deflect-daily

[deflect-daily]

I’m an evolutionary dead-end #childfreebychoice

There were countless individuals before me who successfully reproduced and passed on their genetic material, generation after generation, from single-cell organism to homo sapiens, until this very point in the history of my personal phylogenetic tree. I am not pregnant, I never was and I never will be. I got sterilized on December 12th 2022 and it feels like a second birthday to me.

In the following text, I want to write down some of the thoughts and reflections I had about the topic of (not) having children and why I am convinced, that (female) sterilization is a political act of emancipation. Quoting the feminist movement during the 60s and 70s: “the personal is political”, I wish to give you some insights of the implication of this radical act of self-appropriation. After having undergone the procedure, I decided to write a text, that I would have enjoyed reading many years ago when I thought about sterilization the first time. 

In case some of you are triggered by this topic: This is my personal opinion, my personal choice for my body and my future. I am not saying, what i did is best for you or anyone else. It is important to me that everybody always has the freedom of choice. 

Yet, in my eyes, having children is a thing only for people who really want to become parents. And, even more importantly: People who decided to become parents should be aware of the scope of engagement, the responsibility and the severity that is connected to the act of bringing a person to life. This decision is always to be made consciously and carefully. 

Why I don't want to be a parent

Listing all the reasons against having kids and discussing them in detail would take too long and maybe also be too controversial. If you want to get inspired about some of the reasons, you can read "No kid - Quarante raisons de ne pas avoir d'enfant" by Corinne Maier. I share many of them, but my personal list exceeds 40 reasons by far ;)  

Just to make this clear: I never wanted kids. I, 34 years old today, identify as a cis woman but I never saw myself as a mother nor did I ever envision "having my own family" as a life goal.

All my friends know that I am not a huge fan of children. And, most importantly: I am not willing to invest the time and money into such a life-changing project. I have enough hobbies and interests to keep myself busy for at least 200 years. There's simply not enough space in my life for my own offspring.

“People who don’t have kids are egocentric and self-centered”

Provided that one has access to affordable contraceptives, the choice of having kids or not immediately becomes one that has to be actively made. And, from that point on, it always becomes an egocentric choice. Often, people who voluntarily decide against reproduction, are seen as antisocial and egoistic, demonstrating a lack of solidarity because they do not provide the future generation, future working forces, future tax-payers, future pension-payers. You probably already see where this is going... The personal and societal reasons, most people name for having children are egocentric as well: "I want to leave some traces here on planet earth", "I don't want to be alone when I'm older", "I want to pass on my values/genes/beliefs". Having kids because there’s a need for human beings to care for you when you’re retired, financially and physically, is also quite self-centered... isn’t it? 

Or, a very common phrase is "it is just part of life" - which shows, if anything, a lack of reflection. Life is so full of incredible things. Having kids is just one of them. "It has always been like that" is also not a valid argument. Period. If you disagree, then please think about what that means for suppression of minorities, women and POC, the exploitation of nature, the burning of fossil fuels and so on and so forth... Can we please move on? 

The fallacy of the "mother instinct" and the ideal of a "good mother"

The so called "mother instinct" which is the idea that woman just have an internal drive to care for others, especially children, is a social construct that bares no scientific background but can be very useful when one aims to naturalize the societal inequality of women and men. There is no scientific evidence, that women just generally care more than men, but, if we all believe, that women have a natural, inherent drive to care for children, it is way easier to make them stay at home with the kids, give up a career and accept to be underpaid or not paid at all. 

The idea of a "good mother" with all the associated concepts and expectations has been used for centuries to establish and solidify patriarchal structures within society. There is this idea of this strong bond between a mother and her kids that is unique and indispensable and especially important during the first three years of life. If the mother is not (sufficiently) around during this time, the child will suffer great psychological damage that can never be fully healed. Of course, the mother cannot be replaced by any other person, neither father, grandparents or other family members, friends or other loving kin. So, if the mother’s not available to the child for whatever reason, the child will be broken for the rest of it’s life and the mother’s to blame. 

I guess, I don’t have to tell you, that there is no scientific evidence for this bullsh*t either and that we, as a society should drop these misconceptions rather sooner than later. 

Enforcing the duty not just to bear children, but also to devote their lives to the upbringing of their kids, exerts an enormous pressure on women. Womanhood has long been and still is directly connected to motherhood. Only those women who bear children and care for them are real women and thus, only those who make their children the utmost priority, are good mothers, good women. 

Sarah Diel describes the background of these ideas and the associated suppression of women very well in her book "Die Uhr, die nicht tickt" which I strongly recommend. 

Care for others is independent of the bloodline. If one feels the need to care for others, this does not necessarily mean that the beings cared for are one's own offspring. Donna Harraway says it in perfect terms: "Make kin, not babies!". Care, intimacy and responsibility for others are incredibly important, but can be shared between all humans and even across species, not just between mothers and their kids.

“But isn't there an alternative?” - Some words on contraception

Let's get everyone on the same page: Contraception is still a problem with a variety of unsatisfactory solutions and eventually, still a women’s.

Even though, there is a promising idea for men on the rise, called RISUG (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance), it seems like there's no real interest taken in developing the product by pharmaceutical companies. The first time this popped up on screens dates back to more than a decade ago and there has still no real progress been made. The research on RISUG or “vasalgel” was mostly done by the Parsemus Foundation who now seems to have sold the idea to a private company. On their website, they claim, that the product will be on the market, “as soon as clinical studies and regulatory approvals are completed”. Whatever that means... The only thing I know, is that I am not willing to wait for this it to arrive on the market.

So, to put this prospect aside, when we discuss solutions to the contraception problem, we basically have the following options with their corresponding PIs (PI = pearl index):

Condoms; PI of 18-21

Hormonal contraception (pills, rings, patches, implants, injections, IUDs, you name it); PI varying from 0.05 to 9, depending on the method

Heavy metals (copper IUDs); PI of 0.8

Some unsafe alternatives like spermicide creams or gels, withdrawal and "fertility awareness methods" that in my opinion do not really count as contraceptives due to very high pearl indices of >18

Vasectomy (male sterilization; PI 0.1) and female sterilization (tubal ligation; PI 0.5)

(I took the PI values from here)

The only options here, that can be used by men are condoms and vasectomy. Hormonal contraceptives have a looooooooong list of side effects that are not just diverse but also in parts severe, the most dangerous being the increased risk of blood clots (elevated risk of thromboses, strokes, pulmonary emboli and heart attacks) and cancer (breast and cervical cancer). And not to be forgotten: The adverse effects on the psyche like mood swings, depression and decreased libido. 

Hormonal contraception and copper IUDs have the huge advantage of being extremely safe and also reversible. For anyone, who is not sure about whether they wanna have children or not, this is the way to go - in monogamous and/or tested environments - until better options are available. Quick reminder on the side: Condoms are still the only contraceptive option around that also protects against (some, not all) STDs... 

Whoever is willing to have a permanent solution: sterilization is the only option.

Female sterilization is actually the method of contraception mostly used worldwide with high prevalence in Asia, Latin and North America. Around the world 219 million women are sterilized whereas only 16 million men underwent vasectomy (source). The usage of the different methods of contraception by continent can be seen here:

Figure 1: Contraceptive prevalence among married or in-union women aged 15 to 49 by method and region, 1990 and 2011. Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affair (2013), Trends in Contraceptive Methods Used Worldwide. Population facts No. 2013/9. 

Why this digression on contraception? Because the number of suitable options is limited. I was on hormonal contraceptives for roughly 10 years. I was one of the lucky ones who experienced only mild side effects. But still, at one point, I decided that I want to get off the hormonal treatment and got a copper IUD. Since then, I enjoy the physical and mental benefits of a natural menstrual cycle. I am again a lucky one to have only mild discomfort during my period and I do not suffer from conditions like e.g. PCOS or endometriosis. Overall, my reproductive organs do fine. And yet, getting the IUD installed was one of the most painful things ever. Not so much because of the rather intense pain, but more because of the quality of the pain. It felt like some part of me, deep within my guts, that was not supposed to be touched by anything ever, was hurt. Ugh. 

Never again. 

I was looking for a better option. Yes, vasectomy is a way smaller intervention than a tubal ligation, which is always performed under general anesthesia, but for various reasons, that I also discussed thoroughly with my partner, I wanted a  permanent solution for myself.

And I was incredibly lucky. I found great support not just from my friends and my gynecologist, but there’s also an information center in the city I live in, where I was given all the necessary information and direct contact to doctors that do tubal ligations. I expected the process to be extremely tough because I had listened to the story of a lady, aged 29, who had fought six months to get the procedure done. I was scared. But the path unfolded surprisingly smooth and a few months after my first visit at the information center, I got sterilized. 

