Be the change ebook

Marek KamińskiInterviewed by Joanna Podsadecka

Be the change

Instytut Marka Kamińskiego

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@MarekKaminskiExplorer

@marekkaminskiexplorer

@MarekKaminski

@Marek Kamiński Explorer

@Marek Kamiński

Table of contents

1. Emotions poles apart

2. Awaiting your self-discovery

3. The conventions that hold us prisoner

4. The limits are in your mind

5. Crazy about these ends of the Earth

6. A winter in the middle of summer

7. Yes, there is a way!

Do osadzenia

1. Emotions poles apart

I would recharge my car using electricity; but also sheer will and the help of the many good people I’d meet along the way. Without their help I wouldn’t have made it too far and wouldn’t have crossed Siberia and the Gobi Desert.

We are here to discuss your green journey project — No Trace Expedition, during which you travelled from Poland to Japan, through Siberia, and back. What does ‘no trace’ mean exactly?

Marek Kamiński: I would call it a techno — environmental expedition. People tend to narrow down phrases like ‘eco’ and ‘green’ to refer to healthy food and recycling waste, wanting to turn back the clock to make the world like it used to be. I wanted my endeavour to show something different — what the world could become if we adhered to the No Trace philosophy. It’s how technology could serve the environment and make the world a better place.

My first encounter with the idea of No Trace was at the Sonoma Mountain Zen Centre in San Francisco. I was invited there by Master Jakusho Kwong, author of No Beginning, No End: the Intimate Heart of Zen, a book that made me realise meditation is not in conflict with Western and Christian ideas. Initially, I was not looking to reform my point of view — I flew to San Francisco to meditate, not learn about different rites and religions (I explored this concept in the first book you and I wrote together: Go Your Own Way). During those two weeks of seclusion, I would begin each day at three or four in the morning and meditate while working. There were different rules in effect than those in my normal life. One of these rules was: leave no trace — do not make a mess and do not disturb the space you are in. These rules were displayed everywhere, on signs in the kitchen and in the bathroom. Leave no trace.

I realised that this philosophy could be applied in a broader context. It’s about not influencing the environment in any negative way and, if possible, positively influencing the minds of people you meet along the way. That was one of the core ideas of my journey. I wanted to prove that technology doesn’t always have to damage the environment. It too, can be put to work to protect and preserve the environment. Sure, there are technologies like coal power plants that can be considered bad for the environment because of the damage they inflict. But there are also good technologies, like electric cars, that don’t pollute the environment.

I can sense the philosophy of minimalism engrained in your expedition…

Sure. You could argue that a truly minimalist approach would be going to Japan on foot, but I found a different way to frame it. My car had to become my home. I quickly realised that leaving no trace behind is not about hanging on to your waste to dispose of it later but about not producing so much of it in the first place. And, in order not to produce so much waste, you must limit your consumption. This analysis led me to believe that for the no trace idea to work you have to consume less, effectively becoming a minimalist.

Before setting out on your journey, you said that you would take all waste products with you. You also tried out some clothes you would not have to wash too often. Did any of these practices work?

Microfibre clothing has definitely passed the test. Improving the qualities of fabrics on the molecular level results in improved performance — less odour, more resistance to stains and better breathability. Shirts made from microfibre cotton stay fresh for longer than regular shirts and you don’t have to wash them so often, so you end up saving water. I washed my microfibre clothes every two weeks. It may seem counter-intuitive at first, but it’s possible to limit your impact on the environment with the proper technology.

When it comes to taking my rubbish with me, something I had planned back in Poland, I decided against it in Japan. Everything there has already been packed, at least four times, before it even gets to you — a plastic bag in a bag, inside another bag. I decided to take some rubbish with me and leave some behind, because in Japan, sorting rubbish is a common enough practice and I think this approach is more environmentally friendly. I didn’t want to make my life on the road too artificial, I simply wanted to live like a person who tries not to negatively impact the environment. Of course, I could’ve decided to simply bring along a huge garbage bag, but I realised it would defeat the purpose. Instead, I made a habit of writing down what I had consumed, to become aware of just how much it was and make conscious decisions to limit my consumption. I drank from a reusable mug and ate from a reusable plate. Still, some things could not be avoided - for example, I found that buying coffee would always involve some kind of wrapping or container. It’s just like at home. Nobody has thought of it just yet.

Most of my assumptions before No Trace Expedition came true. I drove my electric car without a backup generator and without being towed.

There seems to be a radical vibe in your journey - you are adamant not to leave a trace, yet you insist on leaving something behind in people’s minds…

Yes, I want to leave a positive impact in the minds of other people.

Are you saying these two approaches are not mutually exclusive?

