Thomas is a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany. He is a researcher and a bridge builder, helping experts and change-makers from all sectors of society to come together to explore the topic of sustainability, listen to each other, and develop solutions.



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Thomas Bruhn

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 THOMAS BRUHN is a physicist at the
 Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies,
 Potsdam, Germany. He is a researcher and bridge builder, helping experts
 and change-makers from all sectors of society to come together to explore
 the topic of sustainability, listen to each other, and develop
 solutions.
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 In part 1 of his conversation with
 JUDITH NELSON
 at the Spirit of Humanity Forum in Reykjavik, Iceland, he talks about the
 walking holiday he had after finishing his studies, and how it informed
 his perspectives on nature and sustainability.
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 Q: I was intrigued by some of the content of your
 session this morning,
 particularly when you talked about your walk, where you went from a
 mindset of “think, think, think” and “work, work, work” to something very
 different. Can you explain more?



 TB: That
 transformation came after I completed my diploma thesis. It was an intense
 phase of working, where I had little space for myself. Originally, I had
 huge plans after my studies like, “I’ll go to the Himalayas, or the Rocky
 Mountains, or the Andes,” but I didn’t have time to organize anything. I
 ended up packing a very small bag and started to walk in Germany. I only had
 a plan for the first three days, because there was a place I had been in my
 youth with my parents, and I thought, “That’s a nice place to start.” There
 is a place in the very south of Germany and I had intense memories of that
 place. I thought I would like to end up there.&nbsp;



 When I started walking, I realized how long it took for me to calm down,
 certainly a whole week. All sorts of things came to mind – music, songs,
 inner voices. I thought of my diploma thesis. Was there something I had done
 wrong? Because I was walking and I was on my own, I could observe and allow
 everything to be as silly as it seemed.&nbsp;


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 I wrote everything down in a diary, but the real beauty was the experience
 of transformation throughout that journey. I learned to let go of planning
 and I enjoyed that so much. In fact, it was like a pilgrimage. The less I
 planned, the more I was surprised at what happened. There were such
 beautiful encounters. Each of them was very small and insignificant.



 Along that road, there was one thing that everybody told me: “Oh, you must
 see that particular place.” But that was the least touching experience of
 the whole journey because it was loaded with expectation and planning.
 Everything that happened when I let go of planning was such a blissful
 experience. So, it’s the best type of holiday I have had!&nbsp;


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<img decoding="async" width="700" height="375" alt="" class="lazyload has-img-center"
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 Everything that happened when I let go of planning
 was such a
 blissful experience.
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 I didn’t take a tent with me, so I really didn’t know where I would sleep.
 Maybe everything would be occupied, maybe I would have to hitch-hike a
 little bit. Right after that pilgrimage, I met my wife. For years, I told
 her about this kind of traveling, and she said, “Yeah, sounds nice, but I
 don’t know, especially not knowing where I’m going to sleep.” Five years
 later, we did a similar trip together. Doing it as a couple was such a
 profound experience of letting go and trusting whatever comes up. So that’s
 the story of that experience. [Laughs]



 Q: You also talked about needing a lot less than we
 think we do. Can you
 expand on that?



 TB: Yes. I was
 carrying so little, but by the end of my travels I realized there was so
 much I took with me that I didn’t need. Even food. I needed less and less
 food during the trip. You might expect that hiking is intense for the body,
 so you would need a lot of food, but no, it was less and less.&nbsp;



 By the end, I didn’t even need any kind of impulses from the surrounding
 environment. It was not like I was taking a specific path to have perfect
 experiences. It was just, “Okay, I’m on the road, walking, and that
 satisfies everything I need.”&nbsp;



 Because I hadn’t had that experience before, I didn’t know whether I’d
 return after a week, or my mind might go crazy without the usual needs –
 distractions or calling people. In the first week I had my phone with me and
 I did call quite a few people just to connect, or just to let my parents
 know that I was okay. Even all that communication dissolved throughout the
 travel. That was very beautiful as well.


