Mart-deBlog

So here I am. My first week in Berlin is over and the settling feeling slowly fades away. Whoever moved somewhere for a longer period might recognize the feeling of many processes going on under the surface of your mind, times goes slow and it is hard to fall asleep. I have the feeling that I have been here for a long time already. That does not mean that I have completely settled, it only means that so much happens in my mind that time stretches out like a rubber band. People who know me, probably already expect that I am trying hard to be aware of what is going on in my head, to raise stuff above the surface. But well, I have not really been able to grasp it. Of course it is easy to make guesses, there should be tons of mental processes as social adaptation, new habit formation, setting goals and changing self-perception. But the real processes of settling are simply beyond me, it is too much and too intricate.

In Hong Kong my experiences were radically different. I think that I never truly settled there, I was lost in translation, lost in bewilderment and psychedelia. I was a constant stranger. Berlin is the exact opposite of Hong Kong, it is open. There is just so much within reach, so much things I could do or worlds I could enter. This gives rise to a certain pressure, "will it ever be enough, whatever I do?" Thus a paradox arises in which Berlin remains out of reach, there seems to be an infinite amount of necessary experiences lying between me and Berlin. And then there is the ECLA obstructing me from having these experiences, frustrating, since I just know that both ECLA and Berlin are the right environments for me in so many ways. But then maybe this is also a misperception of myself (maybe I'm thinking to be more alternative or more scholarly than I actually am, who knows).

But this is all nothing more than guesswork, I have no clear idea what is going on with me right now. But what I am driving at is that I might here confront that restlessness hidden somewhere deep in me. It takes an extremely ambivalent situation to bring up the true face of it, I think. And I start to believe that I am exactly in such an environment: I live as close to 'the right place' as possible, yet I am for removed from it, in my books and studies. What do I want from my surroundings? Am I a hermit or a social animal? Should I find peace or be forever on the search for new experiences? Is my time going to be spend in ECLA or Berlin?