Exit Strategies & Other Small Things

And then you have four days off over Christmas, and thoughts start creeping in.I actually wanted to take my bike onto the Brisbane Rail Trail, 170 km through nowhere, bush, gravel, from Ipswich to Yarraman. I bought water bladders, packed my gear, checked the weather and decided that in my current condition it would border on suicide.

This humidity is still hitting me hard. I’m constantly dehydrated. I drink too little, and when I do, it’s often the wrong thing. Too much outdoor exercise, too much stress (not in a negative sense), constantly busy, twelve hours a day (the usual workload). Cortisol levels high, and we all know what that leads to. Poor nutrition, increased weight. All in all, I decided not to put myself through that ordeal. Also because it’s crunch time right now, end of year and I actually enjoy delivering. So I used the days to relax. Or to reflect, however you want to call it. As if to confirm it, I went on a short bike ride on Thursday. After a brief sprint, I got off in front of my favourite coffee place, circulation. A brief wobble, sat down for a moment. Anyone else would probably have had a panic attack. For me, it was just confirmation of what I already knew: I need to change something. Not just something, I need to change quite a lot and get things back on track.

Managing my own resources. That the humidity still hits me this hard? Most of the time you sit in air-conditioned rooms. Our office is particularly cold due to certain peculiarities. At home, I usually have the AC on as well. And in between, you move around in at least 60% humidity and 30 degrees. Nothing that should really shock me, but it does. I guess I’m getting old. So I looked at the whole thing from a scientific perspective and realised: I’m doing a lot of things wrong again. Especially my hydration, my diet, and yes, my stress management. Why? I came from a stable system and migrated into a new environment. That change pushed me back into old patterns. Time to get back into routine. I created a nutrition plan and a training plan over the last few days. Back to higher protein, back to oats, back to berries, back to more sleep. And what matters here in Brisbane: not just drinking water, but adjusting salt intake, increasing electrolytes, especially for outdoor sports. Breakfast before training (not fasted, better here). Drink. Less coffee. Much less coffee. Much more water with electrolytes.

That will be difficult at first, because it’s not a return to old habits. No, it’s adapting to the conditions. We’ll see. As long as I don’t go back to smoking and drinking alcohol, it’s not completely too late. And as it always goes, with the new year just around the corner, of course we’ll start on January 1st. The road to hell is full of good intentions.

What really bothers me is how much you can deteriorate in just one year. I’ll be 50 in six months. So losing the unnecessary 20 kg should be doable. It’s not the first time. Just stay disciplined, stay on track, don’t let yourself get derailed. Should work. Damn it (he repeats like a mantra). That was the first part of the self-reflection. I have that under control, it’s manageable. What I don’t fully control, or maybe I do? A certain routine is creeping back in. I don’t want to call it boredom, but… not yet.

I’ve been working in the same field for decades now, and it’s starting to feel monotonous. I mean, the scientific level here in Australia is, how should I put this, not really up to my standards. Not even Australians hire Australians; that’s how bad the education is here. There’s money like hay, the best equipment lying around, all of that exists. But the training is on a truly miserable level. Maybe my standards are too high? After all, I’ve worked in various fields at international top level and not just participated, but shaped them.

Sure, the continent change, the down-under work environment, the language barrier, all of that was and still is a challenge. But by now, even that is getting lame. If you ask me what Australians are like, I’ll tell you: like the last hillbillies. Know-it-all, smug, convinced they know and can do everything. That works when you live on a continent with 20 million people and have never looked beyond your borders. Within your frame of reference, you know everything. In comparison? They drive Japanese cars on the wrong side of the road. I still need to get used to this: tone beats argument. You can talk absolute nonsense, if you smile nicely while doing it, it’s perfectly fine. Too easy. Adaptation, I can do that.

And me? Still alone. Still no friends. Still no partner. People suggested I should start a family here, have kids, settle down. Sure, you can do that. I could have done that 34 years ago as well. Opportunities existed — occasionally. I didn’t take them. I chose the long, rocky road. I grew up in a time where if you couldn’t spell, you were considered stupid, not unevenly gifted. If you couldn’t do it, you went to special school. During the entrance test (psychological assessment), giftedness was diagnosed and to this day I still feel like I need to apologise for it. The rest is mostly known. Thanks to my parents for teaching me early on that you can only rely on yourself. Personal autonomy to the extreme. Unfortunately, I tend to analyse for too long instead of acting early. That led me down a hard path. I’ve seen many people walk that path. Many failed, took comfortable exits. I’ve seen many fail who started out better than I did. And me? Still not proud of what I’ve achieved. I still see what I haven’t reached instead of what I have. Not having a family took me to the other end of the world. Vice President of Radiopharmaceutical Development. A monthly salary I used to live on for an entire year. An annual salary so high that my ex-wife now doubts herself, because she and her new guy together don’t earn that much. I work in applied cancer research, lead a highly specialised team of five. We are changing the course of cancer therapy. We heal people. We do good. And me? Still not satisfied. I’m starting to feel this tightness again, that it might be getting boring. That can’t be normal, can it? And again I think back to myself as a child: wanting to ride horses in the Mongolian steppe, walk along the Great Wall of China, circle Australia, travel through India, see the seven wonders of the world. And I ask myself: what is actually stopping me? It’s all basically on the way home. No family, no kids. Money? What do I really need as a nomad? Is it this German mindset that you have to save for retirement? A house, a car, two kids? Kids… that makes me laugh. Eighteen years of ankle shackles, but they give you so much back.

Well. I let that ICE train leave the station a long time ago. And now I sit here, thinking about exit strategies. Working in the US? Nice idea. Retirement in Liguria with a small Airbnb? Sounds pleasant. But you won’t see the world that way either. Then I look at my bike again and regret, once more, not taking the ferry to Africa back then, when my ex-wife told me about her new life plans. Coward. Always these safety thoughts. And today? My stuff from Germany still hasn’t arrived. Probably still sitting in a port somewhere. I managed a year without it. Worked quite well. I probably don’t need it. My one-year rental contract is about to expire. Oh, I’ve almost been here for a year already. And it’s summer. Honestly, at 35 degrees I don’t get any Christmas feeling at all. Plastic Christmas trees with fairy lights everywhere, and I think: they must have completely lost it. This is not Christmas, people. But fine, the holiday is celebrated everywhere now anyway. It has nothing to do with Jesus anymore, but with a red-and-white liquid-sugar-selling cartoon figure. Where was I? Right. The lease is ending. The plan is to move out of the far-too-large two-bedroom apartment into a small house further out. I don’t have enough furniture left to justify something big. And I don’t want that anymore. I want to stay flexible. Small and cheap is enough.

A few cheap weights in the garage as a home gym. Making art again. That’s what I’m missing right now to be happy? And then, as suggested, friends and family after all? The truth is, I’m wired in a way that I no longer need anyone to validate me. I like myself the way I am. That’s probably why I don’t need anyone anymore. Not a dealbreaker, but it has to be something where I don’t have to bend myself anymore. Not a single millimetre. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone anymore. I am enough for myself. My life model is different. I don’t need anyone for it. It must never become so fixed that I couldn’t sell everything within five minutes, get back on the bike, or change continents. And honestly, it wouldn’t take much anymore. I’d be gone, out there, seeing the world. Once again, I’m just one sentence away from letting go. And once again I ask myself what’s holding me back. It’s not the right time yet. Not yet. But life can change in an instant. I’m ready for it. Now I’m just waiting for the right opportunity or for the courage to leave everything behind and realign myself. Or am I simply about to run away again and sell it as a victory?

In this sense.