Finding happiness

Do you also feel sometimes that happiness is hopelessly overrated? 'All I want is to be happy', nothing else matters. And so we search and try and take all sorts of desperate measures (like jumping out of planes and getting married) to somehow trap happiness and call it forever ours. Just as looking for true love, the search for happiness becomes like the search for the holy grail. Yet truth is: It doesn't exist. There are happy moments, but constant happiness is merely a Hollywood illusion.

The problem is that the feeling of happiness is a powerful drug and hence it is highly addictive. Again, it's the same with romance: Once you've experienced being in love you want more of it! Once you've felt overwhelmingly happy you end up chasing this feeling as if it was the air you need to stay alive. Human obsession.

I'm tempted now to write an ode to sadness and melancholy but...maybe another time. Instead, I'll ask you a simple question: What makes you happy? Because if you know what you're looking for the chances are much higher of actually finding it...

Over the last 6 weeks I've asked the same question to lots of different people and filmed their answers. The result is a little video which I'm using to promote the re-release of the English ebook of THE LITTLE BUDDHA – more information @ www.thelittlebuddha.net

Here's the video. Enjoy!

Enjoy the ride

Remember happiness is a way of travel, not a destination. (Roy Goodman)

Blablabla... Sometimes I hate all these stupid quotes! They can sound so real and promising when you read them but reality is often a totally different story.

November in Cologne, Germany. I want to visit a friend in Barcelona and am checking out my travel options. Number 1: taking a two hour flight with a crappy Irish airline – cheap, but I will probably get annoyed about being treated like shit and giving money to a company whose business model I don't agree with. Number 2: jumping on a train and spending much more cash and especially more time than I would if I was flying. Option number 3: hitch-hiking. But in winter? Em, no thanks.

To change the habit I decide on taking the train. Seems like a good idea – in times of climate change and with the fast-paced life all around us it's nice to slow down a bit and use a slightly more sustainable form of transport.

At 4 o'clock on a Monday afternoon I leave home and head for the station. It's cold and wet, my back is hurting and I am tired – the perfect conditions to embark on a 16-hour long trip! Desperately I'm trying to remember why I didn't buy a plane ticket...

The first part of the journey takes me with up to 300km/h via Brussels to Paris. Pretty straight forward. However, what I'm not looking forward to is the fact that I have to change stations in the French capital. Good timing too – I'm set to arrive for the evening rush hour which means a hopelessly overcrowded Metro is waiting for me. And there's potential for even more stress: All that it takes is that my train gets in late and I'd miss my connection in the other station. 'Stay positive', I try to convince myself.

To my surprise the positive thinking works for once: the train arrives on time at Gare du nord and the Metro is pleasantly empty. In my wagon there's just me, two handfuls of other passengers and a colourful Dude singing a folky version of 'Don't worry be happy'. Nice!

Thirty minutes later I'm in Gare d'Austerlitz, with over an hour to spare. I walk around the station which is again much quieter than I've anticipated. Who said travelling in big cities has to be stressful? After indulging in a fresh croissant I decide to have a little walk outside. Leaving the entrance hall I cross the road and find myself right on the banks of the Seine. It's 9.15pm, full moon has just risen and the river is flowing by peacefully in front of my eyes. I call my sister and report happily, “I'm in Paris!”

Soon after I go back into the station building and make my way towards the platform where I encounter the next surprise: a piano! Yes, that's right – next to where my train is waiting there's a piano and a young guy is playing classical music. On top of the piano a sign reads: “This piano is for everyone – please use it!” Wow... In most places across Europe music in public is increasingly getting banned; here it's being promoted – instead of impatient moods, art is shared!

At 10pm I get on the train, feeling uplifted by the brief yet beautiful experience in the city of love. I squeeze through the very narrow corridor and am wondering how often it happens that some overweight person gets stuck in the aisle. Maybe they don't want fat people to take trains...? Anyway, I head for my cabin where I find my travel companions for the night: a Japanese traveller who doesn't say a single word; a really nice guy from Ecuador, a musician and a writer who has come to Europe to find inspiration for his first novel; and Miguel from Argentina who, as it turns out, is the ex-guitarist of The Gypsy Kings. While Mr Japan keeps hiding on his bottom bed the three of us spend several hours making music and exchanging philosophies about life. Train travelling at its best!

Arriving in Barcelona the next morning I'm feeling melancholic because my journey has come to an end already. Instead of an ordeal it has turned into a wonderfully enriching experience. And you know what? I doubt that a fast plane trip would have provided similar pleasure. It almost seems that you have to travel slowly to really get something joyful out of it, to allow for special things to simply happen.

I guess Mr Goodman was right after all: Who cares about the destination when all the fun is happening along the way?

In search of inspiration

John Lennon, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Charlie Chaplin, Hermann Hesse, Nelson Mandela, Buddha – apart from being men, they all have three things in common:

        1) They inspire us

        2) They are famous

        3) They are dead

Of those alive today, who is inspiring us? Who is wise and brave enough to speak the truth? Surely not the famous – Barack Obama? The Pope? Justin Bieber? It's so sad, it's almost funny.

