Twenty Years of Squatting: What Cooperation Actually Looks Like

Details

• Interviewee: Eugene
• Role: Community Member
• Community: ADM
• Date: 2026-01-14
• Language: en

Summary

In this interview, Eugene reflects on his nearly 20 years living in Amsterdam, detailing his journey from squatting to finding community at ADM. He emphasizes the richness of life created through cooperation among residents, discussing the blend of artistic expression and practical skills that define their culture. Eugene also touches on the challenges of existing within a system that prioritizes ownership and individualism, expressing a desire for more collective approaches to community living and systemic change. His experiences illustrate a complex view of squatting as both an opportunity for creative freedom and a challenge for addressing deeper societal issues.

Key quotes

What was quite fantastic is how organized the people were here. And especially on all kinds of levels... here was a bit of everything. So that felt really complete.

Of course you're kind of sad that a place like this goes. I mean, it gives so much energy. You get so surprised by the quality of acts... It's very rich, you know? It's really beautiful.

I think most people who are coming here... they get a certain energy feeling. And I think this is the feeling of people working together.

So what is the lesson is that I think the collectiveness is the way to go. And this gives you a lot of freedom and gives you trust and gives you a feeling which you can enjoy.

To be in the now, which is kind of important... to create is a super interesting process which gives you space to be in the now.

For me, the solution is like what we all think is normal we have to completely stop and then build something completely new with the right ideas and with a good intention instead of abuse.

