Transcriber: Nadine Hennig Reviewer: Mile Živković
We cannot stop time.
But can we enjoy every single passing moment?
I started this kind of a life plan two years ago where...
Just like a business plan, as opposed to a business plan,
if we would plan our lives and the currency is not money,
it's moments.
Happy moments are plus, unhappy ones are in the minus.
Now what would we wish?
My decision was: "OK, if it's my choice,
then I want happy moments.
I only want happy moments."
Now, two years ago, I started that and I am telling you,
the result is beautiful.
I didn't manage the credit of 100% happy moments yet,
but it's going up, and I'm little by little
increasing my capacities to think this way.
Time is my profession, it's my passion, and it's my obsession,
Ever since I remember, I was visualizing time,
sketches, drawings, sculptures.
But then it was abstract.
One day, time looked me in the eyes,
and that was when I was passing in front of the mirror
and I realized gravity pulls.
(Laughter)
I mean, there are solutions.
I've heard about plastic surgeons and everything, and vanity and all of that,
but I thought to myself: "There must be a solution."
Well, then OK, since I am the one, the artist who visualizes time.
So I took the story of a candle, wrapped around it the two characters
of the flame as time and youth as this beautiful sculpture.
I integrated, in this beautiful sculpture that would be consumed, things like birth,
change, transformation, and even death.
So I thought to myself: "OK."
The story goes like this:
The flame - time - was having a conversation with youth.
And youth goes: "I want to stay forever young and beautiful.
Please, do not consume me."
Time tells her: "Look, all of your life experiences
are transformed into light.
Your light then shines to those around you
with warmth and light, shine.
Unless you burn, unless you're consumed, your life will have no sense.
There is a great pleasure in this transient, in this ephemeral.
So, if you stay cold and still, you will never experience all of that."
"Hmm, OK."
After a moment of contemplation, youth stretched its wick
to the time - the flame - and she said: "Please, enlighten me."
(Laughter)
Well, I must have hit a chord here because somehow people were interested
in this art of mine, and then it was a moment of change in my career.
So, I was the artist who had time, who enjoyed time.
I became the businesswoman and the artist.
And then I had to build this business.
I found myself saying: "I have no time. I have my off-time."
My motto was: We cannot stop time,
but I could enjoy every single passing moment.
And here I am, I didn't have time for my children, for anything,
until time looked at me in the eye again.
And this time it wasn't the mirror; it was my son.
One morning, we woke up and he was saying to me:
"Mommy, mommy, I cannot say (German) 'Waum.'"
I'm not looking at him.
I'm going, "Honey but you're saying (German) 'Waum.'"
He was actually trying to say (German) "Baum."'
Two minutes later, he comes to me:
"Mommy, when I'm brushing my teeth, the water is running from my mouth."
That's when I went "shoop." My son was half-paralyzed.
His eye was drooping, his mouth was like that.
We were in the hospital. The doctors told us that he has meningitis.
It's a kind of an infection of the membrane that covers the brain
and the spinal cord.
And his possibilities are from the worst-case, in two weeks he dies,
to full recovery, paralysis in between, and whatever.
I was afraid, I was so afraid. I was feeling sorry for myself.
And then, it was the look in my son's eyes that told me:
I'm going to enjoy those moments, even if I'll take the worst-case scenario,
even if it was two weeks, then I'm going to enjoy them.
Suddenly, I had time. I stopped working for two weeks.
And the thing is, everything around us was a source of pleasure and joy:
the hospital grounds, the fountains.
We took off our shoes and were in the murky water of the fountains.
We invented games in the hospital; in the hospital rooms,
with those sick children, we danced, we sang.
It was beautiful, really beautiful.
I got to know my son, he got to know me.
We told stories. We shared them.
Even the nurses and doctors sometimes took part in our activities.
When we were leaving the hospital...
Later on, he recovered. They found that it was a bacterial infection.
They administered the antibiotics, and my son started gradually getting better.
As we were leaving, one of the nurses [asked] me:
"We were curious, me and the nurses. What is your profession?" I go: "Why?"
And she says: "Well, usually we are used to mothers who are nervous
and standing in front of the room, grabbing us, [asking],
"What are the next results?",
"What's going to happen?", and "When are the doctors coming?"
But in your case, not only you were not interested in us,
but you were a source of entertainment for everybody in the hospital."
And so I turned around to her - and I know I was vague -
but I said to her: "Time, my profession is time."
