Tag Archives: mind

by | October 19, 2026 · 2:03 pm

Walking the Thin Places

I have often been asked why I feel the need to go on a pilgrimage nearly every year. Why leave the comforts of home, carry everything I need in a small backpack, and spend weeks walking day after day along dusty paths, through forests, across mountains, and into unfamiliar landscapes? What is it that draws me back, time and again, to this seemingly simple act of putting one foot in front of the other?

The answer is not always easy to explain, because the most important things that happen on a deep walk are experiential and difficult to put into words. They are not necessarily found in the places visited or in the distance covered but in the gradual transformation of the relationship to the self on the one hand and the external world on the other.

During the first few days of a pilgrimage, my mind is often still occupied by the noise of the outside world. Thoughts about unfinished tasks, personal concerns, news headlines, and the countless demands of everyday life follow me onto the trail. Even though I may be walking through a beautiful landscape, I barely notice it. My attention remains fixed on the path immediately ahead, on the kilometers still to be covered, the next village, or the place where I will spend the night. My body is walking, but my mind would be elsewhere.

Then, almost imperceptibly, something begins to change.

After several days of walking, the constant chatter of the mind starts to subside. Nature starts moving closer. The landscape that had seemed little more than a backdrop gradually comes alive. I begin to hear the clicking of grasshoppers in the grass and the gentle buzzing of bees among the wildflowers. I no longer merely hear the birds; I begin to see them, to recognize their movements, and sometimes to identify their songs. A robin appears on a low branch, a skylark rises and hovers in the open sky, and a blackbird searches for food ahead of me.

I start noticing the different formations of clouds drifting across the blue sky, the changing contours of the mountains, and the distinct character of the peaks ahead. The air carries the scent of damp earth, wild herbs, and freshly mown grass. I become aware of the warmth of the sun on my skin, the coolness of a forest path, and the rhythm of my own footsteps. My breathing gradually settles into a natural cadence, and I begin to feel my body again. It is not something to be managed or pushed through the day but becomes an integral part of the world in which I am moving.

Nothing extraordinary has happened to the landscape. It is my perception that has changed.

The world has not suddenly become more beautiful. I have simply become more available to its beauty.

Perhaps this transformation is comparable to the experience of reading a good book. When we read, our imagination creates an inner world of images, voices, landscapes, and emotions. Each reader brings something unique to the experience, drawing upon memories, feelings, and associations that no filmmaker could entirely reproduce. This is why we are sometimes disappointed when a favorite book is adapted for the screen. The images presented to us may be compelling, even beautiful, but they cannot fully replace the private world that our own imagination has created and experienced.

A deep walk offers something similar. It allows an inner world to emerge, not through the images we consume, but through the attention we give to what is already there. The more fully we attend to the world, the more it reveals itself. We begin to see what was always present but remained unnoticed because the mind was elsewhere.

Perhaps this is one of the great paradoxes of modern life: we have access to more information, images, and experiences than any generation before us, yet we often struggle to be fully present to the miracle of life unfolding directly in front of us. We are physically here but mentally somewhere else, anticipating the future, revisiting the past, comparing ourselves with others, or reacting to a continuous stream of events over which we have little control.

A pilgrimage interrupts this pattern. For a few weeks, the familiar structures of everyday life fall away. There are fewer decisions to make, fewer possessions to maintain, and fewer distractions demanding our attention. Life becomes simpler. You walk, eat, rest and sleep. You encounter other people, sometimes sharing a conversation, sometimes exchanging no more than a greeting. You learn to accept the weather, the terrain, and the limits of the body. You cannot always control what the day brings, but you can learn to meet it as it comes.

This simplicity creates the space where you can begin to hear what has been drowned out by the noise of ordinary life.

I have come to understand that living fully is, in many ways, an act of deep presence. It is not enough to pass through the days, completing tasks and accumulating experiences. You must also be available to them. You must allow yourself to feel the warmth of the sun, to listen without immediately responding, to look without needing to name or judge everything you see, and to recognize the quiet movements of your inner life.

For me, this quality of presence is difficult to sustain in everyday surroundings. I can practice it at home, on a familiar walk, or during a moment of silence, but the habits of daily life have a way of reclaiming my attention. The mind returns to its familiar concerns, and the world becomes a collection of things to accomplish rather than a reality to encounter.

That is why I return to the pilgrimage trail. Walking for several weeks gives me the time and space to move beyond the surface of my habitual thoughts. It feels like a kind of detoxification of the mind. It is not an escape from the world but a gradual release from the compulsive need to react to it. As the mental noise recedes, something begins to realign. My priorities become clearer. What matters and what does not matter quite so much become easier to distinguish. I find myself less concerned with controlling life and more willing to participate in it.

And sometimes, in those moments of stillness that emerge through movement, I sense something for which I have never found an entirely satisfactory name.

It is as though a narrow crack begins to open onto a deeper dimension of existence, a window into what I might call the soul. I do not mean this in any necessarily religious sense. I mean the possibility of experiencing life beyond the familiar boundaries of the thinking mind and the separate self, the part that is so occupied with defining, evaluating, and defending itself that it can lose sight of its connection with everything else.

The more you train your attention to rest in the present moment, the wider this opening seems to become. You begin to experience yourself not merely as an individual moving through a landscape, but as a participant in a complex living whole. The wind, the earth, the trees, the birds and your breathing are no longer entirely separate but different expressions of the same unfolding reality.

When I walk long enough, and with sufficient openness, I sometimes begin to feel this truth rather than merely think about it.

