“It was very intense,” he says. “You’re inside the same room all the time. When I came out today and was picked up and suddenly got into that boat, I suddenly felt the outside space, which you haven’t had for a week. I had to get used to it, but it was also a great joy to feel that space around you.”
The experiment was also partly a self-examination for Boerstra. “What happens when you stop all external impulses. And you force yourself to pass the time with few things around you. That is very confronting. You look at your thoughts and your inclinations, for example to quickly grab your phone again , but that couldn’t be.”
He cannot say that he has encountered himself. “But frustration, fear and being alone. And that is intense.” Boerstra did feel vulnerable in the house above the water, especially at night. “Then you hear the noise in the vicinity of young people who go out, they have no intention in themselves, but you can’t go anywhere and that is not a pleasant feeling.”
Would Boerstra do it again? “Not in this form, but imagine if you could hang the house in the Amazon forest, then I’d go for it.”
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