We recently took the regional train to our weekend hideaway, an hour away from Berlin. I love traveling by train in Berlin, because many tracks are high above ground, and you get a good view of the city. We travelled East from our home in Mitte (city centre), where the tracks run along the river Spree. There's a magnificent spot around a station called Warschauer Strasse, where the river runs wide, various bridges zig-zag across the river, there's an impressive art piece in the middle of the water, and a view of the skyline and TV-tower (the "Alex"). Right there, at this spot, is a new high office building. The thought that crossed my mind was that "I'd like to work in that office right there, overlooking this view". Perhaps I've been wrong in concentrating on the "what" (i.e. substance) or work for so long, and have forgotten that I find the "where" very important as well (i.e. surroundings, people, atmosphere, even status symbols such as a nice building).
Then again, I was reading Paul Auster's Winter Journal yesterday, which is an autobiographical story about how he became what he is - and part of that includes where he lived and worked. As a young, struggling writer in New York, he lists quite a few dumps, stating that it never mattered where he wrote, as long as he had a place. So maybe it's about feeling truly comfortable about what you do, and everything else is irrelevant.
At the end of the day, substance probably trumps location for me, but the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Or in trying to have it all….
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