Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
bedsheet—read:
Lev livet kunstnerisk! Kun døde fi sk fl yder med strømmen
(“Live life artistically! Only dead i sh follow the current”). h ose marching
l ew the Christiania l ag—three yellow dots on an orange background. h
ey
say the dots are from the o's in “Love Love Love.”
While I wouldn't choose to live in Christiania, I would feel a loss if
it were shut down. h ere's something unfortunately brutal about a world
that makes the little Christianias—independent bookstores, family farms,
nomadic communities, and so on—i ght giants (such as developers, big
chains, agribusiness, and centralized governments) to the death. h ose eco-
nomic and governmental behemoths always seem to win. And when they
do, we may become safer and wealthier and even more comfortable...but it
all comes at a cost.
h e need for a Christiania is not limited to the Danes. After that trip,
from the comfort of my suburban Seattle living room, I stumbled upon live
TV coverage of the i nale of the Burning Man Festival (the annual mass-
ing of America's artistic free spirits each Labor Day in the Nevada desert).
Watching it, I heard the cry of an American fringe community that—much
like the tribe at Christiania—wants to be free in an increasingly intercon-
nected world that demands conformity.
Traveling in Denmark, considering well-ordered Danish social-ism and
rel ecting on the free-spirited ideals and struggles of Christiania, gives me
insight into parts of my own society that refuse to be just another brick in
the wall. Hopefully when the pressures of conformity require selling a bit of
our soul, travel experiences like these help us understand the potential loss
before it's regrettably gone.
Denmark is a riddle that I love puzzling over. On the one hand, their
dedication to their social contract is the bedrock of their insistent happiness.
On the other, in their longstanding acceptance of Christiania, the Danes
seem to be unusually tolerant of free spirits. I imagine that the dramatic ten-
sion between these extremes is part of what keeps Danish life interesting…
both for the Danes and for us visitors. As all societies vie to win the “most
contented” surveys, traveling reminds us that contentment is based not on
surrendering to conformity, but in i nding that balance between working well
together and letting creative spirits run free.
