Motivations: Looking at the path I'm walking

Recently I've been thinking a lot about what I've been doing in the last couple of months and what I'm going to do in the nearby future. I feel it's time to define my path somehow because it gives me the focus to do the things I love and find important. It sharpens my sense of direction. It cuts away the things I don't need (anymore) and gives more time and energy to the things that deserve attention.

I've found it easiest to work with certain structures when doing this. These structures aren't made to be strictly followed and can be changed. They are guidelines to make life easier. Below is one of these structures that I regularly use. It consists of thinking in three levels: The experience level, the socio-ecological level and the passion level. I think of these three levels as circles, the experience level enclosing the socio-ecological level and the latter enclosing the passion level.

Experience level

This is the most important level in my opinion. It is the way you experience the world. It's the way you see things. On this level there are often things involved like spirituality and psychology.

For me this means seeing myself as a part of the bigger whole. The fact that we are connected to each other and our environment. It makes me think about the things I do and what effect they would have on the world.

Neglecting this would mean either seeing yourself as the main priority or your environment/the others. It would mean a disunity and the creation of an hierarchy where you either place yourself above the rest or the rest above yourself. I believe equality and unity are important, which can only be manifested in thinking and doing when you experience the world as a whole. 

Socio-ecological level

This level gives you the borders in which you can act. Outside these borders you would have a negative impact socially and/or ecologically. After you start perceiving yourself and the world as connected to each other, you automatically start to become conscious about your actions. At least that's how I experience it. It is a continuous challenge to see how your actions have an impact on the world and to adjust them accordingly.

For me personally this means reducing my socio-ecological impact mostly on the levels of food, shelter and transportation, because these have the largest impact on the rest of the world. 

Lately I'm becoming really interested in cooking, so this will become one of my priorities as soon as possible. I mean, people in our society eat at least three times a day, so it has an enormous impact on the environment when we constantly eat things that need a lot of resources to be made. 

Passion level

This is the level where your passion or passions come into the world. These are the things you love to do and give you energy. These are the things that make you jump out of bed first thing in the morning because you can't wait to get started.  

For me, as much as I'm involved in several ecological projects, these projects aren't my passion, which might surprise some people reading this right now. I find it very important to work on these projects however, because they give me the borders in which I can perform my passion. If I wouldn't be involved into such projects, chances are I wouldn't have the knowledge to perform my passions in a way that they wouldn't have a negative impact socially and/or ecologically.

No, when it comes to passions, I consider myself an artist in the first place. I have an urge to be creative. I have to be honest here and say that I've neglected this level too much for quite some time now and I'm starting to feel the side-effects. I'm starting to feel a lack of energy. It's time to give the artist in me the attention he deserves. It's time to give life to a world inside me that's been waiting there for too long.

To summarize: My main priorities for the near future are cooking and being creative. 

Ecology: The bitter taste of chocolate

Just saw this documentary on chocolate and its origins. Suddenly I'm not that proud anymore of our "fine" Belgian chocolate... Makes you think twice before eating chocolate again.

See for yourself (it's in German).

If you don't want to see it, I can summarize it for you: Child labor. And a lot of it.

Ecology: But alcohol is fun and tastes so good!

Yesterday evening I went out with one of my eco-hosts to a gig in de Blauwe Kater, a jazz and blues pub. On our way to the pub we were, not so coincidentally, talking about Spinoza. She studies philosophy and had to write a paper on this philosopher. When we arrived at the bar it was almost completely empty and the band was testing the equipment. We decided to talk further about Spinoza outside for a while because of the loud testing. Soon we were joined by another nationality. An Italian guy, I recognized from a party before. The three of us went inside after a while, because the pub was slowly getting more crowded and we wanted to sit down. We ordered our drinks. They got beer, while I ordered a fruit juice. I've stopped drinking alcohol a short while ago, but maybe you still remembered that from one of my previous posts. After my second drink my host suddenly said something along this line: "I don't think you should deprive yourself from too much stuff." She was talking about me not drinking alcohol in combination with the vegan cooking and other things I do.

Well, I certainly understand her point of view, because I also loved to drink a pint or two, maybe three, until my recent decision. I still really like the taste, but there are other things involved here which make me chose otherwise, which I'll explain with a little story.

Imagine yourself sitting in that bar next to me and suddenly a starving, little, African kid stumbles into the bar, walks in your direction and stops right in front of you staring with his big white eyes right into yours. Let me help you imagine that little kid:

Now, with those big eyes staring right into yours he opens his mouth and with a soft, crumbly voice he asks you a question: "Can I please have that glass of beer in your hand? It would feed my family for at least a week..." 

You're probably thinking the thirst and hunger got to him and he's talking gibberish. How can a glass of 25 centiliters feed his whole family??? Well, he's not talking gibberish. In fact, he's completely right. That glass of beer of 25 centiliters you're holding in your hand needed 75 liters of water to get produced. More than enough to have produce and water to feed his family for a week.  

Now, I ask you, are you able to look him straight into his eyes and say "No, I will not give you your 75 liters of water you need so desperately. I am going to drink my glass of beer because it's fun and it tastes good." Are you capable of doing that? I am not. And that is one of the main reasons why I don't drink alcohol anymore. Every time I want to order a beer I see this little kid's image in my mind and I just simply can't order beer because of this.

I guess this is something Spinoza meant with at least one of his higher types of 'knowing' as he called it. To think in function of yourself as a part of a bigger whole instead of just thinking in function of yourself. The latter comes from the ego and creates the illusion that you are separated from the rest of the world. You aren't. Every action you take has an impact on your environment, be it a negative or a positive one. It's that simple. Every time you chose for beer or wine, you are taking water away that could have been used to give a little kid in Africa the food and water he needed. It's that simple. And if you thought beer, with its 75 liters of water, or wine, with its 120 liters of water, are bad, 1 kilo of grain-fed beef equals 15.000 liters of water!      

Like the taste? Maybe find something that replaces it. More than enough tastes to choose from in my opinion. 

Like the fun that comes from drinking alcohol? Well, if you find your life dull without alcohol, maybe turn around your life so it becomes fun, instead of going for the temporary fun that alcohol gives. 

If you're still thinking I'm depriving myself from these things, then let me tell you how I experience it. First of all I do this out of free will, no one is forcing me to do this. It is my own choice and I don't feel obligated to do this. 

Secondly, I find it enriching. I find myself becoming happier and happier because I constantly reduce  the things I need out of free will. The fewer things I need, the fewer things I need to be content.  

Lastly I am happy that I can give more this way. What would you do? TAKE a glass of beer of 25 centiliters or GIVE 75 liters of water to those who need it? I prefer the latter and I know that I'm making a difference by making that choice even though I may never see the direct result with my own eyes.

The gig in de Blauwe Kater wasn't my cup of tea, too much of the same in my opinion, which is good thing for some genres but not for this one, so my philosophical companion and I went back home before the second set started. It got pretty cold compared to a couple hours earlier. We talked about the dialects from Belgium as well as those from Germany (she's from there). Apparently her grandmother speaks something called Plat, which some say is a dialect, while others categorize it as another language. When her grandmother speaks it, my host can't understand it. Apparently it even has some Dutch influences! I really find it interesting how connected we are to the rest of the world even if we don't know it at first. 

Ecology: Rocket we go!

Bright orange and sudden pain. That pretty much describes what I saw and felt the moment I almost got a hot spark in my eye from the circular saw. It luckily missed my eye by a centimeter. Definitely taught me a quick lesson in why safety always comes first. I was holding a piece of metal when Bernard was cutting it in the right shape for our rocket stove. Of course he had a pair of safety goggles on. Next time he won't be the only one. Working gloves would've also been nice. Certainly when a piece of your skin gets between the chisel and hammer you're working with.