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 I feel that in any moment I’m a human being,
 I’m an organism,
 I am Nature in myself.
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 Q:&nbsp; The other very interesting thing in your talk
 was your
 positivity and your sense of not being separate from Nature. Could you
 explain a bit more?



 TB: That’s a
 weird paradox within myself. On the one hand, I don’t feel disconnected from
 Nature, but I grew up in an industrialized society and I work in a concrete
 building, and so forth. So, I feel I’m not as connected with Nature all the
 time as I am when I’m walking through a forest. At the same time, I feel
 that in any moment I’m a human being, I’m an organism,
 I&nbsp;am&nbsp;Nature in myself. I often wonder if the experience
 of “I am Nature” is not so much about the environment that I’m in as it is
 about the Nature that I experience in my own being, actions, and in my
 relationships with people and with everything around me. So, I can be alive
 in any context, you could say.&nbsp; &nbsp;



 A relationship with Nature, for me, doesn’t necessarily mean trying to find
 the perfect, pristine, non-human Nature out there and thinking, “Now I’m in
 Nature.” No,&nbsp;I am&nbsp;Nature in any moment … learning to be
 Nature.


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To be continued.


 We thank our partner, the Spirit of Humanity Forum, for
 facilitating this
 interview.



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<h4 class="text-center">Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL</h4>


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A sustainable mindset

<h4>
 THOMAS BRUHN
 is a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies,
 Potsdam, Germany. He is a researcher and a bridge builder, helping experts
 and change-makers from all sectors of society to come together to explore
 the topic of sustainability, listen to each other, and develop
 solutions.
</h4>

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 In part 2 of his conversation with
 JUDITH NELSON
 at the Spirit of Humanity Forum in Reykjavik, Iceland, Thomas talks about
 embracing mortality, finding a purpose, defining our role in the world,
 and the shift humanity is living through.
</h4>

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 Q: In the Forum, you touched upon having no fear of death.
 You talked
 about the way the world is going, making a lot of people quite frightened.
 Can you tell us about that?



 TB: That’s a
 profound topic. When I was nineteen, I did my civil service in a home for
 the elderly, where people spent the last months of their lives. I really
 connected with people there. My grandmother died when I was nine years old,
 but at nineteen I was better able to engage with old people.



 Witnessing the final stages of their lives influenced me a lot. What was
 important for them? What did they reflect upon? Some had a hard time letting
 go because of unresolved relationships, or some trauma they hadn’t worked
 through. This influenced my own reflection about what kind of life I wanted
 to live.&nbsp;



 At nineteen, you’re busy finding out how awesome life is,&nbsp;but it was
 also important for me to embrace and welcome mortality. I can’t say that I’m
 not afraid of death. I want to experience life, and there is so much I
 haven’t yet lived. At the same time I find comfort in the notion that this
 existence is finite and impermanent. I can’t do anything about it
 anyway.&nbsp;



 The question for me is, “What is the purpose of my time here, and how should
 it be fulfilled?” That gives me a good orientation and makes me take things
 less seriously. “What is my contribution? What feels most meaningful?”&nbsp;



 Some people have a hedonistic attitude like, “I’m going to die anyway, so
 let’s have a party as long as it lasts.” That’s not the kind of life I want,
 but it does help me to be aware it’s finite.&nbsp;



 My work is dedicated to sustainability, and to more livable ways of life. My
 life is my responsibility, and if I have lived the wrong life when I leave
 this world, it’s only myself that I’m hurting. I’m also experiencing what’s
 happening in the rest of the world, and there’s so much suffering and
 destruction.



