Life Awaits – The Latest DOWNTOWN Issue #012 Is Out Now

Can you buy a good life? What’s the point of having the best gear if we outsource the experience itself? And what happens when we stop asking our smartwatch how we feel? In this issue, we turn a few things on their head and ask: How do we take all the opportunities available to us, and turn them into a good life? If my mum can do it, so can we.

My mum is shaking. Maybe it’s the nerves. Maybe it’s the night in the rooftop tent, where she barely slept a wink. The sun has just risen over Monument Valley, bathing the red rocks in that almost unreal light you know from Westerns and old Marlboro ads. Except this time, we’re not just standing in front of it taking a photo.

In a moment, we’ll meet a few members of the Navajo Nation who will take us out into this landscape on horseback. For my mum, that’s a pretty big deal. She’s been afraid of horses her entire life. A few days earlier, at a friend’s place in Flagstaff, we’d put her on a horse for the first time – and straight onto a Mustang. A few laps around the round pen, safe ground, no pressure. It went surprisingly well, and somewhere between getting on and getting off, “Absolutely not” had turned into a cautious “Maybe”. But right now, there isn’t much of that confidence left.

Not all of us will travel to Monument Valley. But here’s what I mean: you don’t have to be an adventurer to have adventures. You just have to start managing your life a little less – and shaping it a little more.

And that’s exactly what this issue of DOWNTOWN is about: what do we actually do with all the things and opportunities available to us today? To find some answers, we headed outside. We set off on an adventure to review bikepacking tents and camping coffee makers, deliberately got our hands dirty again while throwing pottery, and took a critical look at whether wearables really help us understand our bodies better. Whether it was during our reviews and stories, or on my electric-overlanding trip along the Californian coast with the Specialized Levo X, we kept arriving at the same conclusion: the best product isn’t automatically the most expensive, smartest or technically most impressive. Even the best tool is only as valuable as what you’re able to do with it.

Today, we can buy almost anything. The best bike, the lightest tent, the most stylish coffee machine, the latest smartwatch. We can pay 300 dollars for a motel in Lake Tahoe, hear the neighbour’s television through the wall, and somehow manage to shut ourselves off from the very world we came all this way to experience. Or we can sleep a few kilometres further out, unzip the tent in the morning, put some water on the stove, and realise that coffee rarely tastes better.

And this isn’t about owning less. I love good products. I love things that are cleverly designed, that offer genuine benefits, that open up new possibilities. But their value to our lives is determined by what we do with them. That’s the point: they can’t replace the experience itself.
What’s the point of the best bike if we don’t ride it? The most expensive tent if it stays in the basement? The most beautiful coffee machine, if we can’t spare five minutes to enjoy the coffee? And what’s the point of a watch that knows every detail about our body if, in the process, we forget how to feel it for ourselves?

Increasingly, we’re not just outsourcing physical work and knowledge, but also navigation, decisions – even parts of our thinking. Our watch tells us how well we slept, Google tells us where to go, and AI delivers a convincing answer to almost any question within seconds. All of that is incredibly convenient, and – smartwatch aside – I use almost all of it myself every day. The tools aren’t the problem. The problem begins when we begin to trust them more than ourselves.

If my watch tells me I slept badly even though I feel great – who do I believe? And if AI tells me within seconds what I could think – do I still take the time to work out what I actually think myself? The crucial question isn’t whether technology is good or bad. It’s this: who’s in the driver’s seat?
A good life doesn’t have to be a frictionless one. When travelling, it’s often the detours we end up talking about later. On adventures, it’s the challenging and spontaneous moments. And when throwing pottery, it’s often the wonky bowl that has more personality than the perfect example, artfully arranged in the boutique. Confidence works the same way: it doesn’t come from a device reassuring us that everything is fine, but from trying things, getting them wrong sometimes, and learning to trust our own judgement.

We ought to start feeling before measuring again. Trying before judging. Otherwise, we risk becoming spectators in our own lives: perfectly informed, brilliantly equipped, constantly optimised – yet increasingly left with the feeling that real life is somehow happening somewhere else.
When I have more time… When I’m fitter… When I have enough money… When I feel ready… If only… But that perfect moment usually never comes.

Of course, that doesn’t mean saying yes to everything. Quite the opposite. Knowing when to say no is just as important. The only question that matters is: am I saying no because I genuinely don’t want something – or because I don’t believe I can do it? Entire worlds can lie between those two answers.
Meaning isn’t something we have to find somewhere either. We give our lives their own meaning, and we decide what matters to us – the people we spend our time with, the things we try, create and learn, and the moments we make possible ourselves. What counts will be different for everyone. And that’s exactly where the freedom lies: even the meaning of our lives is something we have to shape ourselves.

You can’t consume a good life. You have to create it yourself. And that takes much less than we think. No new life, no big trip around the world, and not necessarily a horse ride in Monument Valley. Sometimes it’s enough not to automatically say no next time. To take a different route. Get the bike out of the basement. Sleep outside. Call someone. Or start something without knowing whether you can actually do it.

Life is waiting, but it won’t come to you. Life awaits. Go create it. If my mum can do it at almost 70, so can we.

Viel Spaß mit dieser Ausgabe!

Robin Schmitt,

PS: Ich freue mich über euer Feedback und Gedanken zur Ausgabe oder einzelnen Stories – schreibt mir gern unter robin@downtown-mag.com

Words: Robin Schmitt Photos: diverse