"Wait, rocket stove you say? What's that?"

Glad you asked. It's a type of wood stove that I came across a while ago during my never ending searches on the internet on ecological practices. I'm very enthusiastic about this type of stove because it's extremely efficient, very ecological, really cheap (even free if you play it well) and is pretty easy to build, which we are doing right now in a sauna.  

The only basic materials you need are a couple of steel barrels, steel pipes, common bricks, sand, clay (in our case we're using loam), straw, water and some tools. That pretty much covers it.

The basic principle that makes a rocket stove different from a regular wood stove is the chimney, also called the heat riser. Instead of placing the chimney outside of the stove you put it INSIDE the stove. Because of this simple principle almost all the exhaust gasses are captured and thus a lot more heat. With a regular stove all the warmth goes through the chimney and up to the skies, which is pretty inefficient when you think about it.

You'll here two different names pop up often for this type of stove: "rocket stove" and "rocket mass heater". The difference between the two is the purpose of the stove. If it's mainly used for capturing heat through mass and thus keeping the warmth inside your house, you'll here rocket mass heater more often. If it is mainly used for other purposes, like cooking for example, you'll here rocket stove. It's also often used as a synonym, though.

With a rocket mass heater the heat goes up the heat riser and is then pushed down through a long pipe system encased in cob (mixture of clay, sand, straw and water) which captivates the heat inside it. Most of the time the cob is shaped like a bench, so people can sit on it and enjoy the warmth coming from it. Because of this you are able to capture a multitude of heat compared to a regular stove and you need up to four times less wood. Yes, four times less sounds crazy, but it's really that efficient!

Here are some pictures from our visit to a rocket mass heater and our first work day: link  

My advice to anyone who's building or wants to build a heat system for their house: Go rocket! You'll make your life much easier! Check Youtube if you want to see some rocket stoves or rocket mass heaters into action.

Body: Sandals in winter, the aftermath

It's the second day that I'm wearing boots again when I'm going outside. My heels are slowly recovering and are getting less painful. I'm still walking barefoot inside the house, though. I've gotten so used to the nice benefits right now, that I'm taking my shoes off whenever I can.

To start with, I don't have cold feet anymore when walking inside the house without shoes. Same goes for when I'm going to bed. I used to have difficulty getting my feet warm, but now they always feel warm when I go to sleep.

Secondly, your feet become more efficient in storing the heat inside them. I've noticed that, when I go outside for a first time, let's say for half an hour, they start to get pretty cold. If I go inside for a short time and then go outside again I can walk for as long as I want, because they don't get that cold anymore. They store the heat and don't release it as easily anymore.

Thirdly, you become more aware of your environment. I'm way more careful where I plant my feet when I'm walking around in sandals, because I don't want to bump into anything hard or sharp. It made me wonder why on earth we started to use these hard, harsh materials as building materials.

Lastly, your feet become a sort of thermometer. After a while I could tell what temperature it was, off by a degree or two, by sensing it with my feet. Yesterday, when I walked around with boots for the first time again I really felt weird. It was like I was missing a sense. I even deliberately took my hands out of my pockets to register the cold better. Of course my hands weren't as well adapted to the cold as my feet, so I had to put them back in my pockets after a while.

I really recommend walking around like this. Just be careful and get proper footwear before starting this! And yes, I will continue this challenge as soon as I can.

Body: Bye bye sandals, hello boots!

As of today I'm going back to wearing boots.

To be clear: It's not because of the cold. I got quite used to it and although it's snowing pretty heavy today, it is bearable to walk through it.

There are 2 reasons why I've decided to stop walking in sandals for now:
- The straps of my sandals were cutting my feet open when they get wet, which happens regularly in this weather.
- I've developed some pretty painful heels, I think because of the design of my sandals, which were getting worse.

I guess most of the above will be solved as soon as I'm going to switch to huaraches, which have a minimal design, but I'm not going to do that right now because it really takes some time to get used to walking with this very light footwear. So in short: I'm willing to go through really cold weather, but not with constant annoying pains.

There's a thin line between taking up challenges and just asking for trouble. For this challenge I'm drawing that line here for now. I'm happy with the outcome, though. I now know I can take temperatures almost to freezing point and there are some nice side-effects to walking almost barefoot.

Motivations: What if money didn't matter?

Beautiful short clip that contains so much truth. It's the same drive that got me started doing the things I do now.

What if money didn't matter?

What's your drive in life?

Motivations: First snow and no alcohol

First snow today in my home town!

For the people that are wondering if I still wear sandals: Yes, I still do. I have to say it was really cold this morning but I could still take it. One pleasant side effect I've noticed because of this habit: I don't have cold feet in bed anymore when I go to sleep. I guess it has something to do with my feet having a better blood circulation now.

It's also a good day to start a new habit, or rather leaving a habit behind that I picked up again during my travels: Drinking alcohol.

This for a few simple reasons:
- Some of those drinks aren't even vegetarian (like Guinness).
- It takes 75 liters of water to produce a beer of 25 centiliters and 120 liters for a glass of wine. Not really responsible in my opinion if you know that there are people dying on the other side of the planet because of a lack of water.
- It's not good for my body. I always have to recuperate the day after, which is time and energy I could have used for more useful things.

So, bye bye alcohol. Hope I can stay away from you! :)    

Travels: Interview with a digital nomad

Here's a link to an interview with Raam Dev, a digital nomad as he calls himself. The blog of Raam is one of the few I follow because I recognize myself in much of what he writes.

Here you go: click

Motivations: Phase 1 eco-nomadism completed

Since a few days I am happy to say that I consider the first phase of eco-nomadism completed.

This means I've found enough eco-hosts to circulate through in my hometown. Thank you to all these people who are willing to help me with accomplishing this project! :) 

Now it's time to focus on phase 2: Go for a break-even situation where I earn as much money as I spend. More on this later. ;)

Motivations: Video about non-possession

Here is a short video I saw recently about a guy who's living with a minimal amount of stuff. I recognize and agree with much of what he says because I recently also reduced my stuff to a bare minimum.

Really interesting what he has to say about this lifestyle: Click

Enjoy!

Languages: O-bomma likes that you voted for Obama!

Congratulations to Obama and all Americans that voted for him! My grandmother and I wish you another good four years! ;)

Body: New book coming up, The 4-hour Chef

As you all might know by my previous posts: I am a fan of Tim Ferriss, especially his book, the 4-hour body. I haven't read his other book, the 4-hour workweek, entirely and I have to say I'm not a fan of what I read in that book. Still, I really like the fact that he questions everything, experiments with it and comes to his own conclusions, which are most of the time very surprising. 

Now he's introducing his new book, the 4-hour Chef. This is a part of the mail I got today:

"If you missed the big news, The 4-Hour Chef is being boycotted by 700+ bookstores across the United States, led by Barnes & Noble.

Why? Because I’m the next big bet from Amazon Publishing. I now have armies of booksellers hoping me to fail, despite my only motivation: getting books to as many people as humanly possible.

Some retailers are rallying behind the book, but they are few and far between. I’m certainly grateful for their support and will help ensure they move copies.

In The New York Times today, David Streitfeld writes:

The book [The 4-Hour Chef] might need all of his considerable promotional talents. It has not yet generated instant heat even on Amazon; on Sunday it was ranked No. 597 in books and 4,318 in the Kindle Store. “The 4-Hour Workweek,” in an updated edition published in 2009, was by contrast No. 328 in books and 2,723 in Kindle.

To that, I would reply: Patience, dear friends and foes. The number is moving in the right direction.