“But what if you change your mind?”

This is what people always said to me, when I was telling them, that I do not intend to have children: "Wait until you're older!" "I thought the same, when I was your age" "I'm sure you'll change your mind".

The comments became less as i grew older, especially after turning 30, but still, occasionally, I got to hear the same old phrases. 

As if it was impossible to be certain of whether you want to have a family or not in your 20s. As if women are not capable of taking this decision on the basis of emotional and/or rational reasons until they passed a certain age - that is, of course, defined by society. 

Society claims, that at a certain moment in life *flick*, like magic, a woman’s kid-switch is engaged in the brain, that sets off the internal clock which will take away the steering wheel of rationality. And everyone knows that this is going to happen, except the woman herself.

Young women, even kids, that talk about their wish to have a family one day are never treated as their wishes were irrational or will fade "once they get older". 

I personally made the experience, that the older I got, the stronger I was convinced that I won’t have children. Of course, I had moments of insecurity that this might change one day. But this is normal and happens with many more or less important life choices like getting tattooed, signing up for a school or university, moving to another city or breaking up with a partner. Doubts are normal. 

I will have to live with the consequences of my decisions. And so do you with yours. 

That being said, there is also no guarantee that mothers do change their mind and regret their decision. An article by Orna Donath went viral a few years ago, because she interviewed several Israeli mothers who got interviewed on #regrettingmotherhood. This is not representative. But this might be an under-reported problem. Further research is needed.

A final statement

I am incredibly happy that I had the possibility to get the surgery done. I am thankful to life in a part of the world where various options for contraception are available and affordable. I am thankful for the people around me, who supported me in the process. I am grateful for the people who did the operation, so that everything was safe and without complications. And last, but by far not least, I am proud of my body that it handled everything so well. I feel incredibly strong, empowered and self-conscious and I am looking forward to deepen the relationship with both my body, my femininity and my sexuality, knowing that I never have to bother my body with contraceptives again.

Recommended to read:

No kid - Quarante raisons de ne pas avoir d'enfant by Corinne Maier

Die Uhr die nicht tickt by Sara Diehl

Kunskapens frukt (Engl: Fruit of knowledge, germ: Der Ursprung der Welt) by Liv Strömquist

Schwangerwerdenkönnen by Antje Schrupp

Abolish the family. A manifesto for care and liberation by Sophie Lewis

Recommended to watch:

A documentation about young women and their journey to getting sterilized in Germany 

Recommended to listen to:

The interview with Milena, mentioned above, who fought six months to get sterilized in Switzerland at age 29

Recommended to follow:

@tiffany.jmarie on instagram

For support and further information: 

https://www.selbstbestimmt-steril.de/

[deflect-daily]

Detailed view of the concrete wall in the oldest drinking water reservoir in the city of Biel/Bienne. Constructed roughly 150 years ago and still in use. 

[deflect-daily]

Getting to know your monkey mind

tldr: Spending several days in sensory deprivation, alone, with just the monkey in your head is extremely hard but teaches you a lot about yourself and how your brain functions. Misery is universal. Everything always changes and passes away. The causes of suffering are attachment and aversion. It's fruitless to get upset about or attached to something that will pass away eventually. Befriend your inner monkey.

The things I learned during a 10-day Vipassana course

1. How to fart very (!) quietly

2. That men are far more creative than women when it comes to building armchairs and thrones with meditation pillows

3. A ten days meditation course somewhere in the German outback would be a perfect setup for a horror movie.

Jokes aside.

The thoughts and realisations that one has during a Vipassana course and in the time around it, can easily fill an entire book (as Tim Parks shows in "teach us to sit still"), so please excuse me, if this text is a little long.

For the ones who do not know what Vipassana meditation is, please click here or here. There are a lot of reviews, stories, lessons learned out there (e.g. here, as well as at least a dozen YouTube videos on the topic) - go check them out if you feel like it.

I did a course following the teaching of S.N. Goenka. These courses are pretty much the same all around the world if you do it in one of the > 200 centres: the sound and video files, the timetable, the quality of the food and the fittings of the rooms. Even though, the setup does not change, the experience is always unique, so much as even one person taking the course several times will have a different experience with different insights each time.

So, where to start?

I want to first quickly summarize the basic idea of what is taught during the course (the cause of suffering) and then dig into a few aspects that I found particularly interesting: the parallel of meditation and psychedelics and the influence of meditation on the perception of pain.

The cause of suffering

Disclaimer: I don't believe in the existence of a non-physical thing as "a soul" – a non-substantial entity that exists independently of physical matter and/or that can be transferred from one physical body to another through reincarnation - but I clearly draw a distinction between the conscious and the unconscious parts of your brain. Within the Vipassana teaching, the believe in reincarnation is extremely important, as to explain why suicide will not save you from suffering.

According to the teaching, there are some basic principles:

1. Misery is universal - all humans suffer.

2. Everything constantly changes - every experience, every condition, passes away eventually.

3. External information enters the brain through our senses and immediately causes a physical reaction (change in heartbeat or breathing, feelings of heat or cold, pain, comfort, or any other physical sensation).

4. this physical reaction is subconsciously perceived and interpreted as "good/pleasant" or "bad/unpleasant" and this information is transferred to the conscious mind.

5. The conscious mind only receives this already processed external information - an evaluation of what is going on outside and reacts with attachment or aversion.

6. This leads us (humans) to constantly jump from aversion of unpleasant experiences to attachment to pleasant experiences and back.

7. Since every pleasant situation passes eventually, the attachment to it leads to suffering. And since unpleasant stimuli will always appear (and disappear), the aversion of these leads to suffering as well.

If this sounds weird to you, this jumping from attachment to aversion and back can be explained by checking out a typical Saturday morning:

You lie in bed and don't want to get up, because it's comfortable (attachment), but then you get hungry and want to get rid of this unpleasant feeling (avoidance), then you probably overeat because the food tastes so good (attachment) and you start complaining about your aching stomach. Your partner makes some nasty comments about your eating habits which hurt, and you get mad (avoidance). To leave the situation, you go on to the next step of taking a shower. The shower is warm and comfortable, and you don't want to leave it (attachment). You step out of the shower; the air is fresh and uncomfortably chilly, and you quickly start to rub yourself dry with a towel to get warm again and so on and so on.

Of course, nothing is wrong with what's going on during these first hours of a Saturday morning. This is just an example of how deeply rooted the evaluation of situations into the categories of "pleasant" and "unpleasant" is.

This is exactly, what one is confronted with during a Vipassana meditation course - the constant habit of your mind seeking pleasure and avoiding discomfort without any possibility to change the situation you’re in for the duration of the course.

The effects of sensory deprivation

10 days without vocal or non-vocal communication, without books, music, entertainment, sports. Reading and writing was forbidden as well as performing any sexual activity or a change of environment by leaving the area around the centre. This means a strong sensory deprivation that appears to be rather extreme in contrast to our "modern life" that's overflown by information and distraction. The only stimuli that one encounters are occasional walks on the area of the centre, two meals a day and a lot of tea. On top was the fact that the only real "me-time" than one gets are the 15 minutes locked in the bathroom while taking a shower. Everything else: sleeping, eating, meditation and recreation outside is shared with others.

Usually we are used to immediately distract us when things get uncomfortable: We check our phone as soon as we are bored for 5 seconds at the bus stop, we prefer watching a movie when we should actually study for an exam, we quickly get mad at the people in front of us in the queue at the grocery store because they are so f***ing slow. We get easily irritated by others, we never truly experience boredom, and we never check what’s happening within our bodies because we’re so focused on the outside world.

As soon as one is forced to shift the focus towards the inside of the mind and the body, one realizes this voice that's constantly talking.

The tasks during the meditation are quite simple: focus on your breath (1st day), focus on the area of your nose and upper lip (2nd day), focus on the area of the upper lip, feeling the touch of the breath (3rd day), leading this focus from body part to body part starting from head to feet and back (4th to 10th day). But this becomes incredibly hard when your mind constantly jumps from one thought to the other like a monkey jumps from branch to branch. This voice that keeps on jabbering consistently is able to talk you into anger, paranoia, lust and most importantly, into the conviction that what you do right now (sit on the floor and try to focus on your breathing) is definitely and absolutely unbearable.