(Laughter)
I pulled [out] my present to her and to the nurses, one of my art pieces,
and inside it is the story, and I thought to myself, leaving:
She's going to understand
because it looks like gravity is having its pull on her as well.
(Laughter)
What is the most important thing?
What is the most, no important, yes "sowieso" [anyway] like the Germans say -
but the most realistic thing that we have in our hands is the moment.
It is the present moment.
It is the moment that we can change.
The past is gone and the future is not in our hands.
So could we change those moments?
And as I told you, since two years, I'm working on my credit for happy moments.
My life plan is looking good.
What does it require then to change a moment?
What is it that always upsets us: fear,
the understanding to other human beings,
blames, mistakes?
For me, then, things like that started disappearing gradually
because I started retranslating those moments,
and even if I didn't find a solution at that moment
I always found something within the present moment
that gave me happiness.
And then the problems solved themselves, eventually.
Two things started happening.
Time started unfolding - it really did.
Things that I used to do within 2, 3, 4 hours to days,
I managed to do much faster because I'm so settled within me,
I am much clearer, and on top of that,
worlds started opening to me, many worlds;
worlds I did not expect, they were there.
It's just because of this letting go.
Just recently, I was put under this challenge again.
Well, it's very simple.
I was invited to a birthday party.
I had to do all of those other things, and the birthday party starts at 10.
At ten o'clock, I was in the underground station, still thinking,
you know, "When is the train coming?"
And I thought to myself: "OK, look what you are doing.
So, enjoy the moment."
So, I looked around me and I started enjoying the moment.
(Laughter)
And there came this gray-haired man,and he was running around completely nervous:
"Can you give me 20 euros?," asking this woman, and this woman goes:
"Where do you think you are? Are you in front of the opera?
We're in an underground station."
(Laughter)
The next man looked at him, and he goes: "I mean, your request,
if you would have asked me for one euro, I can understand but 20 euros!"
and everybody started having a momentum laughing at this man.
The third lady, she goes: "What do you want 20 euros for, anyway?"
The man goes: "I want to take a taxi."
(Laughter)
She goes: "Well, why don't you take the train like everyone of us?"
He came to me and he goes: "I have to take a taxi.
Can you give me those 20 euros?"
I said: "Well, why do you want to take a taxi?"
He says: "I'm not feeling well. I need to go home."
I said: "20 euros is a lot of money but I could give you time."
He looked at me like, "What is she talking about?"
(Laughter)
He left. The train came.
He didn't get his 20 euros nor could he then take a taxi.
But I sat next to him in the train and I offered again my help,
"Can I help you?"
And he goes: "Yeah, you could give me 20 euros and I get out at the next station
and take a taxi."
I said: "Well, I could accompany you to your home, if you're not feeling well."
He looked at me, and I don't know, maybe he felt the sympathy.
This elderly man put his head in his hands and started crying.
It turned out to be that he is from a mentally disabled people's home
and their deadline - they have to come back.
It was their day off. He was supposed to be there at ten o'clock.
And Evelyn, the caretaker, is going to give him a house arrest tomorrow,
if he doesn't get back.
So he was like looking at his watch. It was ten o'clock already.
So I said: "I have a suggestion. Let's call Evelyn," which we did.
We called Evelyn. And Evelyn was very sympathetic.
She said: "He has got a heart pacemaker in his heart, and he definitely
- Dieter was his name - should not be late."
And I said to her: "Look, I'm accompanying him,"
and she was assured.
Now, Dieter having heard that, this man changed.
He suddenly was the most wonderful creature I have ever met.
He was telling me stories. I was entertained.
I mean, forget about theater, forget about...
The man was even singing.
He was checking everybody in the underground.
Of course, the journey took an hour and a half.
So after the underground, we had to take a bus.
I don't know how he was going to manage that with a 20-euro taxi.
This is the 40-euro journey, but anyway, we arrived there.
I handed him to Evelyn.
And then I managed my birthday party, and I managed to have fun with my people,
and time unfolded.
What I want to say is that happiness is all around us.
It is those moments that are with the people who are sharing it with us.
It just requires a little bit of respect, love and some imagination in those futures
that are coming on us with all the varieties.
We have seen so many varieties and differences
and innovations, mind-boggling.
How are we going to use those mobile phones?
How are we going to deal with the environment?
We need to limit the flexibility.
It requires from us this little bit of training of dealing with those moments
and changing them, deflect the capacity of created thinking in just turning
a moment into a happy one.
And after all, the reward is immediate: happy moments.
Thank you.
(Applause)