Jobs and me don’t go well together and the only reason why I liked my last job so much was because of the hitchhiking. I did it twice a week, up and down to Den Haag without much troubles. I had great rides, received fantastic stories and shared many things with the more than 50 drivers within 6 weeks of working and hitching. I even started writing about it in Dutch on a new webpage that I called “hitching works“!
And as if it was bound to happen: the day I had quit my job again, the day I was on my last day of hitching to work, I got offered new work by one of my drivers. I could not have been two seconds later at my usual spot as I was instantly picked up by her. Barely 15 minutes later she offered me to work for her, by making a television show about sustainability…
The show is already made and even broadcasted. It was a great success. The presentors and other members of the team were very happy with the work done and there is even the possibility to make more shows for them after the summer. And in addition, during this last day of hitching to and from work, I even got offered a bottle of wine by my final driver who dropped me off at my house.
Living in the house where I have been since I got back to Amsterdam has been truly amazing. Somehow I got to meet so many great people over the past year, that I cannot believe it myself all the time. So-called randomness has become a core of life. Through friends, friends through friends, those tagging along or sent by a letter, or through the ones we somehow found, it seems even more present than for example, while traveling.
There are many people who would appear here if I would list them. And way too many stories for a simple overview. Things have been really great, and there are numerous different accounts you can get your stories from. But one of the core values of these events though, might be the praxis of creation through the tasting of life and trusting.
I am sure you will enjoy the video “Skipping Waste. Free (the) Food“, by Lily Barlow. While traveling and staying over at the casa, she made an awesome production about rescuing food from thrown away, and how to see waste as beauty. It documents six stories from three cities about dumpster divers, people who treasure and recreate trash.
Walking around a city. My thoughts go nowhere. I listen. I listen how the sound of the river flows with those of the city: the cars, the trains that pass, a barking dog and fluttering birds. A man walks by and blows his nose. And I? I observe how I feel my surroundings.
Not to think is truly one of the most relaxing exercises that I regularly do. And the more I do so the more I seem to become one with what is around me, the more I am able to focus and understand, simply by being, by feeling, by listening, hearing, smelling, but mostly by not thinking, by sensing.
Listening to the silence inside myself, it becomes easier to find my answers, to find my connection with my inner self. I let myself be guided by what I feel inside and by what my surrounding (which is now inside) is telling me.
And then, little by little, step by step, you realise you don’t have to think in order to know what is next: the right time and place is always there, no matter when, no matter where you actually are. You have reached closer to who you really are.
The roads are calling, the time is revealing. I have been on a trip here and there but traveling has rather been on a standstill. Let’s have that changed. Now.
So today I am hitching to work, to sign my contract and meet my new collegues. The office is in Den Haag, a 45 minute ride away and I can’t be bothered taking the train. Evenmore, I plan to do this on a weekly basis, as my new part-time job requires me to be in their office just once a week.
Before starting in this new position though, I will first hitch to Munich, further on to Slovenia and possibly even visiting other places in the coming two weeks. Can’t wait to be on the wider roads again, to be in other places and meet wonderful people while traveling myself.
One of my basic questions for this year was how to make the annual Christmas fest of spending, affluence and overconsumption into something sustainable, as a party of joy and sharing without the big spending that is normally associated with Christmas.
The answer was a lot easier than I thought – especially since we made Dumpster Diving a frequent activity here at the house, which started as a very practical way of feeding our hungry casa-visitors without emptying our wallets but turned quickly into our normal way of living.
Three delegates of the house therefore started already three days ahead of Christmas, bringing back home bags full of food from the market-dumpsters; good food that otherwise would have been thrown away. And each day, this food was only piling up…
Christmas eve itself was great. We had around 17 people coming over, everyone was participating in one way or the other to create the right setting for a perfect celebration – and although the laughing went on for the whole night, the day after I was fresh enough to hitch to my hometown & to have a great time with my family.
My biggest desire in life is to help enabling a world free of hierarchies. So when I did accept a job this year, I was only slightly enthousiastic. I needed some solid financial base and yes I was ready for a challenge but a corporate job was not on my list (at all). In the end I was relatively o.k. with giving it a green light for a while, until I would have at least build up some cash-reserves again.
There are good things about my job. I learned a lot about marketing, I got to understand the technologies that enterprises use to brainwash us, I traveled a bit, worked with some fine people and I learned a lot from them. But, there is so much more to life than just jobs and career.
So when to quit? There is never a better moment than now and I feel now is that time. There are so many useful things I can better direct my attention to, and there are so many more things I still want to accomplish in the near future, that most of my time in this office is wasted. And in the end, what is so usefull about working for someone else’s profit?
Why is it that people in the US look so surprised when I tell them I rather walk 20 minutes than taking a cab or bus? This was one of my surprises while in Boston. We all know that the average US-American is less healthy than the average European, but still – it is as if they don’t care at all!
If not for the heartbeat-collective and Matrixpoint I would not have enjoyed Boston that much. I was over for a week to the States, enjoying great views of the city from a 17th floor many stars hotel, for my j-o-b. I was thankfully pointed into the right direction by Anu and Sky, making it possible for me to actually make my trip something useful and slightly less boring.
While John gave me lots of insights on the birth and death of CS 2.0, the Heartbeat Collective gave me a lot of inspiration for projects and ideas, adding more roots to them. I was especially happy when I learned about the rhizome collective, and the urban farming projects they do. Somehow I also discovered that -though the US has a lot of toxic soil- apparently there are some really beautiful flowers growing there.
Some other things that come to mind when thinking about Boston: carving pumpkins; pirates; Obama equals hope; the radio-stations played great music but were full with bullshit in the mornings; food is cheap and there are vegetarian meals everywhere; people don’t walk, don’t cycle, but they do talk a lot; I am not born for bowling (nor my j-o-b).
Check out more stuff I wrote while in Boston here
Yala! Now those were some fine exciting days in Barcelona! I was back for a week and managed to see almost everyone that I wanted to meet. I had some good time relaxing in a yakuzi in some 5 star hotel near the beach but, really, even 10 stars isn’t as good as staying over with friends.
Luckily I was able to catch Yaniv just before he starts his trip through the Americas. I managed to see back old Barcelona friends Raoul, Birgit, Linda (x3), Chris, Celine and PP, as well as Dani, Margaret and Jan during crazy lunches, nice dinners, and late-night bar hopping. I made some new friends (it’s an addiction…), took some great photos (more to come!) and bought myself a nice new plastic camera (you’ll be amazed ).
Overall, it was a great time, with reflections from the past, intense moments, walking through roads I used to see everyday, being on squares where I ‘grew up’ and being surprised again and again with the vibrancy of Barcelona street life. Thanks (and I will be back again)!
Up in the mountains watching the fiery red sun set turn in to the black night, illuminated only by a bright ball in the sky, life flashes past your eyes. Sitting by a beautiful beach, listening to the ocean roar. Realizing how small we are. In a Casa, somewhere in Amsterdam, eating a dumpster-dived meal, surrounded by those we love, singing, laughing, danci […]
While I have funnier stories to tell but no time for writing at the moment, I stumbled across this scary blog post. Quote: "It appears that routine searches of one’s home to check for a vast array of “problems" are now performed door-to-door in The Netherlands. The city of The Hague is inspecting all homes in a number of neighborhoods." You d […]
I am not sure I remember how to post articles to this website, can we create a link for the home page where it links to 'create a story'? cant see it ... anyway, would like to create a fund for stolen equipment replacement with casa robino permission, please let me know if you have a preferences for which online service to use ... cheers Pg
