"Let us say that the freedom exists, but it is limited to the one unique act of choosing the profession. Afterward all freedom is over. When he begins his studies at the university, the doctor, lawyer, or engineer is forced into an extremely rigid curriculum which ends with a series of examinations. If he passes them, he receives his license and can thereafter pursue his profession in seeming freedom. But in doing so he becomes the slave of base powers; he is dependent on success, on money, on his ambition, his hunger for fame, on whether or not people like him. He must submit to elections, must earn money, must take part in the ruthless competition of castes, families, political parties, newspapers. In return he has the freedom to become successful and well-to-do, and to be hated by the unsuccessful, or vice versa."

"To be capable of everything and do justice to everything, one certainly does not need less spiritual force and èlan and warmth, but more. What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. Where passion dominates, that does not signify the presence of greater desire and ambition, but rather the misdirection of these qualities toward an isolated and false goal, with a consequent tension and sultriness in the atmosphere. Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen."

Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

To get to know people

Interests

Textile arts
Contemporary art
Polish literature after 1945
Ottonian manuscripts
Scandinavian culture, especially Norwegian literature and art

• arts
• contemporary art
• dancing
• modernism
• polish literature

Music, Movies, and Books

The Waves, Orlando, To the Lighthouse (V. Woolf)
Der Steppenwolf, H. Hesse
H. Muller, E.Jelinek
Scandinavian Literature

Nico&Velvet Underground

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

After I've broken my spine I learned to walk.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Monaco, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Poland