The Patras Bicycle Years
Two bicycles, a stack of audiobooks, and a lot of road spent trying to understand money, business and where I was going.
Most of this reading happened on wheels. I would put on an audiobook, leave with no great ceremony, and spend hours riding around Patras while the material slowly turned into questions.
The Tern covered a serious amount of road. The mountain bike had an even rougher contract. I rode both hard enough that the books became attached to movement, heat, traffic, the coast and the particular silence that appears after the body finally settles into the work.
Tesla led into Edison. Edison led into Carnegie. Then came Think and Grow Rich, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Rich Dad Poor Dad and the rest of that strange industry built around money, agency and the promise that life can be made to move.
I was trying to understand why technical ability could exist beside financial helplessness, why some people turned ideas into organizations, and how much of success was skill, psychology, timing, communication or plain luck. Every book offered a piece and usually advertised it as the whole machine.
Cycling gave the questions time. A weak idea becomes irritating after another twenty kilometres. A useful one keeps returning, picks up connections and eventually follows you home.
Looking back, this was an improvised education: two bicycles, headphones, Patras, and a stubborn suspicion that I could reason my way into a wider life. I am still working on that last part.