I don’t rush, and I haven’t even gotten started. I still intend the launch of The 4-Hour Chef to be very different… starting with this post. And despite the hailstorm of blacklistings, I have not downsized my ambitions. I have upgraded them.

Fiction: My goal is to have The 4-Hour Chef hit national bestseller lists.
Fact: My goal is to have all three of my books on the lists at the same time."

Motivations: Article on Sustainable Couch about eco-nomadism

I recently wrote an article about eco-nomadism for Sustainable Couch. 

It appeared in their newsletter today, so here it is :)

It's been almost a year now since I started travelling. Before that I worked in an organic store with nice co-workers, I had a lovely girlfriend and I lived in a beautiful house with some friends. I had everything to be happy, yet it didn't feel right for me. I can't really tell why, but I just HAD to travel. So I did. I left everything that I had behind to discover a little bit of a world unknown to me. My original plans where to travel for six months and then go back to work but it didn't really turn out the way I planned everything and I'm really happy about that. First I was a tourist, then I became a traveller and now I'm becoming a nomad. What the difference is? For a tourist the destination of their travels is important. For a traveller the road towards their destination becomes equally important and enjoyable. Finally, for a nomad the road becomes the destination and so it becomes one, it becomes their home. The road is becoming my home and I absolutely love every step I take on it.

The road becomes your home, so it doesn’t matter which way you go. :)

That's why I recently started the eco-nomad project, "eco" standing for "ecological". Themes like ecology and sustainability are always close to my heart and I had the feeling that it would be a good idea to consciously fuse these themes with the nomadic lifestyle I have now. For me eco-nomadism means to travel from place to place with the intention of reducing your own ecological footprint as well as those of others. It's certainly in line with the goals of Sustainable Couch, but viewed from a different perspective. Let me explain a bit more in depth what this project is about.

A challenging situation

One of the biggest challenges we have in our Western society is the lack of time and energy to put into ecological projects. This is mainly because we live a sedentary, expensive lifestyle in which we have to work full time so we can pay off all of our costs (housing, heating, electricity, food, etc.). With a full time job you put most of your time and energy in this job and thus are unable to do much more after working hours. Sadly enough most full time jobs are, at the moment, unecological, which means we, as a society are putting most of our time and energy in unecological work. Basically, by doing this, we are destroying nature, others and eventually ourselves. Our work nowadays is mostly based on economical performance, not on ecological performance. It is one of the main causes of our socio-ecological destructive behavior. This could be solved if we could all switch to ecological, green jobs. Sadly enough this isn't an option, because these don't yet exist at a large enough scale. We can not make a shift, because there isn't anything to shift to. Quitting our job isn't an option either because we have all our costs to pay!

We are in a challenging situation where we are destroying our precious planet Earth, yet are unable to invest time and energy to reverse this situation. We are in dire need of green, ecological work. We can no longer wait for politicians and the business world to change their priorities and switch from an economical to an ecological perspective. Chances are it will be way too late when they do.

Yet I believe there is a creative option we can turn to. We can reduce this shortage in time and energy by introducing eco-nomads. Eco-nomads are people who consciously choose to not work full time and dedicate their life to ecological projects. By not having a full time job, you have the time and energy to do so. The main challenge with this lifestyle is having a reduced income to even having no income at all. You have to be thrifty and creative. This is where the sedentary, full time working people come in the picture, because they have the possibility to offer accommodation and even other stuff if needed. They become an eco-host. If there are enough people like this who can offer an accommodation, the eco-nomad can fall back on these eco-hosts and effectively invest a lot of time and energy in ecological projects without having to work a full time job to pay for all his or her costs. By fusing these two different lifestyles together you create a situation with numerous advantages. A diversity in lifestyles to save nature's diversity.

You don’t have to go far to find inspiration from other travellers.

This is ‘De Bereklauw’, a place I regularly visit when I’m in my home town.

Experiences so far

To go more into the practicality of it all, I'll give a few examples of how I experienced eco-nomadism so far and what good practices I ended up with:

When I travel I never take the plane and never drive a car myself (even if I would like to I can't, because I don't have a license). I mainly use public transport, go on foot or hitch hike to get to my destination. Recently I had to go to Milan from Belgium for a conference. I used Eurostop, which is a website on which you can find people who go to another country by car but still have some space in their car. It's not free like hitch hiking, you pay a part of the gas, but at least you're sure you'll get to a certain destination. For me the first stop was Lyon in France. What I really like about sharing a car with someone is that you get to know new people this way. For example, in this car to Lyon was a woman who has been working on her thesis for more than 18 years, could speak Gallo (she was from Bretagne), and has a blog with most of the best jazz clubs in the world on it. How awesome is that? And of course there's always the "What do you do?" question, which is the point where I take off talking about the projects I'm working on and, inevitably, ecology. ;) After this trip I took the nightbus to Milan. Not really comfortable I must say, but it did the job. This trip costed me only 70 euro in total!

A quote written on the wall in the kitchen of my hosts in Milano.

When it comes to food I compromise when I'm with a host. When I stay with someone who eats meat, I eat at least vegetarian. When I'm with vegetarians I eat vegan. When I cook it's always vegan and gluten free. In every case I try to reduce the ecological footprint of my host's diet, yet try to compromise so it doesn't become too difficult for them to adapt, unless they go to a point beyond veganism where I'm not even at. In that case I would adapt to their diet, but to this point that hasn't been the case.

It's a great way to exchange recipes and try new things. Yesterday I ate something with rosewater in it. An ingredient I've never used and never considered using, but I really liked it! The day before I suggested a dish with quinoa and my hosts really enjoyed it. When staying with someone I'm always prepared to give an explanation on how to reduce their ecological footprint and help them with achieving this if they want. If I don't know the answer on a question I'm prepared to look it up, so it also becomes something enriching for me.

Furthermore, When I stay with someone, the ecological footprint of my hosts is automatically reduced, because we share the same space and thus heat, saving energy this way. Not only energy is saved, but also time. When my hosts are having trouble getting things done because of their fulltime job I help them out. For example, at the moment I'm staying with a family that have a six year old boy, Titus. Instead of driving him to his grandmother so she can watch over him while his parents are out, he can just stay at home with me, which saves the time of driving him there and picking him up again. Besides that, it's a great opportunity to share in general, be it in knowledge or skills. I mean, I never really had the opportunity to watch over a kid and never was really eager to do this, so this is a whole new experience for me. I never thought I would absolutely love doing this. :)

Travelling is a great way to learn a lot of skills!

At the moment I chose hosts that are close to my home town because of the ecological projects I'm working on in that region. I'm still not up to the point where I can circulate through my hosts though, so regularly I stay at my grandmother's place for a couple of days. It's the fase I'm working on at the moment.

And then there's the financial issue. I was able to reduce my costs to about 150-200 euro a month by living this way. I don't have to pay rent and cooking vegan is actually very cheap once you get past the meat-replacement products. I do have to say that I'm a minimalist, I keep my possesions to a minimum, because I want them to fit in my backpack. I only buy what I really find necessary. Until now I've lived of my savings this way. Actually, the moment I'm writing this I just got back from a meeting where we agreed that I could work as a payed volunteer foran organisation. This would be the next fase I'll be working on: creating a break-even situation where I earn as much as I spent.

My experience so far tells me that this way of living works and can make a difference if other people start doing this. If I look at the time and energy I've invested so far in ecological projects, I can surely say I wouldn't be able of doing this if I would be working a full time job. I truly belief in eco-nomadism as one of the pieces to solve our challenging ecological puzzle. I believe that if only a small amount of our population would adapt to this lifestyle, it could make a substantial difference for our ecological well-being. It's a way of sharing that what we have in our rich Western society more efficiently among each other, so we can help nature and others.

