Dr. Michael Wayne

Happiness is…Being a Free Spirit

I end this series on Happiness – and I also begin a two week summer hiatus (I’m off to do some Low Density Lifestyle living) – with the above incredible time lapse video that captures the spirit of living a Low Density Lifestyle.

Christoph Rehage walking in China
Christoph Rehage walking in China

The video is about being FREE – which stands for Flow, Relax, and Effortless Effort – and about finding happiness by being a free spirit.

Now, this is not the way you have to live in order to live a Low Density Lifestyle. It is just this person’s way. It works for him, while what works for you is your choice.

The video is about Christoph Rehage and his one-year walk on foot through China, covering 4646 km, or roughly 2900 miles. He calls it The Longest Way. But the video doesn’t give a linear progression as much as a time lapse progression of the growth of Christoph’s beard.

Once you watch it you’ll see what I mean. And hopefully it will inspire you to begin your own journey into finding how you can live a Low Density Lifestyle.

Here are some particulars of the journey and video, taken from the Christoph Rehage’s notes:

It took place from November 9th 2007 – November 13th 2008
one year on foot – 4646km through China
unlimited beard & hair growth
thelongestway.com [my note: the website may or may not be working right now]
musical score by the kingpins (myspace.com/theoneandonlykingpins) and zhu fengbo

And here is some additional info that Christoph Rehage supplies:

– I never finished my original goal of walking to Germany. Instead, I walked for a year and roughly 4500km, passed the desert of Gobi, and then decided to stop walking for now.

– All of the distance from Beijing to Ürümqi has been completed solely on foot, straight good old walking. There are instances where you can see me in the video sitting on a plane or riding a boat, but those are during breaks I had to take from walking, either to sort out bureaucracy issues or to take care of some personal things.

– I had been planning this trip for over a year before I even started, and getting as far as I got was an experience for which I am very grateful.

– Obtaining the necessary visa for a trip like this was not very easy, hence I had to go back to Beijing a few times to resolve some issues.

– The songs I used in the video are 1) Zhu Fengbo – “Olive Tree” and 2) The Kingpins – “L’aventurier” – visit the Kingpins website if you want to know more, they are very cool I think.

– This is not a strict “1 pic a day” video, because I wanted to make it a bit more alive by adding some additional movement. Sometimes during the film you would follow me turn around, or something would happen in the background. I tried to capture these moments to make the video more interesting.

– The core of this project is in fact my website www.thelongestway.com where I have posted my extensive travel diary, starting from day 1 (Nov 9th 2007) and describing every single day until the end one year later.

One last note: if you read our Summer Hours, you’ll know that for the summer we are publishing articles one less day a week, 4 days instead of our usual 5 days.

But this time around, when we see you again with the next article on this upcoming Tuesday, this will be the last article for two weeks because we will be on summer hiatus until Tuesday Aug. 25.

Until then, enjoy!

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