Intersection of rurex & philosophy: visiting Heidegger's hut

Can a place change how we think? “At most a city-dweller gets ‘stimulated’ by a so-called ‘stay in the country’, wrote German philosopher Martin Heidegger. “But my whole work is sustained and guided by the world of these mountains and their people.”

Measuring 6 by 7 meters (20 by 23 feet), Heidegger’s hut in the Black Forest wasn’t a work of architecture, but rather a typical, simple mountain cabin. In 1922 Heidegger was a popular university lecturer in Freiburg, Germany, but he hadn’t written anything big yet. That was the year he made the first of his escapes to the mountains where he would eventually do most of his most important writing, and thinking.

Without running water or electricity, the hut provided a permeability with the outside world that prompted Heidegger’s deep thinking on the nature of being, authenticity and the fundamental importance of our engagement with the world.

“People in the city often wonder whether one gets lonely up in the mountains... for such long and monotonous periods of time. But it isn't loneliness, it is solitude,” he wrote in his essay Why Do I Stay in the Provinces. “Solitude has the peculiar and original power of not isolating us but projecting our whole existence out into the vast nearness of the presence of all things”.

In 1927 he published “Being and Time”, the work that launched him as one of the 20th century’s most important philosophers. His personal legacy was marred by his involvement with the Nazi party, but his philosophy inspired many of the 20th century’s great thinkers.

Today his hut has its own hiking trail. On a near-freezing late October morning, faircompanies' Nicolás Boullosa set off on a rurex adventure to discover the place that inspired this sage who the New York Times eulogized as able to “rethink the entire history of Western philosophy” at a time, not unlike our own, “when Western thought was torn between excessive idealism on the one hand and nihilism on the other” who they wrote was able “to restore confidence in man's ability to ask the big questions”.

Other philosophers' huts:

[aloevera]

Time and time again you create some of the best media work on the entire internet.

[henrietta]

Kristen, Ive subbed for over a year now.
Dad passed on after chemo, last year, just wanna say viewing your vids, albeit weekly, helps.
Clears the head. brings in some oxygen. Just wanna say "thank you" <3

[samsungladiesmasters]

I bet there's a lot of amazing people who love Heidegger's work watching this video. Take care, gentlemen.

[tamcon]

Really enjoyed this. Different from so many other videos. Your husband's philosophical lecture on the path there and your enjoyment of the philosopher's ideas, the esoteric instructions for arriving at the physical structure, the puzzling search in the fog, all set the right mind frame in the viewer for appreciating Heidegger's rationale for living so out of the way. Beautifully done. Thanks For Posting!

[carolewarner]

Yes, definitely.

Actually, I have had the experience of my mind stopping for periods while out walking in Nature for extended periods of time on the Appalachian Trail, the Camino de Santiago, and the John Muir Trail. I remember a stretch on the northern portion of the AT when I literally didn't interact with any other human being for two days. By then there were far fewer hikers out on the trail and I'd passed only one or two people on the trail all day without an exchange and spent two nights camped alone. It was a shock on the morning of the third day as I was packing up and getting ready to start walking when I realized that I could not remember thinking anything since three days earlier when I'd said goodbye to someone who'd stayed at the same shelter as I the night before. There was just this huge gap during which my 'monkey mind' had just stopping. And when I had this 'thinking' rambling chatter start up in my head again there was this shock in realizing it had been utterly absent for that whole stretch of time.

I also had a LOT of very deep and rich personal insights during that summer that I hiked the AT and also the Camino and JMT...far far more deep thoughts and epiphanies than I have in my 'normal everyday life' in town.

So, defintitely. Place and being out in Nature, definitely changes how we think. It actually allows for stoppage of thought entirely in favor of just Being; of being present with no mindless chatter and a profound experience of the timeless now.

[prenuptials]

Wow, really wasn't expecting a video like this from you guys to pop up in my sub box. Thanks!

