Embedded Files
Alan, Barcelona
What have you discovered during the lockdown? The confirmation that we need others, even when we are dying.
What would you hold onto? The rooftops bathed in sun and the silence around the clock.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I’d give a million, if I had it, to know.
Anna, La Garriga
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That I need to see and walk through fields and forests, much more than I knew. It’s quite true that we humans are touch.
What would you hold onto? Some conversations which allowed clarity and proximity, just to give each other support. Some concentrated reads that were more intense than in the usual day by day.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I see an image, of the Núria mountain in snow. The view you have from the sanctuary, the lake and the mountains at a quarter past seven in the morning on a weekday, driving up with the first train. I went there on my own before everything burst and the world froze.
Graciela, New York
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That it wasn’t necessary spending so much money at the hairdresser.
What would you hold onto? Working from home.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? About travelling. Of being in nature.
Gabriel (Graciela's husband), New York
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That it is “normal” life, without the pandemic, which horrifies me.
What would you hold onto? Having my son around all day long… Even though I think it’s not as good for him.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? About the remote past.
Gina, La Garrotxa
What have you discovered during the lockdown? Vulnerability. It exposes insecurities, mood swings, longing, tenderness, love, camaraderie and naivety. It’s unnerving but also intensely beautiful. The dark and dystopian side of vulnerability: a lot can be introduced in an emergency and heralded as progress at the expense of the universal human rights and human dignity. It’s important not to become intimidated or complacent.
What would you hold onto? The timelessness of now, the beauty and heightened senses as I work or move outside. My slow discovery of this exuberant environment, how we fit together and not to be careless about it.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I might be rewilding or maybe just rummaging in the labyrinth of my mind.
Marcelo, São Paulo
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That time can be the other name of fear. And that fear can be everything. Because my anxiety, in the end, is not only mine. And that life is nonsense, but the poetry books are still intact, on high temperatures, between the same covers, with never read poems inside. I have discovered that longing is desperation, desperation, desperation.
What would you hold onto? That this sense of exception remains, this scare in the air, so we can keep the illusion of friendship, of love, keep looking rigorously at poetry, keep the instinct of survival.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I think about everything. Not being is being fully, embracing myself, with compassion of the poor objects that define my small existence.
Margalida, Les Guilleries
What have you discovered during the lockdown? To enjoy having the world outside my home.
What would you hold onto? Time for myself.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? My senses awake and my feelings reach further than the eye.
Roger (Margalida's partner), les Guilleries
What have you discovered during the lockdown? Everything can take a turn at any moment. Someone can come up with new rules at any time.
What would you hold onto? The feeling of not knowing if it’s Monday or Saturday.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I wished the whole thing could leave us with a permanent sediment of deceleration, but my hopes aren’t high.
Danny, London
What have you discovered during the lockdown? I have many good friends. We have many bad politicians...
What would you hold onto? The slowness of time.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? Unfortunately, still too much.
Vivi, Santiago de Chile
What have you discovered during the lockdown? The awareness of the smallness of the human being. I discovered the fragility of life, and the eminent presence of death became latent. The affections towards my loved ones were revealed with strength and intensity: to those here and to those there, spread across different continents. I was plunged into nostalgia and the impossibility of reuniting due to the sidereal distance that separates us. I was relieved by my dear absentees. I discovered and reaffirmed my admiration for the ancestral wisdom of the native peoples, for their worldview of the whole, in which the human being is one with nature and the universe. To conclude, I take Neruda’s word I confess that I have lived, to declare that my life has been intense, full, and if it’s time to die I assume it fully.
What would you hold onto? Humility, tenderness, the importance of life, the small “big” things of day by day. The firm conviction that life can be lived in austerity and kindness. Fraternal love, solidarity without borders, nature, beauty, art. I’m surprised by artists around the world who’ve created wonderful things and have offered them in these harsh times. I’m very grateful, and I hope for a time of embraces.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? In the beginning of the pandemic my thoughts stopped: fear, uncertainty paralyzed my mind and I was left with an existential void. Today, not thinking takes me to the greatness of nature: the ocean’s infinity and its strong waves, the lush forests that rock in the wind, the renewing rain which makes little flowers blossom, my gratefulness to the sun which caresses my heart and soul.
