I'm a lifelong traveler. Even as a little kid, I was actually working out that it would be cheaper to go to boarding school in England than just to the best school down the road from my parents' house in California. So, from the time I was nine years old I was flying alone several times a year over the North Pole, just to go to school. And of course the more I flew the more I came to love to fly, so the very week after I graduated from high school, I got a job mopping tables so that I could spend every season of my 18th year on a different continent. And then, almost inevitably, I became a travel writer so my job and my joy could become one. And I really began to feel that if you were lucky enough to walk around the candlelit temples of Tibet or to wander along the seafronts in Havana with music passing all around you, you could bring those sounds and the high cobalt skies and the flash of the blue ocean back to your friends at home, and really bring some magic and clarity to your own life. Except, as you all know, one of the first things you learn when you travel is that nowhere is magical unless you can bring the right eyes to it. You take an angry man to the Himalayas, he just starts complaining about the food. And I found that the best way that I could develop more attentive and more appreciative eyes was, oddly, by going nowhere, just by sitting still. And of course sitting still is how many of us get what we most crave and need in our accelerated lives, a break. But it was also the only way that I could find to sift through the slideshow of my experience and make sense of the future and the past. And so, to my great surprise, I found that going nowhere was at least as exciting as going to Tibet or to Cuba. And by going nowhere, I mean nothing more intimidating than taking a few minutes out of every day or a few days out of every season, or even, as some people do, a few years out of a life in order to sit still long enough to find out what moves you most, to recall where your truest happiness lies and to remember that sometimes making a living and making a life point in opposite directions.
Putujem cijeli život. Još kao dječak izračunao sam da bi bilo povoljnije ići u internat u Engleskoj nego u najbolju školu u blizini kuće mojih roditelja u Kaliforniji. Tako sam od svoje devete godine nekoliko puta godišnje sâm letio preko Sjevernog pola samo kako bih išao u školu. I naravno, što sam više letio, više sam volio letenje. Tako sam tjedan dana nakon mature našao posao čišćenja stolova kako bih svako godišnje doba svoje 18. godine mogao provesti na drugom kontinentu. Zatim sam, gotovo neizbježno, postao putopisac te su se moj posao i moja radost sjedinili. Zaista sam počeo osjećati da, ako imate dovoljno sreće da uz svjetlost svijeća šećete tibetanskim hramovima ili lutate obalom mora u Havani uz glazbu svuda oko sebe, mogli biste te zvukove i visoka kobaltna neba i svjetlucanje plavog oceana donijeti svojim prijateljima kod kuće i zaista unijeti malo čarolije i jasnoće u vlastiti život. Osim, kao što svi znate, jedna od prvih stvari koje naučite kad putujete jest da ništa nije čarobno ako to ne gledate na pravi način. Povedite mrzovoljnog čovjeka na Himalaju i žalit će se na hranu. Otkrio sam da je najbolji način da stvari počnem pažljivije gledati i više ih cijeniti, začudo, ne otići nikamo, samo mirno sjediti. Naravno, dok mirno sjedimo, mnogi od nas dobiju ono što najviše žele i trebaju u svojim ubrzanim životima – predah. Ali to je bio i jedini način na koji sam mogao dobro promisliti o svojim iskustvima i stvoriti si sliku budućnosti i prošlosti. I tako, na moje veliko iznenađenje, otkrio sam da je ne ići nikamo bilo jednako uzbudljivo kao ići na Tibet ili Kubu. Kad kažem „ne ići nikamo”, mislim jednostavno svaki dan odvojiti nekoliko minuta ili nekoliko dana u svakom godišnjem dobu ili čak, kako to čine neki ljudi, nekoliko godina života i mirno sjediti dovoljno dugo da biste otkrili što vas najviše pokreće, da se prisjetite u čemu je vaša istinska sreća i da se sjetite da su ponekad živjeti i preživljavati dvije suprotne stvari.
