My life is a succession of settling in new places. My life is the process of settling inside of myself. I’m sure there is absolutely nothing special about that. It is everyone’s life story. But I can’t speak for how other people perceive this journey through life. I can only speak for myself.
I guess most people will call me well-travelled. Compared to a lot of people in the blogging community, what I have seen is but a tiny fraction of the world. I don’t think I could have fit much more into it though. Some people are still in their twenties and have been to more than a hundred countries. I sit and wonder – how much have they taken in from each individual country? How well do they know the places they have been to? I have been to 33 foreign countries, if my count is not mistaken, but I would consider myself to have an actual idea of just a few – Germany, obviously, then the States, Poland, and Bosnia and Hercegovina. If I’m very generous with myself I could count Croatia and Greece as well because I’ve travelled them fairly thoroughly.
The longing to see new places is always there. I am a driven person. Driven in many senses of the word. I am driven to achieve things, driven to success. Driven also to be active, to create things – the only way I know how to, artistically, in writing and music. Driven, very much, to love. Driven to move, quite physically, and to discover. My drive doesn’t aim for quantity though – or at least not first and foremost. It aims for depth.
Talking about this is so close to my heart that I feel the English language makes it hard on me to phrase things properly. This rarely happens to me, but for once I feel that German would provide me with a more suitable vocabulary after all. However, only recently a blogger I very much appreciate said that phrases like „I’m at a loss for words“ or „Words cannot express…“ don’t suit a writer because words are your job, and I think she is right. So I will try.
The awareness of my need for depth wasn’t always there. I had to find it through experience. I used to call just about anyone a friend. In times of facebook, we all know how lightly that word is used. Today I am much more careful. Acquaintances are plentiful. Friends are rare. I chose a field of study in which I would gather a broad basic knowledge instead of specializing in one field, and have only come to find true insights that approach the core of things very late in my academic career. And I used to want to see many places instead of lingering in one and getting to know it well and truly.
Time and time again it occurs to me that I have been so lucky to have seen many places and found much happiness in the vast strangeness of countries and cities formerly unknown to me. So very lucky. And I needed the quantity to find the quality in small parts of it, which I have been blessed enough to manage. How I deserve this, no one will ever know. I have no explanation but some kind of metaphysical grace.
The more I reflect it, the more I come to the conclusion that what makes us decent human beings are mainly three things: gratitude, empathy and respect. Most of the time, all three of them come naturally to me. Again, I don’t know why, but I am glad it is the case. That does not mean I don’t have difficulty with either one of the three at times. I am no angel. But I am driven to work on myself.
All there is to learn about these three things can be learned from human interaction. I have encountered people who don’t have much to be grateful for. Some of them turn jaundiced and embittered. Others fight tooth and nail to still see the good in their lives and be grateful for what they have. I have also met people who have trouble feeling other people’s joy or pain, or even understand a different viewpoint or life choice. Some of them try hard to find that compassion inside of themselves. Others just turn into loners and give up on a social life (which is a veritable life choice in itself, albeit a bit sad from my personal standpoint). Then there are those I have met who don’t respect either other people or life itself. I must say that this is one of the things where my ability to empathize meets its boundaries. How can you not respect life? How can you not treat it carefully and try to make the most of it, for your own benefit and that of other people? But maybe that is my drive speaking. My drive to be the best possible version of myself. Ultimately that is what it all comes down to.
I am very much aware that I was only able to develop this kind of drive, to feel gratitude, empathy and respect, because I had the best conditions anyone could ask for with material and emotional security provided by a loving family through all my life. Who knows if I could have done it if the terms had been different. But what sense does it even make to ask that question. We all have to make the best of what we are given. I can only thank my lucky stars that they have made it so easy on me.
Why am I writing this? Maybe to remind myself of my own principles on a rainy day when life doesn’t seem to hold much beauty or joy to be grateful for, when I encounter something I cannot for the life of me understand, or when people act in ways that threaten to make me lose respect for them.
When I was 13 and attending confirmation classes in church, our pastor, a man I truly and deeply admire, said to us something about the concept of sin (which I realize is a tricky term in itself, but bear with me). He derived it etymologically from sound – as in water, not as in music. The words are closer in German, Sünde and Sund. He said sins were the things that seperate people from one another and from God the way that open sounds seperate land masses. I believe that lack of gratitude, empathy and respect are what seperates us. But I want to build bridges. I want to cross the sounds. I want to find true connection to the world and within myself. This is my drive.
Juli 14, 2014 at 7:58 am
I have read this blog of yours many times in the last week and I felt that I wanted to say something about it because it touched me. I hope you will forgive me for doing so. It is concerning the relative abilities of people to be and do the things you talk about. You write that you are very aware of your own privileges in life, particularly the „material and emotional security“ that you have always had from your family. I want to say that not everyone has had that. Some people are like animals that have been beaten their whole life. Who knows, maybe they have actually been sometimes or in some ways. If you approach such people or see them they lie in a corner, traumatized, scared, afraid. They do not get up and come to meet you. They are not open or friendly. They find contact with others hard. They do not extend a hand or a paw or whatever. Life has made them withdraw within themselves. It has taken away their social connection because they have learned from life that such things are pain. We all have different lives and life teaches different people different things. I don’t know, maybe you have to have actually been in that position to see that. You should certainly be grateful for your own loving upbringing as you have said. I just thought that I should put this other side to you. As you spoke about empathy and respect I feel this is part of appreciating the lives and stories of people who may never have had the experience of life that you have. We all judge people by our own standards but maybe part of empathy and respect is realizing that this may not always be appropriate or possible? Thank you for your blog. I’m glad I have found it because I enjoy the mix of beautiful pictures and thoughtful articles. I wish you happiness in your thinking.
September 17, 2014 at 1:32 pm
Thank you for your comment, Zoe, and for your kind wish. I think you are right, and I feel a little sad because I apparently didn’t bring across in my text that I am aware of the very very priviliged position I am in, and the fact that not everybody has had that, and that it can be very very hard to live by the ideals I put forth here. What I stand by, though, is that there are certain standardsof basic human decency that some people feel aren’t valid for them exactly *because* life hasn’t been good to them. And I think that is wrong. I think life won’t start being good to you if you stop being decent. I know it’s tough. It’s even tough when the conditions you were brought up in were as perfect as mine. But no one ever said it had to be easy.