Helen, Melbourne
What have you discovered during the lockdown? I discovered that I needed structure, or I got lost.
What would you hold onto? I would like to preserve the lack of cars on the roads, wonderful, easy walking, clean air.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? Food - what to make for dinner, the big event.
Arnau, Sant Petersburg
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That I can live confined at home.
What would you hold onto? The pacing.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? Memories appear.
Guido, Los Angeles
What have you discovered during the lockdown? I learned to like the deceleration of our lives. After a severe accident three years ago, my life also stopped almost completely for many months. No work, little movement beyond the house (or hospital) and sitting there with endless time to think. It led me to form a mantra for the first time in my life: Movement – open(s) – (Quality of) Life. I have filled this over time with other meaning though, from breath to thoughts to the movement of words on this screen and so on. In this time of standstill I’m finding many more interpretations.
What would you hold onto? I very recently came across the concept of Doughnut Economics. The idea is that economic growth should have an ecological ceiling (the outer edge of the doughnut) while at the same time not allowing for anybody to fall below the social foundation (the hole in the middle of the doughnut).
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I don’t really know what, but I know who is with me every day: Christine died in May last year. Since she died from lung failure the Corona-related images of hospitals, ventilators, breathing tubes and computers displaying oxygen levels bring back very difficult weeks, especially now where the anniversary is looming. But beyond the grief I invite and welcome all the surprise visits of memories where closeness, laughter and love turn into a feeling that I want to preserve forever.
Nico, Barcelona
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That I like aquarelles.
What would you hold onto? Not going to school.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? About more playing and being bored.
Sílvia (Nico's mother), Barcelona
What have you discovered during the lockdown? The need to stop still. I don’t like the rhythm of life now, or pre-Covid, hastening without any sense, any direction, without looking.
What would you hold onto? The intensity of the moments and the relationships. Being able to live and treasure them, even if some are far away.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? My mind must be humming a song.
Georgina (Sílvia's sister), París
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That for years I have been living a regime of a thousand lives in a year, and that this has been one more life, but I was surprised that so many people are experiencing the same… And that they miss each other while it lasts, but they will soon forget or even hate each other.
What would you hold onto? See the seasons change and, if you wish, have the whole day for doing so. Also if you don’t wish it, because curiosity moves like a viper.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I think of the heart of Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila (and a mix of L’éducation sentimentale and Balzac).
Maggi, Munich
What have you discovered during the lockdown? How to survive in a space station among four people.
What would you hold onto? The tranquility and the sensation that I don’t have to be profitable because everything has stopped still.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? My orchard.
Wolf, Schiedam
What have you discovered during the lockdown? At first, I didn’t notice any difference to my daily routine, then I noticed a pleasant silence that I came to love.
What would you hold onto? The silence and slow pace of life.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? The same as when I breathe without thinking, a general feeling of comfort.
Ester, La Bisbal del Penedès
What have you discovered during the lockdown? Some new recipe; that it might have been easier for kids adapting to the situation than for adults. And that working from home is as hard or even harder than the office. But mainly that this has been an opportunity for everybody to revise without filters what’s really important in their lives.
What would you hold onto? The importance of freedom and the walks through paths I’ve rediscovered during the beginning of deconfinement.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? Clouds pass running, and the sky becomes a marvelous blue.
Lina, São Paulo
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That some important questions, like this one, may need more time to answer. We know so little. Even what we knew before often no longer serves, especially if we look at the world. But let’s not hurry. I have discovered that I’m able to live alone, as long as I am in communion with people who have art and knowledge. And that I cannot live with people with aspirations and ideals very contrary to mine. I had a separation during the lockdown, after a few years sharing the same house. But the isolation has not been exacerbated. I’ve been nurturing on the proximity to friends and on re-inventing and maybe even reconquering an old love. I feel in a phase of great spiritual connection and curiosity with those who are similar to me. I feel helped by them, and I want to help them.
