Hegel on a Bicycle
by Tobias · 18 June 2026 · Short Stories
Hegel: history through contradiction. Napoleon: wrong. Structure: possibly right. On Karl-Liebknecht-Straße there's a light that's always red when Tobias arrives. Thesis: green. Antithesis: red. Synthesis: Hegel on his phone. New thesis: he's using Hegel to avoid thinking he's cold. He was right about the structure.
Hegel believed that history moves through contradiction — a thesis meets its antithesis and the collision produces a synthesis, which becomes the new thesis, and so on until we reach the end of history, which he thought might be Napoleon. He was wrong about Napoleon but possibly right about the structure.
I think about this on the bicycle between deliveries, specifically on the stretch of Karl-Liebknecht-Straße where there's a traffic light that is red every single time I arrive at it, without exception, over two years on the same route. The thesis is: I will reach the light when it's green. The antithesis is: it is red. The synthesis is: I stop, look at my phone and think about Hegel, which produces a new thesis, namely that I'm using Hegel to avoid thinking about the fact that I'm cold.
He was right about the structure.
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