HQ in Mountain View, California so that I can ride the bike all year long).

I did not yet achieve anything a fit person would consider an achievement, but still I understood one thing, that I was only pretending to understand before: no matter how painful and hard things are you should just continue to push forward. Uphill is intimidating and you are short on breath? Don’t stop. Stopping does not make things easier. Only going forward, again and again, does. Never surrender, go-go-go and never stop (except on traffic lights, unless you want to die young).

Today early in the morning I went to Moesgård Strand. It was raining in the night and when I woke up around 7 I started trying to come up with excuses and avoid going anywhere and stay in the warm bed.

I am happy I did not. 

When I reached the Strand the Sun showed itself from beyond the clouds and bathed me in the warm morning sunlight. 

And standing there alone on the empty beach, I felt tranquility...