Me on the left with my hosts at a gig, supporting a local band. ;)

Future plans?

For now my main goal is to write down the essentials of this lifestyle, so other people can easily adapt to it and do the same. I guess this article is a good start. As soon as I'm done with writing and lived this lifestyle long enough to be experienced in it, there's a possibility I'll become an eco-host, so I can help eco-nomads this way. Who knows what else I'll do in the future. My life has changed so much in the last year I can't even imagine where I'll be one year from now. So many options... But first things first.

It's been a wonderful experience so far and I really hope to engage other people with this project. Hopefully I'll encounter some eco-nomads in the future. :)

See you on the road!

Body: No closed shoes in winter

Recently I decided to take on another personal challenge: To go without closed shoes for as long as I can! Until a couple a days ago that was fairly easy. Now it begins to be more challenging, which is a good thing because it's a 'challenge' after all. :)

The reason why I'm doing this is mainly because I want to see how well my body, or at least my feet,  will adapt to the cold. I'm always amazed about what our body can endure and is able to adapt to a certain situation. This is one way to feel it first hand and it will have some advantages when it succeeds. No buying of expensive winter shoes anymore, being able to walk in a more healthy way, reducing my ecological impact because I need less material to cover my feet, another product I'm not dependent on anymore and so reducing my dependency on consumer products.

If it succeeds I'll go to the next fase, which would be wearing huaraches, those sandals I told about in an earlier post. I tried them already a couple of times, but my feet aren't hardened enough yet for wearing them constantly, so that's why I'm doing this fase first.

At the moment I'm still wearing the sandals I've worn through all summer. Last couple of days it suddenly got a lot colder, so I really felt that. It's around 5 degrees Celsius at the moment. It feels cold, but not to the point where it's really uncomfortable and I'm under the impression that I'm already getting used to these temperatures. So far so good. For people who aren't from around here: It can easily go below zero in Belgium in winter.

Anyone in these regions interested in doing the same? Would be fun to encourage each other in this challenge. ;)

Motivations: 27, a year passed, another year arriving

I turned 27 today, a good time to reflect about the past year and think about the year that's coming.

Last year I started travelling around this period. My original plans were to go to Santiago de Compostela on foot from my home town. Didn't really turn out that way and I'm really glad it turned out the way it did. I've seen and experienced so many things.
I went on foot from Leuven to the border of France with a way too heavy backpack. Lesson learned there. It was very hard physically, but even more mentally when I was at the border, knowing that I would never make it to my destination. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. That's something I  really learned in that period. I changed my plans and started travelling with no specific destination in mind.
I experienced the kindness and hospitality of so many people. Thank you all! A special thanks to Laurel, who let me stay in Paris for a couple of months at her place. She really is the Mother Theresa of Couchsurfing. You're truly an inspiration! :).  
I met so many wonderful people from all over the world and I'm sure I'll see most of them again somewhere in my life. I still remember some of those unique moments I shared with those people very vividly. At that moment it always made me wonder "How on earth did I end up in this situation with this person?"
Ending up underneath the Eifel tower drinking wodka with a Polish guy, dancing in a mosh pit with a Serbian guy at a punk party in a squat, walking around on a cemetery with an American girl and get lost afterwards, going to a psytrance party with a Portugese and Turkish girl, ending up in a weird jungle shop in London with a Brazilian guy, going to a rave party on the beach in the Netherlands with some Dutch people and a Canadian girl, having deep philosophical conversations with an Argentinian girl while drinking maté in Bretagne,... These unique moments and so many more that I can't possibly sum them all up here. Thank you all for making this happen! :)

When I got back I knew this lifestyle was more in line with my heart than I ever could 've imagined, so I started to manage my life so I could continue in this direction.
I quit my job in the organic store I was supposed to return to after six months. It just wasn't the thing I wanted to do in life and I felt I could do more than this. I wasn't exploring my limits and wasn't reaching my potential this way.
I also reduced all my belongings to the point where I could fit it all in a backpack. It took me a couple of months to achieve this, but I finally got to that point not too long ago.  
I started moving from place to place in Belgium to continue the nomadic lifestyle I got used to, mostly to Leuven, Gent and Mons.
One day, when I was in Mons, I started this blog. A handy tool to share what I'm working on with others and for myself to keep track of certain things.

When I got back from my trip it also didn't take long for me to start working on some ecological projects again. It began with the Climate Action Camp which took place really close to the place I grew up. It became something personal because of that and I'm still working on the project that came out of that camp. I also recently started a personal project, called the eco-nomad project. Since a couple of days I work as a paid volunteer for Voedselteams, an organisation working on sustainable alternative food distribution systems.

I guess that somewhat sums up what I've done in the last year and I probably forgot to mention some things. Now that I'm rereading the above again I can't really believe I did all that in just one year. It feels like I packed a couple years into one very intense year full of change. I'm really grateful for the past year and I hope this will continue into the next one.

There are some things that I want to realize in the year that's coming.
I want to work further on socio-ecological projects. This for the simple reason that I eventually want to live a life that has a positive impact on my surroundings. I want to be part of the solution. Not only for this year, but for all the years after that until the end.
But most of all I want to share it with others.

So if you want to support or help me with some of the projects I'm working on that would be lovely and I would be very grateful. Here a few suggestions:
If you are from Leuven you can help by doing a few things:
- We are always looking for helping hands when we are working on Parkveld.
- For my eco-nomad project I'm still looking for some places in Leuven where I can sleep for a couple of days.
- If you're not from here, but you still want to support the things I'm doing, you can by giving a small donation: 523-0421521-34

If you want to have more information on something or want to help, just let me know. :) Thank you!
On to the next year.

Ecology: Becoming an eco-nomad: Knowledge

The first thing you have to do to become an eco-nomad is to read up on ecology and sustainability. It's something you can do while still living a sedentary life and working a full time job, although it's going to be easier if you have more time at your disposal (more on 'time' later). This is the most important step because if you skip it you would just become a nomad, maybe equally destructive in your lifestyle as most sedentary people in our society nowadays. Even if you're not directly planning to become a nomad, I still suggest reading up on these topics. It is so incredibly important to have this knowledge, because it changes your entire view on the world and your place in it.

You become aware that everything is connected with each other in this world. You are connected with everything in this world. You don't live in a bubble. Every action you take has an effect on others and your surroundings. Because of our recent globalization you can quite literally say that an action you take can be felt on the other side of the world. It is so important to know this. Every unecological action you take has an unecological effect somewhere on this world and on others, be is close or far away. The same goes for every ecological action.

It's also important to know that every individuals action does matter, including yours. The sum of every individuals action on this planet created the state we are in now. If you change your actions it will have an effect on the sum of all actions. You do make a difference, be it positive or negative, no matter what.

Now, if we take the previous into account it is important to know what exactly is ecological and what isn't. Yet, most people in our Western society rarely think about this, which is why we are so destructive in nature. To help you on your way to become a nomad I suggest reading up on 2 topics: Mobility and food.

Mobility to know how to travel as ecologically as possible, which is pretty important if you're going to be a nomad. Food, simply because you have to eat like any other person on this planet.

Now read up! It's important! If you really don't know where to start, let me know and I'll give you some further advice. ;)

Motivations: The foundations of eco-nomadism

Well, I've been thinking about what the next dream would be that I would like to work on. Although maybe not a dream, but certainly a motivation, it would be laying down the foundations of a concept I have in my head for a while now: Eco-nomadism.

Eco-nomadism (short for ecological nomadism) means to travel from place to place with the intention of reducing your own ecological footprint as well as those of others.