And of course, this is what wise beings through the centuries from every tradition have been telling us. It's an old idea. More than 2,000 years ago, the Stoics were reminding us it's not our experience that makes our lives, it's what we do with it. Imagine a hurricane suddenly sweeps through your town and reduces every last thing to rubble. One man is traumatized for life. But another, maybe even his brother, almost feels liberated, and decides this is a great chance to start his life anew. It's exactly the same event, but radically different responses. There is nothing either good or bad, as Shakespeare told us in "Hamlet," but thinking makes it so. And this has certainly been my experience as a traveler. Twenty-four years ago I took the most mind-bending trip across North Korea. But the trip lasted a few days. What I've done with it sitting still, going back to it in my head, trying to understand it, finding a place for it in my thinking, that's lasted 24 years already and will probably last a lifetime. The trip, in other words, gave me some amazing sights, but it's only sitting still that allows me to turn those into lasting insights. And I sometimes think that so much of our life takes place inside our heads, in memory or imagination or interpretation or speculation, that if I really want to change my life I might best begin by changing my mind. Again, none of this is new; that's why Shakespeare and the Stoics were telling us this centuries ago, but Shakespeare never had to face 200 emails in a day. (Laughter) The Stoics, as far as I know, were not on Facebook. We all know that in our on-demand lives, one of the things that's most on demand is ourselves. Wherever we are, any time of night or day, our bosses, junk-mailers, our parents can get to us. Sociologists have actually found that in recent years Americans are working fewer hours than 50 years ago, but we feel as if we're working more. We have more and more time-saving devices, but sometimes, it seems, less and less time. We can more and more easily make contact with people on the furthest corners of the planet, but sometimes in that process we lose contact with ourselves. And one of my biggest surprises as a traveler has been to find that often it's exactly the people who have most enabled us to get anywhere who are intent on going nowhere. In other words, precisely those beings who have created the technologies that override so many of the limits of old, are the ones wisest about the need for limits, even when it comes to technology. I once went to the Google headquarters and I saw all the things many of you have heard about; the indoor tree houses, the trampolines, workers at that time enjoying 20 percent of their paid time free so that they could just let their imaginations go wandering. But what impressed me even more was that as I was waiting for my digital I.D., one Googler was telling me about the program that he was about to start to teach the many, many Googlers who practice yoga to become trainers in it, and the other Googler was telling me about the book that he was about to write on the inner search engine, and the ways in which science has empirically shown that sitting still, or meditation, can lead not just to better health or to clearer thinking, but even to emotional intelligence. I have another friend in Silicon Valley who is really one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the latest technologies, and in fact was one of the founders of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly. And Kevin wrote his last book on fresh technologies without a smartphone or a laptop or a TV in his home. And like many in Silicon Valley, he tries really hard to observe what they call an Internet sabbath, whereby for 24 or 48 hours every week they go completely offline in order to gather the sense of direction and proportion they'll need when they go online again. The one thing perhaps that technology hasn't always given us is a sense of how to make the wisest use of technology. And when you speak of the sabbath, look at the Ten Commandments -- there's only one word there for which the adjective "holy" is used, and that's the Sabbath. I pick up the Jewish holy book of the Torah -- its longest chapter, it's on the Sabbath. And we all know that it's really one of our greatest luxuries, the empty space. In many a piece of music, it's the pause or the rest that gives the piece its beauty and its shape. And I know I as a writer will often try to include a lot of empty space on the page so that the reader can complete my thoughts and sentences and so that her imagination has room to breathe.
