I’ve seen this film a few times and still I love watching it. It’s about Christoph Rehage who, after a year of planning, set out to walk from China to his home country Germany. Between November 9th 2007 and November 13th 2008 he walked roughly 2796 miles, passed the Gobi desert, but then he decided to stop walking. Or as he describes it: “I got a haircut, shaved off my beard, and took a plane home”. He walked about one third of the initial way, from day one (his 26th birthday) until the downfall about a year later. The reason for his journey, or why he stopped walking aren’t very clear (even to himself) and it doesn’t really matter. He got as far as he got and gained an experience for which he says he’s very grateful. ‘The journey is the destination’, as I wrote in this post. On his website he concludes by giving us some nice piece of advice: “It doesn’t matter what dream you choose to follow, as long as you have one. Go follow your dream, and laugh while you’re doing it!”
The quote you see in the image above is by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). It touches a universal truth: to change the world, first change yourself. Universal, because it’s message was true in his lifetime, and still spot on half a century later, when India’s spiritual and political leader Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) said: “Be the change you want to see in the world”. And today, again over half a century later, these quotes are still as valuable as they once were.
So here’s the third and final film by those three guys you were able to see here and here earlier. They set out on the trip of a life time or as they described it: “3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage… All to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films”. Well, in my opinion they succeeded greatly. This last film is about food and a reminder of the richness life has to offer when it comes to food (and choosing our daily meals).
So. There you are. You’ve done it! First of all: you were born! You’ve graduated! You’ve got the job! You found your love! You’ve got the car and the house! And now you’re married, you’ve got children! You’ve got the shoes, the watch and the friends to show it to! Hell, maybe you’ve got it all! Well, no. You can’t have it all, I mean: where would you put it? My point is: whatever you have, the moment you first got it created an amazing feeling. But with time the intensity of every feeling, even the good ones, will gradually fade. Daily life takes your attention away from what was once pride, gratefulness and happiness. So there you are again. Same situation, only now the question is: now what? You have what you wanted, but that’s not enough is it? No. Because it isn’t about having what you want, it’s about wanting what you have. Or else you’ll always be chasing for happiness the rest of your life, without ever really being happy.
In his book ‘The Trouble With Being Born’, philosopher Emil Cioran said: “Man is a robot with defects”. Now despite it’s great title, I didn’t read the book, yet I agree with what he says. Many of our daily routines make us act like robots, and most certainly we all have defects (nobody is flawless). But now it gets interesting: science says that 95% of the time our unconscious mind is running us on its automatic pilot mode. What that means? Well, let’s begin with defining the unconscious mind. Wikipedia says: “(…) the unconscious is all the processes of the mind which are not available to consciousness. (…) Unconscious phenomena have been held to include repressed feelings, automatic skills, unacknowledged perceptions, thoughts, habits and automatic reactions, complexes, hidden phobias and desires. So… whilst we think we control our mind, in reality our mind controls us. As Sigmund Freud put it: “The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of unconscious from which it rises”. To me being still is the answer. Sink away to the deeper levels of yourself, let your feelings speak, use your intuition to guide you. In order to make room for feelings and intuition, learn to be still before your thoughts starts yelling they have it all under control. Because they haven’t. Meditation is a great way to practice in quieting your thoughts. It helps you to make room, to be one with the rhythm of your breath and enter the deepest source of wisdom that lies within you, waiting for you to find and use it.
Apart from my own (pretty strange) truth, I don’t know what the truth is. Fortunately Albert Einstein had an idea about the truth. He said: “Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters, cannot be trusted in large ones either”. To me his saying means something like: “When you contemplate the greatness of life, you mustn’t forget about the tiniest details”. And besides my own truth, I also have my own (pretty strange) fiction – imagination, dreams, wishful thinking. It runs wild at times, it is sometimes of great help and sometimes it’s diluting me. But what fiction really is… Luckily Oscar Wilde had an idea fiction. He said: “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means”. Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it: “Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures”. I guess in the end, both truth and fiction are strange. Strange things happen in reality, strange fictional thoughts come to mind. My answer to this: play with reality, play with fiction.
In life we can learn millions of things, but the ‘time is money culture’ urges us to make choices. And so it’s more likely we invest our time in learning things that we need to learn, rather than in things that are just nice or fun. It’s the difference between learning new computer software for work versus learning how to ride the back of an elephant for just that moment. But that would all change if you were to set out on a journey around the world, having all the time in the world. Wouldn’t it? In this film we see a guy traveling, learning from whatever and whoever comes on his path. In every shot he’s in a different learning situation, in a different part of the world. His motivation to learn is not because it’s beneficial to his daily life or career. Nor is he learning to master any of these things. No, it’s the process of learning what it is all about. Because that will let him discover more about the local people, traditions and craftsmanships and so about life. American author Lloyd Alexander once said: “We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.” This film by the way, is only a part of his journey. I posted another part called ‘Move’ some time ago, you can see it here. And you can watch the third and final part ‘Eat’ here. Enjoy.
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