Mathijs Koenraadt - Return to Freedom: A Traveler’s Thoughts on Life, Love and the Fate of the World

Return to Freedom

Mathijs Koenraadt

Return to Freedom

A Travelers Thoughts on Life, Love and the Fate of the World

First edition 2015 Copyright 2015 by Mathijs Koenraadt

Published by Morningtime www.koenraadt.info

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Paperback ISBN 978-9082327526 E-book ISBN 978-0463764367

Cover image Distant View of the Meadows at s-Graveland by Pieter Gerardus van Os, 1817

Contents

The only one who knows this ounce of words is just a token is he who has a ton to tell, but must remain unspoken.

Louis Thomas Hardin

Preface

Anyone can write a book like this. People are full of wisdom.

Earlier this year, through personal circumstances, I found myself with little income and ample time to evaluate the direction my life had taken. Breaking out of my comfort zone, I wanted to get away from how I had been living to see if I could learn something new. I decided to travel around Europe, passing through as many countries as possible by bus, train or boat, to paint myself a picture of what Europes geography and its people look like.

To fund my trip, I sold most of my belongings, keeping only functional gear, a backpack, clothing, survival tools and cooking equipment, a light-weight hikers tent, and a sleeping bag. To avoid distraction, I traded my smartphone for a dumbphone and left my computer behind in storage.

Snaking my way up from Athens, Greece, where I started, to my final destination Reykjavik, Iceland, I spent many long walks through various cities and diverse nature, thinking about what it really means to be a human being. I jotted down my thoughts in a notebook, which subsequently became this short book, filled with half-finished ideas, thoughts, and aphorisms.

Acknowledgments

During my trip, I met many friendly people, both locals and fellow travelers. The experience of relating to so many positive-minded people changed some of the views I held of others, as well as my view of myself.

I want to thank everyone I have met along my way. I cannot list everyone here, but I wish to mention several people. I want to thank Eugenia from Tirana, Albania, for translating the unfolding events to me during an adventurous nightly bus ride to Skopje, Macedonia. I want to thank Oceane from Varna, Bulgaria, for suggesting a better title for this book, with the word freedom in it, because its about freedom. Stranded in Ungheni, Moldavia, I thankfully met four Russian-speaking women that helped me get a taxi to Iai, Romania, despite our inability to comprehend each other for lack of a common language. I want to thank Odilia, a medical student I met on the train to Cluj-Napoca, Romania, for sharing her insightful thoughts about the world with me. I wish to thank Monica, a woman I met on the shuttle to Budapest, Hungary, for letting me in on an adverse childhood experience, which meant a lot to me. Lastly, I want to thank my brother Martien for always being there for me when I needed someone to listen to me.

Mathijs Koenraadt, Hong Kong, October 24 th , 2015

The Meaning of Love

Lifes unfair. An innocent traffic victim that ended up in a wheelchair may wonder each night, Why me? But perhaps life deals each the blows we can take because no one else could. Life chose us for a reason. At some point in their lives, those that took the biggest blows will learn they have become the strong, and that the world, while fearful of their resentment, seeks guidance in their love. Only the weak turned strong know what love means. We take the blows, so others dont have to.

Love is when two or more people communicate with one another they dont have to earn love, but that they deserve to be loved. When we know we deserve love not for what we do or how we look, but for who we are, this unconditional love immunizes us against the pain we incur even from a great setback.

Unconditional love changes how we perceive ourselves. Once we learn we are lovable simply for being human, we can face dark times with great confidence, because we know we will resurface unscathed. Then we learn that nothing in this world can harm us.

A mothers love communicates her child its worth. The love of a father communicates his child its ability to live in the world. If the world hates you, but your mother loves you, her love shields you from danger and nothing will hurt you. If the world hates you, but your father loves you, his support helps you fight the world and win. When both your parents love you, then no matter what happens you will never lose your capacity for love. You will continue to pass your love on to the world because you dont know any better. By contrast, the unloved suffer greatly. When your mother hates you, you will hate the world for making her hate you. When your father hates you, you will blame yourself for disappointing him. When both your parents hate you, you will wish you were never born.

Whenever we feel unloved, we must learn to stand up for ourselves and say, I deserve to be loved, because my life has value. The pain I feel is real. I dont need drugs or therapy. I need to be believed. Self-love means to embrace the belief the future will change for the better, and that you will be there when it does.

Abuse communicates the lie we are unlovable. It wants us to believe there is something innately wrong with us, and that we must earn love through loyalty and obedience, making up for our faults, always asking others for permission to live our own lives. While we cannot force others to love us, we can learn to love ourselves. Self-love, not egotism, teaches us, despite our endless struggles with ourselves to the point of questioning our own humanity, we have the right to refuse to work for love. Healing self-doubt, we will come to see the pain we suffered was never our fault, but the fault of our abusers incapacity for love.

Forgiveness denies self-love and blocks healing because by extending others forgiveness for their past abuse, we confirm in their eyes our negative self-worth. Thus, rather than winning the love we seek from them, forgiveness legitimizes our maltreatment and denies our pain, because we strengthen the abusers false beliefs about us.

It is a misconception that we ought to let go of the past, i.e. to forget and pretend the past never happened. When we deny our past, we deny the life we have lived that made us who we are today. While we should not dwell on the past in such a repetitive manner that it stops us from growing as persons, we can only heal past pain when we consciously face the dark we hid inside us. Then we learn who we really are and why we have become this way. Accepting the truth about our existence, we can stop blaming ourselves.

The fight against something we hate weakens us, the battle for something we love strengthens us. The struggle for self-love never exhausts us.

Hate is sown in destructed childrens souls.

The Truth about Money and Wealth

Most people feel every day anew that they have to work more for less life. Working for money means to sell your productivity today for the promise, but not the guarantee, of future wealth. The promise of wealth preoccupies our minds as we slave away at artificial jobs, doing meaningless work. The prime-time lives of the rich and famous shame us into poverty, thinking we must be at fault for being poor, or that we are not good enough to deserve a better life. But money can never buy the things we really want. Money is a lie, a false prophet. The freedom we look for is not for sale. More than material wealth, we seek recognition, the kind of positive regard only loved ones can give us.