 Loss of biodiversity is de facto a degradation of the aliveness in
 this world. It is not easy to say I’m not afraid, because so much is beyond
 me. I love this world; it’s beautiful. I love humans, and I also love what
 we can contribute to this world. It’s more difficult to come to terms with
 the current crisis we’re experiencing as a globalized civilisation.&nbsp;


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 Q: Do you have any idea of a way forward through that? I
 know it’s a big
 question, but what can you contribute going forward? And how do you
 sustain yourself through all of
 this?&nbsp;



 TB: Ten years
 ago, my mind was on the big abstract topics like climate change, the
 technologies to mitigate climate change, global warming, CO2
 emissions, and so forth. I still see a lot of value in those developments,
 but I also realize that the world I experience is a manifestation of a
 certain culture, and this culture is a manifestation of a certain
 understanding of being human. How do I define what it means to be human? How
 does that drive me to consume my surroundings, and to sustain my own
 aliveness? That is a paradox in itself!&nbsp;



 In the book Ishmael, Daniel Quinn writes, “You are captives of a
 civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the
 world in order to live.”This is a very profound refection for me. How do we
 define life if it is at the expense of everything around us, even at the
 expense of ourselves?&nbsp;



 In the last ten years, I’ve gone through a shift in what I see as the next
 steps, and what my contribution can be. I see a different paradigm and a
 different culture emerging. Everywhere, there are young people and others
 who feel that our dominant culture doesn’t provide a meaningful life. They
 are like small islands where different modes of living are practiced.
 Sometimes I wish I could live the life I experience in these islands, but I
 cannot. Maybe I am just too much a child of this civilization that is not in
 harmony.



 My contribution is to connect these many islands, because they are often
 isolated and even suppressed. I enjoy connecting these marginalized
 change-agents, to give them a certain visibility, to show there is a
 potential for a different type of human life emerging, while the old one is
 reaching its limits. That’s the role in which I see myself.



 When I was fifteen, there was a popular game: “If you were a tool, what type
 of tool would you be?” I remember saying “a watering can.” That’s still how
 I feel twenty years later [Laughs]. I want to be a watering can for the
 plans I see growing as seeds in the middle of concrete environments. I feel
 like I’m standing in the middle, keeping a crack open so that something can
 grow, but I also feel my own limitations because I embody so much of the old
 paradigm. It’s a challenge for me to let go of the way I have grown up. Does
 that make sense?


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 I want to be a watering can for the plans I see
 growing as seeds in
 the middle of concrete environments. 
 I feel like I’m standing in the middle, keeping a crack open so that
 something can grow.
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 Every time I speak about it, I realize it’s quite a tension I’m sitting in,
 but somehow I feel that the tension is exactly my role. It’s the right thing
 for me to be in.&nbsp;



 Q: Almost like a bridge, perhaps?



 TB: Yes, like a
 bridge or a gatekeeper.



 Q: Do you do any practice to sustain your inner
 world?



 TB: Yes and no.
 There are many practices I find valuable. I have come into contact with
 different approaches since I was fifteen, but they never became part of my
 everyday life. Over the past couple of years,&nbsp;I have been practicing
 Mindfulness and Compassion Meditation, but not like some people do. You
 could say it’s a moment-by-moment practice for me just to stay conscious of,
 “Am I the being I want to be? How purposeful am I being? How present am
 I?”&nbsp;



 I don’t want to push that into a corner of meditation and then go back to my
 work. When I have written thirty emails in a row, I sometimes notice I’m not
 writing as compassionately as I did in the beginning. Am I sensitizing
 myself to the quality I bring to those relationships and to those
 encounters?



 Sometimes it is playing the piano, sometimes it is hiking, or sitting in a
 meadow and looking at a lake. I don’t have a fixed routine, and at the same
 time I’m drawing on different experiences from people who have shared their
 practices with me. They are influencing the way I try to be present.


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Thomas Bruhn

Thomas is a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany. He is a researcher and a bridge builder, helping experts and change-makers from all sectors of society to come together to explore the topic of sustainability, listen to each other, and develop solutions.

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