The benefits of working & living in a village with 31 inhabitants
“God doesn’t need to come down upon a mountain, for the mountain itself is the revelation. We only have to look at it and we will know how we should live.”
Working in solitude or in a small community creates opportunities which make you rush less, have more focus and reflect deeper. In this blog I share some insights on living and working remotely in Usana. Guest writer and dear friend Tom van de Beek will share some insights and learnings on his 6 weeks stay in our house as entrepreneur in residence, while we were visiting family in Costa Rica last winter. Tom is a ecopreneur (ask Tom:)) and founder of The Tipping Point foundation & The Pollinators.
“We live and work in Usana, which is an old pueblo (small village) in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees. The hermitage in the village dates back to the 1700’s. Usana is situated at 600 meter and 2 km from Ainsa-Sobrarbe. We are overlooking the Embalse de Mediano a 30 km long dam lake with exceptional blue water. Peña Montenesa rises up to 2300 meter a few kilometers behind Usana. An endless amount of kilometers of hiking and mountain bike trails start directly from our house and besides some wildlife you won't meet anyone on those long hikes. Including our little family we are 13 people in the village.”
My insights & learnings
If you want to live in solitude and self-isolation this is almost the perfect spot. You can be here and talk to no one for days, weeks or months. In our case we like to socialise, so we have a lot of contact with the most of the people in the pueblo and in corona times you try to look after each other. That is how life goes in Spanish pueblos.
Life is good here in Usana. Compared to my life in the city of Haarlem and my work in Amsterdam. I might get only 10% of the stimulation and information that i got in the city. This gives me space to be silent in my head. Marce often asks me what I am thinking about when I am silent and I can think of literally nothing. I never experienced this calmness and quiet brain in the city.
My thinking is more clear, there is less noise when you live in a remote place. I am not insensitive for all things, social media it is a very useful tool for working remotely and it can distract me too, I am still a human. But in general I am more focused.
There is less stress from the outside world. The stress I sometimes have is the pressure I put on myself to perform, to be a good dad & husband. I am still a very ambitious person. This pressure is easy to let go, because here we just live in the moment. When I get of balance and worried I try to do things that make me present and the stress disappears.
I have always loved to reflect on the things I am doing, on the things I learn. I guess that is why I am a designer.
To conclude my part I truly feel I became more myself since living in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees. I belong in an outdoor environment, where I can be free. By becoming more Jeroen, I was able to improve my skills and mindset as a designer, which hopefully reflects in the work I do as part of Unbeaten Studio. If you ever thought about moving outside of the city, in having an outdoor life, in changing the way you live your life, I would say trust your gut and take the risk, it is worth it :)
Tom’s insights & learnings
When Jeroen asked me in June if I was interested in an entrepreneurship in residence during the winter months, I immediately said yes. Hell yeah, spending six weeks in the mountains in December and January sounded like the place to be, especially during those dark depressing winter days in Holland. It felt like the perfect thing to do, and use those weeks for reflection and consideration about the future. Disrupting the rat race of everyday work life made a lot of sense to me. However, as December was approaching, I asked myself: how did I ever imagine leaving Amsterdam for such a long period of time? I’ve got a ton on projects going on, wouldn’t I feel missed? How am I going to manage? But there was no way back, especially since I promised to take care of Jago the dog for the time being.
And I must admit being an entrepreneur in residence has done me a lot of good. It took me a bit of time to find my rhythm, but once I was settled it was quite a pleasant and soothing way to get through time.
So what did I accomplish? First of all I realised how little time I actually needed for the ‘productive’ work. In two hours, usually in the morning after breakfast, I could answer my emails, do necessary phone calls, do administrative work, write proposals, etcetera. This would normally take me about 6 to 8 hours, because there’s always a lot of distraction, a lot of (often) unnecessary meetings, a lot of stuff to fill the day with.
But now I was focused for a few hours, then took the mountainbike (or sometimes walked with Jago) and went exploring the extraordinary amount of vast nature around Ainsa. Usually I would be on the trails for three to four hours before getting back home. Being alone in nature not only brought space and clarity of mind, but also lots of ideas. Ideas I wrote down immediately in order to elaborate on them later. Nature time is truly inspiration time.
Usually after coming back home I started reading a book, resulting in having read a whole stockpile of books during those weeks. And as we all know reading usually brings wisdom and insight, so to be able to read this much - it certainly helped I could make a nice fire every night - and spend a lot less time in front of a screen already made my stay successful.
Like Jeroen mentioned, being in Usana brings a different mode. The close connection to nature and the absence of distraction, the reading of books, the process of making a fire, these are all things that make you want to live simpler, live slower, live ‘quality instead of quantity’. Going to bed when it gets dark and waking up when the sun rises. Taking time to look at the stars at night, taking time to get lost in the woods and then find your way back again. Physically and mentally it was a true relief to be away for so long.
Now that I’m back in Amsterdam I often think back of those weeks in the mountains. I realise how much of a luxury it actually was, especially now that we all have to find ways to deal with the restrictions due to Covid19. I also realise that the opportunities to go remote like before will be slim in the near future. But the way of living, the emphasis on quality of life, of being in the moment, of cherishing the moments in nature, are things to adopt to current life in the city. So that will be my challenge for the time coming: to live like I’m still on that mountain in the Spanish Pyrenees :-)
Authors: Jeroen Spoelstra & Tom van de Beek
Pictures: Jeroen Spoelstra & Tom van de Beek