They aren’t. It’s about not leaving any negative traces and by all means leaving some good ones. Before this journey came to fruition, I had a conversation with my friend and renowned alpinist, Wojciech ‘Voytek’ Kurtyka. I told him I wanted to go to Japan by car, that Japan had been calling for me. He suggested I should get there the same way I got to the North and South Pole, where the only things I had been leaving behind were my ski and sleigh prints, which would eventually disappear in the snow. I left behind a far more permanent trace in the minds of everyone who had been following my previous expeditions. I remembered the beautiful sight of those marks in the snow, blown away by the wind mere moments after I had made them. When it wasn’t windy, I could see a thread-like trail left by my skis and sleigh — my entire day’s journey.

I thought about what Voytek had said. I began to wonder if there was a way to get to Japan other than by plane. If I drove a regular car, it would produce exhaust fumes. That’s why I went with an electric car which doesn’t damage the environment. And so, the idea that formed in my mind was a synergy of the inspiration I took from reaching the North and South Pole in 1995, and the No Trace philosophy I took to heart after my stay at the Zen temple in San Francisco. I began asking myself if I could repeat the method I had employed to reach the poles. Back then I carried all my rubbish with me, though it wasn’t a lot, really. The journey to Japan had similar objectives to those previous expeditions.

A while ago I read an interview with the writer Magdalena Tulli, in which she had said: ‘And who is this person, “myself”? I am a vessel into which a bit of the world has poured in’. If you were to comment on this quote, you would probably emphasise human impact on the natural world. Am I right?

Sure. I would stress that people have a mission to carry out; we can’t influence everything of course, but definitely more than we think. Earlier today, I came across this short anecdote about destiny. A lion and a hare are having an argument. The lion says how important destiny is and the hare says that the most essential thing is what’s inside us, our inner might. I think these ideas are not at odds with each other.

I’m currently reading The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil. The author ponders the question of what makes a human being. We live in an era where we can practically start becoming cyborgs. It is already happening with artificial limbs, heart valves, pacemakers, prostheses and neural implants. The answer to the age-old question — what makes one human — is changing. We seem to think we are the end product, the pinnacle of evolution. That all the major milestones have already taken place. Yet history shows us that nothing can be taken for granted. Some species have been around for longer than others and some have become extinct. Another interesting question: what will come after us? Will evolution create something better? Will a part of us survive? How close will technology and humanity become? Will humanity transform into a new species? Are we a force of nature or a mere reflection of it? Maybe we are what we absorb from the world? And then, there is another curious question: what will become of humanity?

We are definitely a vessel into which the world is pouring in, but this chalice also has an essential structure (which is important) and some kind of purpose. This purpose or destiny can be understood as something that ought to occur, but also as a mission that we have to fulfil. It’s possible we may not be hearing it, but we may be able to deduce it. I support the notion that there are two ways one can discover their destiny. The first involves tuning into yourself and letting your destiny take you on a journey — it’s without a doubt the most profound feeling one can experience. We just know it. The second way is to be vigilant, to uncover our destiny in time before we miss it. If we don’t manage to find it, it’s like an unopened letter inside us that we know nothing about.

In an ideal world we would find our destiny and intuitively do everything to fulfil it. You often say that we have the power to transform the world, but we sometimes lack the courage. I wonder about all these people that have found their vocation, but, at some stage, lost their faith in the belief they could change the world. There is an album, Photographs That Have Not Changed the World, containing photographs of the famed Polish war correspondent Krzysztof Miller, published after he had committed suicide. Miller was overwhelmed by the evil he had seen in the world. The title of the book is very grim. But I dare think his photographs might have changed the world after all. Didn’t his life and death have some impact? Is it easy to quantify what remains after a person has passed away?

I think every person contributes to changing the world somehow. Sometimes these changes are visible, even so spectacular that we can attribute them to particular people; and sometimes they are stimuli that affect others and, in turn, change them. Sometimes the impact will be felt deeply but the individual who has sent that impulse may never realise it. Very often we forget about the deciding catalyst, the sudden revelation, the origin of our decision. This origin can be a photograph we have seen before, for example. In that sense, we truly are a vessel into which some of the world has poured in. This world is also made up of other people and the ideas they care about.