Anyone who is trying to find true role models with a heartbeat is facing really hard times. Of course there are some left but usually they are unknown heroes – they don't make the headlines and don't appear on TV shows or book covers. So I guess we just need to look for them in other places...

I'm lucky, I've found one. He lives just down the road from me – a simple guy with a bunch of priceless messages. Have a look for yourself, I've done a little documentary about him:

JOSÉ – A man of the land

Ten times happiness

It's Monday, late September – another weekend gone, another summer too. I feel tired, slightly melancholic and kind of bored. The news is filled with wars and greed and the new iphone 6 and somehow it just all seems to go round in circles, spiralling downwards.

Last month I wrote a blog about peace and when I checked the statistics page earlier on, I saw that it got less than a third of the usual hits. In fact, it was the least popular article since I've started blogging 4 years ago. Makes me wonder: Are people not really interested in peace?

So maybe I should talk a bit more about all the misery going on around us. Let's see... There are the children in the Middle East who are trying to walk through life without legs. There are millions of modern-day slaves wasting their precious time producing cheap clothes, one-way headphones and plastic toys no-one needs; billions of animals are locked away in dark factories to feed fat people and old habits; despite leading richer and more comfortable lives than ever before, depression in the West is spreading far quicker than Ebola. Food is turning to poison, forests to deserts and oceans to seas of rubbish. There's Nestlé, Primark, Ikea, Monsanto and McDonalds. Corrupt politicians, selfish businessmen and hateful priests; ignorant consumers and heart-broken dreamers. Shall I continue?

I could, but I won't. After all it's Monday and I like Mondays. So to counteract the rising winter blues, here are 10 reasons why I feel grateful in this very moment:

1. There's music – how amazing is music!
2. And sunsets!
3. I have a warm bed to sleep in tonight
4. I'm able to go and buy organic food if I want to
5. I share a house with good friends
6. Autumn rain has arrived (check out the Pluviophile)
7. I'm a Dad with a beautiful daughter
8. When I look outside my window I see trees
9. Each day, more people help to create a better world
10. Possibilities are endless

In summary: Life on this planet sucks at times but being alive is truly wonderful!

PS: What about you? What are your 10 reasons to feel grateful and happy today?

Power to the peaceful

Name five songs about peace. Come on, do it. Now!

It’s not that easy, right? I’d say there are a hundred times more songs about violence, money and the wide spectrum of silly human drama. Makes you wonder – what does that say about the world we live in?

War has returned to the Middle East and images of flying rockets and bleeding children are once again daily reality. We find ourselves in a rollercoaster ride between anger, frustration and deep sadness. So much suffering – for what?

Meanwhile, the global community is having a fierce discussion about who is right or wrong. In the media and during coffee breaks there's talk about death and destruction, about fear, revenge and the price of gas. We blame, hate and lose track of anything good. We are infected by darkness!

For me, even more outrageous than the war itself is the lack of action from the UN. Send 10.000 peace troops in, tell everyone to shut up and sort it out. But no, nothing. It’s a complicated situation they say. And indeed, it’s complicated, but not for those muppets in diplomatic suits – it’s complicated for the family who saw their house burn down or for the little boy who had his legs blown off. What more needs to happen before the world says ENOUGH?

Just the other day Obama condemned the repeated attacks on a school and then, in the same sentence, he went on to say that of course the US will refill the munition depots of the Israelis. I mean...how do you acutally respond to this? Shall we give him a second Nobel peace prize?

While trying to understand both perspectives, I’ve always sympathized more with the Palestinians. So perhaps life wanted to tell me something when I bumped into four Israelis last week...
I’ve spent a couple of days with them – they are really nice people, we shared food, made music and enjoyed the heat of the Andalusian summer. Good times. We also talked about the situation in their homeland but not once did we speak about the political nightmare. It wasn’t about who might be right or wrong, it was a purely human perspective with a very clear conclusion: war sucks!

With one of them I had a longer conversation about how she copes with it all. The time in the army; the constant fear of being called up; bomb alarms; dead friends; despair. At some point I asked her if she still believes in peace. She shook her head – and she’s only 24... We were both too sad to even cry. Just imagine what that must feel like if you’ve witnessed at such a young age already so much physical and mental war that you've given up on peace.

My new friend told me that her mother is from Iran and her father from Irak. She was born only a few years after those two countries had stopped fighting each other. So I said to her that maybe in 50 years it will also be normal for an Israeli and a Palestinian to marry and be happy together.

She smiled and called me a dreamer. I smiled back and said that it’s a nice dream.

Let’s travel 900 years into the past, to the time of the crusades: Imagine you would have told a Christian that in the future his descendants might marry a Muslim – your head would have been chopped off instantly! Yet today, when a Muslim marries a Christian in Italy, Spain or Germany, it’s usually no big deal. Who would have thought...