Transcript

**Sharon:** You can start with your name, just for the recording.
**Eugene:** Yeah, it's Eugene.
**Sharon:** And how long are you here already?
**Eugene:** Almost 20 years. I came here after I was squatted 10 months. So this year we have our 20th anniversary, 2017.
**Sharon:** And why did you come here?
**Eugene:** Yeah, it's a bit of a story. I was traveling a lot and then I always ended up in the Netherlands again.
**Sharon:** Are you originally from the Netherlands?
**Eugene:** I'm originally Dutch. So then I kind of decided, okay, if I come back anyway, anytime, every time, I'm going to try it out for some years. So this was when I was 27 then. And I was living in the South. And then I had a cousin living here in Amsterdam. So I went to visit him and he was working for film. And he said, yeah, do this job, come with me. So I went with him a couple of days. It was quite interesting and I became friends with the guy he was working for, this director. So I started to be in Amsterdam and do some filming. Got into the whole filming business at that moment, which was quite interesting because we were still all on film.
**Sharon:** What did you do for the job?
**Eugene:** The video didn't exist yet. No, I did grip. Yeah. I liked the movement of the camera, you know, the trolleys. And later started to be specialized in crane grip. So then I met this girl from Amsterdam and started to live here. Got my own apartment. But then after being here for a while, I really missed my workshop. I used to have a workshop since my 13, 14. Started working in the shed behind the house. I gave up horses. From my 6th to my 12th I had horses. And then at one moment it was like, okay, let's go more into, I was a bit tired of like the everyday commitment, you know. Yeah, I have horses. But it's a beautiful relationship. So then I kind of changed the horses for mopeds and dirt bikes and started there with welding and making our own scalpels, motorized. Good fun. And then when we were a bit older, we decided to rent a place, just work on cars, mostly for ourselves, not like a garage or something, but like for our own home.
**Sharon:** Did the girls all make scalpels?
**Eugene:** No, there was not so much in the art thing, but it was like really making them in the way you want them to be. So, you know, changing engines, different differentials, sound, interior, seat brakes, this kind of stuff. It was all about speed. Yeah, and to make them, privatize your, you know, like a factory vehicle. And so we always had like, then we had a big workspace, we had four, we had like 300 square meters. Anyway, then I went traveling and I went to the United States, New Orleans, Chicago, Seattle, a little bit of Mexico, Acapulco, New York City, Europe a lot, Ireland a little while.
**Sharon:** How did you find this place?
**Eugene:** There was, when I came back from New Orleans, we started to live in Paris with a guy I met in New Orleans who was studying in Paris and met many people there. Then we were going to go on this trip to Morocco. So we built this camp, bought an old camper, we built it all up, we had a motorcycle on the back. We went surfing in Biarritz and then we got kind of stuck, which is south of France on the west coast. We got kind of stuck there because the temple broke down. I stayed with my American cousin in Chicago and my friend who was, I knew from New Orleans, he was like half Irish, half American. Born in Monaco, he has a girlfriend. Then we were stuck in Biarritz, so we did some surfing for like two months, which was kind of heavy because the first time we started surfing we were there in September and it was like, it took us two weeks to get out, just to get out. Two weeks of battling, let's say. We made it. Then one moment the other people, they started to do different things and some were still studying. They had to go back to the study thing. It's me and my cousin who were there and then some girls came to rescue us with the parts we couldn't find in France. One of the girls, she's Irish and she said, yeah, we were completely broke. So I said, yeah, why don't you come with me? I go back to Dublin and there I find some work and it sounded interesting to us. We put the camper somewhere and went with the Dublin and then it was super interesting. So we stayed there. We started to do, we worked like in this little backyard and we started to do organized parties. Did like a fortnight, got a club together. Every Thursday night we could do our thing. So we started off with acid jazz. This was all beginning in the 90s. Didn't really make it like a live musician.
**Eugene:** So then we went over to a house after a couple of months. It kind of made it. We did this for six months and then went to England. London, stayed there for a bit, but it was like a month, month and a half. But it was a bit of hassle. It was, I stayed with a friend and she had a child and had to go to school and it was like a busy program and I was a little bit tired. So then I got back to the Netherlands and then I decided to stay here till my 30th. So then this whole Amsterdam thing started. And then being here for a while, yeah, it was like, I need a workshop, you know. Started looking around. After looking for a year, it was so expensive. That it's, didn't pay that. Then somebody said, well, check out some squats because they're sometimes, we had two big squats then in the center, around the center of Amsterdam. This was the Silo and that was the Peace House America. So I went to ask them the Silo, it was a little bit difficult. And the Peace House said, yeah, sure, we have a space. So then I got, I rolled into that environment and it was really fantastic. Like how the people work together, how they really do stuff to, you know, and it was, we had like a club there, we had a restaurant, we had like big workshops, a skate park of like two times 3000 square meters. So one was really with ramps and everything and the other side was a little bit of a cowboy village for the roller skaters.
And then on the fifth floor, it was like, you know, view all around Amsterdam. There was organized all kinds of many computer people. We had a radio station for a while. It was just five years of fantastic happening, but then it got evicted.