I remember a lot of Krzysztof Miller’s photographs taken in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia, Rwanda and the Balkans…I recall the exact album you’ve mentioned. I also remember Krzysztof’s death. I am certain that his photographs have changed the world but probably not as spectacularly as he would have wished. He changed the world through his sensitivity, through the way he shaped his destiny. He touched other people. He was cornered by the very evil he had captured in his images, for the world to cry over and then find a way to root it out. After all, the evil that surrounds us can kill any of us unless we stand against it. It’s similar with bacteria. If we don’t have a well-functioning immune system, many of these bacteria can kill us. If we don’t strengthen our defence mechanisms, we can get killed by ruthlessness. Unfortunately, often the most sensitive of people cannot deal with painful experiences, recurring horrific images and hurtful memories. More and more people are suffering from depression. I’ve recently visited Japan, a country where suicide is quite common. I believe the most common cause is the lack of profound relations with the environment. This is proportional with technology given suicide is more apparent in rich and well-developed, prosperous countries, where social contact is achieved through technology. People die in places where the importance of interpersonal relationships has diminished, because they’ve lost their reason to live.

Sometimes they die because they cannot find the meaning of life. At other times, we would really like to know the meaning of death. I’ve just thought of the actress Anna Przybylska. She was your neighbour. She was gorgeous, young and a mother of three kids. Her death shocked the entire country.

Sometimes we would do our grocery shopping together early in the morning. I live near the beach in Gdynia Orłowo and she lived nearby. There is only one shop in the vicinity that’s open at six in the morning. We would see each other there. My children and hers go to the same school.

When a young person that is full of life dies, everyone starts questioning the meaning of life and thinking about what we leave behind. Do you think about this stuff?

Actually, I don’t think about it that often. I concentrate on the best way to be here and now. I am aware that my books will be my legacy. Sometimes I get letters from people telling me that my books have helped them. Having read a few of these letters, I now spend more time pondering the power of books. This says a lot because I’ve been big into books since I was little. I’m impressed every time someone tells me that one of my books has helped them find themselves, manifest their most secret of desires or overcome depression. Funny enough, my book My Poles has even helped one person overcome their bipolar disorder, pun intended!

Can you tell me more about this reader of yours overcoming his bipolar disease?

When I was in Brussels, walking the Santiago de Compostela trail, I received a Facebook message from a stranger, asking me if he could join me for one day. He showed up, we had something to eat and he accompanied me on my path for one day. With the exception of Poland, I didn’t get that many companions en route and certainly not for that long, so I asked him why he bothered. He began telling me that he had been suffering from bipolar disorder, which consists of recurring periods of depression and sudden euphoria. At the same time, he is a businessman and a successful entrepreneur, travelling around the world. He told me that whenever he feels an onset of the disease, euphoria or depression, he reads My Poles. Specifically, the bit with the following quote: ‘it’s cold, it’s not going to get any warmer’. When I wrote that particular part, I meant to say that when the temperature had dropped to -60°C, I would wish it weren’t so. Extreme sub-zero temperatures are fun for an hour or so, but life becomes tremendously difficult when you have to survive in such cold conditions for 24 hours a day. During my first trip to the North Pole, after a few days in these conditions I nearly gave up the idea that Wojciech Moskal and I could reach our destination. So, I wrote: ‘it’s cold, it’s not going to get any warmer’. It was about acknowledging the situation. We often think that acceptance means we are powerless over the situation. That’s not true — acceptance can give you strength. There is no point fighting something you can’t defeat. If you can’t exert command over something you cannot possibly control, it’s better to concentrate on something you can influence instead. Even despite the cold things can work out. Because I’m the one who has chosen my destination and I’m in the middle of achieving that goal. The fact that it’s cold and not about to get warmer doesn’t mean I have to feel bad. My wellbeing doesn’t have to depend on having got used to the belief that feeling warm is a good thing. Writing down the phrase ‘it’s cold, it’s not going to get any warmer’ empowered me. I emancipated myself from my suffering.

The man I met in Brussels finds the above sentence helpful when he gets an onset of his condition. If that works for him, it makes me happy. The poles, bipolar disorder…I’m fascinated by the similarities and differences in these two terms. The poles contain power. A bipolar disorder has a different kind of power. Two poles at the two ends of the Earth. Emotions poles apart. Think about it.

This reminds me of a phrase from the latest book by Wiesław Myśliwski, Eye of a Needle: ‘the world is changed by words, just as words are changed by the world.’ The story you’ve just told me validates this notion pretty well.

One of my acquaintances, who runs a large company, had been experiencing some serious problems with his target market. He wrote down the sentence ‘it’s cold, it’s not going to get any warmer’ on a wall. Everybody would like it if difficult situations became easier to bear. Yet, finding a solution does not entail changing the temperature (as we can’t control it) but changing our way of thinking. If people aren’t buying our products it means we need to come up with new ways of doing things. After all, consumers aren’t suddenly going to crave our products just because we want them to. Instead, we have to accept the status quo and find a way, propose a new solution, overcome the conventions that hold us prisoner.

Our conversation is taking place not long after the murder of the Mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz. There’s been a lot of talk in Poland about how hate speech is changing the world we’re living in. Can a senseless death, like his, bring some sense into the world?