What would you hold onto? The routine of studying at home, in combination with taking care of myself physically, related to a new area of knowledge. I have been a journalist for decades, but I am doing an additional training and I am in my second year of physiotherapy. Zoom classes have allowed me to establish a certain discipline that I had lost as a journalist and writer. The body has urgencies that cannot be postponed, unlike words that suffer from procrastination.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? The connection of great and deep feelings. And without thinking, I answer that I would like to find an alien and spend days having sex with it, fall madly in love, only to find out later that it's from here and lives next door.
Agyedo, Nairobi
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That humanity can be held hostage to its own greed .
What would you hold onto? I would love to preserve the slowing of time, which has left many to reflect upon what we rarely reflect upon. It has given us the space to explore the mundane things in our lives that we normally can’t articulate in words because we live such fast paced lives in a social media era.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? lol my mind is always on overdrive, constantly overthinking, my ADD does not allow my mind to rest however when it does I think of laying naked in a secluded beach by myself listening to the ocean waves.
Julie, Barcelona
What have you discovered during the lockdown? Time and space changed. Before, time was cut up into agenda slots but space was free. Now space is restricted but time is free. The effect is unsettling.
What would you hold onto? Some of the freedom of time mixed with the regained freedom of space.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? The physical sensation of love in a voice on the phone.
Rezene (the voice on Julie's phone), Dallas
What have you discovered during the lockdown? Time has helped many to hear lost voices and to do what you have to do.
What would you hold onto? Readiness for the inevitable at a very large scale and the choices society has to make.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? Resumption of a voice that helped restore self-confidence and learn more about oneself.
Susie, Edinburgh
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That I am used to solitude / isolation; and that I am not scared about being dead, if it happens. I wouldn’t like to die of this disease (and I wonder if I have had it, in mild form? who knows…) but the idea of death is something I think about a lot anyway. It’s part of the things about life that interest me. This is time spent not so very differently from usual, except that I can’t go to the library, or visit anyone, or receive hugs. One of the useful things I am learning is how to listen to myself better, how to find out what I need and feel, and that there is no guilt and anxiety (currently) about what I should be doing. Nobody can find me. Nobody knows. It’s a freedom. I hope I will re-establish patterns of creativity, small projects which, from fatigue and poor health, I have felt too exhausted to undertake, and felt guilt at not completing. I have learned (I learn this repeatedly because I forget it again and again) that if a thing is ‘fun’ —or can be coded as ‘fun’— I will be more ready to play. Without play the animal me is not happy. I can play alone. I am re-learning a lot.
What would you hold onto? The quietness of the city, the cleaner air, the signs of plants and birds and insects using spaces normally stuffed with humans. There is more courtesy noticeable in transactions (not with everyone; some are fearful and some won’t make eye contact). That communal experience is of great value, even as we are separated into our own little bubbles. I would like to preserve the respect some of the wealthy are now learning to have (or to speak about, anyway) for those who do vital jobs for pitiful wages, and for that to translate into better equality, better social structures, integration. I’d like the world to stop rushing about and making so much noise, as a result of contemplation achieved during this period.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? Characters I have invented and whose lives I am still discovering, even if I am not writing about them; characters in stories by others, who live in my head; characters in films; and a lot of the time I am attempting to not-think, to let my mind just wander about without noticing. This goes back to the answers to question 1 —I am happier when more animal, less ‘brain on a stick’. So, when I go out for exercise (it sounds like something alien to me, exercise) if I can touch plants or trees or textures it takes me away from the busy brain and into some kind of semi-meditative state which is like medicine. But somewhere, even the animal me, is always not-thinking about ‘what am I going to eat next’, too. Survival.
Lluís, Pla de l'Estany
What have you discovered during the lockdown? Maybe I’ve discovered the void left by what one doesn’t have during confinement: the void of patients, the void of lively urban landscapes, the void of being near friends, which is disturbing until it’s redone and reactivates intimately.
What would you hold onto? The time you can lose with nonsense.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I think of Viky, a friend who’s been in intensive care for 45 days now and who might not make it.