              Hope?

              Yes, there’s hope.

              Cause it will change.

              Everything.

              One day.

We need peace. And the only chance we have to create it is by focusing on it. I’m not suggesting to ignore wars and injustice, but simply to spend more time cultivating peaceful thoughts and feelings. Whether it makes me sound like a Hippie or not, I don’t care – eventually, love will spread.

You say you’re not fighting a war? Well, you might not be in Gaza, but if you look inside, is there real peace?

Here’s a little story my Israeli friend told me: An uncle of hers was listening to a discussion between an Arab and an Israeli. The Israeli asked the Arab, “will you ever accept Israel as part of the Middle East?” Her uncle interfered and spoke to the Jew: “You should ask this question to yourself: Will YOU ever accept Israel being part of the Middle East?” Pretty deep stuff, but the bottom line is: first, sort out your own shit!

Peace won’t come from different polititians, from more wars, new neighbours or different laws – peace can only come from within.

So, back to the music: here’s a mix I made with songs that talk about peace. Just click on the cover, start listening and dare to dream... And then send out some Peace & Love to my four friends who will be back in Israel in a few weeks, and to all the others who want to live a life without bombs. 'Cause everyone deserves peace!

(Image from Michael Franti & Spearhead)

It's just a game

I love football

Not the FIFA

All those overpaid players

Their exaggerated fame

Starving fans

The world has gone insane

Yes, joyful it was

7:1 against the host

Fascinating and surreal

Then the final victory

I admit: I screamed

My team has won

My country, my dear nation

My flag

My hymn

My heroes

All imagination

Pride?

I’m not proud

Scared I am

Of any hypnotized crowd

Manmade maps

Dividing lines

It’s just a game

No need for crimes

My Argentian housemate and I.
Just before the final.

Organic food sucks!

I’m totally fed up seeing labels of natural products. Seriously! In most supermarkets you find organic apples, Bio yoghurt and fairtrade coffee. It has become a real hype and, quite frankly, it’s ridiculous.

Ok, maybe ‘ridiculous’ is the wrong word. I guess ‘sad’ is more appropriate. Let’s take one of my favourite vegetables as an example: Broccoli. So you go to the veg section of the supermarket of your choice and see a mountain of Broccoli heads piled up in front of you, all nicely wrapped in plastic. The sign says ‘Broccoli – 0.99’. Either directly next to it or a few metres away there’s another mountain, albeit much smaller, with a sign announcing ‘Organic Broccoli – 1.99’ (usually with a tiny footnote: ‘Natural produce’).

Now, what happens in the mind of the person doing the shopping? Very often it will be something like this: ‘Organic…hm, that’s the latest fashion, isn't it? And any fashion product is always expensive.’ It’s like buying an iphone, a Hollister shirt or one of those stupid nespresso machines – you don’t pay for a good product, but mainly spend your money on some fancy marketing campaign. Hence it’s better to buy the ‘normal’ broccoli.

However, when it comes to food, it’s not about fashion at all. There’s nothing cool about organic food, not even if you spell it organiK (no, I didn’t make this up – I’ve really seen it like this). 

The underlying problem of this whole dilemma, apart from the weirdly functioning human brain, is totally inappropriate and misleading labeling. Here’s what it should say on the two signs:

Broccoli – 1.99

Toxic Broccoli – 0.99

And ideally there’d be also a (huge) footnote attached to the second choice: ‘Sprayed with pesticides and insecticides; grown with artificial fertilizer in a monculture – harming the soil and poisining your body!’

I reckon some idiots would still go for the cheaper option (maybe to save up for the new iphone?), but most people wouldn’t think twice and would buy the non-toxic vegetable. Common sense, right? Some more examples:

Cheese – 3.99

Pseudo Cheese – 1.98 (made from milk that comes from cows who have never seen daylight and are pumped up with antibiotics on a daily basis)

Bread – 2.50

Lethal Bread – 1.09 (stripped of all healthy ingredients and with an extra amount of conservatives so that it will stay artificially fresh for at least 8 weeks)

Chocolate – 1.99

Slave Chocolate – 0.89 (guaranteed with cacao that was harvested by hungry, underpaid peasants in the third world)

The list could go on endlessly… I think all ‘normal’ food should be automatically organic, cultivated with sustainable methods under fair conditions. All other food, ie that which is classified as normal today, should be clearly named with words such as harmful, processed, poisonous, chemical, etc. Since we're still far away from being free-thinking and highly conscious people, only the brutal truth has the power to make us change our habbits – fairytales invented by ruthless advertisement agencies won't help. So:

Kill the organic hype – bring on the toxic label!

PS: Having said all this – cigarette packets have been carrying photos of black lungs and messages of ‘smoking kills’ for many years now, and still people continue to smoke. Maybe we’re simply too stupid? Aliens, hurry up!