Whenever the voice talks, one usually automatically follows it and within seconds, the focus is drawn far away from the breath or the physical sensations and after a few moments to minutes, one realizes what just happened and tries to pull the attention back to the task of observing the breath, just to notice a few moments later that the mind is following the prattling again and so on and so forth. This becomes very frustrating and I personally experienced the task of pulling your focus back without getting mad at myself as incredibly hard and very exhausting.

But this is exactly what meditation is all about: Learning how to keep your mind focused, learning how to notice subtle, changing sensations within your body, and most importantly: observing everything that’s happening while remaining equanimous.

 Besides leading me into frustration about my incapability to keep up my focus, the sensory deprivation had the following effects for me:

Improved vision, hearing and sense of smell. I missed my partner equally as I missed time alone by myself. I also missed small interactions with others – a smile, a gesture, a soft touch of comfort when you see that someone else goes through a rough day.

And after a few days, I felt the strong urge to express myself through writing, which is quite interesting because normally I spend more time consuming other people's content than producing anything myself. This urge is the reason why I’m writing this blogpost right now.

Now, I wish to dig deeper into two more specific aspects, that appeared particularly interesting to me.

It’s a psychedelic experience

Don't get me wrong: I'm far from calling myself “experienced” with psychedelics. I don't know very much about the different substances, their effects on the brain or the vast variety of experiences they can trigger, but I took LSD a few times and I know some stories told by more experienced people, so I guess - keeping my psychological background in mind - it's valid that I claim the following:

One major task of our brain is to filter the incredible amount of information we encounter every moment. This is very important, because it allows us to function in an otherwise constantly overwhelming environment. It's important for the brain to be selective about the information that reaches conscious awareness. Psychedelics, to some extent, turn off these filters which leads to an increased sensitivity towards stimuli and changes the way these stimuli are processed in the brain. This is also the reason why it's rather exhausting to take psychedelics - the mind has to process a lot more input than normally.

What happens during meditation is the following: The sensory deprivation and the focus on the observation of physical phenomena on the surface of or within the body (breath, heartbeat or sensations like tickling, warmth, cold, itching, pressure, pain or whatnot) enables the conscious mind to perceive the otherwise suppressed "random noise" that is constantly produced by the sensors of the body. This random noise occurs for example through spontaneous action potentials produced by neurons. Action potentials, necessary for the conduction of information are stochastic phenomena. With every stimulus the probability of the formation of an action potential increases, the stronger the stimulus, the higher the probability. For a notable sensation, many action potentials have to happen at a time. From time to time, action potentials happen, even without the presence of a stimulus which leads to a sensation without an actual cause - random noise. This happens within the sensory cells as well as in the neurons that conduct the information to the brain. This noise is subconsciously suppressed and normally not perceived by the conscious mind. The same goes for sensations in body parts that are not important to being consciously payed attention to at a particular moment. For example, there is no necessity to feel the pressure of the seat on the back of my thighs or the sensation of a slight coolness in my feet while I'm focused on talking to a person or writing this text right now.

The conscious (and non-judgemental) observation of these usually supressed sensations within the body means, as mentioned above for psychedelics, basically turning off the filters of the brain.

When you close your eyes, you never see just pure blackness. Your brain constantly produces shapes, colours, patterns, movements or entire pictures which you can observe if you watch closely - again - they are just random noise. From day 3 or 4 on, whenever I went to bed at night, as soon as I closed my eyes, I had visual sensations that reminded me a lot of what my brain created on LSD: I saw fractals, bright colours and moving structures that made it hard for me to fall asleep. Also, my sleep was heavily disturbed. Sometimes, I could not tell apart whether I just woke up in the middle of the night or whether I just got out of a meditation session. This felt exhausting, like there was a lot for my brain to process. But despite this somehow disturbed sleep, I felt awake and alert during the day. S.N. Goenka claimed, that a regular meditation practice reduces the amount of sleep needed and there seems to be scientific evidence that this is true.

What is pain?

According to the International Association for the Study of Pain, pain is "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage". This definition is outdated for several reasons (please check out the website for further details) and currently under review. The newly proposed definition is as follows: Pain is "an aversive sensory and emotional experience typically caused by, or resembling that caused by, actual or potential tissue injury".

In my opinion, both definitions do not sufficiently explain the experiences that one might have while sitting on the floor meditating. Pain accompanies the entire experience of a 10 days course. For some it's the back or the butt, for others (like me) it was mainly the knees that drove me crazy because they almost constantly hurt very, very badly up until the point where the pain was still there in the morning after 6 hours of sleep.

But it wasn’t as simple as that. One part of the meditation practice is to closely observe so called "gross" sensations like pain very closely for 1-2 minutes and check if any other sensation can be identified. One quickly notices that the simple "my knee hurts" sometimes turns into a far more differentiated "in this part of the knee, there’s pressure, in another spot, there’s heat in addition to the pain and in another part, a throbbing pulse within the tissue can be felt" and so on. And, from time to time, just by simply putting the focus of attention onto an are in a muscle or limp that's screaming with pain, the pain goes away. It simply vanishes. It's like these moments, when a crying toddler is asked " what's the matter? " and immediately stops crying, maybe out of confusion, maybe because of the realisation that there was actually no reason to cry after all.

Physiologically, this does not really make sense. But, according to the theory behind the Vipassana teaching the cause of suffering is not the sensation itself, but the interpretation of the sensation, the judgement of "good/pleasant" and "bad/unpleasant", as described above.

What does this mean, that at least some pain or unpleasant sensation can be "thought away"? Sometimes, this effect can be explained by relaxation because tension can cause pain. But apparently, there’s more to it than just the capability to relax in uncomfortable situations.  

It is scientifically proven that people who do meditate regularly have a higher tolerance for unpleasant feelings like pain induced by thermal heat (I have no access to the full article, but here’s a talk by Kelly McGonigal about the paper). Non-meditators showed a stronger activity in “evaluative regions” (prefrontal cortex, amygdala and hippocampus) than meditators. Meditation practitioners however showed reduced activity in these “evaluative regions”, but higher activity in brain regions like the insula, the anterior cingulate cortex and the thalamus, that are “primary pain processing regions”. This means that meditation practice enables the decoupling of the sensory and the evaluative component of a painful stimulus.

A very good and vivid example for a person who practices exactly this effect which leads to almost superhuman powers is Wim Hof, also known as “the Iceman”. He developed the so called “Wim Hof Method” that is a combination of breathing exercises, meditation and exposure to cold temperatures and he broke several world records, including hiking past death-zone of the Mount Everest in shorts and sandals without oxygen supply, running a marathon in the Sahara desert without drinking water and sitting in a container filled with ice for almost two hours without his core body temperature being lowered. He’s an impressive person and if you haven’t read about him yet, I encourage you to do so. His method can be performed by everyone and results can be seen immediately.

So, what is pain? I don’t know. But these examples show, how big the influence of our mind is on the way we perceive the world around us. Far more is possible than we usually think. We might not have an influence on all the things happening to us, neither good, nor bad. But we do in fact have the chance to learn how to deal with them differently and thus not only become calmer but also happier, healthier and able to experience things beyond what we thought is possible. It’s worth a try.

 Let me try this again: The things I learned during a 10-day Vipassana course

1. I cannot change the people and situations around me, but I can change how I react to what I encounter. My reaction has an impact on myself. If I let any situation make me angry, I do harm to myself and might harm others.

2. It’s not realistic to expect my mind to be able to focus on something as simple and “boring” as my breath for 10 hours straight when I usually train my brain to constantly think of a million things at the same time, always have an overflowing schedule and a cluttered room as well as a cluttered mind. I first have to calm down some aspects of my life before I can calm down on the inside.

3. I learned to be compassionate with myself. I understood, why my mind acts the way it does and I started to befriend my inner monkey.

Recommended to watch:

A video about meditation and “flow”

A Ted talk about pain and mindfulness meditation

A vice documentary about the Iceman Wim Hof

Recommended to read:

Becoming the iceman by Wim Hof & Justin Rosales

Happiness – A guide to developing life’s most important skill by Mathieu Ricard

[deflect-daily]

Why write a blog? No one’s going to read it anyway!

Well... sometimes the expression through words is a way to free the mind and ease inner tensions.

Picture taken at the old distillery of Fourvoirie. 

[deflect-daily]

Traveling, privilege and the categorical imperative

We all love to travel, don't we? We love to see new places, meet new interesting people and we like to develop our personality by spending time in yet unknown circumstances, facing completely new situations. Yeah. That's for sure.

I think the story doesn’t end just there. The topic of westerners traveling the world made me angry for quite a while. And now I think I can describe what it is that makes me mad. And just to let you know: I will include myself in all of the following, because, especially right now in Colombia, I am profiting from exactly the same privileges.