**Eugene:** And then I stayed, I was living in a bus in the meantime, big bus, 12 meters, old one from… it's still there and a bit of a project. Anyway, so then after this eviction, I stayed with some friends who bought a piece of land. We called it Zok City.
**Sharon:** Zok? What does it mean?
**Eugene:** It's not really a meaning. It's more of feeling you get with the word. Zok? Yeah, it was, you know, it's in the harbor, a field, just so right next to the water. You have to go over a little dike. Now it's all industrial place. It's pretty changed, all the buildings and everything.
Yeah, okay, this was more than 20 years ago. It was about 20 years. So then these guys were already living there for like three years or something. But also this got evicted because of the industry there. And then, yeah, this ended up in this place. Friends were here. They just had this whole stuff, the owner coming with a big shovel and really breaking down the front of the building where the tree is built now. And so they, you know, they wanted to be a bit more strong and got kind of accepted to live here since then.
**Sharon:** Get accepted in this asshole?
**Eugene:** Yeah, you go like to the meeting and say, okay, I'm so-and-so and I'd like to live here. This is a little bit my connection. There's always the question of what do you think can mean for this place? I used to do and run the sound system in the club.
**Sharon:** How did you feel about this place?
**Eugene:** Nice, it was quite nice. But what was quite fantastic is how organized the people were here. And especially on all kinds of levels because this is something we missed in the Freezehouse, like the whole political side. We were all young guys, you know. It was run by like 10 or 15 guys. Only some girls survived.
So it was really a boys, but many people with artistic skills and with organizing skills and stuff like that, but nothing political, political ambition, let's say. And here was a bit of everything. So that felt really complete.
It felt also like a devastated place because there was no green. So from here you could see the gate. Well, everything is just flat. It was this long. They come here with a bulldozer every three months and just take out everything. So just before we arrived. So yeah, it was really like heavy industrial, far away from the city into the harbor and totally interesting with the big boats. You know, 300 meter boats coming by here. It's quite crazy.
**Sharon:** I mean, we're right there in the North Sea. Does it go straight out to the sea?
**Eugene:** Yeah, so from the center of Amsterdam to where it goes out on the sea, which is called IJmuiden. It's like a 15 kilometer track and we are here on seven kilometers from the center. So we're about in the middle of this channel, which is dug by hand in 18… I don't know exactly anymore, I think 60 something. Oh. Yeah, imagine. I don't know how many years it took, but now many people died. Just with a shovel, you know, and it's a big canal.
**Sharon:** You made up your own society.
**Eugene:** Yeah, yeah. It's just, there were many people because the Silo was also evicted. So there were many people from there. And then there were some people from Peace House America and then who used to live in the city. And it was quite a nice group.
We worked a lot together to make stuff together and to try to share the place with the public, to make nice things, a lot of creations into music and theater. And there were people of many disciplines, you know, painters and inventors and people who work with sound systems and street theater, welders, car mechanics, wood specialists and all kinds of forms.
**Eugene:** …well, check out some squats because they're sometimes… we had two big squats then in the center, around the center of Amsterdam. This was the Silo and that was the Peace House America. So I went to ask them the Silo, it was a little bit difficult. And the Peace House said, yeah, sure, we have a space.
So then I got, I rolled into that environment and it was really fantastic. Like how the people work together, how they really do stuff to, you know, and it was, we had like a club there, we had a restaurant, we had like big workshops, a skate park of like two times 3000 square meters. So one was really with ramps and everything and the other side was a little bit of a cowboy village for the roller skaters.
And then on the fifth floor, it was like, you know, view all around Amsterdam. There was organized all kinds of… many computer people. We had a radio station for a while. It was just five years of fantastic happening, but then it got evicted.
And then I stayed, I was living in a bus in the meantime, big bus, 12 meters, old one from… it's still there and a bit of a project. Anyway, so then after this eviction, I stayed with some friends who bought a piece of land. We called it Zok City.
**Sharon:** Zok? What does it mean?
**Eugene:** It's not really a meaning. It's more of feeling you get with the word. Zok? Yeah, it was, you know, it's in the harbor, a field, just so right next to the water. You have to go over a little dike. Now it's all industrial place. It's pretty changed, all the buildings and everything.
Yeah, okay, this was more than 20 years ago. It was about 20 years. So then these guys were already living there for like three years or something. But also this got evicted because of the industry there. And then, yeah, this ended up in this place. Friends were here. They just had this whole stuff, the owner coming with a big shovel and really breaking down the front of the building where the tree is built now. And so they, you know, they wanted to be a bit more strong and got kind of accepted to live here since then.