[emilianomarquez]

It's borderline spiritual this video. I enjoyed it. I've lived in a hut in the woods myself, and you know what my biggest concern was? None. Maybe my mind isn't heideggers mind. But certainly I hear a lot of concepts relating to buddhism, I'd equate his Dasign, to the ultimate truth that Mahamudra and Dzogchen point at. Emptiness.

[valninertriplezero]

Thanks, Kirsten! Dude, I was just having a kind of quantum physics like understanding at the same time as the 1st 400 people where watching this video, BEFORE watching this, that just as the ancient wisdom of The Golden Rule teaches, that the basic law of the universe is to treat others, ourselves, and EVERYTHING on the planet, the best way we'd like to be treated, living in harmony with all life, and that any civilization which does not practise the Golden Rule will destroy itself.
I was just realizing that, JUST BEFORE watching this video, that if civilization is NOT practicing the Golden Rule, on a QUANTUM PHYSICS LEVEL, everything starts falling apart -- in other words all matter and energy starts losing it's cohesion and starts falling apart, and that affects our whole universe on a quantum physics level, but if civilization IS practicing the Golden a Rule, everything is gaining cohesion, and life supporting things start happening everywhere on a quantum physics level.
It's wonderful to think that this quantum physics level understanding of the Golden Rule seems to be happening, shortly after the first few hundred people watched this guy, (with you & friends), explaining about understanding treating the planet and each other right concept on a quantum physics level, even before watching this video, because a few hundred people were already realizing it, while watching.
It's like a mass unity consciousness concept, as described in the book by a group of scientists, titled, "The Hundredth Monkey", kicked off after the first few hundred people watched this video that you just posted. That's quite wonderful. BTW, I fell asleep before finishing this comment, woke up Sunday and finished it, accidentally discarding it & rewriting it, but I started writing when only ~460 people had watched.
(It's also wonderful that you finally stopped using that drawing characterization of yourself, which was not attractive, as you are an attractive person.) ☺

[gzubeck]

I'm Cold!....(pause for a few moments)..."Therefore I exist." LOL!

[chinoodin]

Thanks for sharing a walk in the cold wet forest. Philosophy...helps to clear the clutter of day to day demands and give definition to the select variables we all seem to hold as truth, the lives we live.

[robsondaluz]

Haidgger um dos maiores filósofo do mundo.. ele é Nietzsche..

[uzairhaji]

Amazing video. Fog, wind, rain, cold, mountains, fountains - pure nature. And the topic is interesting too. Great work.

[MakeMeThinkAgain]

Up to 8:25 is just perfect. Wandering lost in the clouds is about what reading Heidegger in translation is like for me. There are what you know have to be wonderful views at every turn, but we can't actually see anything but the inside of the cloud (our own consciousness).

He and Wittgenstein should have been best pals.

[anjaschatz]

Amazing, your work! Every time again! Liebe Grüße aus Deutschland!

[ir-r-tjtkttl]

Thank you for picking such a clear day to visit the place! We could CLEARLY now figure out where it is, because you picked the best for it! NOPE!

[LuisPerez-fqhp]

How can one be fearful if you grew up in the peaks of high mountains. If you learned from childhood to hunt with eagles? How can you be a provincial, if you conquest the sea from early age? "Home is the sailor..." We are what we do with what we have, but we just don't have a physical body, our true home is more than prosthesis...

[Michelessex]

Great stuff, great to hear your guy talking; to encapsulate such complex ideas into just a few moments AND the weather punctuates the central thought perfectly. Kristen your collaboration is poetry in motion, Bravo! You are truly getting just better and better; always a treasure. I was worried about the kids freezing Pariseau

[alvarocarrilho]

I'm a subscriber of your chanel, and the «alternative living» using the house as a turning point and a change in perspective of what do we need to be fulfilled, resonate deeply and had a significant impact in me (and my wife). This episode was another level of understanding the same concept. Thks from Lisbon - Portugal

[rachelstewart]

Richest dasein of this video....my pants are wet; it is very cold! 💙

[ypyp]

I used to come over the border to ski with the family near there, I wish I knew what was a few km away. Don’t remember it ever being as miserable as it was in this film.