Oh, Wageningen, the city that created Felix Landsman, whose inhabitants now reap his fruits through these columns. The city in which I felt like the alpha male during my first year for downing beers in a green-striped tie on the Grebbedijk every Tuesday. Until I realised that it was just a cool story we were telling each other. Where I first hugged all my friends with dilated pupils and where I never made it past the hopeless romantic stage.
Stating that Wageningen has made me who I am today is no exaggeration. Of course, I was upset over the Amazon shrinking by a football field every fifteen seconds as a child, but the fact that I would turn against the entire current economic and social system was not predicted. Thanks, Wageningen; I will never look at the world in the same way.
Wageningen is one of those places where you feel just a little too much at home
This is where I met my best and my weirdest friends, where I lived in the coolest houses and along the grubbiest corridors, and where I, too often, experienced that moment of doubt, wondering if, and if so how, I should greet an approaching vague acquaintance from a drunk night out three years ago.
Wageningen, to me, is like a warm blanket, perhaps even an electric one. The kind that can ignite if you leave it on for too long. What I’m saying is that Wageningen is one of those places where you feel just a little too much at home. Where you can feel chill about trying to do what is right while being comfortably and completely isolated from the world’s miseries. Where the fact that that world even exists is easily forgotten.
The time for me to cast that warm blanket aside, for the time being, is drawing near. No warm hugs but cold stares from the people around me. I believe we should not stay in our warm blankets for too long. So, it is time for me to embrace the world outside and, hopefully, spread some Wageningness.
Felix Landsman (23) is a former master’s student of environmental sciences who is currently trying his luck in an open master’s programme focusing on environmental sociology. He is also an aspiring adventurer. He is often looking for something.
