I’ve moved around a lot as a kid and now, I am in Germany working at the space agency there as a contractor. During my time here, I’ve been able to travel around Europe — mostly during weekends. Not much with what I’m getting paid but at least some — which is better than nothing :-). And the one thing I learned during my time in Europe is the appreciation of connecting with random people. Before we continue, I highly recommend putting this on as you read this piece …
https://soundcloud.com/levipatel/and-she-translated-into-the
While travelling, I was lucky to travel with some people from work particularly to Köln, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, den Haag, Leiden and I was also lucky to know wonderful people in Paris and München which made my stay and experience even more invaluable. But, the one thing I did do for Berlin was travel by myself. Now, I’ve travelled by myself a lot. In fact, it’s weirder for me to travel with people and I’m more comfortable travelling by myself.
I guess it probably was the habit of travelling with people from work and having people be in a city I happened to be visiting that probably made my mind get used to something I never was used to doing — travelling with other people. But, when I did travelled by myself to Berlin — at first I was afraid. I eventually got used to it quickly, because I think my mind reset itself to the usual travel by yourself routine. And then, I experienced something that has taken me some time to realise — connecting with absolutely random people.
Now, I am a very shy guy, especially when it comes to dating and asking women out. So to expect me to go out and strike up a conversation with anyone is another realm in itself. But, this time I knew what I wanted. And I knew what I wanted out of life. I knew what I wanted to do with my life and most importantly knew what I loved doing. Now, what does this have to do with anything? I think everything — at least for me. There is no one factor to anything, remember. Life is a network of factors — a system of systems if you will, a tree with many branches — I could go on.
This time I ventured to just get to connect with people. What I wanted was to connect with random people. To share a moment — so pure, so serene and so private that only this other person(s) and I shared in that moment in our life time. Something only we could experience, to remember one day (hopefully). And I found out, there is nothing more precious than sharing a moment of this pure, serene, mentally intimate moment with another soul(s) about life, about love, about friendship, about dreams, about music, about dance, about women, about men, about our dogs, about our cats, about food, about philosophy, about legends, about myths, about people, about the world, about the universe, about purpose and about this moment.
Now, I don’t know these people but only that I met them for a moment and in Berlin, I got to do this for the first time in my life. I actively searched for people to try and make this connection — if they wanted to reciprocate. The best part of all this is we met, we shared that moment and we left each other without any attachment. We left each other — as in there is no possible way we will connect. Not friends on Facebook, not exchanging numbers or emails or anything to keep in touch later. And I think this was the best part.
It taught me something I always knew but didn’t really practice or actually — like, Actually — do in my life. It taught me to make the most of now and it taught me to move on after you make the most of that moment. We always strive to be “successful” in life and I always thought “success” was different for everyone. Some define it as being wealthy, some power, some friends, most stability and some fame. But I think that we need to strive to make the most of every moment regardless of the outcome because it’s the pursuit of something that matters more than the outcome (how much better you are today than you were a few minutes ago, a few hours ago and few days ago). And in the end we need to move on from that moment. But I think “success” is common for everyone and in fact it exists for everyone in one moment in our life time. The moment just before we realise we are going to die because at that moment we feel either accomplished (we gave the best to be good or strive at something) or we feel regret. And that I think is “success” — we accomplished at doing something greater than ourselves, being a better person, being a better person to the people close to you, sharing and giving everything for those close to you.
This is what I enjoyed about travelling by myself through Berlin. It taught me this and its something I always knew and partially practised. And knowing where I was and what I loved doing also made that difference. Being a nobody to the world of people helped me be a somebody even for a single moment.
I met a wonderful couple from Hungary who were vacationing in Berlin while also planning their wedding and honeymoon and, a couple of their friends. They were all taking time off work for a long weekend in Berlin. Got to know a little bit about a guy who was with the girl of his dreams and about what he wanted to do for his bachelors night. I met a dancer from the U.K. and his artist friend. She was from the US and they were talking about his boyfriend and her plans to be successful as an artist by her late twenties. I met a Canadian working as a bartender at the hostel I was staying at and her first impressions of Germany and Berlin. She had just arrived and she was getting away from home trying to figure things out in her life (like us all). I met another couple from Canada, the guy dropped out of university because he wanted to figure things out of life and we had a deep conversation on how I was doing the same every day and took me while to figure what I loved doing. His girlfriend had plans to be an occupational therapist and was finishing off grad school soon and he felt that he hadn’t figured things out like she had which made him a bit worried.
I have to say that, this took me a while to finish. Mostly, because I didn’t know how to end it. I think the best way to end this, is to remember to live in the moment, make the most of it, don’t try changing the world (it has been and always will be) but instead change the world for the people very close to you in that moment, devote yourself to an ideal so pure that you can share it with the ones closest to you rather than the world and always question everything while not settling for less than you deserve.