Resonance

Resonance:

Enough of digitisation, pluralisation, globalisation? Life has become too complex?

Why don't you get away from civilization, flee the urban environment, move to the country!

As if it would be that easy! 

Nowadays it is almost an impossibility for the average urban dweller to just simply leave his strenuous life behind, there is far too much comfort to loose, not to mention friends, social networks and all the opportunities to see and hear art in its many forms.

No, leaving the city is not an option and also not necessary. But what is, is the occasional escape. This comes quite easy and most often proves to be very rewarding. Simply take a train 30 minutes away from your city, in my case Berlin, and you will be surprised of what you’ll find. You don’t have to book big trips to go on hiking tours on the Appalachian Trail or in Canadian forests, there is no need for Survival Boot Camps in the rainforests of the Amazon. 

Within 20 minutes you can reach quiet areas, walk on forest tracks or alongside lushly green banks of a slow canal. 

There is something to be gained from close contact to the forest: the smell, the trees, the ground they stand on, the canal water that drifts slowly by. For a short time I forget the arduous hectic life of surviving in the city, get rid of the constant push and shove, no need  anymore to protect yourself from the onslaught of other pushers and shovers. Competition rests for a little while, I find time and rest again and the window to focus on myself. I feel that I can just be, without excuse or explanation or even purpose. I can just be. I owe no one anything. Not even a goal.

To be outdoors, in the open air, is not escapism. It is rather a readjustment of my inner values, it makes me aware of what I really need and want, set priorities anew amd revalue. Here, outdoors, in nature, I find myself all of a sudden resonating. Resonating with nature, with things that live their own life, independent from me. I strongly believe that this resonance is the key ingredient for happiness. I feel the water drift past me in the canal, I feel the wind blowing through the branches and leaves of the trees, I smell the sodden earth. I resonate with all this because it invites me but does not force me, there is no obligation, it is a simple offer. If I take it, I resonate, I am happy. I resonate with nature, I resonate with art, I resonate when I eat a delicious meal, I resonate when I am in love or read a book. And the world around me answers, resonates too. Not always, not permanently, but most often enough so for me to gain back my equilibrium, gain back that ultimate sense of feeling myself. 

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