We are facing the Corona pandemic and there's a lot of trouble in the world, a lot of hysteric, a lot of ambivalence and a lot of things going around in our mind. How do you experience this situation at the moment?
It's a complex question. Or it's a simple question with a lot of different answers. But if I go with my feeling, I would say it's a time for slowing down, retreat a little bit and feeling into where I am in my life and also listening and observing.
I somehow have to admit that I planned a bit for this time. Not in terms of Corona as a virus that is shutting down the public life, but I felt I was anyway at a time where I had to do some deep thinking about what's next in my life. So, I in a sense, I really enjoy this time, having a somehow less busy life and less complicated. In the sense that I don't have to and cannot travel. Usually I travel a lot to different places, but somehow there's a forced simplicity. So in my little bubble, with connecting with people around the globe, around different topics, I think in most moments I do enjoy it and I can appreciate this time.
Well, you mentioned that you are in a little bubble and you are for yourself. Is there something you learn about yourself or even about society in these days?
Now, personally, I think I learned to be better alone with myself and appreciate this time. I mean, we do have all this possibilities to occupy our minds with different things. We can stream things and we can read. Even when you're at home, you know, your bubble doesn't end at the doorstep of your house or the border of your city, but we are still able to connect across the globe. And we have a lot of things that invite us to just occupy our minds with something.
And I learned that in this time I am a more able to not only watch movies on some streaming provider, but also just watch the movies in my head and enjoy how I feel. And I experience this as quite strengthening at the moment and grounding. With small rituals, just starting or going through the day with a bit more awareness.
On a societal level, I think there's Norbert Elias who said you need to bring a system to the brink of its existence to learn about the patterns that exist. And I think that this pandemic is something that unites the people locally and also that connects us globally. The virus does not know about national borders and is ignoring the national borders just like nature is ignoring national borders. So there's this element of also somehow understanding the artificiality of the boundaries we draw.
And at the same time I also feel that our shared experience of this pandemic across the globe is a shared reference point that creates a lot of synchronicity. So whoever I talk with, and I had the pleasure to have people reaching out from really different places just to have a conversation and connection, there is something that synchronises our lives, how we deal with the situation: We all need to take care not to further the spread of the virus and overload our health systems. We need to deal with an economically very challenging situation. A lot of people don't know how life will look like in one month or two months.
So, I think this is kind of synchronising the experience of people around the globe to different extent, but I believe it's also a big chance for really seeing us as a part of the larger community of life on this planet.
And if you imagine that when we went through the pandemic. Is there anything you watch one more or less in your life afterwards?
It's a question I carry for a long while with me and there is a big desire to somehow live in a situation where I feel more grounded in my local surroundings, my neighbourhood, my city. Being part of a situation or a way of living in which there is more sharing and more caring. And I want more of that. Even if I don't know how it looks like, it's very hard for me to make it specific because I think I lived my life the other way around for a long time, reaching out to different places, exploring different places, going from one project to another. So I want to feel more roots, whatever that means.
And I want more of moments of taking a breath between things. Slowing down, taking the time to arrive with whatever there is in a day, just being with myself, being with my surrounding, being with the situation. So I think it has to do with allowing myself to be more present. I want more of that as well.
So what I want less of is, maybe less ego, whatever that means. Also, somehow having a story to live into that doesn't see my own development or my own success or whatever I do as something that is not connected to my surroundings, something that is not grounded on this earth or in the communities or the history I am part of. So this can be family history, local history, world history. To really feel that. So less of conceiving myself as an atom that has no connection to anything.
No one is an island.
Yes, no one is an island… Less numbing, less numbing. It's also a good thing. I'm very good at distracting me with cigarettes or watching Netflix or just to keep my mind busy. And it's like a fog sometimes, so I want more clarity and less numbness. Also on a societal level.
So imagine the time after Corona. What is your wildest dream?
I think it's a realisation of what we really need. Do I need... You know, do I need this extra pair of shoes? Do I need five trousers? Do I need X, Y, Z? So I think we raised on the attitude that it's never good enough. And my wildest dream is that there is a moment to realize that the level of quality of life that we achieved, at least in Germany – and I know that there a big separation between different groups in Germany, and it's very privileged for me to be able to say that. But that in many ways we just do we have enough. And each one is enough as they are. And my wildest dream is that we don't tell this story of you are not good enough. The economy economy is not good enough. We need more, more, more, more, more, more, more. That this story somehow stops and we have a realisation that basically we have, in many cases, we do have what we need.
And that in the cases, we don't have what we need it is a problem of distribution and not a problem of individual achievements. That somebody didn't learn enough, that somebody didn't work hard enough, that somebody is not smart enough, or that somebody doesn't have the motivation or the stamina to survive in an economic world that has long been described in a kind of romantic image of a jungle where everybody fights for survival. Of course, there's death in this world. And of course there is! But it is about stepping out of this story and appreciate that a lot of things are good enough and that we have more than we need and that it's about sharing this for the better of everybody.
Because it doesn't help me to fight and defend my own privileges because my privilege depends on the web of life and the quality of life we all create together. So if I separate myself from the world and say this doesn't concern me I make myself poorer. But the moment I say I'm connected to everything and I try to align my actions somehow between the common good and what's good for me. I think we have a more thriving world for everybody.
So if your dream isn't about the jungle, what makes the dream a wild life?
I think what makes this dream wild is that it touches upon so many things that have been like a taboo and to have been taken for granted. You know, I think it's wild because, because it goes somehow against a lot of the stories we have been collectively living into in what we can call global northern or western modernity.
Ok. Thanks.
Thank you.
