That’s the feeling when you walk in the countryside, that feeling of fullness, often also of beauty. Certainly also about one’s own insignificance, but also about taking things for granted.
Those who are out and about are more amazed by the yellow of the reeds or the sunspots under a tree than by the fact that there is such a thing as a seeing eye. You don’t think about something like that, you ‹become› seeing, sight. In some moments, moments that we sometimes describe as a mystical union, but which – if they are granted – seem completely natural to us, we do not feel that we are alive, but simply live and merge with our surroundings – with Heaven, the Sun, the smells, the view: you are all of that, and all of that is good. The amazing thing is that there is actually no thinking involved at all.
Thinking does not give us the meaning of things. The meaning, or rather the significance, is self-evident, and this meaning, which has no deeper meaning, must also come naturally to us.
From: Marjoleine de Vos, ‹Das, was du suchst – Von der Sehnsucht nach dem Spazierengehen› (What you are looking for – From the longing for going for a walk), Stuttgart 2021.
Photo: Chad Madden
