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.



thumbnail_Thomas-Bruhn.jpg

Thomas-Bruhn.jpg

Thomas Bruhn

<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><h4>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><hr>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;<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Life_Death_Fear_pupose1_14b2189385.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T17:53:59.104Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr>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?<hr><hr><h4>I want to be a watering can for the plans&nbsp; I see growing as seeds in the middle of concrete environments. I feel like I’m standing in the middle,&nbsp; keeping a crack open so that something can grow.</h4><hr><hr>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.<hr>

Life, death, fear, and purpose

<h4>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.</h4><h4>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.</h4><hr>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;<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/A_sustainable_mindset2_f26c785097.jpg" alt="">&nbsp;<hr>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;<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/A_sustainable_mindset3_0481ee2a7a.jpg" alt="">&nbsp;<hr> &nbsp;&nbsp;<hr><h4>Everything that happened&nbsp; when I let go of planning&nbsp; was such a blissful experience.</h4>&nbsp;<hr> &nbsp;&nbsp;<hr>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.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/A_sustainable_mindset4_8821ab4181.jpg" alt="">&nbsp;<hr><hr><h4>I feel that in any moment&nbsp; I’m a human being,&nbsp; I’m an organism,&nbsp; I am Nature in myself.</h4>&nbsp;<hr> &nbsp;&nbsp;<hr>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.<hr>To be continued.We thank our partner, the Spirit of Humanity Forum, for facilitating this interview.&nbsp;<hr> &nbsp;&nbsp;<hr><h4>Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL</h4>&nbsp;<hr>