Ich, am Strand

I was at the beach yesterday. It was the first time in a long while I took a break. Yes, I take breaks all the time. I take walks, I read books, I meet with friends. I'm not constantly working. But this was the first real break from my daily routine this year.

"Ich, am Strand" is a song by the German band "Die Ärzte". The title translates to "Me, at the beach". It is about the biography of a homeless person. Each line is the description of a photograph. All photographs combined create a collage telling the story of how the person the song is about ended up being homeless. Maybe it's just the title, but the song stuck with me for the rest of the day.

My brother was with me at the beach. He had his camera with him, and was making photos. I envied how at ease he looked. He was lost in the moment, completely focused on his art. I miss this, doing something just for the sake of doing it.

I'm lost in my work on a regular basis. In my dayjob, I am solving fun problems I enjoy working on. In my free time, I like that I'm writing as much as I'm doing. But I don't know why I'm doing it.

Do you know the feeling just after a successful workout, when you are sweaty and exhausted, and your monkey mind is finally at rest, at least for a while? Now imagine you are working out, but this feeling fails to appear. You would still have your training goals to work towards, but it wouldn't feel as satisfying. And you would start to ask about the point of it all.

At the beach, I felt positively lost. Lost, because I wanted to be somewhere else, with my life in general, but not knowing where. Positively, because I became aware of it. I'm already afraid of going back to my everyday work, just forgetting it again.

A clear path to a lesser goal is the problem.

Gary Keller, The one thing