I've been doing this without really paying attention to it for the last year, but now that I'm consciously aware of it I want to further enhance it and write it down so others can do the same. In my opinion it's one of the most effective ways to reduce our ecological footprint on this planet and transition to a greener way of living.

To explain a bit more in depth why I believe it's so effective:

One of the biggest challenges we have in our Western society is the lack of time and energy to put into ecological projects. This is mainly because we live a sedentary, expensive lifestyle in which we have to work full time so we can pay off all of our costs (housing, heating, electricity, food, etc.). With a full time job you put most of your time and energy in this job and thus are unable to do much more after working hours because you're tired. Sadly enough most full time jobs are, at the moment, unecological, which means we, as a society are putting most of our time and energy in unecological work. Basically, by doing this, we are destroying nature, others and eventually ourselves. Our work nowadays is mostly based on economical performance, not on ecological performance. It is the main cause of our socio-ecological destructive behavior. This could be solved if we could all switch to an ecological, green job. Sadly not an option, because they don't exist yet. We can not make a shift, because there isn't anything to shift to. Quitting your job isn't an option either because you have all our costs to pay! 

We are in a challenging situation where we are destroying our precious planet Earth, yet are unable to invest time and energy to reverse this situation. We are in dire need of green, ecological work. We can no longer wait for politicians and the business world to have their priorities changed and switch from an economical to an ecological perspective. Chances are it will be way too late when they do.

Yet I believe there is a creative option which we can turn to. We can reduce this shortage in time and energy by introducing eco-nomads. Eco-nomads are people who consciously choose to not work full time and dedicate their life to ecological projects. By not having a full time job, you have the time and energy to do so. The main challenge with this lifestyle is having a reduced income to even having no income at all. You have to be thrifty and creative. This is where the sedentary, full time working people come in, because they have the possibility to offer accommodation. They become an eco-host. If there are enough people like this who can offer an accommodation, the eco-nomad can fall back on these eco-hosts and effectively invest a lot of time and energy in ecological projects without having to work a full time job to pay for all his or her costs. By fusing these two different lifestyles together there's also the advantage of the eco-nomad being capable of investing energy in the household of the eco-host thus also creating more time for the host.

To go more into detail about the life of an eco-nomad and how I've experienced it so far:

- I am a vegetarian, but I cook vegan. Every time I cook for my eco-host(s) I also cook vegan, thus reducing their ecological footprint, because most people eat meat on a daily basis. Furthermore, when some hosts do cook for me they even cook vegetarian food for themselves!  

- I never travel by plane en never drive a car myself. I mainly use public transport or hitch hiking to get to my destination. When hitch hiking there's always a certain point where we talk about ecology.

- When staying with someone I'm always prepared to give an explanation on how to reduce their ecological footprint. This is a topic that's bound to pop up sooner or later when I stay with someone and most people are pleasantly surprised with this information.

- When you stay with someone, you automatically reduce your ecological footprint as well as theirs, because you both use the same space.  

My experience so far tells me that this way of living works. It's a win-win situation for both parties, especially when viewed from an ecological standpoint. If I look at the time and energy I've invested so far in ecological projects like Parkveld, I can surely say I wouldn't be capable of doing this if I would be working a full time job. I truly belief in eco-nomadism as one of the pieces to solve our challenging ecological puzzle. It's a way of sharing that what we have in our rich Western society more efficiently among each other, so we can help nature and others. 

In my next post I'll try to go more into how to become an eco-nomad.   

Motivations: A dream no longer a dream!

Hello all!

It's been a while now, hasn't it? ;)

Well, after my previous post I haven't been sitting still if that's what you think. I did a lot of fieldwork lately and you can take that quite literally. I did a first exploration into the world of eco-activism. Quite interesting! The Climate Action Camp brought a new green vibe in my hometown and a lot of people felt like working around the project that came out of this camp. Since then I've been circling around my hometown to also work on that project.

Because I stayed in the vicinity of my hometown, I was able to go through my stuff with this as a result:

All the shelves are empty and so is the entire room! As of today I can say that I can fit everything in my backpack! A lot of stuff got thrown out, some stuff was sold and other stuff I gave to friends who'll probably use it.  One of my dreams came true! :)

Now that that's done, I can focus on other things, because it took me quite some time to go through all of my stuff. Now that I no longer have to spend time getting rid of stuff I can use that time for other things, other dreams. Now what will the next dream be I'll be focusing on? I have to think about it and I'll let you know as soon as I know.

I'm really glad to write again, because I really missed it. Hope to write more posts again from now on!

Ecology: "Parkveld", a personal threshold

The reason why I posted nothing last week was because of the Climate Action Camp in my hometown. We were stationed on a location called Parkveld (translated: Park field). This is a field normally used only for agricultural purposes, yet somehow it got sold to a company who wants to build housings and industrial buildings on it. This without asking the opinion from the neighborhood. There isn't much green left in Leuven and yet they keep building and building and building... 

Besides that, this isn't just any farmland, it's part of the place I grew up and therefore I consider it a part of myself. I do not want to see the land that I grew up on being reduced to a slab of concrete with some ugly industrial buildings on it. This activity was more to me than a random ecological activity. It was something personal.

So this is to all companies, politicians, etc. who are willing to step onto the land I grew up on and do whatever they please without asking the local community what they think: 

This is land that belongs to the local community, which I'm part of because I was born and raised here. I do not care what rules have been made up that give any individual or collective the right to take away this land and use it for purposes that have a negative impact on the community and nature. If these were rules that would have a positive impact I would happily comply, but that just isn't the case here. These rules are made up by only a very small fraction of one of the millions of species on this entire planet. None of the other species EVER agreed upon these rules. Even the majority of our own species haven't agreed upon it, yet we act like these rules are made by God himself. These rules are made by man and can by changed by man. I do not care who made these rules, but I do know one thing: You do NOT have the right to remove people from the land they dwelled upon for hundreds of years. You do NOT have the right to remove rare species, or any species for that matter, from their territory. You do NOT have the right to remove our precious nature, from which some trees are even way older than you.

You have gone too far and now there is at least one extra activist you have to deal with. I will undertake whatever actions necessary to protect the land I grew up on and its people, using all my skills and all my contacts. See you at the green front line.

Food: It's a good day to go vegan!

After my post yesterday about vegetarianism, I felt like I had enough knowledge about that to take it to the next level: going vegan. There are more than enough arguments to become vegan and I'll certainly post them here when I have the time. The only reason why I still considered myself vegetarian was because of the eggs I eat. Milk and milk products I cut out of my diet a long time ago, even before I became a vegetarian. I still have to do some research on vitamins and minerals and such, though.

So this post is also a call out to all my vegan friends. Can you help me with becoming vegan? ;) Things I need most are simple recipes and nutritional information. If you happen to know any good websites for this, please share!

Food: The arguments that made me become a vegetarian

I've been a vegetarian for more than 5 years now and never regretted it. I went cold turkey after reading a brochure with several very strong arguments to become a vegetarian. This is the link to that brochure. It's the first one on the top (it's in Dutch, though).

These are the arguments found in the brochure, shortly explained, that made me switch to vegetarianism:

For your health

Advantages:

• More fruit and vegetables on your plate and in your mouth.
• Less total fat intake and the quality of the fats taken in increases, which means protection against heart and cardiovascular diseases and obesity.
• More fibres. Fibres remove toxic substances quicker. Protects us against certain forms of cancer and heart diseases.
• Greater amount of natural killer cells which are part of the immune system and help destroy tumorcells and virusses.  
• More antioxidants. Antioxidants have an important role in the reduction of risk for chronical diseases and protect our brain and other body tissue against oxidation.
• More minerals. More minerals are good for the prevention of osteoporosis, heart and cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
• Less risk when it comes to gallstones and constipation, osteoporosis, diverticulosis, kidney stones, appendicitis, Alzheimer, caries, dental erosion, asthma.