There are more things that are connected to traveling that I won’t discuss in this entry. Reasons for traveling like the escape from responsibilities at home, narcissist self-display, or simply the feeling of “deserving a break” would exceed this post.

Privileges of the western world

Since I live in Switzerland, I met a lot of people who traveled to countries, I never thought about before. Many of the students I met already have been to south-east Asia, Australia, Africa and whatnot and many of them even have traveled to one of these countries alone by the age of 20. Why hadn't I heard of this before? Yes. The Swiss usually speak 3 languages and they are really fond of traveling... That is true. But there is another thing: Money. And privilege.

Ok, to compare Switzerland and Germany is a little bit odd, because they are basically ranging on the same scale. But let’s think about for example... Colombia. The vast majority of Colombians do not have the opportunity to leave the continent, or even the country. And even if they do, they have to pay for expensive visas, they need a lot of pocket money and a confirmed address to go to.

The German passport is one of the most powerful in the world, Switzerland is on rank three, Colombia on rank 41 (1). So what does this mean? With a powerful passport, traveling is easy, visas are not needed in many countries and it’s unlikely to need explanations for your travels at airports etc. This is privilege.

What does Kant have to do with it?

Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative is a deontological moral philosophy that allows only those actions, that could become universal law, meaning that a world in which everybody exactly repeated this action, would be s a desirable world. Of course, deontological ethics have lots of flaws and Kant’s philosophy has many of them. One example is his that he categorically prohibits lying, and according to him, it is not even allowed to lie in order to save a person’s life, because if the act of lying became a “universal law”, this would lead to a world of liars which could not be desired.

This reaches out a little too far at this point but I appreciate the general idea of it: The thought about what might happen, if everybody on earth would act the way I do.

So, what would happen, if every person on earth (and we almost reached 7.5 billion by now (2)) lived the traveler’s lifestyle of the western world? According to the WWF, we used 150% of the world’s sustainably provided resources of one year in 2014 and every German uses more than double of what is due to him/her to sustainably use the earth’s resources (3). If everyone on earth lived like the Swiss, we would need 3.3 planets. I estimated my own resource (ab-)use and we needed 1.8 planets if everybody would have my lifestyle, which is more than the world’s average of 1.6 and still way more than what we really have (4). Mobility is just one part of it but for example, my flight from Zürich to Bogotá via Frankfurt emitted, according to myclimate, about 3.7 tons of CO2, while 2 tons of CO2 per year (everything included) is the limit of what we should emit per year and person in order to stop climate change (5). Of course, there are more things that excessively produce CO2 or -equivalents: heating your room to 23°C, an alimentation rich in animal products, a new jeans every month etc. But traveling definitely does not belong to life’s necessities and that is why it’s today’s target.

If you are one of the persons who travels with a minimum ecological footprint (without airplanes, hotels and energy intensive activities or activities that are harmful to the environment), you can ignore this text and be sure that I deeply respect you for what you do, but be aware that you’re a rare phenomenon.

But what about the “personal development”?

Personal development is a nice concept. I guess most travelers try to improve themselves and their skills by either learning new languages or getting to know cultures, food, places, lifestyles and so on during their journey. One general believe is, that, the more you know, the more open minded you become. In my opinion, this definitely depends on the way of travel: The experience highly depends on factors like the accommodation (hotel vs. couchsurfing), the company (with friends vs. alone), the kind of transportation (flight, train, bus, bike, boat, feet), the time (days, months, years) and so on and so on.

I guess, a precondition for personal development is leaving the comfort zone. The comfort zone is everything you know and the conditions you feel comfortable with, your routines and habits, your safe space. And no matter how your personal comfort zone looks like, you learn a lot about yourself if you leave it. Traveling is a good way to make yourself leave the comfort zone, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t travel without leaving it or that you can’t leave it without traveling.

Taking the resources into account (see above), long distance traveling is a resource intensive way of leaving the comfort zone and in order to be responsible with the one planet we’ve got, it seems rather selfish to waste resources in order to develop personally. Contemplation and meditation are more effective ways to shape your personality and no change of location is needed for this.

Getting to know other people and cultures: it’s about the focus

People in different parts of the world have varying habits, preferences, languages, ways of dealing with daily tasks and these can be interesting to explore. But I believe that all humans on earth share way more similarities than differences: We all eat, drink, breathe, work, love and get loved back and we all want to be accepted for what we are, do and say. Differences between cultures are minor in comparison to the similarities and a focus on differences can easily tear people apart. You may share more interests and preferences with a person that lives at the other end of the world than with your neighbor down the street. It clearly depends on the things you focus on.

What I want to say is that traveling and getting to know other people does not necessarily increase your openness and tolerance towards people. Focusing on the differences and noticing them can as well lead to misunderstandings and disrespect towards others.

If the focus lies on the differences, knowing “other” people will increase the distance between people. If the focus lies on the similarities, it doesn’t really matter if you meet people from the other end of the world or just the guy that lives next door.

Fairness and being content with less

It is obvious, that traveling is a privilege that cannot become a possibility for every person on earth. But can we accept that some people will never have the chance to see other places? I struggle with accepting this global inequality and I am questioning myself about what can be done to solve this. I believe that one important is to participate actively in enabling resource-conserving ways of traveling. This could be, to receive couchsurfers in your home or to help people you know from other countries to get to yours by offering them a place to stay or help with your country’s bureaucracy.

Another important thing is reduction. It is not necessary to take the airplane to have a good time. Many nice places can be reached by bus and train or even by bike. Thoughts like “but if I travel by bus to this and that place over the weekend, I spend most of the time on the journey and this is not worth it, so I will fly” is bullshit. I pledge for a principal that the distance to a destination should be in direct positive correlation to the time spent at the place. Meaning that the distance and thus the time spent for the way should be in a reasonable relation to the time spent at the destination. Distances up to 1500-2000 km are easily reached by train and if the time does not suffice to spend one or two days in the train, you should not switch to airplane, but rather quit the idea of traveling a few thousand kilometers in order to stay just for two days.

Another option would be to actually be content with staying at home. In an interview, I read the quote (translation by me): “For me it was always important that I enjoy my everyday life more than I enjoy my holidays. I think idea of living just for your holidays is terrible. Eventually, life is 90% non-holiday” (6).

There’s so much truth in it! You don’t need to travel to see nice places, meet nice people and have a good time! And if you do not manage to be happy at home, how should you find true happiness somewhere else? True happiness is an internal state and mostly independent from external conditions (if basic needs are satisfied).

“But I work so hard, I deserve a break!”

Just think about the lady in Bangladesh that sewed the clothes you wear. She works 70 hours per week and earns less than 100 dollars a month. I guess she comes first when we talk about “deserving a break”.

Recommended to watch/listen to:

A talk by the buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm on wanting too much (focus on traveling in the beginning of the talk)

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This cow and her calf crossed my way in Villa de Leyva. They belong to a breed that is called Brahman, a kind of Zebu cattle. Zebu breeds are very well adapted to heat and thus popular in Latin America, India and Australia. Zebu cattle are characterized by a humped back and large floppy ears (1). Brahman cattle are among the five most popular cattle breeds in Colombia, can be white or brown of colour and are used for meat and milk production (2).

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Modern colonialism

This was one of the first topics I wanted to write about, but I did not dare yet to do so because it's such a sensitive topic and I don’t know too much about its background. I struggle with myself and I don’t know how to express my thoughts without making mistakes. But I will try.

I am not sure if the term “modern colonialism” is correct. What I think about is not exactly the same as neo-colonialism and not postcolonialism as far as I understood it correctly. Hopefully, I can explain the facets that I think I see.

German colonialism

For the Germans, colonies did not play such an important role in history as maybe for the British, French or Spanish. The Germans were fourth on the list of colonialist countries (1) and lost all of them after the first world war (3). But despite the rather small meaning of colonialism for Germany, colonialist thinking founded the base for the racism and antisemitism including all the cruel criminal acts of the Nazis later during WWII (4). Nationalism and racism existed before the second world war and still exist today as can be seen in the current political situation.

So, what do I have to do with it?

