{"id":349,"date":"2019-08-13T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pollinatorthereskonrad.wordpress.com\/?p=349"},"modified":"2019-08-13T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T04:00:00","slug":"blog-post-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/?p=349","title":{"rendered":"Blog post #8: A river does not make detours"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have managed to live almost three years in the beautiful city of L\u00fcneburg without having done what I wanted to do since my arrival: Finding myself on the river Ilmenau. Today was the day. I picked up a kayak and went on my first solo kayaking trip. My focus of today (which I noted down this morning in my Klarheit Journal<\/a>): pleasure in and with my nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know the river from cycling to work, walking and running by. And in a prior post <\/a>I was simply sitting at it\u00b4s shore. Anyways. Although I was actually excited to see where the river goes as sometimes it makes a turn and is out of site from the forest path, today I caught myself thinking: It makes a detour<\/em>, going back again before it makes a turn to lead in a certain direction, where I used to follow it along. I analyzed my thoughts, and thought: A river does not<\/em> make detours. Wherever a river flows it nourishes the landscape<\/em>. A river does not make detours. A river flows. A turn here, a turn there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I detected\nsocietal norms in my thinking: I knew where the river flows by, so I was in the\n\u201cwhat is the direct, quickest way from-A-to-B\u201d-mode. I remember clearly\nsomething one of my professors in France said about our \u201caim\u201d to be always\nefficient and fast: \u201cWhat for?\u201d,<\/em> she\nasked, \u201cto be quicker at the end?\u201d<\/em> I\nliked her point. Why do we hurry so much? Why do we sometimes only allow\nourselves to look straight ahead, potentially missing out what\u00b4s just next to\nus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took a\nlot of looks around today and I found peace in floating on the river, just like\nthe nutria, the ducks, observing birds singing sitting on little twigs in the reed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, a river does not make detours<\/em>. A river\nflows. And wherever the river flows, it\nprovides for life<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflecting\nupon recent generations, there are some who are\/were quickly \u201cdone\u201d\/ready for\nthe labor market because a straight way was followed. There are also some who\ndid some things here and other stuff there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did, if\nyou want, what we usually refer to as \u201cdetours\u201d. I did not follow a straight\nline after finishing school. I was not quickly \u201cdone\u201d or \u201cready\u201d for a specific\nlabor market. Not at all, I\u00b4d say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\nproudly say: So far, I was like a river<\/em>.\nIn my terms, I did not take what society would call \u201cdetours\u201d though. I took\nturns. I flowed<\/em>. Nourishing \u2013 and being\nnourished. By each landscape, each (eco-)system I crossed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. A river\ndoes not<\/em> take detours. A river flows,\nand provides for life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have managed to live almost three years in the beautiful city of L\u00fcneburg without having done what I wanted to do since my arrival: Finding myself on the river Ilmenau. Today was the day. I picked up a kayak and went on my first solo kayaking trip. My focus of today (which I noted… Blog post #8: A river does not make detours<\/span> weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-human-inspiration","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thereskonrad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}