That, ultimately, is why I keep walking. Not to arrive somewhere, but to become more fully present to the life that has always been there and is carrying me along.

This does not mean that the boundaries between ourselves and the world disappear. Rather, those boundaries become less absolute. For a moment, we no longer feel like isolated observers standing outside nature and looking in. We recognise that we belong to it. We have always belonged to it.

Perhaps this is what draws me back to the Camino year after year. It is not simply the physical challenge, the beauty of the landscapes, or the encounters with fellow pilgrims, although all of these have their place. It is the opportunity to rediscover a way of being that is easily lost amid the demands and distractions of modern life. Walking reminds me that I do not need to travel somewhere extraordinary to encounter something sacred. I need to become sufficiently present to recognize what is already here.

My greatest realization has been that spending time in nature can open our senses to a presence far greater than our individual concerns. Whether we call it the sacred, the mystery of existence, the natural order of things, or simply life itself is perhaps less important than the experience. We are not separate from this greater whole. We are one part of it, inseparably woven into its fabric.

And when I walk long enough, quietly enough, and with sufficient openness, I sometimes begin to feel this truth rather than merely think about it.

That, ultimately, is why I keep walking. Not to arrive somewhere, but to become more fully present to the life that is already carrying me along.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in reading one of my four books, available where all good books are sold.

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by | October 12, 2026 · 11:00 am

The Crusade Against Empathy: Why Compassion Is a Human Strength, Not a Weakness

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou

There is something deeply troubling about the growing tendency to portray empathy as a weakness. In parts of today’s political and cultural debate, compassion is dismissed as sentimentality, and caring for the vulnerable is framed as a liability rather than a strength. This growing contempt for empathy strikes at the heart of the very values on which free and humane societies are built: human dignity, mutual respect, solidarity, and the recognition that our strength as a society lies not only in individual achievement, but also in how we care for one another.

This is particularly evident in the rhetoric of Elon Musk and other wealthy and influential figures who argue that excessive empathy threatens Western civilization. The same argument has gained traction in popular intellectual discourse. Canadian marketing professor Gad Saad, in his book Suicidal Empathy, portrays what he considers misguided empathy as a threat to Western societies, while psychologist Paul Bloom’s Against Empathy challenges the assumption that empathy is always a reliable guide to moral judgment. Both works have found a growing audience among readers questioning the role of emotion in public life, although their arguments and conclusions differ. Saad, in particular, criticises what he sees as the elevation of empathy above reason.

There is a legitimate debate to be had about the limits of empathy. Emotions can cloud judgment. Compassion can be manipulated. The desire to please everyone can prevent us from making difficult decisions.

But none of this establishes that empathy itself is a weakness. It establishes that, like any human capacity, empathy needs to be balanced with reason, discernment, and boundaries.

The real question is not whether we should abandon empathy, but what kind of society we create when we begin to treat it with contempt.

Empathy is an evolutionary advantage

The popular image of evolution as a ruthless struggle in which only the strongest survive owes much to an oversimplified understanding of Darwinian theory. Survival has never depended on physical strength or individual competition alone. Cooperation, social bonds, mutual support and the ability to respond to the needs of others have been key aspects of our evolution as a species.

Anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, in Mothers and Others (2009), explores how cooperative child-rearing and shared caregiving helped shape human sociality. Human children are exceptionally dependent, and our ancestors’ capacity to cooperate in raising and protecting them was a significant evolutionary advantage.

Our species did not flourish simply because some individuals defeated others. We also survived because people cared for children, supported injured members of their communities, shared knowledge and worked together in the face of danger.

Empathy is not the only explanation for these behaviours, and cooperation should not be confused with unconditional self-sacrifice. But the evidence challenges the simplistic notion that ruthlessness is the natural foundation of human success.

Our ability to care for one another is part of what has made us human.

The difference between empathy and weakness

One of the problems with the current backlash against empathy is that it often conflates several different things: emotional identification, compassion, people-pleasing, moral judgment and the willingness to tolerate harmful behaviour.

They are not the same.

Empathy allows us to understand something of another person’s experience. Compassion motivates us to respond to suffering. Neither requires us to agree with everyone, excuse wrongdoing or abandon our own interests.

We can empathize with someone without endorsing their actions. We can understand the circumstances that lead a person to behave destructively without excusing the harm they cause. And we can establish firm boundaries while treating another human being with dignity.

This is not weakness. It is emotional maturity.

The strongest form of empathy is not indiscriminate agreement. It is the ability to remain open to another person’s humanity while retaining the capacity to think critically.

Why empathetic leadership works

Research on leadership and organisational behaviour has repeatedly associated empathy with better interpersonal relationships, stronger trust and more effective collaboration.

The Center for Creative Leadership has reported associations between empathetic leadership and job performance. Research into ethical leadership likewise suggests that the ability to understand other people’s perspectives can help leaders recognise the human consequences of their decisions.

Empathy does not guarantee good judgment, and it cannot replace competence. But leaders who understand how their decisions affect others are better placed to build trust, address conflict and create environments in which people feel able to contribute.

The Businessolver State of Workplace Empathy reports have also documented a persistent gap between the importance employees attach to empathy and how much empathy they believe their workplaces demonstrate.

These findings challenge the assumption that compassion is incompatible with effectiveness. In many settings, understanding people is not an alternative to achieving results. It is part of how sustainable results are achieved.

What kind of society do we want?

The implications extend far beyond the workplace.

