Czech Republic - from inactivity

We look for a place where we can indulge in our thoughts. We allow ourselves a time of peace and somehow also of reflection. The campsite is empty, we are alone. That's a good thing!

We are still sad, the Visit to Theresienstadt has really taken us away, torn us emotionally from our centre. Which is good. And painful. But this pain is also allowed to be. We allow it and feel it deeply.

Over the last few weeks, I've been reading a book that I've been really inhaling, reading back and forth, crossing out many passages and thinking a lot about individual passages. It's about doing nothing. The inactivity. And our social image of it.

I'm jumping forward in time to one of the talks we'll be giving in Switzerland (now that I'm writing this, I can say I've given it). People keep asking us whether we get bored in the evenings without newspapers, television and entertainment. Not at all, I would say. The best thing is just being there, doing nothing, simply being idle.

To give your thoughts space, to think everything through to the end. Maybe a few rounds of knitting (meditation for me) or a game of cards. Well, that's not doing nothing either, but it's not really performance-orientated either.

I quote from my little purple book: "Since we only perceive life in terms of work and performance, we see inactivity as a deficit that needs to be remedied as quickly as possible. Human existence is completely absorbed by activity". And further: "Intensive life today means above all more performance or more consumption."

Caught: Yes, we consume a lot. Maybe not things, but places, encounters. Do we take too little time when travelling? Is it important to count the countries? (We really don't know how many countries we have travelled to and how many kilometres we have covered...).

"Without a moment of hesitation or pause, action degenerates into blindly acting and reacting". So we try to hesitate, sit around, "stare holes in the air" and really surrender to what is at hand. What needs to be right now. We are ridiculed when we disappear into our Felix at sunset - which is quite early in Central Europe in winter - eat something together and then lie down to sleep. "Sleep is the peak of physical relaxation, boredom the peak of mental relaxation," writes Byung-Chul Han.

We simply can't manage to do nothing all the time. Empty time needs to be filled. We are also conditioned this way. Too much work in our eyes, too much deadline pressure from customers and then our own constant curiosity. What could we go and see? Is there a concert tonight? Who are we meeting when and where? How many lectures are enough, which lecture invitation is too much and should better be cancelled?

It's not so easy to lead an absolutely self-determined life. Self-determination is also work. And not a little. Because the "compulsion to work, to produce, to perform leads to breathlessness".

This book and the many thoughts it contains show us that we should try to do less. Do nothing again and again. Renunciation is our greatest gift. Renunciation does not take, it gives.

Our joy of discovery certainly gets in the way of doing nothing. But we are not unhappy about this, instead we recognise that breaks are the gift we give ourselves in between.

When we browse through our small (and now quite extensive) virtual travel diary here, we realise that we were and are anything but idle. Of course, because we are writing about what we experienced and not about what we didn't experience. Days full of pure life follow one another here. And the days in between, the small and large breaks of doing less or doing nothing, are less common here.

And deep down, we feel that this self-given mixture of excitement, beauty and doing nothing gives our lives a "radiance and glow" instead of "functioning". We are grateful for this.

Back to our journey: When we had felt, thought, reflected and mourned enough, we drove on. I wanted to visit the small towns of Görlitz and Zittau with my husband. I was often there as a child and am curious to see how these two gems have changed.

The book I keep thinking about is this one:
Vita contemplativa or of inactivity | A critique of our meritocracy
And those who Book7.co.uk also does good!

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Merci for "travelling with us

We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.

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