My location is in the middle of the field on a tractor. The radio is broadcasting the local radio station while I am waiting for the harvester to make its turn so I can take the next five tons of grain back home. While waiting I think on my past trip to Dresden and the paper-clog that had been waiting for my attention since I started my masters. As I tend to always be on the move spending time in a different country I have a lot of paperwork waiting for my attention. Much of it is what a good friend of mine would call repetitive boredom and consists of tasks or information hardly worth my attention. I spent three days working everything out and I have now recycled almost everything. The few exceptions consisted of letters or postcards (I find these very motivating, even if they carry bad news, as there is something special about a handwritten note!) and a grant I was awarded.

This process also got me started on sorting out things I had in storage for years. Several times I pondered on giving everything to a second-hand shop as much of it is stuff I will not use for years, if at all. This also took days and during this a friend of mine called to hear how I am and tell me he was moving. Naturally I offered him help and met him the day after. In the moving process he asked me what I was doing with all my ‘stuff’ when I was moving around from country to country? If I brought it with me every time and if so how I did it? The answer was simple as I said ‘I have everything in two bags!’. He looked at me for a while and then towards his two car-loads, which we had just finished up packing.

It made me think on what mobility is? A few wise men have said following about it:

Birds have wings; they’re free; they can fly where they want when they want. They have the kind of mobility many people envy.

Roger Tory Peterson

There are two types of minds – the mathematical, and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the dive.

Blaise Pascal

Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.

Eric Hoffer

Though my answer to my friend came promptly I am still left somewhat dazzled about it. I used to have at least as much stuff as my friend and now I have two bags (one of which is filled with academic books, notes and the like). I also feel a little like Clooney in the movie Up In The Air. Everything suddenly has to be lean and it is almost in line with RyanAir’s maximum 15kg philosophy. Somehow I have managed to develop this eccentric need for being mobile and the freedom that comes with it. The idea of planing three weeks ahead suddenly causes distress and uneasiness.

The irony is that most people feel this way if things are not sorted out in advance or by a lack of structure. It is my belief that as an international student mobility is either a demand or gift depending on whom you ask. This made me curious on what experiences you may have had and how you deal with it and what is mobility for you?

Share a comment below or write me in person on kasse86@gmail.com. I am curious for your thoughts.