Lynn Jenner, Aotearoa New Zealand
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That I am old enough to be described as ‘vulnerable’. I am 65. That my partner and I can help each other solve problems. I knew this but it was nice to be reminded. That Facebook, which I normally try to ignore, turned out to be very useful to keep abreast of what was happening locally, like where you could buy vegetables during lockdown etc. That neighbours are really important. The neighbours we knew have been friendly and some we didn’t know have offered help with shopping, which has been lovely.
What would you hold onto? The synagogue I belong to has been having services by Zoom. I am about to move, next week, several hundred km to a small town with no Jewish community, and I would love to be able to keep attending services and being part of this community even though I will be far away physically.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? Sometimes I am thinking in the background about what supplies of food and medicine we need. Sometimes I am not really thinking anything but have a sort of dull hum of anxiety in my body and mind.
Claire, Paris
What have you discovered during the lockdown? The meaning of the two first verses of Friar Luis León’s ode: Such restful life of whom flees the mundane world!
What would you hold onto? The sense of a debt, this “Gracias a la vida” that Violeta Parra sung.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? About nothing. The privilege of thinking about nothing.
Sam, Tivoli NY
What have you discovered during the lockdown? I have lived in my town for over ten years and thought I had fully explored the land preserve nearby. With social distancing requirements, I went looking for new paths, less travelled ways through the preserve and found a section of trails and woods I’d never seen, far larger than the part I already knew. Everywhere was red trillium and marsh marigold. It feels as if a secret world has been revealed on these paths. Though they have always been here, I never saw them before. I never went far enough into the woods before, or I only wanted to walk the paths I was familiar with— in the 90s, a deeply horrifying crime was committed in this preserve and so, many people here have a complicated relationship with these woods. It’s interesting to suddenly feel a new safety in this forest, safety because in an area so large my family can roam without fear of spreading or contracting the virus.
What would you hold onto? The tremendous gratitude I feel for having a home, enough food, farms nearby, a village where I know most of my neighbors and where people take care of one another. I would also like to remember to do nothing, to resist constant motion, and, I suppose, I will now acknowledge that technology isn’t all bad.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? The background anxiety is constant. I worry about my mom. I worry about my daughters. I am fairly certain that my family had or has the virus despite a negative test result. I worry and wonder if we passed it on to anyone. Also, thinking a lot about those family members who are long dead: my father, grandmothers, uncles and aunts and the books I still have that once belonged to these people.
Jordi, Barcelona
What have you discovered during the lockdown? The break. The luxury of relaxing schedules and finding time. Mercè Rodoreda’s short stories. Learning to make Nutella. But also the inexplicable fear, the government’s incompetence.
What would you hold onto? The ability of daydreaming, which I’ve regained after some years of poor activity. To lay in bed staring at the ceiling, or to sit in an armchair looking at the sky, letting your mind dwell and getting lost in thoughts which don’t take you anywhere, which come and go by chance, without the pressure or the nerve of not having to do anything.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? This not thinking is the lightness of life in the present, particularly when you can drop ballast. And then, with the mind blank, like a cloud which is forming little by little, an image is imposed on me, of New York and its streets and buildings.
Miranda, New York
What have you discovered during the lockdown? This city where I live has always been one of the loves of my life: the home of dreams, fantasies, great accomplishments and failures and above all, the tremendous energy and cacophony of its people. Well, there has been little evidence of that energy these weeks as we’ve all shut ourselves away. But I’ve found the physical beauty of New York. During long early-morning walks when there’s no one else on the streets, I’ve been able to see parts of the city I never used to go to because of the crowds: the downtown financial center with its soaring transportation hub, the Oculus; the Louise Nevelson and Louise Bourgeois sculptures tucked into shadowed corners ; the wooden bar stools built alongside the East River, perfect for admiring the seemingly endless stream of empty ferries shuttling between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
What would you hold onto? All of these things will still be here (ojalá) come the time of our release but the opportunity of seeing them again like this will likely be rare —but a wonderful bright memory in the middle of this catastrophe. Another positive outcome has been all the Zooming and FaceTime sessions we’ve had with family and friends. Some innocuous and some meaningful but virtually all re-establishing our love and connection with each other. Relationships, especially with family members that have become taken for granted, have gained new footing that will hopefully continue.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? When my mind blanks, I am suffused with gratitude for the life I’ve had and continue to enjoy, my precious family and friends, and deep appreciation of all its precariousness.
