Are you your own Kugelmugel?
We may not be islands, but we still try to be our own micronations.
In Vienna, there is a curious spherical kingdom. This round house was created by an anarchist who wanted complete freedom, but eventually had his power and utilities cut off. His home, “The Republic of Kugelmugel’ still stands in the Prater, as a testament to its own pluckiness and resolve.
I think we all love stories like this. A quirky artist defying the odds and perhaps gaining a bit of notoriety and fame (or infamy) through their actions.
But micronations come at a cost. You can’t expect free power or water forever. Likewise, I reflect on my own life. As a latch key kid1, you are expected to solve all your own problems, and be independent. It teaches you resolve. You can face hardships and develop grit. However, you develop a thick bark that keeps the world out. That bark is your armour, your protection. It helped you survive (and perhaps even thrive.)
But as a consequence, your micronation turns most people away at the border.
Your own Kugelmugel helps keep the messy things of life checked at the gate. Eventually, though, the utilities will get cut. Overtime, you’ll have to make peace with the greater world.
And that is not a bad thing. That’s life— we all have a choice to return from the self-imposed exile of our little micronation. Donne and Merton have both discussed how we are not islands. But Pablo Neruda gives the most beautiful prose of letting go of your armour:
Earth, give me back your pure gifts,
the towers of silence which rose
from the solemnity of their roots.
I want to go back to being what I have not been,
and learn to go back from such deeps
that amongst all natural things
I could live or not live; it does not matter
to be one stone more, the dark stone,
the pure stone which the river bears away.
We can be that island, that stone which the river purifies, and later return to the ocean that once bore us. Maybe all it takes is occasionally lowering the armour; to let go of that precious protection and just embracing the world for a moment.
Or you can charge 15,00€ for entry. Citizenship can be purchased for 200,00€. Hey, its a small price to keep your micronation afloat.
I typically don’t like ‘generational labels’. It limits who you can be if you cling to tightly to it, or at worst can be fodder for intergenerational warfare. That said, I am Gen-X, and this video has actually helped me understand a lot of who I am today. Much of what I wrote was influenced by this:
A wonderfully specific metaphor for the ways some of us learn hyper independence—and I liked the joke at the end. ❤️