Everything definitely has its place. I hope there is no such thing as death that doesn’t matter, that there are tragic events without sorrow and that have changed nothing. There is definitely a deeper sense behind the death that has stirred us. I would like to live in a different world without such occurrences. But things are different.

I’ve never associated Gdańsk with violence before. On the last day of the Wielka Orchiestra Świątecznej Pomocy final, I went for a morning run from my home to Gdańsk. Once again, like thousands of times before, I was amazed with the city I am so attached to. On 13 January, I ran 10 kilometres from Gdynia Orłowo through Sopot and to Gdańsk. I thought about the beauty and wonder of the entire Tricity. A few hours later, I took off to San Francisco. When I touched down, I got a message from my wife that Paweł had been stabbed. A little while later, due to the time difference, I learnt that he had passed away. I continued my trip, monitoring everything that had been happening in Poland.

The City of Gdańsk, the Mayor’s deputy — Aleksandra Dulkiewicz - and the Mayor’s colleagues urged everyone to see some good in the evil that had occurred. People spontaneously congregated in public squares to be together and were genuinely kind to each other. You could once again feel that Gdańsk was a part of history, that the feeling of solidarity was re-emerging. I wonder how long will that week last in the collective Polish memory, how will it transform Poland? Events like these put the right perspective on things, in a country that’s engulfed in petty squabbles on a daily basis.

That death has certainly borne fruit, which in itself is a paradox. It made us admit that hate speech has indeed spread far and wide. After his assassination, the image of Paweł in the media was different to the one that had been promoted over the course of 2018. I don’t intend to get into politics here, but it’s amazing how his death changed the way we think about him, how all the good that he had done for Gdańsk was made manifest through his departure.

I first met Paweł Adamowicz at a strike in 1988. Sometime later, in 1997, I received from him the Medal of St Adalbert. Paweł had already been councillor and chair of the city council. We would continue to meet in various circumstances. He was a kind and a very open person. At the same time, he was assertive and aware of his self-worth, exhibiting strong beliefs and maintaining such goodness, essence, humility. You don’t see that among politicians very often. I’ve no doubt that he had made his mark on Gdańsk and its residents. His memory, and the values he believed in, live in us. As do the ideas he believed in and stood for. A lot can be heard and understood in the silence that follows someone’s death. The book Gdańsk. A community, written by Paweł just before his death, has gained a new meaning today.

You’ve mentioned another topic I wanted to cover. In December 2018, Krzysztof Warlikowski delivered a speech at the European Parliament. His address was far from optimistic when it came to culture, but, suddenly, there was a glimmer of hope. The Polish stage director said: ‘I believe in books. One could say that a few books isn’t going to change the world. But our responsibility is based on the fact that we believe in the effectiveness of the impact of art and thought. Otherwise, there is no point. Otherwise, we lose ground to commercialism — a binary world where, sooner or later, everyone — rich or poor — becomes unhappy, frustrated and loathing of democracy that had once given them a choice, but then neglected it.

Intellectuals around the world have been, for some time, arguing that — in a nutshell — the future of the world will be decided not by economics but by deeply humanist ideas. This is why they’re appealing for investment in humanities, a field that has had its funding reduced in the last few years. This would supposedly overcome the crisis of values due to ‘economisation’, or the retreat from intangible reality. Do you think it would be a good direction?

I don’t feel there’s ever been a period in human history where ideas were not important. I have a problem with defining what humanism is. For me, mathematics is the most human of sciences, even though for most people it isn’t. Even Oppenheimer’s idea to create the atomic bomb is proof of the power of humanism. It’s everything that can be theorised and made by people. The essence of humanism is creativity and our constant drive to create, be it linguistic, artistic or tangible. I’m aware that when we think of humanists today, we often limit our thinking to those that study or practice art, language and culture.

In order to go against those who look at economic charts and seek to maximise profit, one must invest in those who wonder how we can make the world more unified. The language of economy has become the main language of capitalism. It seems that today we need to be reminded that our species is not called homo economicus. We forget that we ought to create the world together, make collaborative decisions instead of being passive consumers.

As I’ve said before, for me, the integral part of humanism is creativity. There are economists who engage in copy-paste work of looking at charts and figuring out financial activities that will make them more money — that’s what drives them. But there are those like Muhhammad Yunus from Bangladesh, ‘the banker of the poor’, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for creating the microloan system for people in poverty. Everything — engineering, economy, language — can be a tool for changing the world for the better. In my view, humanism is seen in the values we stand for, so that words, paintbrushes or bar graphs are tools that can be used to implement the ideas we hold dear into practice.

For instance, the creation of online reality is testament to the ideas of those who wanted to connect people around the world, share words and images, to those who dreamed of fast transfer of information.