A society organised around the idea that the strongest, wealthiest and most powerful deserve the greatest respect risks confusing success with moral worth. It can begin to treat poverty as personal failure, vulnerability as inadequacy and social support as an undeserved concession.

This is the danger of Social Darwinism: not evolutionary biology itself, but the attempt to turn a selective interpretation of nature into a justification for social inequality and indifference.

A humane society does not have to deny personal responsibility, reward effort or discourage ambition. It can value all these things while recognising that people do not begin life with equal opportunities, equal resources or equal capacities. Illness, disability, bereavement and economic hardship can affect anyone.

How we respond to these realities reveals something fundamental about our collective values.

Many of the moral traditions that have shaped Western civilisation, including Christianity, place care for the sick, the poor, the stranger and the vulnerable near the centre of ethical life. The Good Samaritan is remembered not because he demonstrated superior power, but because he stopped to help someone whom others had passed by.

That principle is not exclusively Christian, of course. It appears in different forms across religious, philosophical and humanist traditions.

The point is that a society’s moral strength is measured not only by what its most successful members achieve, but also by how it treats those who are struggling.

Empathy, trust and human flourishing

Consider Finland and the other Nordic countries, which have consistently ranked highly in international assessments of life satisfaction. Their experience suggests that social trust, reliable public institutions, economic security and a strong sense of collective responsibility can contribute to human well-being.

Empathy alone does not explain these outcomes. Nor should the Nordic model be romanticised or treated as a perfect society. But these examples challenge the notion that a healthy society must be built primarily on ruthless competition and individual self-interest.

When people believe that others can be trusted, that institutions will generally treat them fairly and that hardship will not necessarily leave them abandoned, social cooperation becomes easier. Trust encourages participation; participation can strengthen community; and a sense of belonging can help protect people against isolation.

At the level of everyday life, the same principle applies. Feeling understood can ease loneliness, strengthen relationships and make difficult experiences more bearable. Empathy cannot solve every problem, but it can change how people experience the problems they face.

The real strength is to care without losing yourself

There is a danger in turning empathy into an unquestionable virtue. We can become overwhelmed by the suffering of others. We can favour people who resemble us, overlook the needs of strangers or allow emotion to override evidence. Empathy needs the guidance of reason, fairness and ethical principles.

But the answer to these limitations is not to wage a crusade against empathy. It is to develop a more mature understanding of it.

We need the courage to confront wrongdoing, the clarity to distinguish facts from feelings, the discipline to set boundaries and the compassion to recognise suffering even when it is inconvenient.

These qualities are not mutually exclusive.

In a world increasingly shaped by political polarisation, economic insecurity and the temptation to regard opponents as less than fully human, empathy may be more important than ever. It allows us to disagree without dehumanising, to hold people accountable without denying their dignity, and to recognise that another person’s suffering matters even when it does not directly affect us.

The question raised by the current backlash against empathy is ultimately a question about the kind of civilisation we wish to build.

Do we want a world in which power determines whose suffering matters? Or one in which strength includes the willingness to protect those who have less of it?

Empathy is not the abandonment of reason. It is the recognition that reason without humanity can become an instrument of indifference.

A society that celebrates power while ridiculing compassion may become more competitive, but it will not necessarily become wiser, healthier or happier.

The measure of your humanity is not how successful you distance yourself from weakness. It is whether you can recognize vulnerability in others and in yourself.

Because in the end, the question is not whether we can afford empathy. It is what we stand to lose when we no longer value it.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in reading one of my four books, available where all good books are sold.

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by | September 28, 2026 · 9:42 am

The Wisdom of Silence

There is something I have been thinking about lately: how much of what we say actually needs to be said in a world that demands continuous expression and reaction.

We comment. We react. We post. We answer. We defend ourselves. We tell people what we think. We respond to something before we have even had time to understand why it has stirred something within.

More than at any other time in history, we have the technology to make our reactions instantly public. But ancient wisdom offers a very different possibility.

In Pirkei Avot, or Ethics of the Fathers, a collection of Jewish ethical teachings dating back almost two thousand years, there is a remarkable emphasis on the discipline of speech.

One teaching says:

“I have found nothing better for the body than silence.”

At first, that may sound strange. For why would silence be described as something so beneficial?

I don’t think the rabbis were simply talking about keeping quiet. They were pointing toward something deeper: the space between what you feel and what you express. And it is this space that can become enormously important.

Because not every thought needs to become a word, and not every emotion needs to become an immediate accusation or provocation that requires response. And not every disagreement needs to turn into a heated argument.

The pause before the word

Think about what happens when someone says something that wounds or angers you. Your first impulse may be to respond immediately and to defend yourself. You want to be right and want them to know that. You might even want to hurt them back. Yet, if you crate even a small pause between the impulse and the response, something shifts.

You can ask yourself:

Is this worth saying?

What is motivating me to say it?

Am I trying to clarify something—or simply trying to win an argument?

Will these words bring something into the world that I actually want to create?

That pause is not weakness but can turn into inner freedom.

Silence isn’t passivity

There is a danger, of course, in romanticizing silence and it can become avoidance.

There are moments when you need to speak out, to defend someone, to confront injustice, to establish a boundary, and to tell the truth.

The wisdom of silence isn’t that you should never speak. It is becoming aware of why you are speaking.

There is a profound difference between speaking because something needs to be said and speaking because you cannot tolerate the discomfort of remaining silent. And perhaps that is one of the great challenges of our time. We have become extraordinarily good at expressing ourselves.

But are we equally good at listening?

What happens when you don’t pause?