**Sharon:** Get accepted in this asshole?
**Eugene:** Yeah, you go like to the meeting and say, okay, I'm so-and-so and I'd like to live here. This is a little bit my connection. There's always the question of what do you think can mean for this place? I used to do and run the sound system in the club.
**Sharon:** How did you feel about this place?
**Eugene:** Nice, it was quite nice. But what was quite fantastic is how organized the people were here. And especially on all kinds of levels because this is something we missed in the Freezehouse, like the whole political side. We were all young guys, you know. It was run by like 10 or 15 guys. Only some girls survived.
So it was really a boys, but many people with artistic skills and with organizing skills and stuff like that, but nothing political, political ambition, let's say. And here was a bit of everything. So that felt really complete.
It felt also like a devastated place because there was no green. So from here you could see the gate. Well, everything is just flat. It was this long. They come here with a bulldozer every three months and just take out everything. So just before we arrived. So yeah, it was really like heavy industrial, far away from the city into the harbor and totally interesting with the big boats. You know, 300 meter boats coming by here. It's quite crazy.
**Sharon:** I mean, we're right there in the North Sea. Does it go straight out to the sea?
**Eugene:** Yeah, so from the center of Amsterdam to where it goes out on the sea, which is called IJmuiden. It's like a 15 kilometer track and we are here on seven kilometers from the center. So we're about in the middle of this channel, which is dug by hand in 18… I don't know exactly anymore, I think 60 something. Oh. Yeah, imagine. I don't know how many years it took, but now many people died. Just with a shovel, you know, and it's a big canal.
**Sharon:** You made up your own society.
**Eugene:** Yeah, yeah. It's just, there were many people because the Silo was also evicted. So there were many people from there. And then there were some people from Peace House America and then who used to live in the city. And it was quite a nice group.
We worked a lot together to make stuff together and to try to share the place with the public, to make nice things, a lot of creations into music and theater. And there were people of many disciplines, you know, painters and inventors and people who work with sound systems and street theater, welders, car mechanics, wood specialists and all kinds of forms.
**Eugene:** …well, check out some squats because they're sometimes… we had two big squats then in the center, around the center of Amsterdam. This was the Silo and that was the Peace House America. So I went to ask them the Silo, it was a little bit difficult. And the Peace House said, yeah, sure, we have a space.
So then I got, I rolled into that environment and it was really fantastic. Like how the people work together, how they really do stuff to, you know, and it was, we had like a club there, we had a restaurant, we had like big workshops, a skate park of like two times 3000 square meters. So one was really with ramps and everything and the other side was a little bit of a cowboy village for the roller skaters.
And then on the fifth floor, it was like, you know, view all around Amsterdam. There was organized all kinds of… many computer people. We had a radio station for a while. It was just five years of fantastic happening, but then it got evicted.
And then I stayed, I was living in a bus in the meantime, big bus, 12 meters, old one from… it's still there and a bit of a project. Anyway, so then after this eviction, I stayed with some friends who bought a piece of land. We called it Zok City.
**Sharon:** Zok? What does it mean?
**Eugene:** It's not really a meaning. It's more of feeling you get with the word. Zok? Yeah, it was, you know, it's in the harbor, a field, just so right next to the water. You have to go over a little dike. Now it's all industrial place. It's pretty changed, all the buildings and everything.
Yeah, okay, this was more than 20 years ago. It was about 20 years. So then these guys were already living there for like three years or something. But also this got evicted because of the industry there. And then, yeah, this ended up in this place. Friends were here. They just had this whole stuff, the owner coming with a big shovel and really breaking down the front of the building where the tree is built now. And so they, you know, they wanted to be a bit more strong and got kind of accepted to live here since then.
**Sharon:** Get accepted in this asshole?
**Eugene:** Yeah, you go like to the meeting and say, okay, I'm so-and-so and I'd like to live here. This is a little bit my connection. There's always the question of what do you think can mean for this place? I used to do and run the sound system in the club.
**Sharon:** How did you feel about this place?
**Eugene:** Nice, it was quite nice. But what was quite fantastic is how organized the people were here. And especially on all kinds of levels because this is something we missed in the Freezehouse, like the whole political side. We were all young guys, you know. It was run by like 10 or 15 guys. Only some girls survived.
So it was really a boys, but many people with artistic skills and with organizing skills and stuff like that, but nothing political, political ambition, let's say. And here was a bit of everything. So that felt really complete.
It felt also like a devastated place because there was no green. So from here you could see the gate. Well, everything is just flat. It was this long. They come here with a bulldozer every three months and just take out everything. So just before we arrived. So yeah, it was really like heavy industrial, far away from the city into the harbor and totally interesting with the big boats. You know, 300 meter boats coming by here. It's quite crazy.
**Sharon:** I mean, we're right there in the North Sea. Does it go straight out to the sea?
**Eugene:** Yeah, so from the center of Amsterdam to where it goes out on the sea, which is called IJmuiden. It's like a 15 kilometer track and we are here on seven kilometers from the center. So we're about in the middle of this channel, which is dug by hand in 18… I don't know exactly anymore, I think 60 something. Oh. Yeah, imagine. I don't know how many years it took, but now many people died. Just with a shovel, you know, and it's a big canal.
**Sharon:** You made up your own society.
**Eugene:** Yeah, yeah. It's just, there were many people because the Silo was also evicted. So there were many people from there. And then there were some people from Peace House America and then who used to live in the city. And it was quite a nice group.
We worked a lot together to make stuff together and to try to share the place with the public, to make nice things, a lot of creations into music and theater. And there were people of many disciplines, you know, painters and inventors and people who work with sound systems and street theater, welders, car mechanics, wood specialists and all kinds of forms.