Too much meat means:

• Too much saturated fats and cholesterol.
• Higher chance to become overweight or obese.
• Higher chance for getting diabetes, heart and cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis and some cancers.
• Possible residues of antibiotics, hormones, chemical substances and heavy metals in meat. 

For the environment

• The consumption of meat is globally responsible for approximately 1/5 of the total greenhouse emmisions.
• 1/3 of all solid ground is being used to grow fodder crops, with massive deforestation as a result. 70 % of the deforestation in the Amazon forest happens because of fodder crops.
• For a steak of 170 gr you need 0.6 liter in fossil fuels. 90 gr of broccoli, 80 gr of eggplant, 110 gr of cauliflower and 225 gr of rice only need 0.04 liter of fossil fuels.
• The manure produced by the cattle is one of the main causes of water pollution because of the nitrates that end up in the groundwater. It threatens the quality of the drinking water and the fish population.
• For the production of 1 kilo of animal protein you need about 100 times more water than the production of 1 kilo vegetable protein. The production of 1 kilo of beef needs 15,000 liters of water! 1 kilo of potatoes only needs 500 liter, wheat needs 900 liters.
• It is one of the biggest threats to biodiversity.

For other human beings

• Almost one billion people are underfed. Daily 25,000 people die of hunger. In the mean time 20 billion farm animals live on 76% of all the farmland on our planet.
• 40% of all cereals in the world is used as fodder. 
• For 1 kilo of beef you need approximately 7 kilo of grains.
• With the amount of grain used for a cow that feeds 2 people, 24 people could have been fed with the grain alone. 

For the animals

• In this tiny country (Belgium) alone we kill 285 million animals every year for food. Imagine what that number would be for bigger countries.
• The average Belgian eats in his whole life 1/3 of a horse, 5 bovines and calves, 7 goats and cheep, 24 rabbits and game, 42 pigs, 43 turkeys and other poultry, 789 fish, 891 chickens and 83,214 shellfish.
•  Most cows, pigs and chickens live in too small spaces and are transported and killed in gruesome ways. Most of them don't even see the daylight.
• Beaks are being chopped off, pigs their tail are cut off and fangs broken, bulls and piglets are being castrated. All of this without sedation. Calves are consciously kept in a state of anemia because the meat stays white this way.
• All animals are killed while in the prime of their lives. A chicken for example can live for 8 years. On our plate she only lived 6 weeks.  

Famous vegetarian/vegan people

To finish this post here are some of the most famous vegetarians and vegans with some of there quotes. These people are known all across the world for their intelligence and wisdom. Why not follow in their footsteps?

"Truely man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: we are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men." - Leonardo da Vinci

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." - Albert Einstein


"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." - Pythagoras


"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."
- Abraham Lincoln

"As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields." - Leo Tolstoy

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi

"I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't...The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further." - Mark Twain

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." - Thomas Edison

Drawings: 100 jellyfish

The 100 jellyfish I drew when I stayed at Laurels place in Paris. She loves jellyfish so I covered her entire room with drawings of jellyfish. :)

Update: Added 'drawings' page

Added a 'drawings' page where you can find a certain selection of the drawings I made.

Drawings: Selection of drawings

Here's a small selection of my drawings. Some are pretty recent, others go back a couple years. Some are finished, others I drew to get the concept out of my head.

Languages: One of the best ways to memorize vocabulary

Because of my recent new interest in dialects and languages I looked for the most efficient ways to learn a new language. Another passion of mine is knowing how the mind works, including the art of memorization. I've read several books about memorization and the systems used for this purpose. It comes very handy to have that knowledge, certainly when applied to the learning of a language, vocabulary to be more precise. When doing my research on how the memory works I came across the website of Memrise. It's a website that uses memorization techniques so you can learn a language more efficiently. I'm a real fan of Memrise, so I occasionally help them by making drawings for them. Why drawings? 

Well, the basic principle used in almost all memorization systems is based on this: We, humans, are incredibly good in memorizing images. Sadly enough we are bad at memorizing words and numbers. The systems convert words and numbers into vivid images, so they become very memorable. It is as simple as that, but extremely powerful. There is more to it, certainly when looking at more complex systems, but this will do for learning languages. I'll write more about all these systems in the future.    

Here is an example of how it works. These are some drawings I made for the Polish course on the website. The website is English, so it's an English-Polish conversion used here.

Ecology: "First Earth", The best movie I've seen to date on ecological architecture

Yesterday I saw the movie "First Earth" again with a friend of mine who didn't know about it. I've seen this movie a couple of times now and know it for a couple of years, yet it keeps inspiring me. At the end I always want to run outside and start building my own house.

If you are into ecology, or even if you aren't, this movie is a MUST SEE when you want to build your home in an ecologically sound way. It focuses on building with earth, which is in my opinion still the best material to work with when it comes to building houses.

If you've got a bit of spare time I highly recommend watching it. It will certainly change your view on housing in general. It is available for free on this website: First Earth
Enjoy and let me know what you think!

If you know another movie about ecological architecture, please let me know! I'm very interested in these things. :)

Updates: Added 'Events' page

Added an 'Events' page where you'll find a calendar with interesting events coming up.

Updates: Added "languages" page

Added a page on languages where all the links to the posts about this subject will be found.

Languages: What is my grandmother saying?

Haha, here's a little quiz! What is my grandmother saying in these 2 videos? My hat off if you can understand it all! :)

Translation: "Past dat paar u? Ja, ma, dat paar past mij."

Translation: "Mie had koud. Mie had heel koud. 

Waar had Mie heel koud? Op de markt had Mie heel koud."

Motivations: How I live out of a backpack (by L.)

This article isn't written by me, but by a very good friend of mine, who's also experienced in living out of a backpack. :) This is what she wrote: 

Hi all,

When I responded to Pieter's post on wanting to fit all his belongings into a backpack, Pieter asked me to list what I carry in mine. I realised how much this depends on what I'm doing and where I'm going that I would have to make a different list for every situation. Thinking about that inspired me to write some more about what it's like to live out of a backpack. I do have more stuff than just what I fit into my backpack, but most of my stuff is stacked away at my mom's place while I'm travelling around and living pretty minimal. I've come to a point where I feel that, in my daily life, I can live quite comfortably with just a handful of things, not only while travelling through exotic countries but also while living a relatively normal life with a job and a university education.

If you want to try living with minimal possessions for some time, whether just for a few weeks on a backpacking trip or as a more permanent lifestyle, these are some things you might want to consider:

Will you move around a lot or not?

If you're backpacking, you'll want to travel as light as possible. Trust me on this one. On my first trip to India I brought loads of stuff that seemed very handy when I bought it, but all it did was create frustration. When you're taking your backpack in and out of trains, buses, cars and camel carts, all you want to do with your fancy travelling gear is throw it in the Ganges. On my last trip to India I left with only hand luggage and felt a lot more relaxed. Only take the things you really need. When in doubt, leave it home, if you do decide along the way that you really need something you can still buy it or ask your friends back home to send it over.

If you're staying more or less in the same place, you can be a bit less carefull cause you can leave most of your stuff in your hostel, squat, couchsurfing room or whatever place you're staying at. Try not to collect too much stuff though, it's a pain in the ass when you're ready to move on again. You'd be surprised how quickly you collect stuff. Just a month ago I arrived in a squat with only a backpack full of stuff, and when I left again to move to another squat a few days ago I already had more stuff than I could carry. Keep an eye on what you're collecting and try to give away as many things to keep a balance. 