Experience in Serbia

In July 2016, I went on a 10 days field trip to Dimitrovgrad in south-eastern Serbia with a university course. This place suffers from the ramifications of communism and the breakdown of Yugoslavia. It is a rural region with lots of animal farming agriculture, mainly cattle and goats. The industrial production sector decreases as several factories for e.g. textile production left the region. Dimitrovgrad suffers from brain drain, rural exodus and farm abandonment. During the course we (11 students) were supposed to use analytical tools to understand the problems in the region and to find possible solutions. The field course was already held several times and the mayor invited municipality members in order to give us information about the current and past situation of Dimitrovgrad. For us, it felt strange that we as master students fom Switzerland were supposed to advise politicians but at least everybody said that our “help” is welcome and that they look forward to our ideas. The main things we detected were an inflated administration with lots of people working in the municipality and a lack of capitalist thinking and business-understanding.

So we, students from western Europe told the people in Serbia how they could improve their local situation. That already appeared weird to us at that point and it is even weirder in retrospection. Yes, it is true that a lot of things go wrong in Dimitrovgrad and that the problems won’t simply be solved by an increase of subsidies by the Serbian state (which was what the mayor and other continuously claimed), but will a more capitalist, efficiency- and marketing-oriented thinking do?

I took this as an example for colonialism because it was, at least partly, the idea that people from the “western world” could solve problems in other countries due to their education, their thinking, their capitalist understanding and their organizational capabilities… I want to question this.

Experience in Colombia

In Colombia, I experienced several weird situations where people randomly started talking to me in English (although I know Spanish) and asked me where I am from. When I told them that I am from Germany, they started lamenting about the awesomeness and superiority of the country and its people. How organized they are, how well educated, punctual and productive the people and how great German cars are.

I felt bad. Each and every time. And I thought about that I already have to fight a lot at home against this kind of thinking since nationalism starts again to rise in Europe and also in Germany since a few years. The thought that one nation or one skin color is superior to others is as prevalent here as it is in Europe or the US. I want to yell in people’s faces that the Germans are NOT better than anyone else, that all men are created equal, that … that …

Later, someone explained to me that the Colombians admire European countries for their history and their organized structure. Europe has a history that indeed goes farther in the past that the history of Latin America, especially if you only take into account the time after the colonization by the Spanish and Portuguese. Yes, it might be that certain structures are more developed in Europe (railway systems, production chains, educational institutions…) but that also means a longer history of deforestation, resource abuse and in general, destruction of natural ecosystems and habitats.

Also, people here in Colombia did not discuss the second world war a million times in school (as it is normal for an education in Germany), they do not know a lot about the Holocaust and some of them think that Hitler was an intelligent person and that the NS regime did make some valid points about being proud of a nation. A few times I was asked about what I think about world war two and every time people were surprised by my radical anti-Nazi opinion.

Where I caught myself

I caught myself, and other international students as well, several times is by interpreting cultural differences in a way that “Colombians do not know how to do things properly”:

- They (the Colombians) don’t know how to organize public transport, they don’t even have bus schedules

- They don’t know to do science; many professors are not even capable of reading a paper in English

- They know nothing about organization and every journey starts at least 1.5 hours late

And so on and so on.

These are three examples that even some Colombians themselves mentioned in my presence. They complained about the traffic and the time lost in public transport, about how weird it is that foreign language knowledge is scarce and that people are almost always unpunctual. For me, these things seem like solvable issues, but the same actually goes for the things I see in Germany/Switzerland that seem to be heavily implemented in the culture (after hours, stress, little leisure time, consumerism etc.).

I myself interpreted this thinking as modern colonialism because it is the idea that in some cultures, things go “right” and others go “wrong”. This is exactly why the topic is so sensitive and why I struggled so much with writing about this, because it is judging of cultural differences that themselves are neutral. And efficiency and organization always have their downsides like the externalization of pollution (5) and destruction of natural habitats and deforestation (6)

Is a comparison possible and reasonable?

It is very hard to compare cultures. We can compare working hours (7, Colombia is missing in this graph), psychological disorders (8) and happiness indices (9) but all these contain flaws and will not reflect individual situations and will never justify judgements.

The thinking of the western culture to be superior was also described in Edward Said’s book Orientalism where he writes about the west’s patronizing view on the east.

The western dominance in media (television, music, social media, fashion etc.) is overwhelming and does not help when it comes to empowering non-western cultures and their self-confidence.

Letting go of these thoughts

Because it does not make sense to judge cultures as a whole, because there is no culture that is objectively superior to another, I believe that is important to realize when patronizing, judgmental thoughts come up and to actively work on letting go of them. Every culture is different as well as every person is different and many people so rooted in their culture, that other ways of dealing with life’s adversities and struggles can easily trigger reactions of opposition. I think the best way of dealing with it is by observing your environment and your automatic reaction to it. It is okay to dislike some things you see, but never forget that it is impossible to look at things without your own “cultural glasses”. An open cultural exchange is important in order to understand yourself and others better. A lack of knowledge and understanding always bears the risk of judgement. There will never be such thing as a culture that is superior to others and we should not forget that.

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Street art in the Calle 20, close to the crossroad of Calle 20 and Carrera 3 in Bogotá.

This piece of art addresses the topic of voting in Colombia. People who live in the countryside often do not have the opportunity to vote since the way to the nearest polling station is too long and takes up too much time and money. This leads to a decreased turnout, an underrepresentation of a certain part of society and a bias in political decision making. “Todos contamos” means “we all count”.

Highly recommended: A graffiti tour in the city center of Bogotá

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Getting used to

During the past weeks, I realized that my view on many things has changed. A lot of things that made me nervous or that I perceived as tremendously stressful in the beginning, turned out to be less disturbing, or even normal. I just got used to some of it.

I have the wish to sort these things out. Why is it easier for me to get used to some things while others remain annoying? And are the same mechanisms applicable for positive and for negative stimuli?

Getting used to is mostly used in the context of negative things that turn out to be “not so bad” after a while. At least, this is what my personal experiences (and a quick search on google) tell me. But I think, it is more complex than just that.

What does it mean “to get used to things”?

Getting used to things is of great importance for the adaptation to altering living conditions. A new, yet unknown stimulus (smell, sound, vision, etc.), that can be either pleasant or unpleasant, usually triggers a rather strong reaction. When the same stimulus is encountered repeatedly, the reaction weakens. This phenomenon is called habituation and was already described in the first half of the 20th century (1). An increased reaction to a repetitive stimulus is called sensitization and in psychology, both, habituation and sensitization, are classified as forms of non-associative learning, which means that no involvement of higher brain functions is needed (2). But this kind of habituation is not really the one I seem to have experienced, because most of the stimuli I encounter are of higher complexity.

One interesting theory in psychology is the so called hedonic treadmill model which describes the phenomenon that good or bad events usually affect a person’s life only for a very short time after which the neutral hedonic level is re-established. This explains why either people who won the lottery, or lost a limb do not show altered levels of happiness a few weeks or months after the event. Of course, there are inter-individual differences in “happiness set-points” and also the speed of adaptation to the new situation may vary, but the principle in general applies to the majority of people (3).

Both habituation and the hedonic treadmill phenomenon do serve evolutionary purposes. At first, a strong reaction to a new adverse stimulus might protect the individual from potential harm and a strong reaction to a positive stimulus works as positive reinforcement. But strong reactions usually cost a lot of energy and it does make sense to decrease this elevated reaction as soon as it’s possible in order to save resources for other, new situations.

So this is exactly what getting used to things in Bogotá felt to me: the adaptation to a variety of new situations is necessary in order not to lose a lot of energy being stressed all the time. Now, I want to share some of my experiences.

Personal experience

Things I found easy to adapt to

In the beginning, the weather was very strange to me. Starting with the fact that near the equator, the sun rises and sets at 6 o'clock all year. Coming here at the beginning of September, that was quite a strongly altered amount of sunlight during the day. This, and the constant slightly cold and moist weather conditions in Bogota gave me a very strong feeling of autumn and I experienced my body struggling with this for roughly two weeks. In autumn in Europe, I usually have the feeling that I have to make the most of the few nice days, because winter is already at the doorstep. In the first two weeks I noticed a slight nervousness because my body was expecting the temperatures to go down. As this did not happen, I got used to the weather conditions easily. I freeze less than in the beginning and the sometimes harsh changes in temperature and solar radiation became a normal thing.

The same easy adaptation works for smells. For surrounding smells in the environment one lives in, the unfamiliar smells in the apartment and the office become normal after a few days. Even the smelly all-time damp rugs in the kitchen became less and less noticeable.

At first, I was confused because I towered most of Colombians on the street. But after a short while, I just got used to the people’s body height and also the typical Latin-American faces became “normal” to me in no time so that now “gringos” peak out of the crowd.

Sounds are harder to adapt to but I managed to get used to the increased level insofar that I do not hop out of the way in shock anymore every time I hear the honking of a car.