Words have consequences. A careless sentence can remain in another person’s memory for decades. A harsh word spoken in anger can change or destroy a relationship. Gossip can damage someone’s reputation who isn’t even present to defend themselves. Words now don’t simply disappear into the air. They remain a permanent record online.

The ancient rabbis obviously could not have imagined social media, smartphones or the speed with which words now travel across the world. Yet their concern was remarkably similar.

What happens when human beings fail to discipline their speech?

Silence creates a space for something deeper

For me, this connects with something much larger than communication. Silence creates space. And in that space we sometimes encounter something beneath the constant noise of the head mind. You actually start noticing what is happening within.

Perhaps there is fear beneath the anger. Beneath the need to be right might be insecurity. When you stop reacting, you might discover that there is not urgent need to respond at all. Silence then becomes a spiritual practise.

Before you speak

The next time you feel the impulse to respond immediately, wait. Take a deep breath. Inhale and exhale.

Notice what is happening inside you.

Then ask yourself:

Does this need to be said?

And if it does:

Can I say it without adding unnecessary harm?

Maybe that is what the ancient wisdom is pointing toward.

Not silence for its own sake.

But conscious speech.

Words chosen rather than words discharged.

Words that emerge from reflection rather than reaction.

Because ultimately, the quality of your life is shaped not only by what you believe or what you think. It is shaped by what you do with that which arises from within.

Sometimes the wisest thing you can do with a thought, an emotion or an angry impulse is simply to let it pass and to remain silent.

And in that space, perhaps, you discover a little more freedom, a little more compassion and a little more wisdom.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in reading one of my four books, available where all good books are sold.

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by | September 15, 2026 · 10:38 am

Where the Earth feels thin

There are places in the world where the boundary between the ordinary and something deeper feels remarkably thin.

Ancient peoples understood this instinctively. Long before maps, property boundaries and modern planning regulations, they paid careful attention to where they built their temples, sacred groves and places of worship. Certain springs, mountains, caves, rocks, forests and hilltops were regarded as places where the human world came closer to the divine. The location itself mattered. Sacredness was not simply something that could be brought into a building; sometimes it was already present in the landscape.

We might call this a thin place—a place where the distance between the visible and invisible worlds seems diminished.

I have often wondered whether we have lost something of this sensitivity.

There is, of course, another side to it. Some places seem to carry the opposite quality. Landscapes marked by violence, suffering or tragedy can retain an atmosphere that is difficult to explain rationally. A battlefield, an abandoned concentration camp, a house where terrible things happened, a village emptied by war—these places can seem to hold an echo of what occurred there.

Perhaps this is memory embedded in landscape. Perhaps it is our own imagination responding to what we know happened. Perhaps there is something more subtle.

I don’t pretend to know.

But I have noticed something while walking.

On my pilgrimage journeys, I have sometimes entered a village and experienced an almost immediate sense of lightness. Nothing dramatic happened. There was no revelation, no voice from heaven, no mystical apparition. Simply a feeling that the place was alive.

The streets were clean and cared for. Flowers appeared in window boxes. Doors were open. People greeted the pilgrim with a smile. There were small cafés, benches, churches and places where people could pause and meet one another. Children played. Someone was tending a garden. Life seemed to flow naturally.

And then, sometimes, I would enter another place and feel quite different.

The shutters were closed. Houses appeared empty even when they were occupied. There were few places where people could gather. Gardens were neglected. Buildings were deteriorating. The streets seemed strangely silent. It was as though life had withdrawn.

I cannot prove that these impressions have anything to do with a measurable “energy frequency.” Nor do I think we need to turn every intuitive response into a supernatural explanation.

But I have learned to pay attention to such feelings.

Walking slows you down sufficiently to notice things that you would normally rush past. You see the quality of a village not simply through its architecture but through the way people inhabit it. You notice whether people sit outside their houses, whether they greet strangers, whether children have somewhere to play, whether churches are open, whether gardens are cultivated, whether there is a sense of care.

Perhaps what youvexperience as the “energy” of a place is sometimes the accumulated expression of the people who live there.

And perhaps the relationship works in both directions: you shape a place, and a place shapes you.

This has also made me think about why certain landscapes seem to have inspired some of humanity’s greatest thinkers, painters, poets and writers.

We tend to imagine inspiration as something that happens inside the individual mind. The genius sits at a desk, picks up a brush or opens a notebook, and creates something extraordinary.

But perhaps creativity is also a conversation with place.

Recently, walking through the countryside around Chawton, I found myself thinking about Jane Austen.

There is something about that landscape that makes her books feel less abstract. The lanes, hedgerows, fields, wooded paths and gently rolling countryside provide a physical world in which her characters seem entirely at home. Walking through what is called Jane Austen country, one begins to understand why this particular landscape could have nourished such a precise observer of human nature.

Austen did not simply write about people. She wrote about people in relationship to place—houses, estates, gardens, villages, drawing rooms, roads and landscapes. Social life and landscape were inseparable.

And perhaps that is true of creativity generally.

Think of the painters who were transformed by particular landscapes, the poets who returned again and again to the same hills or rivers, composers like Bach who found inspiration in the countryside, or the writers like Dickens who needed to walk before they could write.

Maybe the landscape doesn’t simply provide a backdrop but participates.

There is an old idea that certain places are “charged” with something greater. We might describe that in religious language, psychological language, ecological language or simply as a heightened sensitivity to beauty and history.

I am increasingly comfortable leaving the question open.

For me, pilgrimage is partly about learning to enter that openness.