Do you have other obligations in your life than just travelling?

Living out of a backpack when all you have to worry about is hitching your next ride requires a different approach than living out of a backpack while working or going to school. These days I have a job that requires me to look somewhat presentable, so I need at least one pair of nice looking clothes and shoes. To avoid the weight of extra shoes, I just have one "nice" pair in my backpack that I wear to work/school, otherwise I go barefoot. If you think that's too extreme, a nice pair for work and a pair of light flipflops for casual situations works well too. 

I also carry some books, papers and documents, but I try to keep this to a minimum by digitalizing as much as I can and using my university's library instead of buying books as much as possible. I also usually carry a laptop, but seeing that it's really heavy I'm trying to use my university's computer facilities instead, which works quite well if you carry a usb-stick with whatever files you need so you can work from any computer. I know it feels like you really need your own computer these days, but do try to consider other options, it doesn't only keep your backpack's weight down but in my experience carrying an expensive, relatively fragile object in my backpack tends to give me stress too.

What are the things you're willing to compromise on?

Let's face it, you're not gonna live a life of luxury when all you have is your backpack. There's no way you can carry around all the things you sometimes enjoy having. It's important to set priorities and choose wisely. These priorities are different for everyone, try to find out what yours are and be honest with yourself. I personally don't care too much for sleeping comfort, I can pretty much sleep everywhere so I don't bother to take a matress, the ground will do. My boyfriend however is a really difficult sleeper and not having a matress makes him grumpy and miserable, which is not what you want to be while you're travelling. I'm also not that picky about hygiene, when I was camping out at Occupy Amsterdam I had no problem whatsoever using whatever old and smelly sleeping bag I could find in the donation tent, but if that idea freaks you out, then by all means take your own bedding while travelling. 

Things that I do take with me, even though others might consider them unnecessary, are some make-up and jewellery (I enjoy dressing up too much not to) and an emtpy book with pens in several colours (drawing and journaling are really important for me while travelling.) 

Can you share things with others?

If you're travelling with other people, it makes not much sense to all carry your own bottle of shampoo and shower gel. Talk about who takes what and share whatever you can. Swap items you don't need anymore with other travellers: exchange the book you finished reading for another one someone else has read, when arriving in a place with a different climate exchange your warm coat for someone else's sunglasses (assuming that somebody else is going the opposite way and needs to prepare for cold weather), etcetera. If you're staying in a place like a youth hostel you'll have an easy time finding people to swap with. If you're couchsurfing, consider swapping something with your host. If you're staying in any sort of community, like a squat or a nomad base, you can usually use quite a lot of common goods, and maybe add some things of your own.

Some tips and tricks that I've learned throughout the years

- Saron-type pieces of cloth are incredibly useful. You can sleep on them, use them as a light blanket, use them as a towel, wear them as a wrap when coming from the beach, use them as an emergency skirt when all your clothes are dirty,wrap fragile things in them,... I always take one while travelling. If you go to a place like India, you can buy one over there, it'll make for a beautiful souvenir too!

- Ladies, consider using a menstrual cup. If you've never heard of it, google it. If the idea freaks you out at first, don't worry, I was freaked out too when I first heard of it, but if you give it some thought it's actually a very practical, ecological and economical solution. Imagine never having to carry around pads and tampons again!

- Don't feel bad about leaving something behind. I've carried around basically useless things for weeks because I felt it wouldn't be right to leave something that I'd paid money for without even using it. But really, you don't get your money back while carrying useless weight. Buying something you don't use is a bit of a shame, but holding on to it is even more of a shame. Give it away to someone who does want to use it.

- Have faith. This is where the spiritual hippie mumbo-jumbo comes in, but in my experience it's true: you'll find what you need. If you try not to worry too much, generally things have a way of arranging themselves. I'm not saying you should do crazy stupid shit like trying to climb the mount everest wearing only a bikini or sumsuch, but if you take care of staying alive, the universe or whatever name you want to give it tends to take care of the rest. I can't even count the times when I got cold and found a jacket, or I got lost and I got a ride to exactly the place I needed to go to. Those things are part of the adventure, a very important part I'd say.

Happy travels!

L.

Update: Restructuring finished

Restructuring is done! It should be easier to navigate now. :)

The changes:

• Added relevant links that were mentioned in some of my posts on the 'links' page
• The long explanation on most of my pages became posts.
• Every relevant post now has a link on the page about that subject.
• 'Staff spinning' page became 'Flow Arts'.
• 'Food' page is now part of the 'Body' page.
• 'Why?' page became 'Motivations' page and some content went to the 'Spirituality' page  

Spirituality: Spiritual point of view on my motivations

In this post I'll try to explain my view on life in general, from a spiritual point of view, and the motivations that come forth of this view. Strangely enough I have to start with the beginning, the beginning of our universe that is.  

It all starts with the concept of oneness. Oneness is what I would call the state of the universe before the Big Bang. It is a state where being and non-being wasn't yet divided. It was a state where everything was one. Yet, somehow this oneness divided itself into two. We call the moment this happened the Big Bang. It is the moment where the oneness divided itself into being and non-being. It is the reason why some things are and some things aren't, the reason why some things exist and others don't. This being and non-being can be described as the universe (being) and the vacuum (non-being). The vacuum is the space in which the universe unfolds itself.

The universe itself consists of matter and energy. This enormous amount of energy and matter is unfathomable to the human mind. The universe is in constant change since the Big Bang. Matter and

energy exchange with each other non-stop which contributes to the diversity we see in our universe. What's so extraordinary about it is that it never increases or decreases. The matter and energy we have today in our universe is the exact same amount of matter of energy there was at the Big Bang. It changes, but there is never something added or subtracted.

From this universal matter and energy we, humankind, only see, use, experience a minute fraction within our tiny, little world. Everything you see right now in your direct environment is also part of that energy and matter. Everything around us is energy and matter that is in constant change. By this I literally mean everything. The computer you're working on, the table you're sitting at, the food you eat, the cutlery you use, the air you breath, the force it takes for your eyeballs to go from left to right when you're reading this, everything! Although some of these seem to be static, they are in fact all dynamic. Everything in the universe and thus on our planet is dynamic, is constantly in a state of change. When you zoom in close enough on a certain object this becomes clear. Zoom in on what seems like a sturdy, static table and you'll see that it's actually dynamic, constantly changing and continually in interaction with the environment it's in. You would see atoms, which aren't static at all and if you would zoom in even further you would see quarks, doing their own beautiful cosmic dance.

The point I want to make here is that this table is in constant interaction with its environment and by doing so it will eventually become something else. Something that we don't consider a table anymore. Through its interaction with the environment it will eventually change into something else. This can happen within a few days or maybe even a hundred years. If tomorrow someone decides to use the wood of this table to make a chair, then it would become a chair in the next few days and no longer a table. If we would put this table in a forest and wait long enough, it would eventually become mulch. At any given point this table will be progressing from one state to another, though it might not seem that way.