**Sharon:** You can see the furniture too.
**Eugene:** Yeah, I find it a bit of a big world. I like to, I take a lot of pleasure in making something nice for the eye. So I find in the Netherlands, it's really, you get robbed a little bit, especially in the architecture. Here, as long as I live, there's been building, building, building, building. And they take away a lot of old structures that were built in a time that we're putting so much more effort in to make something look nice.
And this is just being taken away and for often something ugly, you know, it goes quite far. And yeah, I do take pleasure to make stuff which gives a certain dynamic. Which is a pleasure for the eye. And can also be an experience you arrive in and which is giving you a certain feeling which you don't.
We did this, worked a little bit with the Silo Theater. So in the Silo, the top theater, which is an object theater, which means you kind of make objects and the objects are playing the theater and you're manipulating the object. You can give it to the video operator. Yeah. Fire the whole performance.
**Sharon:** Yeah.
**Eugene:** I think this was tight. This was when they jump, at the end they jump on the thing, the guy with the rope. Yeah. This is tight, yeah. This is quite a nice theater group.
**Sharon:** You are?
**Eugene:** Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Sharon:** Did you, for the festivals or something, you also built?
**Eugene:** I like to do things with the metal. So yeah, we built an installation. Still of them are still here. Like yesterday, you see the flower? The steam flower? Yeah. That was just like the newest one. I made this in Paris and we were there for the Mûre à Pêche. This is quite a nice… I cannot really call it a festival, but it's more for the area of Montreux. They have like still the old, the king's gardens there. That are the walls of this Mûre à Pêche.
**Sharon:** How was the experience?
**Eugene:** I think if you… to be, let's say, in the now, which is kind of important and which we are driven away from. But that's what it's all about. I mean, I think to create is a real… this is a super interesting process which gives you space to be in the now. To enjoy this moment, you know. And you look at things very closely and very focused. And you try to do things with form.
And with… for me, it's not that I can… I only get ideas if I see stuff and then I start to make a combination in my head or start to think how can then some iron around or make a combination of this and that. And then… so the creation is… it's a dynamic process, let's say. And this is what I find very interesting.
I think it gives a lot of liberty in your head, you know. Because you're not busy with all the other stuff which is being kind of pushed upon you at this moment the way life is stacked together. Or what we are… let's say the society which is where we live in and how things are running, let's say.
Where you are busy with what you have to do. All these things you didn't ask for but you have to do just to be in the society. I see this as occupation of the mind. It's distraction. It's taking you out of… it's a bit of a waste of time, I feel.
So when you're in this creation process you are outside all of this, you know. You are like… it's so liberating. It's freeing you of a certain weight in life. The society is liberating
**Sharon:** How do you feel about how it is affecting you?
**Eugene:** Yeah, I think… well, what is squatting? I find squatting is quite a heavy thing because you take something from somebody else and you're saying, I can do it better than you do. I mean, that's… well, what I see is the way society is put together is what the people… even when you speculate or when you… I mean, we've grown up in the Netherlands as do business, make your business, make money. We have kind of nothing.
We have some gas in the ground, but that's it. So we are always the in-between guys. And so this is business. Try to make business out of nothing. That's how we… that's what we learned. So let's say this place, who are the owners and in what way they got it and what they want to do with it.
And it's kind of normal for the society. So I think it's more looking at society, what is wrong with that. We should change that system. And what we are kind of trying to do is to kind of show that.
So we use the rules like, okay, if something is empty for one year, you can kind of export it and you can use the space and do something with it. And yeah, somebody else's space. So if this would be from the city, then we would have like a much more of a case that we can say like, okay, city, we are cultural. Try to be an interesting thing. Try to stimulate other people. If you see that's worth something, leave us in this space, but this space is private.
So it's a bit… to fight these private people is a bit of a shame because it goes so much energy from them and from us into battling with each other while the one who's making the decisions and who actually has a certain power to see our value. And if they see the value to do something with that, that's the city.
So I see it more different. If we could stay here 20 years, we learn a lot. I think we stimulated many people. That's all a game, you know? So life is dynamic. It's changing every day. So we'll see.
And of course, if you're here a long time, especially because there's space, you have like all these collections of stuff and things and it became really beautiful with the green and we're right on the water and it's like a fantastic place to live with these 20 years of your life, which is a crazy amount for me. I'm almost 50. With to be somewhere in 20 years.