When you walk, you surrender some of your usual control. You move at the speed of your feet. You become attentive to weather, trees, birdsong, stone walls, ancient paths and the changing light. You begin to sense that the landscape is not merely scenery through which you are passing.

It becomes a participant in the journey.

And occasionally, without quite knowing why, you enter a place and feel something shift within you.

The world seems a little more spacious. The mind becomes quieter and the heart feels lighter.

Nothing has necessarily changed, except the capacity to be more present.

Perhaps that is what a thin place really is.

Not necessarily a place where heaven breaks through into earth, but a place where you become thin enough to notice what has always been there.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in reading one of my four books, available where all good books are sold.

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by | July 7, 2026 · 8:05 am

The Crisis We Rarely Speak About

Across much of the world, we are witnessing a resurgence of tribalism, nationalism, and narrow ideologies. From my native South Africa to Europe and the United States, minorities are increasingly blamed for society’s frustrations.

History offers a familiar pattern here. A narrative that thrives on fear sows confusion and division, and while people are distracted by imagined enemies, fundamental freedoms are quietly eroded. The message is almost always the same: you have never been worse off, you are no longer safe, and the past was somehow better.

Materially speaking, most people today enjoy opportunities, technology, and healthcare that previous generations could scarcely have imagined. Yet trust in our major institutions—government, the media, religious organizations, and the judiciary—has seldom been lower.

Every crisis, however, carries within it the seeds of a new beginning. The illusion that our happiness depends on external institutions or circumstances is beginning to crumble.

Lasting fulfilment does not arise from the external world, but from the transformation that begins within.

So the deeper crisis lies elsewhere. It is a spiritual one—a growing loss of purpose, meaning, and connection.

Many traditional religious institutions no longer offer the answers people are looking for. More and more, people sense that the church, synagogue, temple, or mosque is not the same thing as the Divine itself. Religion teaches us what to believe and how to behave. At its best, it offers community, wisdom, and sanctuary. At its worst, it becomes an instrument of guilt, shame, or political power.

Spirituality begins somewhere deeper. It is a slow awakening.

As I write this from my home in Spain, the hypnotic chorus of Mediterranean cicadas fills the air. Their rhythmic song has become a daily reminder that creation itself is alive with mystery. Nature isn’t somewhere we escape to—it’s a living invitation to rediscover who we truly are.

When we learn to listen deeply, the subtle vibrations of life remind us that our greatest challenge isn’t political, financial, or technological. It’s the loss of our sense of purpose.

That’s precisely the insight in Romans 1:20: creation itself bears witness to the reality, power, and divine nature of God. If we open ourselves, we can perceive beauty, wonder, and mystery everywhere.

Paul writes that although God is invisible, His “eternal power and divine nature” can be clearly perceived through creation. Nature doesn’t reveal everything about God, nor does it replace spiritual revelation—it points beyond itself, toward its Source. Put simply: the universe is not just a collection of objects. It’s a living testimony, inviting us to recognise a transcendent Source expressed through both the visible and the invisible.

Seen this way, wonder becomes a doorway to faith. Beauty, order, complexity, and even our deepest longings all point beyond the material world. The real question isn’t whether there’s evidence—it’s whether we’re willing to respond to what creation is already revealing.

Paul’s larger argument is that humanity has always had access to an awareness of the Divine through creation, yet we repeatedly exchange that awareness for idols—things we choose to worship instead of the Source itself.

The Jewish mystic Rabbi Schneur Zalman put it beautifully: every soul “naturally yearns to separate itself from the body in order to unite with its origin and source…the fountainhead of all life.”

To receive these moments of awakening, we have to stay attentive—to learn how to become present. The novelist Boris Pasternak captured this with extraordinary simplicity: “When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.”

Perhaps the greatest spiritual practice of our time is simply learning to hear that quiet knock.

If these reflections resonate with you, I’d love for you to join Letters from the Threshold—my Inner Circle of readers exploring purpose, spirituality, and the deeper currents shaping our lives. Members receive exclusive essays, personal reflections, and an invitation to our monthly online gathering, where we explore the questions that matter most, together.

If you’re looking not just for information, but for transformation, I’d be delighted to welcome you.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S. Here you can find out more about my books on similar themes

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by | June 24, 2026 · 8:53 am

The Age of Everything—and the Hunger for Meaning

We live in an age saturated with ideologies.

Whether political, cultural, religious, or social, ideology is always trying to tell you who you should be and how you should behave. It defines identity by drawing boundaries between those who belong and those who do not. In a world that feels fragmented, uncertain, and complex, ideology offers certainty—but usually at the cost of curiosity, nuance, and human connection.

Almost every ideology shares another trait: it idealises the past.

The drumbeat is that there was once a golden age when people were happier, communities were stronger, society was safer, and life was somehow better. History tells a different story.

As I write this from London on a beautiful summer day, the sky is blue, the air is fresh, and birds are singing in the park outside my window. It is easy to forget that only fifty years ago, many of Europe’s great cities were shrouded in traffic fumes and industrial smog.

Go back further, and the contrast becomes starker still. Few of us would choose to live in the Middle Ages, when life expectancy was dramatically lower, disease was widespread, famine was common, and countless women died in childbirth while men perished in wars or from illnesses that are now treatable.

By many measurable standards, humanity is living through an era of extraordinary progress. Millions have been lifted out of poverty. Freedom has expanded across much of the world. Medical science stands on the threshold of breakthroughs that may one day conquer diseases such as cancer.

And yet something seems deeply unsettled.