Naravno, to nam stoljećima govore mudraci iz mnogih kultura. To je stara ideja. Prije više od 2000 godina stoici su nas podsjećali da se naš život ne oblikuje iskustvom, već onime što od njega napravimo. Zamislite da uragan iznenada prođe kroz vaš grad i uništi sve. Jedan čovjek bit će traumatiziran do kraja života. Ali drugi, možda čak i njegov brat, osjećat će se gotovo oslobođeno i zaključit će da je to odlična prilika da iznova započne život. Potpuno isti događaj, ali krajnje različite reakcije. Ne postoji ništa dobro ni loše, kako nam je Shakespeare rekao u „Hamletu”, već ga razmišljanje čini takvim. Takvo je svakako bilo i moje iskustvo kao putnika. Prije 24 godine bio sam na vrlo intenzivnom putovanju Sjevernom Korejom. Putovanje je trajalo nekoliko dana. Mirno sjedeći, razmišljajući o tom putovanju, nastojeći da ga shvatim, nalazeći mu mjesto u svojim mislima, ono traje već 24 godine i vjerojatno će trajati cijeli život. Drugim riječima, na tom putovanju bilo je predivnih vidika, ali tek mirnim sjedenjem uspio sam ih pretvoriti u trajne uvide. Ponekad pomislim kako se tako velik dio našeg života odvija u našim glavama, u našem sjećanju ili mašti ili interpretaciji ili predviđanjima i zato, ako zaista želim promijeniti svoj život, najbolje bi bilo početi s promjenama u glavi. Ponavljam, ništa od ovoga nije novo. Sve su nam to Shakespeare i stoici govorili pred mnogo stoljeća, ali Shakespeare nikad nije imao 200 e-mailova dnevno. (Smijeh) Stoici, koliko znam, nisu bili na Facebooku. Svi znamo da, u našim životima na zahtjev, jedna od najtraženijih stvari upravo smo mi sami. Gdje god da jesmo, u bilo koje doba noći i dana, naši šefovi, isporučitelji spam pošte, naši roditelji, mogu doći do nas. Sociolozi su zapravo otkrili da posljednjih godina Amerikanci rade manje sati nego prije 50 godina, ali osjećamo kao da radimo više. Imamo sve više i više uređaja koji nam štede vrijeme, ali ponekad, čini se, sve manje i manje vremena. Sve jednostavnije možemo stupiti u kontakt s ljudima u najudaljenijim dijelovima svijeta, ali ponekad u tom procesu gubimo dodir sami sa sobom. Jedno od najvećih iznanađenja koja sam doživio kao putnik bilo je kad sam otkrio da su često baš oni ljudi koji su nam najviše pomogli da odemo nekamo čvrsti u namjeri da ne idu nikamo. Drugim riječima, upravo oni ljudi koji su stvorili tehnologije kojima su svladana tolika ograničenja iz prošlosti najviše su svjesni potrebe za ograničenjima, čak i kad se radi o tehnologiji. Jednom sam bio u sjedištu Googlea i vidio sam sve one stvari za koje ste mnogi čuli: kućice na drvetu u zatvorenom, trampoline, radnike koji su tada 20 % radnog vremena imali slobodno kako bi mogli pustiti mašti na volju. Ali još me više impresioniralo što mi je, dok sam čekao svoju digitalnu identifikaciju, jedan zaposlenik pričao o programu koji će pokrenuti kako bi brojne zaposlenike Googlea koji se bave jogom naučio kako da postanu treneri. Drugi zaposlenik pričao mi je o knjizi koju namjerava napisati o unutarnjem sustavu za pretraživanje i načinima na koje je znanost empirički dokazala da mirno sjedenje, odnosno meditacija, može rezultirati poboljšanjem zdravlja i jasnijim razmišljanjem, ali i emocionalnom inteligencijom. Imam prijatelja u Silicijskoj dolini koji je zaista jedan od najelokventnijih govornika za najnovije tehnologije i bio je jedan od osnivača časopisa Wired – Kevin Kelly. Kevin je svoju najnoviju knjigu o novim tehnologijama napisao bez pametnog telefona, laptopa ili TV-a u svojem domu. Kao mnogi u Silicijskoj dolini, i on se trudi prakticirati ono što oni zovu internetski šabat, odnosno 24 ili 48 sati svaki tjedan kad budu u potpunosti offline kako bi stavili stvari u perspektivu koja će im trebati kad opet budu online. Jedna stvar koju nam tehnologija nije uvijek davala jest znanje o tome kako ju najpametnije iskoristiti. Kad govorite o šabatu, pogledajte deset zapovijedi: samo se uz jednu riječ spominje svetkovanje, a to je šabat (dan Gospodnji). Uzeo sam Toru, svetu knjigu Židova -- najdulje je poglavlje ono o šabatu. Svi znamo da nam je to zapravo jedan od najvećih luksuza, prazan prostor. U mnogim glazbenim djelima upravo pauza ili odmor daje djelu ljepotu i oblik. Znam da ću ja kao pisac često na stranicama nastojati ostaviti mnogo praznog prostora kako bi čitatelj mogao dovršiti moje misli i rečenice i kako njegova mašta ne bi bila sputana.
