Sometimes You Need To Stop Asking Questions To Find The Answer
disconnect 004/237: This is a story about me hiding all timekeeping devices for three days in the house where I grew up
[1 September 2024]
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For the past two weeks, I stayed at my mom’s house, where I grew up and spent the first 18 years of my life.
It's a rather small house in the woods. I'm not kidding or exaggerating: there are no streets that lead to the house, only a narrow path covered with weeds, sticks, and the occasional pothole. The path is wide enough for just one car to drive on, and if you leave the house's large garden and cross this path, you'll enter a lush forest.
As a kid, I loved growing up there. Then, as a teenager, I started to like it less and less, if I remember correctly because it was far away from where pretty much anything happened and I didn’t feel independent enough. I moved away when I was 18 to go to university, lived in a few different cities in Germany, and ended up in Berlin over seven years ago now - the contrast between where I grew up and Neukölln, where I lived for most of the time in Berlin, couldn’t be bigger.
Over all the years, I had a difficult relationship with coming back here, because I fell in love with living in a big city, being independent, having everything accessible all the time, and living my own life at my own pace. Going back to and spending time in this little house in the woods where you can’t just go to a corner store to get an ice-cold Sprite at midnight often wasn’t appealing to me at all, and my visits were mostly limited to short holiday trips around Christmas and Easter.
This changed recently, and my autism diagnosis and the desire to live a life that suits my needs may have something to do with it. As much as I love living in a big cosmopolitan city, I’ve become more and more aware of the fact that in order to be able to do so and enjoy it, I need a lot of time and space to disconnect and recharge. And, where I grew up is the perfect place to do exactly that.
When my mom told me recently that she was going on vacation for about a week, I didn’t hesitate and decided it was time for a trip for myself too - to the place I used to, and sometimes still call home.
For the first three days, I went into full disconnection mode: I turned off my phone and covered, removed, or hid all watches and clocks in the house (the only electronic device I kept on using was my laptop, to listen to music, and to rewatch Being Jon Malkovich, one of my all-time favorite movies - strong recommendation if you haven’t watched it).
During my time in Canada earlier this year, I lived pretty isolated for 6 weeks and noticed how fascinating the places are the mind goes to when it’s disconnected from the often overwhelming and overstimulating amount of exterior input we’re constantly dealing with in our day-to-day lives.
Ever since I’ve been almost obsessed with creating moments of disconnection, to (re)connect with myself, put myself into a mental state of total calmness, and listen to my inner voice, as free as possible from outside influences.
Another motivation for my trip and to fully disconnect was to dig deep into my subconscious and figure out the ‘why’ for another thing I am obsessed with - making art.
I’ve been creating music for more than half of my life. And, this entire time, I probably would have answered why I am doing it, that I am doing it for myself - because it’s fun, because it’s stress-relieving, because it makes ME feel better.
Only recently I started to realize that I no longer want to create art for myself.
I want to create for the people out there, for YOU.
If it is something that makes me feel better while I am creating it, I am convinced that it is something that can make you feel better too when you are experiencing it. The only thing that’s been missing ever since I came to this conclusion, is having a crystal clear vision of how exactly I can achieve that.
Instead of asking myself what the answer to this question could be, I wanted to give my mind a break and let the answer come to me.
So what did I do?
First of all, I didn’t work on music. I can’t remember the last time this happened three days in a row - definitely not this year, and probably last year either.
I spent a lot of time in nature: I walked through and meditated in the forest, went on bike tours between corn fields and farmhouses, and admired the magic sunlight in the morning and the beautiful silence at night.
One thing I found especially beautiful was water, in all its various forms.
One morning, I was meditating in the forest on a moss-covered clearing, gentle sunlight was shining through the leaves, the ground was still covered in mist and the little drops of water were glowing like diamonds. Another morning, I woke up before sunrise and decided to start my day with a bike tour - after a night of rain, puddles on fields that were covered in morning fog reflected the light of the rising sun.
In these moments, the place where I grew up seemed to me no less beautiful than the forests and rural areas I’ve seen on trips to Indonesia or Cuba.
The beauty of the water reminded me of the famous Bruce Lee quote, “Be water, my friend,” because that’s how I felt. I was flowing through the days without any distractions, no time pressure, not thinking about anything but what I would like to do next, without any obligations whatsoever on my mind.
And just like that, while enjoying the simple beauty of the remote countryside somewhere in Northwestern Germany, I found my ‘why’ – my purpose for making art.
What is it? I’ll share it in one of the next Soda Sundays episodes because I feel I’ve written enough for now. It’s time to disconnect from the computer and enjoy the rest of this beautiful, sunny Sunday.
I won’t leave you though without sharing a snippet of the song I made after my three days of disconnecting and solitude in nature, Stop Asking Questions:
[media unavailable]
Enjoy your day or night!
glg Soda Paapi
PS: If you have any feedback about my music and/or this newsletter, I’m curious to hear it!