Erika, Núcleo Rural Capoeira do Balsamo, Brasília
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That I can live with much less, that looking at the sky and observing the plants is very enriching.
What would you hold onto? This state of mind I’ve been acquiring, taking care of myself, of those close to me, eating calmly, feeling life present in everything, and worrying about the suffering of those who are unwell.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? Of emptiness, of the world swallowed by such a small virus.
Sian, Margate
What have you discovered during the lockdown? I was surprised how stubborn I am and how I don’t like to ask anyone to help me. I like to be self-sufficient and this resulted in me breaking my arm badly then having to learn to ask for help. I am also interested in the fact that I have limited choices now I am only really working with one hand (not my strongest!). This has meant making art much easier. I am not faced with an insurmountable array of possibilities, directions, and outcomes. I am not able to be so ambitious and am returning to previous ambitious works to mine them for more simple solutions. This is very satisfying.
What would you hold onto? I would preserve the simplicity of life. Going to the studio, making work, eating, walking the dog on the beach, reading novels for the first time in a long time instead of theoretical texts (Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light-Hilary Mantel) and relishing the wonderfully rich time-travel that this has allowed me to experience. Limited driving! I normally drive 700 mile a week, now I am driven 10 miles a week!
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I am subconsciously surveying my mental health, also how does my body feel. After my accident I became acutely aware of new pains, what it their significance in the healing process (am I moving in the wrong way, am I doing more damage?). I also have disturbing flashbacks of falling of the ladder but these are gradually receding thankfully!
Carolin, Vienna
What have you discovered during the lockdown? Not to have my just finished book eventually been torn apart by publishers (or not) but instead create an audiovisual premiere in the internet and motivate 30 actors to form a temporary virtual ensemble. I have rediscovered my own book and built myself a personal stage where everybody can have access to.
What would you hold onto? The insight that self-healing is more effective than visits or videoconferences with overwhelmed medical staff of all sorts.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? Not thinking about anything is a special art that I still have to learn.
Amaranta, Torino
What have you discovered during the lockdown? In a cold, dark apartment, I know now that I can imagine swallow stem oak which, with patience, under the noonday light I can’t aspire to, wait for spring to turn into summer. I am the treetops that let the leaves of the aspirations scatter on the ground without a sound. Between fights screams numbers deaths I am bouquets. Bark that does not crumble, despite the nightmares that plague it. Memory marrow, flowing free and sweetly hiding the voices of those I can’t find. Roots, some solid and some still soft, need almost nothing in order not to get lost.
What would you hold onto? Non-human silence, human empathy, reds and yellows, loves, beaches, only imagined skies. The small scale of hope that everything can be rediscovered and healed, and that a gesture, a smile, will be re-evaluated, without anything being taken for granted. The immense, fleeting emotion of a wisteria on the street, unknown, alone, me alone.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? About the hugs I haven’t given. About the tears I saw and didn't allow myself.
Peter, Oxford
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That virtual contact with family and friends is no way like seeing them in the flesh, but virtual talks or workshops reach many more people. I work at home and go for a walk in the meadow at the back of our house in normal times and in lockdown. I miss family outings to restaurants, the cinema and shops. A lot.
What would you hold onto? The absence of the roar of traffic from a nearby motorway when the wind’s blowing in the wrong direction and I’m gardening or we’re having supper outdoors when it’s not raining or chilly.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? That it’s an illusion that most of us aren’t locked down most of the time anyway and we’re generally resilient, if not relaxed about it. A smile, snatches of words from a page or screen, the sight and sound of a heron or swan in flight or a goose hissing recollected at the end of the day. Like the lark chirping on the ground only two feet away yesterday. I’ve never been so close. Like the Sunday morning walks around the lanes with my dad when I was a kid seventy years ago. Will the landlord renew our yearly contract?