Now, in the physical domain, of course, many people, if they have the resources, will try to get a place in the country, a second home. I've never begun to have those resources, but I sometimes remember that any time I want, I can get a second home in time, if not in space, just by taking a day off. And it's never easy because, of course, whenever I do I spend much of it worried about all the extra stuff that's going to crash down on me the following day. I sometimes think I'd rather give up meat or sex or wine than the chance to check on my emails. (Laughter) And every season I do try to take three days off on retreat but a part of me still feels guilty to be leaving my poor wife behind and to be ignoring all those seemingly urgent emails from my bosses and maybe to be missing a friend's birthday party. But as soon as I get to a place of real quiet, I realize that it's only by going there that I'll have anything fresh or creative or joyful to share with my wife or bosses or friends. Otherwise, really, I'm just foisting on them my exhaustion or my distractedness, which is no blessing at all.
U fizičkoj domeni, naravno, mnogi ljudi, ako raspolažu sredstvima, nastojat će imati kuću na selu, drugi dom. Ja nikad nisam ni približno raspolagao takvim resursima, ali ponekad se sjetim da, kad god poželim, mogu si stvoriti drugi dom u vremenu, ako već ne u prostoru, tako da jednostavno uzmem slobodan dan. To nikad nije lako jer, naravno, kad god to činim, velik dio vremena provedem brinući se o svim dodatnim stvarima koje će se sljedećeg dana sručiti na mene. Ponekad mislim da bih se radije odrekao mesa, seksa ili vina nego mogućosti da provjeravam svoje e-mailove. (Smijeh) Svake sezone nastojim se povući na tri dana, ali dio mene još se uvijek osjeća krivim što ostavljam svoju sirotu ženu i što ignoriram sve te naizgled hitne e-mailove od mojih šefova i što možda propuštam prijateljevu rođendansku zabavu. Ali čim dođem na mjesto prave tišine, shvatim da ću samo boravkom ondje imati bilo što novo ili kreativno ili radosno za podijeliti sa svojom ženom ili šefovima ili prijateljima. Inače, zapravo, samo na njih prebacujem svoju iscrpljenost ili nedostatak pozornosti, što nije nimalo blagotvorno.
And so when I was 29, I decided to remake my entire life in the light of going nowhere. One evening I was coming back from the office, it was after midnight, I was in a taxi driving through Times Square, and I suddenly realized that I was racing around so much I could never catch up with my life. And my life then, as it happened, was pretty much the one I might have dreamed of as a little boy. I had really interesting friends and colleagues, I had a nice apartment on Park Avenue and 20th Street. I had, to me, a fascinating job writing about world affairs, but I could never separate myself enough from them to hear myself think -- or really, to understand if I was truly happy. And so, I abandoned my dream life for a single room on the backstreets of Kyoto, Japan, which was the place that had long exerted a strong, really mysterious gravitational pull on me. Even as a child I would just look at a painting of Kyoto and feel I recognized it; I knew it before I ever laid eyes on it. But it's also, as you all know, a beautiful city encircled by hills, filled with more than 2,000 temples and shrines, where people have been sitting still for 800 years or more. And quite soon after I moved there, I ended up where I still am with my wife, formerly our kids, in a two-room apartment in the middle of nowhere where we have no bicycle, no car, no TV I can understand, and I still have to support my loved ones as a travel writer and a journalist, so clearly this is not ideal for job advancement or for cultural excitement or for social diversion. But I realized that it gives me what I prize most, which is days and hours. I have never once had to use a cell phone there. I almost never have to look at the time, and every morning when I wake up, really the day stretches in front of me like an open meadow. And when life throws up one of its nasty surprises, as it will, more than once, when a doctor comes into my room wearing a grave expression, or a car suddenly veers in front of mine on the freeway, I know, in my bones, that it's the time I've spent going nowhere that is going to sustain me much more than all the time I've spent racing around to Bhutan or Easter Island.