Why does grievance feel so widespread? Why do anxiety, loneliness, and depression continue to rise? Why do so many people feel disconnected in the most interconnected age in history?

Perhaps because meaning cannot be manufactured by prosperity alone.

A healthy life is not one without difficulty. It is the capacity to navigate life’s inevitable cycles of gain and loss, joy and sorrow, certainty and doubt. Yet the world around us constantly sends a different message—that happiness depends on external validation, social approval, achievement, possessions, or carefully curated identities.

At the same time, many of the institutions that once offered a framework for meaning have lost credibility or struggle to speak in ways that resonate with contemporary life.

Deeper questions surface as a result:

  • Where have I come from?
  • Where am I going with the years I have left?
  • Who am I beyond my career, income, gender, age, or social status?
  • What remains when the labels fall away?

These questions have come up repeatedly in my podcast conversations, workshops, and personal encounters over recent months. Beneath the noise of current events, I sense a growing hunger—not for more information, but for wisdom. Not for certainty, but for deeper understanding.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S. In the coming weeks, I’ll share more about Letters from the Threshold, a Sunday letter where I explore many of these themes in greater depth. For those who find value in thoughtful reflection and deeper inquiry, there will soon be an opportunity to subscribe.

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by | June 16, 2026 · 10:01 am

The Marketplace of Meaning

For most of human history, meaning was inherited. People were born into a family, a culture, a faith tradition, and a set of expectations. Whether one agreed with them or not, there was a framework.

Today, meaning has become a marketplace where thousands of voices compete for your attention. Coaches, influencers, therapists, spiritual teachers, political commentators, podcasters, and self-help experts all offer explanations for why you might feel lost and promises for how to find your way.

Many provide genuine value. Some are insightful guides. But the sheer volume of competing narratives creates a new problem: paralysis. When everyone claims to possess the answer, how do you know whom to trust?

The Seduction of Certainty

Human beings have always been uncomfortable with uncertainty in times of rapid social change, economic instability, political division, and technological disruption; certainty becomes a highly desirable product. But the individuals who gain the largest audiences are often not those who ask the best questions but those who provide the simplest answers.

Complexity rarely goes viral. Certainty does. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that simplistic explanations rarely survive contact with reality. The world is too nuanced, human beings too contradictory, and life too unpredictable to fit neatly into slogans and soundbites. Discernment and depth require patience.

The Difference Between Guidance and Dependency

There is nothing wrong with seeking wisdom from teachers, mentors, therapists, or spiritual guides. The problem arises when guidance turns into dependence. A good teacher helps people think for themselves. A dangerous teacher trains people to stop thinking altogether and to blindly follow.

One of the quiet tragedies of modern life is watching intelligent, capable people gradually surrender their own judgment. Every decision must be approved by the guru. Every life choice must be interpreted through the framework of the therapist. Every uncertainty requires external validation. The result is often a dangerous form of mind captivity.

The same pattern can often be observed in dysfunctional relationships, where one partner gradually surrenders their independence and begins to define their identity entirely through the other. Decisions, values, and even self-worth become filtered through the relationship. What may initially appear as devotion can ultimately become a loss of self, replacing personal agency with emotional dependence

Outsourcing the Work of Living

Perhaps the greatest temptation of our age is to outsource the difficult work of self-examination. It is easier to follow a celebrity’s life than to confront your own. Easier to consume endless content than to sit quietly with uncomfortable questions. Easier to adopt someone else’s beliefs than to wrestle honestly with your own doubts and issues of faith.

Yet purpose is not something another person can hand to you on a silver platter. No influencer, teacher, author, or spiritual leader can ultimately answer the questions that belong uniquely to your own life. That is something you can only discover.

They can illuminate the path, but nobody can walk it for you.

Living With Questions

I suspect that wisdom is less about possessing answers and more about developing the capacity to live with important questions.

  • Who am I becoming?
  • What matters most?
  • What kind of life is worth living?

These questions can only be revisited repeatedly throughout life. Perhaps maturity begins when you stop searching for someone who will think for you and start cultivating the courage to think deeply for yourself. Not in isolation, but with humility. Not with certainty, but with curiosity. Not seeking a guru to follow, but seeking the wisdom to discern.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S. In the coming weeks, I’ll share more about Letter from the Threshold, a Sunday letter where I explore many of these themes in greater depth. For those who find value in thoughtful reflection and deeper inquiry, there will soon be an opportunity to subscribe.

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by | May 17, 2026 · 6:01 am

The Lost Art of Stillness: Awakening Your Inner Self

In an age shaped by scrolling screens and shrinking attention spans, something profound is happening beneath the surface. Recent studies suggest that nearly two-thirds of young people struggle to remain engaged with content lasting longer than a minute. Yet, paradoxically, this same generation is searching intensely for meaning, transcendence, and spiritual grounding. The hunger for depth has not disappeared. If anything, it has become more urgent.

The difficulty is that our modern world is designed for speed rather than contemplation. We are conditioned to expect instant answers, simplified narratives, and constant stimulation. But the deepest truths of existence cannot be reduced to sound bites or algorithms. Mystery does not reveal itself in haste.

The ancient mystics understood this well. They approached the human soul with reverence, knowing that the divine cannot be encountered amid endless distraction and noise. The sacred unfolds quietly. Only in silence, solitude, and contemplation does the veil begin to lift, allowing fleeting glimpses of a reality greater than yourself.

As the 14th-century mystic Meister Eckhart wrote:

“Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.”

Those words may be more relevant now than ever before.