Carolin, Munich-Pasing
What have you discovered during the lockdown? My joy that I don’t have to decide anymore whom I greet with a kiss.
What would you hold onto? This precisely.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I feel relief.
Letícia, Salvador da Bahia
What have you discovered during the lockdown? We are at home all the time, recreating what exists in the outside world. The space where we can hide has been swallowed up by a condition for which we lack vocabulary. I have lived in many homes, or rather, many homes have lived inside me over the years. Homes in England, houses in Rio de Janeiro, wedding homes, temporary homes. Homes that only exist to perceive that leaving is necessary in order to return, etc. etc. etc. I miss my beloved ones, which are obviously, therefore, my home. That is why the discovery comes from within: home is my construction; the architect is me.
What would you hold onto? Poems, let’s hold onto poems.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? I’ve been writing a lot, I’ve been forcing me to, I’ve put together a finger routine. Writing as the leap of survival, without the obligation of a deadline. Deadline is on the table, we eat with it, we sleep with it, we choose it.
Lise, Copenhagen-Frederiksberg
What have you discovered during the lockdown? I found out that I thrive very well when everything is a bit slower and I have more time for reflection and being close to my family and my friends – and doing all my small daily routines without always being in a hurry. Every day I have talked with my father. Every week I try to do something with my mother. Every day I am in contact with my friends via the social media or on the phone. Also, I started baking bread and cakes again, and I have more time for garden work and clearing out a lot of old things that just take up space in the house. It allowed me to focus on what is important for me without feeling pressure from the outside world.
What would you hold onto? I would like to preserve that I have more time for reflecting and using time on what makes me happy in my life. Not to be so hasty in everything.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? That I have a good life and I am grateful.
Catherine, Meudon
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That I needed time not to run so much. That I like living in my house. I have also discovered that I have an intense bond with nature. That I don't like whatsapp groups and people who are patronizing and opinionate.
What would you hold onto? I am lucky to live in a house with a garden touching the forest of Meudon. I will hold onto the intense emotion of observing nature, of paying particular attention to every tree that wakes up, every leaf and every flower that appears. The walk to the Etang des Ecrevisses every morning is like a meditation. Ducklings snatch from their eggs, water lilies emerge on the surface. A privileged time to tell those close to you that you love them. A feeling of ambivalence: wanting to act in the world of tomorrow (more than ever, be the change you want to see in the world!) And at the same time the desire to hide, to preserve myself.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? That I am happy .
Tonia, Menorca
What have you discovered during the lockdown? That I am much better without the stress from my work, I don’t need it as much as I thought to.
What would you hold onto? The tranquility and the silence.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? That my thoughts bother me.
Irene, Amsterdam
What have you discovered during the lockdown? Lockdown was not so different from my normal life. I always work at home and like being alone. Of course, things would be different I lived alone. Fortunately, I live with my friend. I don't miss restaurants, but I do miss going to galleries and museums, cinema and theatre. I found out how little I need: already sitting outside in the sun, with a coffee to go, makes me happy. I also found out I actually like video calls, suddenly friends abroad feel nearer, may be because we’re all in the same boat. I found out that people show solidarity with each other, especially people with local business, people with modest incomes, artists, writers, singers, actors that offer their work on the internet. I found out that I ‘m more in need of hugging people than I thought, more in need of social contact than I thought.
What would you hold onto? Most of all I’m more aware of the value of small things and of how incredible lucky I am. I would like to preserve that, trying to value things have instead of complaining about what I don’t have. I also want to value more the joy being with friends, take time for them instead of always work. We take so much for granted in life, maybe that’s what I learned, that nothing is for granted, that everything is special.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? When I’m not thinking about something in particular, I’m overwhelmed by the thought that everything could be very different, that it’s just a great coincidence that I am where I am and who I am.
Max, Taunus
What have you discovered during the lockdown? How much the world events do touch and concern me.
What would you hold onto? The fact that art is vital. During standstill, it has given us so much movement and consolation: music, literature, film, the fine arts.
What do you think about when you’re not thinking? About everything – a fulfilled life – and nothing – a death without fear.
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