I tako sam s 29 godina odlučio promijeniti cijeli svoj život s pomoću odlaženja nikamo. Jedne večeri vraćao sam se iz ureda, prošla je ponoć, bio sam u taksiju i prolazili smo Times Squareom kad sam iznenada shvatio da toliko jurim uokolo da nikad neću moći sustići sâm sebe. A moj je život tada, zapravo, bio više-manje onakav o kakvom sam sanjao kao dječak. Imao sam zaista zanimljive prijatelje i kolege, lijep stan na uglu Avenije Park i 20. ulice, meni fascinantan posao, na kojem sam pisao o situaciji u svijetu, ali nikako se nisam mogao dovoljno od njih odvojiti da bih čuo svoje misli -- ili, zapravo, da bih shvatio jesam li zaista sretan. Stoga sam ostavio svoj život iz snova i zamijenio ga za sobu u uličici u Kyotu, u Japanu. Taj me grad vrlo dugo privlačio na vrlo snažan i tajnovit način. Još kao dijete pogledao bih sliku Kyota i osjećao da ju prepoznajem. Poznavao sam ga prije nego sam ga uopće vidio. Ali to je također, kao što znate, prekrasan grad okružen brdima, s više od 2000 hramova i oltara, gdje ljudi mirno sjede više od 800 godina. Ubrzo nakon što sam se preselio tamo, završio sam na mjestu gdje sam i sada sa ženom, a ranije i s našom djecom, u dvosobnom stanu usred ničega, gdje nemamo bicikl ni automobil ni TV koji bih razumio, a još uvijek moram uzdržavati voljene osobe kao putopisac i novinar, tako da to nije idealno za napredovanje u poslu ni za kulturološka uzbuđenja ni za društvene aktivnosti. Ali shvatio sam da dobivam ono što najviše cijenim: dane i sate. Ondje se nijednom nisam morao poslužiti mobitelom. Gotovo nikad ne moram gledati koliko je sati i svakog jutra kad se probudim, dan se prostire preda mnom poput široke livade. A kad mi dan priredi ružno iznenađenje, kao što je to više puta bio slučaj, kad mi liječnik uđe u sobu s ozbiljnim izrazom lica, kad se na autocesti iznenada ispred mene ubaci drugi automobil, znam, duboko u sebi, da će me vrijeme koje sam proveo idući nikamo održavati mnogo dulje nego sve vrijeme koje sam proveo jureći Butanom ili Uskršnjim otokom.
I'll always be a traveler -- my livelihood depends on it -- but one of the beauties of travel is that it allows you to bring stillness into the motion and the commotion of the world. I once got on a plane in Frankfurt, Germany, and a young German woman came down and sat next to me and engaged me in a very friendly conversation for about 30 minutes, and then she just turned around and sat still for 12 hours. She didn't once turn on her video monitor, she never pulled out a book, she didn't even go to sleep, she just sat still, and something of her clarity and calm really imparted itself to me. I've noticed more and more people taking conscious measures these days to try to open up a space inside their lives. Some people go to black-hole resorts where they'll spend hundreds of dollars a night in order to hand over their cell phone and their laptop to the front desk on arrival. Some people I know, just before they go to sleep, instead of scrolling through their messages or checking out YouTube, just turn out the lights and listen to some music, and notice that they sleep much better and wake up much refreshed. I was once fortunate enough to drive into the high, dark mountains behind Los Angeles, where the great poet and singer and international heartthrob Leonard Cohen was living and working for many years as a full-time monk in the Mount Baldy Zen Center. And I wasn't entirely surprised when the record that he released at the age of 77, to which he gave the deliberately unsexy title of "Old Ideas," went to number one in the charts in 17 nations in the world, hit the top five in nine others. Something in us, I think, is crying out for the sense of intimacy and depth that we get from people like that. who take the time and trouble to sit still. And I think many of us have the sensation, I certainly do, that we're standing about two inches away from a huge screen, and it's noisy and it's crowded and it's changing with every second, and that screen is our lives. And it's only by stepping back, and then further back, and holding still, that we can begin to see what the canvas means and to catch the larger picture. And a few people do that for us by going nowhere.