You did not arrive here by accident. Your very existence is astonishingly improbable. Consider how different your life might have been had you been born in another country, another culture, another language, another body, or another century. None of those things were within your control. And yet, within the boundaries of circumstance, you have been given the extraordinary freedom to choose how you respond to life.

Your external conditions shape you, but they do not define the deepest essence of who you are.

It is by fully entering the depth of life’s journey that you awaken to purpose, resilience, and meaning. But this awakening becomes difficult when the mind is continually fragmented by external distraction. Much of the anxiety and emotional exhaustion of modern life emerges from this loss of alignment — a growing disconnect between the soul and its deeper calling.

We lose ourselves when we settle for the illusion of safety in mediocrity, silencing the inner voice that calls toward courage, creativity, and transformation. In doing so, there is a drift away from the very source of vitality.

Nature has always offered a path back.

The silence of mountains, forests, rivers, and open skies reveals something ancient and expansive. Birdsong, wind through trees, flowing water — all of it speaks of an intricate web of interconnectedness that modern life often obscures. In nature, you are reminded that you belong to something far greater than your schedules, anxieties, and ambitions.

It is no coincidence that many of humanity’s sacred places are found in forests, caves, deserts, and mountain summits. Nature slows our breathing, quiets stress, restores attention, and gently reconnects you to the rhythm of being itself.

Perhaps this is why time spent in nature often feels less like escape and more like remembrance.

To live well is not merely to chase future goals or external validation. It is to recover the lost art of presence — to live not only to achieve, but Living to BE.

And perhaps, in the stillness that you so often avoid, you may rediscover the deeper purpose for which you were born.

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in reading: Sages, Saints and Sinners Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and where all good books are sold.

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by | May 4, 2026 · 5:44 pm

Lessons from the 14th Century Plague

There are places where history feels very present and where the emotional residue of another age still clings to stone and air. Puig de Maria, rising above the town of Pollença, on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca is one such place. It is not simply an old monastery, but built as a human answer to a dark time.

In 1348, as the Black Death swept across Europe. Suffocating fear was everywhere. Death arrived without logic or mercy, dismantling the illusion of control that underpinned medieval life. It is in this context that Puig de Maria was conceived: not as an architectural ambition, but as a cry to the divine.

The decision to build a sanctuary on a mountain summit high above the town was not accidental. It carried symbolic weight. To ascend is to separate—from contagion, from chaos, from the unbearable proximity of suffering. But it is also to draw nearer to God, to meaning, to the possibility that fear can be held within something larger than itself.

In Sages, Saints and Sinners, I return to a question that refuses to stay buried: what becomes of us when certainty collapses? When the structures we trusted—faith, order, meaning—no longer hold, who do we become? Set against the desolation of the 14th-century plague, a time when vast stretches of Europe fell silent and entire communities vanished, the novel steps into that rupture. It is not only a story of loss, but of what emerges in its wake—of the fragile, defiant ways human beings rediscover courage, meaning, and even love when everything familiar has been stripped away.

Some retreat into despair. Others are in denial. But there is a third path, rarer and more demanding—the transmutation of fear into courage, and anxiety into love.

Puig de Maria stands as a physical manifestation of that third path.

The people who built it were not free of fear. They were defined by it. And yet, instead of allowing fear to contract their world, they expanded it vertically. They climbed. They carried stone up a mountain in the midst of plague, and in doing so, enacted a radical defiance: fear would not have the final word.

There is a discipline in the refusal to be mentally captured by catastrophe.

The monastery that emerged—first a chapel, then a place of ongoing devotion—became more than a sanctuary. It became a container. Within its walls, fear was transformed. Ritual, prayer, and community gave structure to what would otherwise have been overwhelming. The unknown was met not with paralysis, but with presence.

This is the essence of transmutation. Not the removal of darkness, but its reworking into something that can sustain life.

Walking up to Puig de Maria today, the path winds in steady, deliberate curves. It is not a punishing climb, but it demands attention. There is a rhythm to it—step, breath, step—that mirrors something older than the path itself. Pilgrimage is never only about arrival. It is about what is shed along the way.

Halfway up, the town below begins to recede. Perspective shifts. What felt immediate loosens its grip. By the time you reach the summit, something subtle but unmistakable has occurred: distance has been created, not just physically, but internally.

This is the overlooked power of sacred geography. It externalises an inner movement.

At the top, the monastery remains austere. A tower and thick walls. A chapel that holds silence rather than spectacle. There is no excess here, no attempt to impress. It was never meant for comfort in the modern sense. It was meant for clarity.

And clarity, in times of crisis, is everything.

In our own age, fear has taken on different forms, but its structure remains familiar. Uncertainty, fragmentation, and a sense that the ground is less stable than we were led to believe. The temptation is the same as it was in the 14th century: to collapse inward, to narrow, to protect.

But Puig de Maria offers another template.

Climb.

Not away from reality, but toward a broader vantage point. Build—not necessarily in stone, but in practice—structures that can hold anxiety without being defined by it. Create spaces, inner and outer, where fear can be acknowledged, but not enthroned.

The plague did not end because a monastery was built. Suffering was not avoided. But meaning was forged in the midst of it.

And meaning is what allows endurance to become transformation.

In Sages, Saints and Sinners, the figures who endure are not those who escape fear, but those who metabolise it. They refuse its finality. They insist, against all evidence, that love and courage remain alive.

Puig de Maria asks a question that is as relevant now as it was then:

When fear rises, will you descend into it—or will you climb?