Food is also quite easy to get used to. Especially if the preferred aliments (good cheese) are almost impossible to purchase and improvisation is a daily business. Food usually works in a way that we like what we know and we know what we consume (4). This is a very useful strategy that was very important for human survival during the evolution of humankind. Today, we still see this in children’s natural neophobia towards new foods (5) and the fact that the mother’s nutrition during pregnancy strongly influences the infant’s food preferences (6). I even overcame my initial aversion against arepas and now I consume them on a daily basis.

Things that seem hard/impossible to adapt to

Obviously, extreme stimuli are very hard to adapt to, like very loud noises (especially loud honks, beeps or yells), very smelly things like the fumes of a truck passing by or the odor of a homeless person in the bus and I guess this will not change over time. Colombian’s though seem not to be too stressed by these things. So maybe they have reached a way higher level of tolerance towards extreme stimuli than I will ever be able to achieve.

One other thing that I feel like I will never get used to is poverty. I’m shocked every time I see a homeless person sleep on the grass near the highway, surrounded by piles of trash. Or when I encounter a partly toothless lady in her beginning 20’s with a toddler on her arm, selling sweets in the bus. This makes me notice a big fat knot of pity and discomfort in my belly that just won’t go away.

Also, it is quite weird to be easily spotted as a foreigner on the street. People I don’t know yet greet me automatically with “De dónde eres?” (“Where do you come from?”). It still feels weird every time. Now, I think I can better understand how members of social minorities feel in Europe every day, although the quality of discrimination is not at all comparable – but that’s a whole different chapter.

Just this morning, I realized that I won’t get used to the bumpy buses on bad roads with drivers incapable of dealing with the traffic jam in the morning. Full breaks are followed by fast acceleration and ignorance towards potholes and speed bumps. The intermunicipal buses are better. The seats are usually rather comfortable and the streets mostly intact. Meanwhile I am capable of sleeping in these buses for hours.

One other thing that still drives me crazy is that people usually walk very slowly. I guess that it’s most likely part of the overall relaxed attitude that keeps the pace low, but it still drives me nuts. Especially when I’m not just maundering around but actually try to reach something in time.

Speaking of “in time”. I already mentioned before, that waiting is part of the daily life in Colombia. Punctuality is not of great importance and this is something I also did not get used to yet. I guess I got a bit better in accepting hours and hours of waiting, but it still easily stresses me out.

What has an influence adaptation

First of all, it’s the type and the intensity of the stimuli that influence the speed of adaptation. But other factors also have an impact: For example, the time that one needs to spend dealing with a certain situation. I do accept to take the bumpy bus to work every day, but only because I know that it will be over soon. If I lived here for longer, I would definitely look for another way of transportation. The same goes for small things like the blankets in my bed that I would like to have changed or some small things in the kitchen that I would do otherwise if I had to spend more than three months here in Bogotá.

Another important factor is that information about and thus understanding of situations helps accepting them. The more situations I understand, the easier it is for me to adapt to them. One example is the “advertisement” of intermunicipal buses: There is one guy on every bus that yells the bus destinations over and over again at a high pitched voice while the bus collects passengers at the bus stop. At the beginning I did not get the meaning of this at all and this wall of sound stressed me out a lot. Now I can almost ignore them because I understood what they do.

So, I’d claim that getting used to in general is not an on- and off- thing, but rather a spectrum that is influenced by a variety of factors that include features of the stimulus itself as well as the surrounding circumstances.

How can we use it?

Overall, I’d say that the adaptation to any kind of new situation or stimulus is very helpful, especially if one has to deal with new living conditions. It reduces stress and anxiety and makes it easier to save resources and focus on the new and interesting things.

Also, it is good to know that adaptation most of the time simply happens. It is helpful to keep that in mind when you find yourself in overwhelming situations that you might face over and over again. It will get better. Naturally.

Maybe, the hedonic treadmill phenomenon can also be actively used to implement changes in life. First, it helps you to realize that the next big thing you pursue or do will not make you happier than you already are. It can be a reminder that sentences like “When this or that is over/managed/bought/done, I will finally be happy” are bullshit. I myself experienced it a million times that I expected things to get fundamentally better after the end of exams/work/stressful phases and it never happened. The level of happiness and most often stress as well, got back to a neutral state.

Downsides

Besides the fact that we easily get used to positive things like a higher salary or the end of a stressful month of exams, there’s another downside that I see in getting used to new situations: Getting used to negative aspects in your life that you could (and should) change. Getting used to not doing as much sports as you did in the past, getting used to these few extra kilos or getting used to spending way more time watching youtube videos during the day then you did a few months earlier. Or a little more extreme: Getting used to unhealthy working hours, a shitty boss or even an abusive partner.

These are just the examples that first came to my mind. But habituation and the hedonic treadmill work as well in these situations and after getting used to the circumstances, you have the impression of everything “being not so bad after all” which might lead to physical or psychological problems.

Summing it up

In order to sum up my thoughts about what it means (to me) “to get used to”, I want to state that I think it is important to keep a healthy level of reflection on your life’s circumstances. The reflection about what things in life make you angry, anxious and stressed, what things have changed to the better that you now take for granted and which things should be changed in order to improve your wellbeing. Adaptation will happen anyway and the baseline level of happiness will be restored at the end. I think it is important to keep that in mind and to use it in the most positive way.

Recommended to watch:

A youtube video on how to use the hedonic treadmill phenomenon in order to implement a minimalist lifestyle

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A pretty gelding I encountered in the Parque Ecolólogico Jericó, close to Bogotá

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8 weeks. Half-time.

On this very day, eight weeks in Colombia have passed and therefore, this is a half-time summary of what I’ve experienced so far. The upcoming 8 weeks will be most likely a little bit more exciting, more fun and hopefully less stressful.

All of these points in the summary are generalizations and may vary from the impressions other people get. And I probably forgot a million important things in this post, but I guess this is quite inevitable. Some things I left out on purpose (drugs, traffic, security, pollution, landscapes, trash...) because they either got or most likely will get a post of their own.

People

Someone summed it up pretty well: Colombians have lots of problems: social and political problems, poverty, corruption etc. but they are happy. (Me: In Germany it's the other way 'round)

The general Colombian is small in body height, lovely, helpful (although they tend to lie when they don't know the answer to your question), slimmer than Europeans or north Americans, and most of the time in a good mood. Colombians are very loud people. They just love to make noise, no matter if it’s in order to advertise food on the street or to attract passengers for a bus-ride or just “singing” along with a song on the radio: they love to yell, to scream, to shout. Not to forget honking, noisy car engines and various other beeps, bursts and signals. I never thought I was a noise-sensitive person but in Bogotá I feel the constant urge to wear earplugs. People who sell stuff on the street often yell loudly in order to get attention for their products. The ones that get tired of shouting all day, record their yelling on tape and use speakers.

Men reach out a helping hand when you (female) exit the bus. Women scarcely leave the house without makeup. High-heels and skinny jeans are must haves.

Colombians seem to like getting up early. Classes in the university often already start at six (!) o’clock in the morning which means, traffic time included, getting up at 5 or 4 is no rare thing. I’d say, they should cut out all the periods of waiting throughout the day, sleep until 10am and could still get the same things done in one day. But that’s just my personal opinion^^

Food

Colombia is one of the richest countries in the world when it comes to fruits and vegetables. This is why it feels quite disappointing to me that the dishes served are usually comparatively boring. Colombians eat rice every day, usually accompanied by arepa (corn pancakes), salad and meat (pork, beef, chicken and sometimes fish). Other popular aliments are potatoes, lentils, beans and eggs.

They serve a variety of delicious juices but that is almost the end of creative fruit-usage. I encountered so many fruits I’ve never heard of before and this is probably what I am going to miss most when I’m going to be back in the European fruit scarcity. I just want to list Granadilla (the giggly alien-egg-fruit), Guanabana (incredibly delicious as milkshake), Sapote (the hairy yeti-fruit), the six different kinds of mango (I only knew one before) and many, many more…

Colombian cheese is okay, but not great. Dairy products in general are comparatively expensive but still cheaper than meat products. They don’t really use cheese for cooking.

Language

The Colombian Spanish is nice. They speak rather slowly without any sign of a strong accent. The only difference I noticed to the Spanish from Spain is the pronunciation of a double L like in “lluvia” or “Medellín”. They barely use swear words and the language in general is full of curtesy.