So when does a table become something else? Or when does something else become a table? Where does it start and where does it stop? Well, because of the constant change explained earlier there actually is no physical border and there never will be. It's purely conceptual. These concepts are something we, humans, have created to make our lives easier. Somewhere in the past we made the agreement that an object with four legs and a flat surface on top would be called a table. It makes life a lot easier when you can say "move that table" instead of "move that object with four legs and a flat surface on top". We made this agreement for almost every object known to man. We looked at the characteristics of a certain object and we agreed that an object with these characteristics would be given that specific name. That's why we can turn a 'table' into a 'chair', like mentioned earlier. We changed the characteristics of a certain object so it became something else. Analyzing and conceptualizing is something our mind is great at and it has huge advantages when communicating. Bare in mind though that in reality there is no such thing as a table, a door, a pen or anything else. The reality is that these objects are all states of matter on which a certain amount of energy is applied so it changes over time. The concepts we use to distinguish them from one another and the characteristics that come with that only exist in our mind. The reality is way too complex to comprehend with our mind. Even a single object is to complex to fully comprehend. For this reason we use simplified concepts. This makes it a lot easier to live our daily lives in this reality.

As a matter of fact we, humans, are the same. We are  extraordinary complex beings who are also subjected to the laws of the universe. We are made out of matter and energy and exchange with our environment through matter and energy. We are in a constant state of change like every other thing in this universe. Just like the objects surrounding us, our mind cannot comprehend a human being. It is too complex, be it another human being or ourselves. That is why we also use simplified concepts to fill in what we are and more importantly who we are. It makes life easier in terms of communication and sharing. This bundle of simplified concepts of who we think we are, is most of the time coined with the term 'ego'. This ego was created by the mind from a very early age on to make life easier. Our name was already chosen for us, so the only thing the mind had to do was creating the characteristics that go with that name. When these were in place we were able to interact with our environment in a safe and more efficient way. It made us capable of getting the things we want and answer questions about ourselves.

"What is this?", "What is that?", "Who am I?". All questions that were answered by the mind by making up simplified concepts. It is the quest, the goal of the mind to find a definite, static identity and environment that has been put into certain boundaries and thus can be controlled so the mind itself can finally rest and have the peace that comes with that finally attained state. As stated before these concepts aren't the real answers and they never suffice to grasp a reality and a self that is too complex to be controlled. They are mere thoughts and a pale reflection of what reality is and who we are, but they do the job...as long as reality doesn't come along that is and shake things up with its change and complexity. Of course reality is everywhere, every minute so it does intervene on a constant basis with the concepts we made up, including our ego. Every static, definite concept we conjured up is constantly brought into question by the dynamic, changing reality, be it the objects we conceptualized as static, the simplified opinions we have about certain things and our own made up identity. The static, definite bubble gets popped over and over again.

No problem, right? Let's just adapt to reality whenever it kicks in, no? Well, here is where it all starts. We have become to think we are this concept we made up. We became to think we are the simplification our mind created and thus the mind became our master instead of the other way around. We became the ego instead of having an ego. We even consider it normal these days because almost everybody has this condition and is enslaved to his mind. It is sometimes called the condition of "normal insanity". It is here where the cause lies for almost all the imbalance you see in our world nowadays. It shaped the world as it is today. It is the foundation of the absurdity we live in right now.

This loss of recognition of one's true self and the ego has a huge impact on our behavior. We became to perceive ourselves as something static, definite. Whenever the dynamic, changing reality threatens to pop our static bubble, we experience this as life-threatening. We perceive this as death knocking at our door.

I like to compare this with a chess player who becomes one of the chess pieces he's playing with. It's pretty save to view it from the perspective of the player, but when you would become one of the chess pieces it suddenly becomes something really scary, even life-threatening.

The mind, as the defense mechanism it is, will logically respond to this situation. It does this with resistance through a fight or flight reaction. When these two options eventually fail it will almost always conjure up just another simplified concept in which the threatening change fits. This modified simplification of course isn't compatible with reality either, but it does the job again for as long as reality doesn't kick in again. We are no longer able to experience and accept reality as it is and adapt to it accordingly.

Both before mentioned fight and flight reaction have caused a great deal of havoc on this world.

It is the same fight reaction that goes from a small fight (the individual ego) to a full raging war (the collective ego). It is the ego saying: "I am this / I have this / I believe in this and anything else doesn't compute so I won't allow it / it is wrong / you are wrong / it shouldn't be this way!" By becoming the ego we want to be right rather than see reality for what it is. The ego tries to uphold the boundaries it has made and tries to prove at all costs it is right. We so badly want the concepts we made up to be right we are willing to verbally and physically hurt others and even kill to make it so.

The flight reaction on the other hand is that what makes people go into addictions like drugs, alcohol, a virtual world, etc. It is the ego who's running away from the boundaries it has given itself. Rather than accept the change, it temporarily runs away from the "Who am I?" question, just to later bump into it again, realize it still hasn't found an answer to it and so runs away from it again.

Because the mind continuously tries to answer the "Who am I?" question, the restlessness, and the worrying accompanied with that, that most of us feel most of the time arises. This restlessness drives us to search something new we can identify with, something that can be integrated in the static, definite identity we made up. This can be something materialistic, but it can also be an opinion, an ideal or even a living being. It is where the duality of happiness and unhappiness starts. We temporarily feel happy because we found something that goes with our identity and we think it 'll make us complete. Soon we realize we still aren't happy, even unhappy, so the restlessness starts again and we go in search for something else new that would fit our identity. This circle continues because the question is unanswerable.

This is also the point where capitalistic as well as consumerist tendencies arise. It is the individual and collective ego saying "I still haven't found myself, I'm still restless, I need more!". Capitalism and consumerism or no more than the externalizing of the ego into a system. A system based on endless growth because it will never have enough. Of course the impact of this system is getting clearer with the years. The rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer. We are depleting all the resources on this planet and reduce everything to products that can be bought so it becomes 'our' property, including living beings. Humanity, with its 'normal insanity', has made up rules by which everything on this planet is affected, be it in a mostly negative, destructive way. In these times we can say that most of the individuals on this planet have a negative ego because of its destructive, imbalanced tendencies. It is only when we realize who we truly are that the negative ego can be turned into the positive ego.

"Then what am I?" you might ask. I first want to re-emphasize here that the ego is merely a simplified concept conjured up by our mind and it is NOT who we really are. It is a concept that is meant to make life easier, to interact safely with our environment, nothing more. We are way more than that. We are beings too complex, too extraordinary, too wonderful to be grasped by an analytical instrument like the mind. The "Who am I" question can't be answered by the analyzing mind, because it will always become a simplified concept. It is something that can't be answered through thinking. It can only be experienced through observing. Observing is that which precedes thinking. It is being conscious without thinking, without analyzing. The only way you can experience who you truly are is through being conscious, through observing, so you can experience yourself and anything around you without the simplified concepts the mind made up for it, without the mind constantly interfering.

It is truly a wonderful experience to look at a flower, or any other object for that matter, and see it like it truly is, without a name, without the characteristics we've given it through our mind. It is an utter joy to perceive your ego instead of being it. When you stop giving everything these characteristics, you'll feel the restlessness, and the worrying that is paired with it, go away. You will be at peace. You will perceive the mind as it truly is: an instrument that can be laid aside when it isn't needed. You will experience that which you are: You are the space in which things like emotions, thoughts, the ego occur, but you are not those things. They all come and go. The only thing that remains is the space in which they occurred. You are that space.

And so am I. This is one of the reasons why I started this blog. It is to convert my ego into a positive one, so it can contribute to a positive change in this world. It is to distribute energy and matter between myself, others and the environment in a balanced way. It essentially all boils down to a question that I keep asking myself on a daily basis: "What do I want to share with and give to this beautiful world?" I now have a vague idea of what that is: The essence of the body, mind and soul.

To show people what magnificent, beautiful, extraordinary things exist in this world. I want to do this my unique way, be it a way that is scientific, productive, ecological or spiritual. I am here, put on this earth, to live my life to the fullest and so are you. So I invite you to live your life to the fullest, follow your unique way and share it with me, I'll do the same with you.