After last weeks post, a couple of people asked me to see some impressions of the wonderful city of Vienna, Austria. Obviously, I’m more than happy to share a couple of photos with you! As always, they are showing my personal vision (my “passion for light”) rather than the side of the city a marketing department would probably want to sell you. I hope you’ll enjoy them anyway!

In other news, the full edition of Productive Anywhere is almost finished! It will be released on Saturday, TFA’s second birthday! Of course, I will publish all the details here over the weekend, so if you’re interested in working from the road, stay tuned!

But now, let’s dive into some pieces of Vienna!

Time is flying! I already left Berlin after five weeks or so – but wanted to share a couple of visual bits and pieces with you from my stay there.

In other news, I am mostly writing on two things these days:

1. Weird stuff that might become a proposal for a PhD thesis one day. I got seriously inspired after attending an international seminar on political theory here in Cologne, so these thoughts need to be processed. If nothing else, it should at least turn out to be useful for TFA in the long run!
2. My first electronic guide! It’ll be all about getting things done in a smart and gentle way, while seeing the world. If you’re wondering about how to work on the road without missing out on your destinations, this will probably be your thing! More on this project soon – if you want to be the first to know be sure to sign up for Mails Beyond Rules!

Have a happy weekend, everybody!

There’s no internet in Europe! People here still drive around exclusively in horse carriages. And they speak Latin! I had to send this post by snail mail to India, where my not-so virtual assistant transcribed and posted it to my blog!

I took a vow of silence! It’s a spiritual thing. I can talk and laugh and meet nice people, but I absolutely cannot blog. Apparently, this will buy me direct access to paradise.

My dogs ate my laptop! These cute little bastards. My large list of post ideas: Gone. All my drafts: Gone. My already edited, finished, and polished posts: Gone. All that was left were some aluminium crumbles, and a couple of letters from my keyboard.

Meh.
None of these excuses work. I always was a bad liar. So here’s the truth:

I wrote “the book.”
It took longer than I thought. (Actually, as we speak, it’s “still taking.”)

In the end, “the book” needed a couple of months for gestation. It took shape after reading the answers from last year’s reader survey – and I think it was worth the effort. Hope you will like it a lot.

“The book” even has a name and a release date now, and I’m glad to announce it here today:

It’s called Beyond Rules, and it will be published on Tuesday, March 15th.

The more I experimented and the longer I wrote this blog, the more I noticed that the problem with rules is not just one of submitting to questionable authorities. Even in the context of “your life, your rules, your pace,” (see the tagline!) rules are often simply not good enough: They are restrictive rather than permissive, they are stubbornly stable rather than adapting to changing real life situations. What’s more, they take responsibility away from the people, and this is nothing I’d like to promote when it comes to living a conscious and self-determined life.

“Habit is the denial of creativity and the negation of freedom; a self-imposed straitjacket of which the wearer is unaware,” Arthur Koestler wrote. If we unconsciously, yet unconditionally adhere to a fixed set of rules in our lives, the same thing happens.

More on that in the book, an excerpt of which I will publish here in the upcoming days, if my next type-written letter makes it to my Indian assistant.

In other news, I just traveled to Denmark, desperately wanting to see the sea, after living in Cologne, Germany during the last couple of weeks. Here, an ice-cold wind is blowing, but the North Sea is just beautiful, and inspiring me to get the last couple of chapters of “the book” written and edited.

I will be back to Cologne for the launch, and plan to travel to Stuttgart, Hamburg, Berlin, Austria, and probably Southern France later in April and May. Let me know if you’re somewhere near and would like to meet up.

Winter is beautiful – on photos. That’s what I thought when I heard that it snowed for the first time this winter in the city where my parents live. A good reason to stay in the Caribbean for sure (despite the rain here). But also a good reason to look into my archives and find a couple of pictures from the past winters I could take before my fingers froze. Together with a hot cup of coffee (or tea, Michael!) and a couple of highly recommended good reads a decent way to spend a Saturday afternoon – wherever you are in the world!

