Best Wishes - A Biosphere Project Blog

Rombon mountain and the Koritnica river, Slovenia, October 2025

Dear Friends,

I had planned a number of posts and Walkie-Talkies for this month of December, but things turned out a bit differently.

Since I started A Biosphere Project, a pattern has emerged that appears quite regularly: without realizing it, I gradually find myself working 24/7 on one of the many things that make up my current ‘work’.  Writing, researching, planning, fundraising, exploring new media, reading papers and essays, or watching interviews and lectures—there is always something to do.

All these things overlap, and partly because I have a habit of doing my work just about everywhere, there is currently hardly any separation between work and everything that can simply be part of ‘life’: quality time with loved ones and friends, relaxation, enjoying a walk without immediately making a video of it, reading a book that is not about some aspect of the meta crisis, listening to music, or enjoying poetry, and so on. Life, in short. I have actually developed a tendency to filter out life itself a little bit in order to be able to work non-stop, or at least be focused non-stop on things related to work. Certainly not a healthy attitude to life!

I am gradually falling into the trap of a kind of workaholism, a permanent state of alertness and ‘sharpness’ in order to be able to perform continuously in this work, which I am really passionate about.

However, my body has found a number of ways to notify me that I am pushing myself beyond my limits and that I am not cherishing and appreciating my body enough. Through a number of symptoms—which become increasingly vicious if I continue to ignore them—my body, with the intelligence that bodies have and which I sometimes suspect is far superior to our ‘mental’ intelligence, lets me know that I am not on the right path and that I need to change something in the way I live and work.

And over the past month, it has become clear that I really need to slow down. Something that, incidentally, is quite difficult for me.

And I can't help myself: even during these few weeks of ‘forced rest’, I am looking ahead, planning (albeit intuitively and without haste), and trying to create a kind of image of where I want to go in the coming year.

The photographic travel project was a vision that shaped my research and my intentions, and even though I already know that both travel and photography will definitely remain part of my being, it is now necessary to recreate that vision, to reshape it.

I need to settle down on the bow of the ship and chart a new course, find another star to navigate by. Perhaps that route will not even be so different from the previous one. But what will be necessary first and foremost is to find a balance between caring for oneself, honoring and enjoying the gift that is life, and leaving room for the simple pleasures that life has to offer, and balancing that with, on the other hand, that relentless sense of urgency, of the suffering of the living world, the feeling that it's all hands on deck and that we have no time to lose.

I wish that balance for everyone, because I think that most people who are somewhat aware of the state of the planet and the biosphere struggle with these things in one way or another. I sometimes hear people talk about a sense of guilt that prevents or at least hinders them from enjoying life. A knowledge that the world is currently not heading in the right direction, to put it with an understatement. Yet it seems to me that we are not going to help the world if we convince ourselves that we should not enjoy life because that life is now in danger for many people and for the other life forms with whom we share the planet.

A book that came into my field of vision at just the right moment is Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Thich, a Vietnamese monk who himself narrowly survived much misery, violence and war, offers valuable advice for anyone trying to maintain mental, emotional, and spiritual balance in times of crisis, war, misery, and disaster, and for anyone who wants to contribute to a better world without burning themselves out in the process. Taking care of yourself and taking care of the planet are two sides of the same coin, something I myself forget more than once.

I would like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and end-of-year period, with plenty of time in the company of loved ones, family, and friends.

I also wish you a wonderful New Year, filled with miracles big and small, and full of love and health and inspiration and all the good things life has to offer.

Life remains a miracle, every day, and I wish everyone (myself included) to continue to realize just that, every day. It is from that realization that we have the best chance of turning our ship around and setting course for a more beautiful world, however distant or impossible that may seem right now.

You will hear from me again in the coming year, and there will be more news about my next steps.

Until then, I wish you all a wonderful time!

P.S.: Speaking of time and New Year, anyone who subscribed to the blog during this year or last year can read the musing ‘Deep Time’ from December 30, 2023. It was one of the first Musings in the series, and  is a short reflection on time in the light of eternity and how we could deal with it differently if we want to leave our distant descendants a world where all life forms can flourish again.

Thank you for reading, and see you next year!

All the best to you,

Filip

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