If you look closely at this scene, you may notice an important detail: sometimes great journeys begin not with a horse, not with a ship, and not even with a spacecraft engine, but with a rather questionable construction made of two bicycles, a rope, and a considerable amount of confidence.
In front rides Don Quixote. His bicycle is crowned with a wooden horse’s head—because if you don’t have a real horse, that is hardly a reason to give up heroism. His lance is raised high, the wind plays with his mustache, and his gaze is fixed somewhere in the direction of great adventures which, by a curious coincidence, usually lie near the nearest windmill.
Behind him rides Sancho Panza. His bicycle is tied to the one in front, and he doesn’t even have a handlebar—which, if you think about it, is a remarkably honest metaphor for life. On Sancho’s face there is the expression of a man who is slightly bewildered by what is happening, yet somehow continues participating in the whole enterprise. Probably out of friendship. Or curiosity. Or simply because the rope is already tied.
Somewhere between them appears the head of Sancho’s donkey—a reminder of the time when transportation was simpler, slower, and, frankly, much easier to understand.
And here one of those philosophical questions appears, the kind best asked during long journeys:
Who, in fact, is leading—and who is merely following?
Because sometimes the one in front is simply waving the lance more confidently.
And the one behind is the only person who actually understands what is going on.