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in reading: Sages, Saints and Sinners Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and where all good books are sold.

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by | April 27, 2026 · 6:40 pm

The Hidden Costs of Rural Decline

I recently drove through rural South Africa on my way to a school reunion—one of those rare gatherings where time folds in on itself and five decades seem like yesterday. The landscape should have been familiar: wide horizons, scattered farmsteads, towns that once pulsed with industry. But what struck me most was not recognition—it was absence.

Roads pitted with potholes slowed the journey, but it was the towns that told the deeper story. Buildings sagged under neglect. Shopfronts stood empty or half-occupied. Once pristine and well-kept, towns seemed to have been abandoned to time. This was not just decay. It was a withdrawal. A slow draining away of people, energy, and purpose.

In my hometown of Dundee in KwaZulu-Natal alone, the closure of a sweets factory, a glass plant, and several coal mines has, over the years, stripped away thousands of jobs. At the reunion, I learned that the impact reached even further: a steelworks in the neighbouring town of Newcastle had also shut down, costing another 3,000 livelihoods.

And this is not a uniquely South African story.

Across the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany, I have witnessed similar patterns unfold. Rural communities hollow out as younger generations leave in search of education, employment, and opportunity in cities. What remains are aging populations, shrinking tax bases, and a fraying social fabric. The causes are well documented—economic centralization, mechanization of agriculture, the pull of urban opportunity—but the consequences run deeper than statistics.

Dislocation Without Language

For those who leave, the move to the city often brings material improvement: better jobs, better services, broader networks. But something less tangible is lost.

Rural life, at its best, offers continuity. It binds identity to place. You are not just an individual; you are someone’s neighbor, someone’s history, part of a shared narrative that stretches across generations. When people leave, that continuity fractures.

In cities, identity becomes more fluid—but also more fragile. Relationships are often transactional, time-bound, and contingent. Community must be constructed rather than inherited. For many, this produces a subtle but persistent sense of dislocation: a feeling of being nowhere in particular.

The question then arises: are people happier?

The answer is not straightforward. Urban environments tend to score higher on measures of economic well-being and access to services. But they also correlate with higher levels of loneliness, anxiety, and social isolation. Rural areas, despite economic hardship, often report stronger social cohesion and a greater sense of belonging—at least where communities remain intact.

So the trade-off is not simply between poverty and prosperity. It is between different forms of wealth—material and relational.

The Social Cost

When rural areas decline, society loses more than population density. It loses balance.

Healthy societies depend on a diversity of spaces: urban centers of innovation, suburban zones of stability, and rural regions that anchor culture, tradition, and food production. When one of these weakens, the system becomes distorted.

Depopulated rural areas often enter a downward spiral. As people leave, services close—schools, clinics, shops. This, in turn, makes the area less viable for those who remain, accelerating further out-migration. Political attention shifts elsewhere. Infrastructure deteriorates. Eventually, these regions become peripheral not just geographically, but economically and politically.

This has consequences for social cohesion. When large segments of the population feel left behind, trust erodes—both in institutions and in the broader social contract. The divide between “somewhere” and “anywhere” populations widens: those rooted in place versus those who are mobile and globally connected. This divide increasingly shapes political outcomes across many countries.

The Cultural Loss: Memory Without Custodians

Rural communities are not just economic units; they are repositories of memory.

They carry dialects, customs, ways of life that cannot be easily transplanted into urban settings. When these communities empty out, cultural knowledge dissipates. Traditions survive as fragments—revived occasionally for tourism or nostalgia—but lose their lived context.

What disappears is not just heritage, but a particular way of understanding the world: slower, more cyclical, more attuned to land and season. In its place emerges a more standardized, globalized culture—efficient, connected, but often detached.

Can the Trend Be Reversed?

There are attempts—some promising, many insufficient.

Remote work has reopened the possibility of living outside cities, at least for certain professions. Targeted investment in infrastructure—digital connectivity, transport, healthcare—can make rural areas viable again. Policies that support local enterprise, sustainable agriculture, and decentralized energy systems can stabilize regional economies.

More fundamentally, the question is one of value: what do we, as societies, choose to preserve?

If rural areas are seen merely as economically inefficient, their decline will continue. If, however, they are recognized as essential to social resilience, cultural continuity, and even psychological well-being, then their renewal becomes a strategic priority rather than a sentimental one.

Returning, Briefly

At the reunion, conversations drifted—as they always do—between memory and present reality. Some had stayed. Many have scattered to all parts of the world. Each carried a different version of the same story.

Driving back, the landscape remained unchanged. But the question lingered:

What happens to a society when its margins begin to disappear?

Not all decline is reversible. But not all loss is inevitable either.

A welcome spark of hope on my return journey came with a stop in the village of Wakkerstroom. This rural gem has been thoughtfully revived: old homes and shopfronts carefully restored, now housing curios, excellent local food, and gateways to nature. It has become a magnet for artists and for those seeking a return to the sanctuary and sense of community that rural life can still offer.

Wakkerstroom
Rural KwaZulu Natal

The condition of rural places is not just a reflection of economic trends—it is a mirror. It shows us what we prioritize, what we neglect, and ultimately, what we are willing to let go.

And perhaps the more uncomfortable question is this:

In our pursuit of better opportunities, have we mistaken movement for progress—and in doing so, lost something we do not yet know how to measure?

Reino Gevers – Host of the LivingToBe podcast

P.S: If you enjoyed this article you might be interested in reading: Sages, Saints and Sinners Get it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and where all good books are sold.

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