Sometimes You Need To Stop Asking Questions To Find The Answer
disconnect 004/237: This is a story about me hiding all timekeeping devices for three days in the house where I grew up
[1 September 2024]
-----------------------
For the past two weeks, I stayed at my mom’s house, where I grew up and spent the first 18 years of my life.
It's a rather small house in the woods. I'm not kidding or exaggerating: there are no streets that lead to the house, only a narrow path covered with weeds, sticks, and the occasional pothole. The path is wide enough for just one car to drive on, and if you leave the house's large garden and cross this path, you'll enter a lush forest.
As a kid, I loved growing up there. Then, as a teenager, I started to like it less and less, if I remember correctly because it was far away from where pretty much anything happened and I didn’t feel independent enough. I moved away when I was 18 to go to university, lived in a few different cities in Germany, and ended up in Berlin over seven years ago now - the contrast between where I grew up and Neukölln, where I lived for most of the time in Berlin, couldn’t be bigger.
Over all the years, I had a difficult relationship with coming back here, because I fell in love with living in a big city, being independent, having everything accessible all the time, and living my own life at my own pace. Going back to and spending time in this little house in the woods where you can’t just go to a corner store to get an ice-cold Sprite at midnight often wasn’t appealing to me at all, and my visits were mostly limited to short holiday trips around Christmas and Easter.
This changed recently, and my autism diagnosis and the desire to live a life that suits my needs may have something to do with it. As much as I love living in a big cosmopolitan city, I’ve become more and more aware of the fact that in order to be able to do so and enjoy it, I need a lot of time and space to disconnect and recharge. And, where I grew up is the perfect place to do exactly that.
When my mom told me recently that she was going on vacation for about a week, I didn’t hesitate and decided it was time for a trip for myself too - to the place I used to, and sometimes still call home.
For the first three days, I went into full disconnection mode: I turned off my phone and covered, removed, or hid all watches and clocks in the house (the only electronic device I kept on using was my laptop, to listen to music, and to rewatch Being Jon Malkovich, one of my all-time favorite movies - strong recommendation if you haven’t watched it).
During my time in Canada earlier this year, I lived pretty isolated for 6 weeks and noticed how fascinating the places are the mind goes to when it’s disconnected from the often overwhelming and overstimulating amount of exterior input we’re constantly dealing with in our day-to-day lives.
Ever since I’ve been almost obsessed with creating moments of disconnection, to (re)connect with myself, put myself into a mental state of total calmness, and listen to my inner voice, as free as possible from outside influences.
Another motivation for my trip and to fully disconnect was to dig deep into my subconscious and figure out the ‘why’ for another thing I am obsessed with - making art.
I’ve been creating music for more than half of my life. And, this entire time, I probably would have answered why I am doing it, that I am doing it for myself - because it’s fun, because it’s stress-relieving, because it makes ME feel better.
Only recently I started to realize that I no longer want to create art for myself.
I want to create for the people out there, for YOU.
If it is something that makes me feel better while I am creating it, I am convinced that it is something that can make you feel better too when you are experiencing it. The only thing that’s been missing ever since I came to this conclusion, is having a crystal clear vision of how exactly I can achieve that.
Instead of asking myself what the answer to this question could be, I wanted to give my mind a break and let the answer come to me.
So what did I do?
First of all, I didn’t work on music. I can’t remember the last time this happened three days in a row - definitely not this year, and probably last year either.
I spent a lot of time in nature: I walked through and meditated in the forest, went on bike tours between corn fields and farmhouses, and admired the magic sunlight in the morning and the beautiful silence at night.
One thing I found especially beautiful was water, in all its various forms.
One morning, I was meditating in the forest on a moss-covered clearing, gentle sunlight was shining through the leaves, the ground was still covered in mist and the little drops of water were glowing like diamonds. Another morning, I woke up before sunrise and decided to start my day with a bike tour - after a night of rain, puddles on fields that were covered in morning fog reflected the light of the rising sun.
In these moments, the place where I grew up seemed to me no less beautiful than the forests and rural areas I’ve seen on trips to Indonesia or Cuba.
The beauty of the water reminded me of the famous Bruce Lee quote, “Be water, my friend,” because that’s how I felt. I was flowing through the days without any distractions, no time pressure, not thinking about anything but what I would like to do next, without any obligations whatsoever on my mind.
And just like that, while enjoying the simple beauty of the remote countryside somewhere in Northwestern Germany, I found my ‘why’ – my purpose for making art.
What is it? I’ll share it in one of the next Soda Sundays episodes because I feel I’ve written enough for now. It’s time to disconnect from the computer and enjoy the rest of this beautiful, sunny Sunday.
I won’t leave you though without sharing a snippet of the song I made after my three days of disconnecting and solitude in nature, Stop Asking Questions:
[media unavailable]
Enjoy your day or night!
glg Soda Paapi
PS: If you have any feedback about my music and/or this newsletter, I’m curious to hear it!