Hong Kong-based magazine CoBo has just published my interview with Norwegian art collector and adventurer Erling Kagge. There is a line of the interview that is applicable well beyond collecting, and definitely struck a chord with me: “To be an art collector you must be obsessed. It is beyond rationality and there is a bit of insanity in it. Many people have hobbies, they might collect stamps or cars. I personally don’t have hobbies, for me both expeditions, art collecting and publishing are different aspects of the same thing called “lifestyle”. I’m all in and I don’t set boundaries between my private life, my life as a collector, or as an explorer.”
I believe that this concept of “being all in” for the things you love, is what ultimately leads to a beautiful life. For me personally this state can be find in the technique; whether it is writing, the martial arts or creating stories. But it can also translate in simply deeply listening to a friend when he’s telling you about his take on Rudolf Steiner’s theories in front of a cup of coffee. It is that sense of connection with everything you have committed to do in depth. It creates a communion of ideas, people, nature, everything around us. It puts us in a network, as opposed to making us feeling disconnected.
So for me today it is not really about asking the point of doing a particular activity, but it is rather about recognizing what learning and practicing whatever type of activity or art in depth can make to your life. This goes especially for those privileged few of us which have time every now and then to incur in existential crisis. But I’m going off topic…
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