Zebra.

Humanity has long pondered the great questions of life: Is the glass half full or half empty? What is our place in the universe? And more importantly, what drives someone to walk across a zebra crossing that is a bike path, with no traffic lights, no warnings, nothing but white lines and blind faith in human goodness?

The idea that the glass is “always full”—half with water, half with air—is an attempt to transcend the limitations of our perception. What we don’t see also counts. And seen in this way, the zebra crossing becomes more than a traffic facility. It becomes a metaphor. A paradoxical tension between order and chaos, hope and threat, civic trust and reckless cyclist anarchy.

The zebra crossing on a cycle path seems empty. No lights. No flashing signals. No explicit indications that the pedestrian has priority here, except for some white lines that are now fading from years of rain and tyre tracks. Like the half-empty glass, this path looks mostly like an attempt that was not quite finished. But what we do not see is more important than what we see.

The invisible part of the zebra crossing is expectation. The unspoken social contract. The moral air between the watery reality of bicycle tire and footstep. It is a place where trust collides with speed. Where the belief that “others will stop” rests on nothing more than human decency—a rare commodity in rush hour traffic.

And yet, most of the time, it works. Just as the glass doesn’t fall over despite its apparent emptiness, people cross these paths every day. They don’t always look. They hope. They take a step, trusting that the invisible force of mutual respect will hold them up. And the cyclist—swearing or sweating—slows down. Sometimes.

So the zebra crossing is not empty. It is filled with potential. It forces a form of coexistence between different rhythms of daily life. It is a place of encounter, of conflict, of silent negotiations. Every crossing is a small philosophical act: a moment of risk, surrender and, yes, faith. Not in God, but in the decency of a complete stranger on a Gazelle bike.

In this respect, the zebra crossing resembles the famous glass: it requires a broader view. To acknowledge that things are not what they seem. That emptiness is sometimes full. That white stripes without context still mean something. That even in the silence of asphalt there is a story.

So the next time you see a zebra crossing on a bike path, with no traffic light, no protection—just realize: this is not a mistake in the road system. This is poetry in chalk. This is the glass, not half full, not half empty, but completely filled with everything you don’t see.