Uvijek ću biti putnik -- moji životni prihodi ovise o tome -- ali jedna od ljepota putovanja jest to da vam omogućuje da unesete mirnoću u kretanja i previranja u svijetu. Jednom sam sjeo u avion u Frankfurtu, u Njemačkoj. Kraj mene je sjela mlada Njemica i započela sa mnom vrlo prijateljski razgovor koji je trajao oko pola sata, a zatim se samo okrenula i mirno sjedila 12 sati. Nijednom nije upalila svoj monitor, nije izvadila knjigu, nije čak ni zaspala. Samo je mirno sjedila, a njezina jasnoća i mir zaista su utjecali na mene. Primijetio sam da sve više i više ljudi u zadnje vrijeme svjesno poduzima mjere da bi oslobodili prostor u svojim životima. Neki ljudi idu u „offline odmorišta”, u kojima plaćaju stotine dolara po noći da bi svoj mobitel i laptop predali na recepciji pri dolasku. Neki od mojih poznanika prije nego odu spavati, umjesto da pregledavaju poruke ili gledaju YouTube, jednostavno isključe svjetla i slušaju glazbu te su primijetili da spavaju mnogo bolje i bude se odmorniji. Jednom sam imao sreće da se odvezem u visoke, mračne planine oko Los Angelesa, gdje je veliki pjesnik i pjevač i međunarodni lomitelj srca Leonard Cohen mnogo godina živio i radio kao pravi redovnik u Zen centru Mount Baldy. Nisam se naročito iznenadio kad je ploča koju je objavio sa 77 godina i kojoj je namjerno dao neprivlačan naslov „Stare ideje”, skočila na prvo mjesto top lista u 17 zemalja svijeta, i bila među prvih pet u još devet zemalja. Nešto u nama, rekao bih, vapi za tim osjećajem intimnosti i dubokoumnosti kojim odišu takvi ljudi, koji odvajaju vrijeme i trude se mirno sjediti. Mislim da mnogi od nas imaju osjećaj – ja sigurno imam – da stojimo gotovo priljubljeni uz golemi ekran koji je glasan i natrpan i mijenja se svake sekunde. Taj je ekran naš život. Tek kad se odmaknemo, malo pa onda još malo, i stanemo mirno, možemo shvatiti što to platno znači i sagledati širu sliku. Nekoliko ljudi to radi za nas tako što ne idu nikamo.
So, in an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still. So you can go on your next vacation to Paris or Hawaii, or New Orleans; I bet you'll have a wonderful time. But, if you want to come back home alive and full of fresh hope, in love with the world, I think you might want to try considering going nowhere. Thank you. (Applause)
Stoga je u doba ubrzavanja najuzbudljivije ići sporo. U doba odvlačenja pažnje najveći je luksuz obraćati pažnju. A u doba stalnoga kretanja od najveće je važnosti sjediti mirno. Sljedeći put na odmor možete otići u Pariz ili na Havaje ili u New Orleans i siguran sam da će vam biti odlično. Ali ako se kući želite vratiti stvarno živi i puni optimizma, zaljubljeni u svijet, možda biste mogli razmisliti o tome da ne odete nikamo. Hvala vam. (Pljesak)