This self development thing is exhausting. Looking deeply at our collective humanity, I can become disengaged from it. What is it to let go of that vantage point and immerse in this life just living for a while? The unexamined life is not worth living (so they say); but the over examined life is never lived.
Meanwhile, I have had no trouble NOT checking the news or social media. Why? because travel (for now) is a rare luxury adn a formative experience always. I don’t want to miss it, so I don’t want to waste my time on things like headlines and social media that I can take no action on and mostly have no bearing in my reality at all. I should treat my days at home with more rarity. We get each day only once, regardless of where we are.
Berlin is not like any other city I have been to. It is a mix of everyone from everywhere set into a decidedly German background. Like NYC in its number of represented cultures but far more friendly and accessible and intermixed. I think you could find someone to speak any language with in the span of a dozen square blocks. OR maybe that is just Prenzlauerberg. Pankow was more purely German. Mitte is 80% tourists. But Prenzlauerberg is a mix of locals from everywhere.
A friend of mine and artist who lives in Berlin says that they “have some making up to do.” It seems a city missing some things. Missing people, missing books, maybe missing an identity. Maybe all of these people who have come here are missing something too.
Clearly, I am not done here. 15 days was not enough. I want to return for a few months sometime : )