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“But, here’s the thing: as much as saying so pisses anybody off, I think the topics we’re NOT talking about whenever we disappear into Talmudic scholarship about “full-screen mode” or “minimalist desks” or whatever constitutes a “zen habit”—those shunned topics are precisely the things that I believe are most mind-blowingly critical to our real-world happiness as humans.

In fact, I believe that to such a degree that helping provide a voice for those unpopular topics that can be heard over the din is now (what passes for) my career. I really believe these deeper ideas are worth socializing on any number of levels and in many media. Even when it’s inconvenient and slightly disrespectful of someone’s business model.”

(Gotta love Merlin Mann. This article is long and twisted and it’s worth every minute you spend on reading it. Seriously, this is right to the point in a “not right to the point” kind of way. Love it.)

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How to be interesting: (via)
“Cultivate at least one paradox or contradiction in your life. The best example of this one that I can think of comes from my friend Mark McGuinness. As he said on Wishful Thinking, he writes sensitive poetry yet he’s a huge football fan. Sure seems like a contradiction to me [sounds of bones crunching on the television]. However, these contradictions are made of the stuff that interesting comes from. In other words, contrasting to extremely different interests makes for good conversation.”

(I always felt that I was interested in interesting thing. That’s my passion, I suppose, apart from light. What to make of it? Who knows, but I’ll publish a post with my point of view next Tuesday. Hope it will be, well, interesting.)

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Overwhelmed With Projects? Declare Task Bankruptcy: “A pile of papers to read on the side. A stack of notes for several unrelated projects. Assignments to prepare. Questions to answer by email. Inbox full of unclassified mails. Lectures to prepare. Cluttered office desktop. Cluttered computer desktop.

A few weeks ago, Friday, this was what I saw when I looked at my office desktop. And I decided it was too much to bear and filed my first Task Bankruptcy.”

(You know Ruben Berenguel from the friendly anarchistic comment section and from his recent guest post. He publishes a fun blog on maths, LaTeX (not the sex fetish kind of thing, mind you), cooking and productivity. I love it because it’s such an eclectic mix. As far as I am concerned, much more interesting than these hyper-focused money-making blogs out there. (There: Interesting! I said it again!))

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“Writer Robert Anton Wilson, self-described as “agnostic about everything” is fond of saying “The universe contains a maybe.” I think that’s a good motto. There is an interesting paradox: whenever you state a fact, qualifying it with a “maybe” instantly makes it more accurate.”

(David Cain on how to be right all the time. His blog Raptitude has become a favorite of mine since I discovered it a couple of weeks ago. Brilliant content, but not for quick scanning. You actually need to read what he writes. (That’s why I like it so much, probably.))

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DIY Marketing for the Lost but Ambitious: “Turn your focus into a laser cannon! … Don’t become the dopey Alice who gets lost in the magic kingdom. Know exactly where you want to go and what to aim for!”

(I try to ignore marketing blogs as good as I can. But Mars Dorian just writes too entertaining to be ignored for a long time. How’s that for a plaudit? )

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The passion is in the risk: “We work through the fear that everyone feels. Fear is a very uncomfortable emotion. Most people feel fear and move away from the thing that made them feel fearful. Or they work to contain the process or action that caused the fear. Some work through the fear to feel the love. The work is the love. The process is the fear, The fear is the risk. And the risk is the thing that artists embrace. And that’s what makes the best work work. Knowing that you might fail. … There’s no way to inspiration other than to wake up and want. And to be willing to accept the risk that creates the passion. And that’s why it’s worth it not to copy anyone else but to create your own art and take your own risks. ”

(Kirk Tuck. Wow. I could actually quote the whole thing, and it’s rather long. A must-read for photographers, but also a recommendation for open-minded artists of all sort. Really good stuff, as always.)

It has been a while since the first friendly anarchistic picture post, A Passion for Light. But photography continues to be an important part of my life.

Here is an update with new visuals from Cartagena and the Caribbean.
A small distraction from your workday. I hope you enjoy it!