It's April 9th. We are somewhere in the Corona pandemic. How do you experience the situation at the moment?
Well, at the moment, my for me personally, the mood is changing every day. For more than three weeks, I'm at home working from home and and sharing my apartment with my wife, who was also working from home.
And it's a new situation for us. So we had to get used to that, to be together all the time. And being in that coworking space, as we call it now. I'm getting to know what she's actually working on, which is quite interesting. And on the other hand, she's experiencing my work environment also. That's a new situation.
At the moment we are at a point where some conflicts occur that usually would not occur. Because usually you can go outside or you can meet other people, you can get distracted. And that's not possible at the moment. So that's interesting. It's challenging.
Sometimes I wish it would not be like that. But then on the other hand, I think it's a chance to go into conflicts that you would not go into otherwise. And that's my micro environment. And outside of this bubble I am still struggling to get the picture together. Because on the one hand, there is a massive media consumption, which I'm trying to to bring down to a level that's more healthy for me. And it's getting better now. Then on the other hand, when I go out, for example I try to go running every second or third day and you wander through the city and you meet people and the interactions have changed quite a lot. On the one hand because everybody keeps that safe distance, but on the other hand, you also see a lot of things that you usually don't see and you see people differently. In your vicinity, like in your neighbourhood, the people that you wouldn't see in your everyday life, suddenly you encounter them and you talk to them. And so that is what is changing
Is there anything that you would say that you observe or that you learn about yourself or your environment or your society or your city at the moment?
Well, one thing that I've learned about myself, but which is also valid for others, I would say, is that the more the things are changing and the more disruption is happening on societal level, the more I'm trying to find stability and peace within myself. So I have started to meditate more again. I have started to take care more about my body, doing more sports and so on. Although because there's more time now for that, of course, but I see that for me now, it's very important to find like inner stability because the outside world doesn't give me that stability anymore.
Because my job has changed tremendously, the outside perspectives have changed: the usual way I'm in contact with people, how I'm how and when I'm meeting people has changed. My first intuition in the first week was that I have to find a stability within myself. That was one important learning for myself. And I think it's also valid for for others.
Thank you. Now, I would invite you to look into the future, into a time where we learned to live well with the virus. What do you want more of or less of?
One word that comes into my mind now is community. I want more community in the sense that I would like for myself and also for others a bigger openness for the people around. How you can build up and maintain communities that support each other on everyday basis. So that's something that I already see now, because there's a strong desire for that. And I would hope that these networks and communities even grow and get stronger.
I would love to see more of this taking care of what's happening around you, like right next door and on the next street. Because I feel that this was kind of out of sight. And it's more important now. And as there is not so much possibility to move around, this is a very important resource for us and for the future that we can build on. So this is something that should get more and stronger.
Thank you. So the final question. When you think of the future, what is your wildest dream? So what is a dream that you maybe even don't allow yourself to dream sometimes the about the future?
I'm dreaming of a way of living with each other, of a way like that economy and politics that is not harmful to our earth and to nature. So that in this future, we have a very strong connection to nature and we realise that we ourselves are really part of nature. We are nature somehow. Not only somehow, but we are nature. So we have developed a very good way to interact with animals, plants and everything that is around us. And I have a sustainable way so that we don't consume more than we can and that earth's gifts provide.
We have become more modest. We have realised that many things we thought were important to us, in fact are not that important. So we have a stronger consciousness about what's really important. And one thing, that I mentioned before, is being in contact with other people, being in a healthy communities and having time for other people.
Because, that's something that is lacking most of the time: having time. Relationships they need time and in the future we have the time.
Thank you very much.
