this is the end...

hello dear fellow humans,

let me say that this post contains good and bad news.
the bad news are that this blog ends here. for reasons i will explain below.

the good news are that if you are interested in this and future trips of ours you are herewith invited to come and meet us and we can have coffee and tea and maybe homemade cookies and talk about it. some might call that "chatting".

you can also write to me via email my address is tim(underscore)haus(at)yahoo.de
underscore is this little guy here: _

you can also (and i think this is my favorite option and will certainly be yours even though you might not know about that yet): take a bike, a tent, a sleeping mat and some food and HEAD OUT. LEAVE. RIDE AROUND THE WORLD BY YOURSELF. and maybe we will meet. and we will. there is a tribe out here. a tribe that knows no religious or racial boundaries. a tribe of people that travel and live the slow way. the way that makes no sense to most people. the way that seems exhausting, sweaty, barefoot, waste-of-time, irresponsible, foolish.

but lifestyle-fads listen up: you are right about all this. it is an exhausting, sweaty, barefoot and waste-of-time kind of life. A WONDERFULLY EXHAUSTING, SWEATY, WASTE OF TIME!!!
you might be calling it irresponsible and/or foolish. if so you are not part of the tribe. or maybe (hopefully) just never met the (your?) tribe.

BUT if you have met and recognized the tribe then you can and often will find your tribal people. they roam in many different places. they believe in many different ideas. they do many different things.
things. they DO them. they do not own them. or simply put, they share a belief: "the most important things in life are not things."

they might not understand when you speak of re-financing your house, of twittering, of coupons and the cloud. they don't know about the latest movies, the stock exchange, fashion, the annual geneva car exhibit, all-inclusive-travel offers to costa rica. they might know the weather (not from their app or the weather channel). they might know the phase of the moon. they have smelled the smoke of a campfire lately. they have actually seen a sunset and enjoyed watching it instead of trying to take a million pictures so they can upload them onto facebook. they don't but apples from new zealand when they live in europe and they don't buy apples from america when they live in new zealand.
they think twice before they buy things and twice again before they throw them out. they might drive cars but they are aware of why and when. they save energy not because it saves money. but because it might save us all some day.

note: some say i must think of myself as some kind of know-it-all. they call me arrogant. as if i knew the right answers. this is not the case.
i don't know the answers. and i don't mean to suggest (or fake) that i do.
what i do know is that i DO NOT UNDERSTAND a lot of things. like: why do people spend the majority of their llifetime in a building on wall street? why do people think it is more important to eat a lot of tasty stuff rather than eat something good? why do people think bigger is better? why are diamonds such a cherished commodity? (they are ugly artificial looking rocks for goodness' sake...) why would you enslave or kill for such a thing? what is polysorbate 80 and why do so many people eat it despite the fact that they don't understand what it is? why do people travel to the end of the world on airplanes to see paradise when they should sensibly know that this destroys the paradise? HOW CAN PEOPLE BUY COUNTLESS TOYS FOR THEIR OFFSPRING AND NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THIS OVERCONSUMPTION DIRECTLY (and in a negative way) IMPACTS ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF THOSE SAME CHILDREN OR GRANDCHILDREN?

many questions. i don't know answers. what i do know though is that i can and will live without shops like walmart. i know that my lettuce from the farmers market for $4 is cheaper than the lettuce for $2 at saveway. i know that convenience makes you sick, dumb, fat, complacant, ignorant to the reality of life or possibly all of those things together. i know people want more. and more. and more. until they have more than they can handle. more stuff, more house, more car, more mobility, more friends on facebook. we humans are made that way.
and now tou think: "duh, why is this know-it-all telling me this?"
because i feel like it. because it is something we should think about. because it is something we chose not to think about as soon as we have formed an opinion. because we seem to think that forming an opinion means to keep having that same opinion forever and to have to defend it no matter what. because i think it is good (not ok, but GOOD) to have an opinion. even if it is a wrong opinion it is better than to have no opinion.

before i end this, i would like to recommend a tiny thing to everyone:
one day, walk to work. no matter if it is 1km or 10km or 100km to get there. leave your car and walk.
you will discover nothing less than a universe! things that are and have been there, right next to you, for a long time. things that you passed every day twice but failed to notice because of the speed that you travelled or because you had so devote your attention to other stuff.
you probably will discover more important and meaningful things than on a two week trip to a tropical beach resort.
take your time. if you need to take three days off work to walk to work DO IT! just once. if you have to walk over the big steep hill to get there DO IT! if it will cost you more than you will earn during the entire year DO IT!
waste that time. sweat that sweat. exhaust yourself.
see the sky. the sunrise. the birds. feel the rain. the heat. the cold.

the rest of your life starts today!
leap. and the net will appear.


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this is the last blog entry. i don't believe in this social network crap any more. everything is linked now so in order to upload pictures onto the blog inhave to sign up here and download there and then sign in here again, set a password with extra questions and then re-sign in and complete numerous personal questions and agree to terms of use. and so on.

i will not do this. i have better ways to
waste my time. to stay in touch please write to me: tim(underscore)haus(at)yahoo.de

mails to yahoo.com do not arrive at yahoo.de

you can also meet me and my family in person. and maybe we are friends or become friends.
who knows, we might already be from the same tribe...