When I came to Bogotá, I expected at least the people at the university to speak English. Haha. Not a bit! My supervisor speaks a bit of English and the lady in the university’s international mobility office is the only one fluent in English that I encountered at the university. First, I was shocked, but later I realized that this is a great opportunity, because I am really forced to practice Spanish. Some of the university students understand some of English, but the students who are able to speak it most likely spent some time abroad.

I keep questioning myself how all the professors want to do science without being able to read English papers. It remains a myth to me.

Environment and nature

It has always been a childhood dream for me to visit tropical rain forests. A small insight into this was a three days visit to the Río Claro national reserve that already blew my mind. I am very much looking forward to visit Leticia in the Amazon rain forest in a few weeks.

Due to the prolonged growth period for plants (365 days a year instead of just several months in central Europe), tropical plants are one thing: BIG. Some of them grow leaves of the size of human beings which would never be possible if they had to lose leaves in cold or dry seasons. Falling leaves in autumn in temperate climate regions are not only pretty, but important for trees to protect themselves from frosty temperatures. In the few months between spring and autumn, it is simply not possible for plants to outgrow a certain size. I knew all this before I came here, and I also knew that plants and insects are bigger in tropical regions, but it is still incredibly impressive if one is only used to European forests.

The leaves also do not degrade all at the same time. Actually, the biological degradation already starts when the leaves are still alive on the plant. Moss and other small plants start to grow on the aging leaves and at the moment when the leaves die and fall to the ground, they are already halfway rotten.

In the city of Bogotá, the longer growing period becomes obvious since no day passes on which I do not encounter someone who mows the lawn. I doubt they just do it for fun, but the grass here shows the same productivity all year that a lawn shows in Germany or Switzerland maybe between May and August.

Living costs

Money does not really make sense to me in Colombia. The currency here are Colombian pesos and 3000 COP are more or less one US$. The minimum wage is 650 000 COP and a “normal” income is about a million COP. All the national products (fruits, vegetables, arepas, bread, maize flour etc.) are very cheap. A mango costs about 1000 COP (30 cents). A bus ride through the city with Transmilenio costs 2000 COP, a regular jeans between 25 000 and 100 000 COP. A night in a hostel costs between 20 000 and 40 000 COP and concert tickets between 80 000 and 400 000 COP, depending on the act. I went to a Slipknot concert here and the ticket cost me 200 000 COP, which is 1/5 of my monthly income here. Some goods have almost the same price as in Europe which is astounding to me. I actually can’t understand how it’s possible to survive with 1 million COP.

Dogs

There are stray dogs in Bogotá, but surprisingly few considering the size of the city. The majority of the dogs I encountered in Bogotá, independently whether they are stray dogs or pets, is very calm and friendly. I’ve never seen such a large proportion of fat dogs. Males aren’t neutered and if you don't want puppies, you have to get your bitch spayed.

Art

I have visited four museums here in Bogotá so far: The Gaitán museum, the gold museum, the national and the Botero museum. Of the four, I enjoyed the Botero museum the most. Botero is the most famous Colombian painter, born in Medellín and he really has his own recognizable style of painting everyone and everything fat.

The gold museum is nice, but kind of repetitive and after 15 minutes, I felt I have seen it.

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was an important politician who got killed in April 1948 and his death was basically the onset of the civil wars in Colombia that last until today.

The national museum was kind of disturbing, because most of the art that was presented there showed a very strong European influence. The pieces of art shown raised the impression that Colombia does not really have an independent culture of arts but rather a vast amount of copies of European arts. Most likely this is a rather superficial impression and I did not dive deeper into this topic, but the experience of the national museum made me sad due to the lack of something “I haven’t seen before”.

Bogotá’s street art however is astonishing! A simple bus ride through the city center shows you various pieces that are of amazing size and quality. Strolling around in the streets reveals even more impressive paintings in a quantity that is definitely new to me.

Things I enjoy

- The variety of fruits

- People’s friendliness and the fact that they are in general way more relaxed than the Swiss or the Germans

- Practicing patience and having more spare time than I had in the past 10 years

- The incredibly beautiful landscapes that exist basically in every place that is not Bogotá

- Bogotá’s street art

- Sweets: Cookies, Bocadillo (guava jelly) and sweetened fruit juices

Things I dislike

-The stench of diesel car fumes

- Putting sunscreen on my face every single day due to Bogotá's UV index between 12 and 16

- Needing roughly an hour to get from door to door in the morning on the way to work, knowing that it's roughly a 5km distance.

- Waiting. For each and everything. In Colombia, things are generally a little less organized and waiting is an essential part of the day.

- The noise (see above).

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Typical vegetation in so called "Páramo" ecosystems in Chingaza national park (1). Páramos are tropical wetlands in the elevated regions (between 3200m and 4700m) of the Andes in Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. They are characterized by a low temperatures and high precipitation (2). These special conditions cause the occurence of typical wetland species like the Espeletia genus of the Asteraceae family visible in the pictures (3). The Páramo in Chingaza national park provides water that feeds rivers like the Río Bogotá that are essential for Bogotá's fresh water supply and thus is under strong protection. The landscape is amazing. If there were plants on the moon, they would look like this...

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Environmentalism and Patriarchy

In this post, I want to reflect my thoughts on how environmentalism and patriarchy are connected. They are still a little bit crude and spiked with flaws, but I guess worth being written down.

The key situation that triggered thoughts about this topic was a walk home on the street in my gated-community-neighborhood, encountering a family on the sidewalk. The father just spat a chewing gum on the lawn next to the sidewalk with a confident taken-for-grantedness on him that evoked in me the wish to punch him in the face.

Littering is a problem that seems to stick to humans like a littered chewing gum does to the sole of a shoe. It happens in every country, all over the world and the places that appear to be cleaner than others most likely either have very high fines on littering or a lot of money is spent on cleaning up. One classic example for this is Singapore where spitting a chewing gum on the street may cost you about 1000$ (1) and the city of Zurich pays roughly 45 million CHF to the ERZ (Entsorgung und Recycling Zürich) each year for the cleaning of the city (at least if I got this number right in the table on page 245.. Don't quote me on that!) (2, this is an 359 pages balance sheet and there's a direct link to a tool that reads it to you. Enjoy! :D ). Littering generally is mostly done by men, youngsters and happens less in clean environments (3, 4).

But this entry is not about littering. It is more about my impression that environmentalism and behavior in order to protect the environment will most likely not be popular in the (near) future, because it means taking care of things.

Gender identification in a patriarchic society

Years ago, I read a book by a psychotherapist who specifically offers psychotherapy for men. In his book, he claimed that in western societies (and probably in many others as well), boys and girls are mainly raised by women. Teachers in kindergartens and primary schools are mostly female. Also, it is still the case that in most families the mother stays at home while the father is either working or completely absent. Gender identification is an important psychological process that already starts in early childhood. For girls, the identification with mothers and female teachers is rather easy, but for boys, indentification with fathers and male teachers becomes difficult if the male image is mostly shaped by absence. What boys will do is to start a counter-identification with the other gender. Meaning, they exclude a lot of the things they see in the opposite sex from themselves. Fathers rarely show the full spectrum of emotions including fear and sadness simply because they are often absent or because they never learned to properly deal with these feelings, while mothers have more time to express their feelings in front of kids. Boys will thus counter-identify with everything they see as female and, as a consequence, will have problems to deal with emotions and behaviors they have declared as non-male.

Of course this is only a theory! It does not apply to every man and this short summary definitely does not catch the whole idea behind it, but it shall quickly explain why I think patriarchy has an influence on how we treat our environment. I will go without explaining why I believe that we live in a patriarchic society. If you want to question this, send me an email and we can discuss it.

Environmentalism is caring...

... and caring is typically female.

And littering is just one way of showing that you don't care. Carelessness is, in our society, often seen as "cool", "tough", "rebellious". Not doing your homework is "cool", smoking in your teenage years is considered to be cool, because it shows a carelessness about money and health. Same goes with drinking and driving, skiving off school or work and in general, taking risks. Risky or careless behavior is "typically male" and still causes higher mortality numbers in men at puberty-age and life expectancy differences of several years between men and women in all countries worldwide(5).

Caring on the other hand is considered as "typically female" and includes caring about yourself as well as others. Taking care of the body seems to be more important for women and is more often required from women rather than from men. This is reflected the higher amount of money that is spent for women's clothes and beauty products(6), although men are catching up (7) and we should not forget the "pink-tax" (8). But still, sacrificing your own gains and advantages in order to care for others remains a rather female thing. An example would be giving up your job opportunities in order to raise a child. In this sense seems taking the trash in your hand to the next garbage can too much of a sacrifice for many (male) people

I am generalizing massively here! And most people do care about things (sports, the latest smartphone or how to be most attractive to the opposite sex). Although I believe that taking sacrifices in order to protect the future and future generations is very unlikely to become popular in a society where careless and risk taking persons are admired and the male stereotype remains leading figure and guiding principle.

