Hello, My name is Simon Freund and I’m a philosopher. I’m basically trying to wake up everyday and being able to do whatever I want. Whatever – that is what I’m doing (some call it art). I’m documenting, often online to share it with the world for free.
I don’t really feel home anywhere – or do I feel at home everywhere? I’m not really sure about this. Fact is, that I don’t call any special city my home. Since a few weeks, I live in Munich and I like it, it’s still not really my home though. My favourite place in Munich is the Academy of Fine arts which I already fell in love with before studying there. It’s my happy place in Munich. Other places I really like are the museum Haus der Kunst, where I worked as a museums guard for a few months, the Goldene Bar, basically the museum cafe / restaurant and the Englischer Garten directly next to the museum which is one of the biggest highlights in Munich. Another space I can recommend is Lothringer 13 – a non commercial art gallery with a coffee shop next to it with a very relaxed vibe.
I would definitely invite you to visit me at the Academy and I would show you the garden, which is not really big, but still very beautiful and calming. When everyone is sitting in front of the stairs of the academy in the summer the garden offers a little more quiet.
One of the the key moments was changing schools when I was around 17… This showed me that I can choose what I want to do and change things according to what I want or don’t want. After that I decided to leave school one year earlier than my friends, started my own fashion brand, moved to Amsterdam to study Fashion & Branding and dropped out after one year and making a handful of lifetime friendships.
After that I moved to Berlin, opened my own store, tried out various concepts until closing the shop and the brand at the end of 2016. After that I moved to Munich to start working at Vitsoe, which led me to live in London for three months to receive my initial training with the British company. On my way to work, I passed by the academy of fine arts every morning and one day I decided to apply to study fine arts. Lucky me, I was accepted right away, quit my job at Vitsoe and started living the artist’s life ever since. As Munich became too expensive without a fulltime job, I decided to move to Gotha, a really small town in the middle of Germany, where I found a nice flat for the price that I could afford. Being in the middle of Germany allowed me to travel to Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich regularly, visiting friends and never being on the same spot for more than two weeks…
The beautiful thing is that I don’t have a job title, or even a job. While I’m basically a student I also don’t feel like a student though. I’m just a human being living from day to day who’s thinking a lot. Every now and then my thoughts are transported into my work. This can be a photo series, a sculpture, texts, performance – anything really. This is exactly what I want for my life. Waking up in the morning and doing whatever I want to do. However, I understand that I’m not alone on this planet, so I believe that with whatever we are doing we should not harm anyone and take care of our planet. This means that sustainability is a standard rule for everything that I’m doing and that I try to treat the humans around me respectfully – it’s just common sense. Also, being aware that I’m part of humanity I think about our failures, chances, ambitions, dreams, etc. quite a lot and reflect this in my work, which I then share with the world for free. At the moment I can live this way because I can afford a very simple life with the student loan I receive and because I don’t need much and I don’t even want much. However, in about one year I will finish my studies and because I’m not getting paid for the work I’m doing I will have little to no income. So without wanting it I’m starting to think about what I can do to make a living, like selling stuff to people – which I hate… it’s a shame, that we can’t be truly free unless we have money or we break out completely leaving civilisation behind.
I guess being depressed is what I’m most scared of and I get depressed if I need to do things I don’t want to do or don’t believe in. It’s crazy how bad I feel doing things I don’t want to do… I mean I’ve been there: waking up in the morning having to go to work and hating work… but after complaining for a few months or even just weeks, I quit… I really don’t understand how people continue doing the things they don’t like to do or where they don’t see any purpose in. So – being scared of depression is giving me the direction to change things, no matter how scary this might be, I rather change my life than have my life destroy me.
I’m not joking when I’m saying I can write a book about all the times I felt uncertain about the future. My life is a fucking roller coaster and my ups and downs catch me by the minute. Being self employed with the age of 18 made me feel quite uncertain especially with all my friends studying and talking about how much money they will earn when they finish their studies. Then I made a few bad decisions which lead me to having to having a ton of debt which I still have today. After I decided to close my shop and stop the brand, I didn’t know how to proceed at all – I was so lost… I remember sitting in a bar with two friends and it must have been the first time they were truly worried about me, because I was so desperate and I had no idea what to next. I know that I’m repeating myself but change has always be the driving factor to keep me going. I guess I understand quite well, that we can change things and I’m very good at it – no matter how difficult the times might be.
What motivates me is to share my thoughts and my believes with the world. I don’t think that I’m especially clever or anything, but I think that I have a rather extreme way of seeing things and while I would never expect anyone to life as extreme as I do, I hope to inspire people to consume just a little less, to question Social Media just a little bit more often and to think about money as a system that could potentially changed at some point in the distant future. I think that many people come to this planet and they think the things are the way they are, because they alway have been that way. However, things are always changing, nothing is certain and every individual can be the main driver for change. I guess that’s what motivates me: I still believe I can change the world and I don’t agree with how things are at the moment. One thing I don’t like to change is the things I own and especially the clothing I wear. I mean I wear fresh clothes every few days but it’s always the same style. Not just any style, but exactly what I love to wear. My absolute favourites. So I guess this is my biggest ritual, wearing the same clothes every day. Besides that I like that my days are always different, if possible there is music playing and I will most likely have my laptop in front of me – but besides that I like waking up in different places all the time and do random stuff, like staying in bed for way to long day and getting up really early the other day just to sit outside and do nothing… I guess I have a very strange but also very relaxed life.
One thing is tough… I would say: buy less but better.
Inspiration from you to us
Read this: Leinsee by Anne Reinecke
Listen to this: The Tim Ferriss Show
Visit here: If you ever find yourself in Salzburg: this is one of the very few places I felt really comfortable in this city.
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