I never did it in my life, you know? To be for such a long time in the same place. Yeah, I find it quite a beautiful community and it's the non-ownership which gives the space to do that. If there would be ownership among us, it changes already, I think.
So it's a bit… yeah, of course you're kind of sad that a place like this goes. I mean, it gives so much energy. You get so surprised by the quality of acts, by just thinking, okay, there's some food in the bar and you go there and there's some fantastic band from South America or from Australia. It doesn't matter where or some artists who are doing some other stuff.
Yeah, it's very rich, you know? It's really beautiful. And because we are with so many people, you have quite some space here to choose in what way you want to take part in the community.
It's… of course, people are complaining a little bit. Maybe they don't do something with it. But in general, we are quite happy with each other.
And even when people are busy with something completely else and some people are year after year busy with doing stuff, which is good for everybody, like making the food, cleaning the place, bringing the garbage every week to the front of the gate. I mean, doing the post every day. There's many, many things. But you have the space and you have the freedom to develop yourself in whatever way you want.
And it's not so quickly that you are being by your behavior or by… I mean, it's like if you judge, if you make a talk, then the whole judgment can be completely different. It can be frustration or something, but it's all to the minimum. And that's quite beautiful.
Culture, I don't know. I think we are… If I look at the… I think in big… I don't… not even this culture. If you look in the way we are living at this moment, 2017, what we are now, if I see how the world is kind of developing and in what direction, really heading on in quite high speed and the limitations which are being put on human freedom in the way of thinking, the way of moving, in the way of being, food-wise, law-wise, really emptying the globe, the earth where we are living on in a way that it's not nice with knowing the solutions are there.
There are just some people who keep this away from public knowledge and we keep on fucking it up. I don't really see there a solution, let's say, to take this system and to justify it a little bit or to… justify is the wrong word… to kind of try to take this way we are now living, try to turn it in a way to make it better with this as a base. I don't see that solution. I don't see a solution in it.
For me, the solution is like what we all think is normal we have to completely stop and then build something completely new with the right ideas and with a good intention instead of abuse. I don't know. If I look at myself, I can see myself only as an abuser of the world because my being here is only creating more misuse of all kinds of things.
If I think how many containers full of garbage I produced in my life, I have no answer to the question what's the solution for this. So it's like, I don't know, maybe I put the 12 meter containers, maybe I fill the minimum 10 of them and that's compressed. I have no solution for this. So I'm an abuser. I don't see myself different.
And I find that the way the technology we have been doing a hundred years we use what they call fossil fuels which is a wrong word anyway. But let's say we use the oil, the blood of the earth and just burn it up and this started with the auto engine designed 18 something which is only 33% you get out of the fuel you use in power, you lose 33% by your cooling system and 33% goes again in heat out of your exhaust. And then we still now, 120 years later are using this system. It's totally, it's absolutely not high tech. It's totally backward.
We are… and this, and I think in the big picture on purpose. I mean, people do have the solution. And they're not… they're being kept secret. And of course, just the funny situation of the people who kill in their pockets.
**Sharon:** Do you have now? With this place?
**Eugene:** Yeah.
**Sharon:** You mean like all the court cases?
**Eugene:** Yeah.
**Sharon:** If that can turn out? Any hope?
**Eugene:** Well, sure. I mean, my hope is that many people see the way it's being run, how it runs, how it works. And we'll get their message out of that. And then maybe focus more on things important instead of the system that again… yeah, my hope is that people learn every day. I just… not, my hope is my knowledge. I hope… I hope people will find their way to push their liberty.
I think… I think most people which, who are coming here and especially when they come here a second time. So that means that because of somebody, they get a certain energy feeling. And I think this is the… the feeling of people working together.
And what I see a little bit is the individualism, which is we still all upon everybody in the Netherlands. That's really the whole privatization in the eighties. And then the individual connection with the banks, buying houses in the beginning of the nineties. And then now everybody is just full on individual connected with his problem with the bank. So it's all money bullshit and doesn't talk with his neighbor anymore.
I think that's how… how the strongness of the human is being taken apart. And so you're more easy to… to be overthrown and to be led in this more and more narrow corridor of possibilities. What is going on for the last 100 years.
**Sharon:** Divide and conquer.
**Eugene:** Exactly. It's… and now it's really on a personal level. I mean, everybody also in this place, we all have our pressure from personal outside. You have to really like work hard to try to get your money together to be able to kind of live. Even when here you… we don't pay a lot of money together, you know, to live here.
**Sharon:** So what is the lesson?
**Eugene:** Yeah. So what is the lesson is that I think the collectiveness is the way to go. And this gives you a lot of freedom and gives you trust and gives you a feeling where you can… which you can enjoy. So you enjoy… enjoy life. Cause life is… is totally, you know, it's a gift. It's a… quite a beautiful thing. It all depends what you make of it in your head.