Recommended reading: -

- Männerseelen - ein psychologischer Reiseführer by Björn Süfke (Link to amazon.de)

- 9 Interesting Facts and Statistics about Littering

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Painted building in the center of Bogotá. I have to admit that I forgot the exact place but it was within short walking distance of Plaza Bolivar.

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Where municipal trash ends up

The world population produces 3,5 million tons of municipal trash every day and estimations prospect this number to rise to 11 million tons a day in 2100 if nothing changes(1). Most of it still ends up in landfills(2).

Here are some figures of waste production for comparison, according to the "waste atlas":

Colombia: 226 kg/year per capita waste production, 20% recycling rate, 59% organic matter, 13% plastic

Germany: 617 kg/year per capita waste production, 47% recycling rate, no data on waste composition

Switzerland: 702 kg/year per capita waste production, 34% recycling rate, 29% organic matter, 15% plastic

USA: 734 kg/year per capita waste production, 23,8% recycling rate, 27,3% organic matter, 12,4% plastic

Global distribution of landfills and incineration plants

I am not sure, if the data on the waste atlas is completely correct. I found the Swiss incineration plants I know, but I did not find Bogotá’s largest landfill Doña Juana on the map. But still, I guess the global pattern of how garbage is treated becomes visible in the two following maps (source):

In yellow, you see the “sanitary landfills” meaning landfills under governmental custody with a control of leakage and a reduced amount of problematic waste like toxins and heavy metals. The red dots are “dumpsters”, meaning uncontrolled landfills without any protection of the environment.

In this map, incineration plants are displayed (source):

It is clearly visible that incineration plants basically only exist on the northern hemisphere, most of them in Europe, Japan and the USA. Although, in the USA most trash still ends up in landfills.

Pros and cons of landfills

Pros:

Dumping trash in landfills is easy and no cost- and labor-intensive infrastructure is needed.

Cons:

Methane production: The organic compounds in landfills are being composed and produce large amounts of methane. The waste in developing countries contains a way higher amount of organic material than in industrial countries(3). Landfills produce about 11% of all global methane emissions (4)

Ground water pollution: Landfills are one major source of ground water pollution and even the modern sanitary landfills, leachate leaks bear a potential risk of polluting aquifers with public health consequences(5)

Garbage landslides: In 1997, an organic gas explosion in Bogotá’s largest landfill Doña Juana caused a trash landslide of between 600 000 and 1 000 000 tons of garbage, that ended up in the nearby río Tunjuelito (6)

What about incineration?

As an example, the Kanton of Zurich has 1.5 million inhabitants and 6 incineration plants where 780 000 tons of municipal trash are burnt every year. Through the burning, the garbage mass is reduced by 80% resulting in 150 000 tons of cinder and 19 000 tons of dirty filters etc. The burning of 780 k tons of trash results in about 640 GWh of heat and 370 GWh of electricity (7).

The incineration technique in these plants uses 1200 l fresh water to wash and cool down the fumes. This is a very water intensive method and surely not applicable for all countries but as far as I know there are techniques that need less water.

Incentives to burn trash instead of dumping it

Personally, I have problems to understand, how landfills still exist in the 21. century, where we are flooded with information of all sorts of resource peaks and threats of water scarcity and oceans containing more plastic than fish within 35 years(8).

But during the time here in Bogotá, I realized that the incentives for taking care of municipal garbage (recycle as much as possible and burn the rest) might be a lot lower than it is in e.g. western Europe. In Europe, first, space is scarce, second, energy is rather expensive, and third, heating in houses makes up for roughly 30% of private energy consumption (at least this number applies for Switzerland) (9).

In Colombia, neither housing isolation nor double-glazed windows exist. Warm water is still somehow a luxury good that is often considered unnecessary, especially in the hot and tropical regions outside the Andes. I realized, that it is way harder to implement a cost-intensive infrastructure in a country with only little urgent reasons to do so.

Eventually, the day will come when natural resources are so depleted that landfills become mines and will be rigged down in order to reach the valuable goods we kept throwing away for decades.

Recommended to read:

A list of the 10 largest landfills in the world

Another list of the biggest and dirtiest landfills

A counter of the waste dumped this year worldwide

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This picture can be found every monday. It is the trash of one weekend of the house I currently live in. I don't exactly know the number of people who caused it (something between 50 and 90 appartments) but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that parts of this are going to be recycled and the rest ends up in landfills. The people who are collecting the trash, search for recyclable goods by hand, sometimes even without gloves. If you are nice and want to make the job easier for these people, you can put the recyclable and the non-recycable goods in separate bags. Discrete containers for plastic, glas and non-recycable trash sometimes exist in public buildings. The only thing that is always collected diligently by everyone are PET-bottle caps because the plastic yields a higher price on the recycling market (at least that's what I've been told) and thus are often even collected for donation to charities.

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A parallel of forest transition and  minimalism

Maybe it is because I am stuck here with only one suitcase full of things for 4 months, or maybe it is because I am so much detached of all my belongings that are waiting for me in the cellar at home, but more than ever before I feel myself attracted by the concept of minimalism. The idea behind minimalism is the that people in the industrial world tend to have more and more stuff and less time to use the things they own. This leads to an increase of storage space and time needed, causing feelings of discomfort and stress. Decluttering of material belongings as well as intangibles leads to more space and time for whatever remains and, according to minimalists, a higher quality of life. 

According to the LA-times, every US-American person owns around 300 000 things (1) For Germans/Europeans, the number I encountered repeatedly was around 10 000 things, but I didn’t manage to find the original source of this number. But actually, the exact number is completely irrelevant and also highly depends on the fact whether a thumb tack is considered “a thing” or not.

The personal part

Back in my childhood and teenage years, I was simply obsessed with things, leading to a cramped chaotic room and an incapability of throwing stuff away. Being surrounded by more things than the eye can catch gave me some feeling of security, protection and comfort. Later, moving out of my parents’ place lead to a confrontation with space and money restrictions and thus, a slightly more reflected habit of buying or rather not-buying started. Every move to another place was a reminder of the hitherto increasing number of things I owned. Slowly, the wish of not accumulating more things was formed, leading to a no-consumption year in 2014, in which I solely bought basics (food and things that run out) and nothing else, no clothes, no books, no electronic devices, nothing. Since then, I slowly (!) started to get rid of things. At the moment, feeling inspired by my current situation many motivating videos and articles, I feel an urge to reduce the number of things I own.  

The idea of a minimalist lifestyle is rather popular at the moment as an increasing number of documentations, blogs, vlogs and articles show. It is not yet predictable whether this is just a temporary trend that will vanish in a few years or whether this phenomenon is the onset of a fundamental societal change.

Forest transition

The term “forest transition” describes the phenomenon that in industrialized countries, after centuries of deforestation, an expansion of forests takes place (2). Scientists try to figure out why this is happening and whether a massive decrease in forest area is necessary to reach the point of reforestation. This is very important for prospect of tropical forest transition, which will be important for the entire planet’s future. It is visible in the following figure (picture source).

Hypothesis of a parallel

My idea now was that the consumption in industrialized countries may follow a similar pattern as the forests do. Until a certain level, consumption of goods increases the quality of life, but afterwards, more consumption leads to more stress. “Minimalism” is the phase after a certain point of transition after which the quality of life increases with a reduction of belongings. An application to an entire society of course only works, if minimalism is more than just a short-term trend. This remains to be seen.

The idea is visualized in the following picture.

The graph is not based on any data or anything "real" it is just an attempt to visualize in a similar way a possible development of an individual as part of a society. Of course several things are not taken into account and it’s only an idea that applies for industrialized countries where people already have more than enough goods (existential poverty that also occurs in these countries is excluded at this point). Also, of course there is no information about the exact points in the graph, it is just a hypothetical transition. Whether decluttering makes a person happy or not or whether some level of minimalist lifestyle increases the quality of life, is completely dependent of the individual. Nevertheless, I like the idea of parallels in the development of a society and I hope that both, minimalism and reforestation will continue to be more than just temporary and regional phenomena.

Recommended to read:

Deforestation Success Stories (2014)

"21 Surprising Statistics That Reveal How Much Stuff We Actually Own" (US)

Recommended to check out:

Youtube channel of a minimalist german psychology student with an excellent taste in music

SWR documentation on minimalism. 57min. Link to youtube.com