In the thick, dense fog of the dance floor, I thought I had lost myself—or found myself—or perhaps it was somewhere in between. I choked on cigarette smoke and the sour stench of sweat dripping from the half-naked bodies that surrounded me. My sternum rattled from the relentless, pulsing bass—a kind of synthetic heartbeat that commanded my body to keep dancing. Flashing lights of all colors pierced through the murky haze, giving my eyes something to play with, to chase, while my senses drowned in sound.
And the room—the room itself was a sanctuary, an industrial temple of concrete and cinder blocks, cavernous yet intimate, with tight walls and low ceilings. We were bodies in a cage: compact, entangled, and somehow free.
I checked my phone—4:53 a.m. We had been dancing for nearly six hours.
When I left for Berlin just a few days earlier, I only knew two things. The first was that I needed a reset. The uncertainty and directionless drift of my life had grown heavy, unmanageable. I didn’t know what I was moving toward, only that I had to move away from what was. The second was that I wanted to hear some techno.
Getting into the club wasn’t guaranteed. Berlin nightlife is shrouded in mystique, its entry rules more myth than logic. Two nights prior, we’d been turned away at the door. But tonight, maybe because it was a Monday—or maybe by sheer chance—we made it in. I felt my shoulders drop for the first time that day. The first fifteen minutes inside were eerie and beautiful, like wandering a museum after hours.
Soon, bodies started piling into the main hall. By 1:00 a.m., the hall had filled. By 2:00, it was packed. I kept reminding myself: it was a Monday night. These people came to dance on a Monday night.
Berlin—how strange you are.
It became clear this wasn’t just a place to party. It was a refuge. A shelter for the restless, the wandering, the unmoored. A space to unravel, to exist. No photos or videos allowed. No documentation. No performance. It didn’t matter who you were by day—by night, you were nameless, faceless. A dancing vessel. A freak, a fool, a visionary—whatever you were, you belonged. The only thing to worship was the music.
I danced in ninety-minute shifts, breaking for water and the bathroom. But I stayed sober—no alcohol, no drugs. I was under the influence of the sound alone.
Somewhere in that fifth or sixth hour of dancing—when my body had grown tired but my mind was still electric—I felt something shift. A kind of clarity opened in me, like clouds parting to show the stars. The incessant, humming static of my mind dissipated, and for the first time in a long time, I felt whole. Not good or bad. Just fully present. Fully alive.
And then it hit me.
All my life—my anxious, overthinking life—I’d been trying to calm down. I’d chased stillness with everything I had. Gentle rituals. Long, deep breaths. Meditation. Journaling. Yoga. I tried to quiet the storm by chasing the eye of it.
But it never worked. Not really.
Because maybe what I needed wasn’t silence. Maybe what I needed was to burn. To turn myself up, not down. To amplify the energy inside me. To shake it loose. To let it move through me until the charge had somewhere to go.
In that dance hall, I didn’t suppress my restlessness—I gave it a place to live. I didn’t quiet my mind—I outpaced it. The music didn’t lull me into calm. It carried me to it.
And I started to wonder: How many others have been told to just relax—when what they really need is to move? How many are stretching and meditating and breathing slowly not because it helps, but because it’s what they think they should do?
What if calm isn’t the opposite of energy? What if it’s what we arrive at after expending it?
And what if, in our own restless ways, we are meant to seek novelty, or stimulation, or sensation—the very things that appease our senses and make us feel alive?
As I left the club, birds chirped brightly in the crisp morning air. The sun had just started rising, painting the overcast sky a soft, muted gray. It was after 6:00 a.m., and commuters were already slipping into their routines. The world felt strangely quiet.
And yet—stillness hadn’t stilled me.
Noise had.
Solitude hadn’t soothed me.
Motion had.
I laughed at the contradiction and closed my eyes on the train platform, the chill of dawn brushing against my skin. When the tram arrived, I stepped aboard, sank into the seat, and exhaled.
For the first time that night, I could finally rest.
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In the thick, dense fog of the dance floor, I thought I had lost myself—or found myself—or perhaps it was somewhere in between. I choked on cigarette smoke and the sour stench of sweat dripping from the half-naked bodies that surrounded me. My sternum rattled from the relentless, pulsing bass—a kind of synthetic heartbeat that commanded my body to keep dancing. Flashing lights of all colors pierced through the murky haze, giving my eyes something to play with, to chase, while my senses drowned in sound.
And the room—the room itself was a sanctuary, an industrial temple of concrete and cinder blocks, cavernous yet intimate, with tight walls and low ceilings. We were bodies in a cage: compact, entangled, and somehow free.
I checked my phone—4:53 a.m. We had been dancing for nearly six hours.
When I left for Berlin just a few days earlier, I only knew two things. The first was that I needed a reset. The uncertainty and directionless drift of my life had grown heavy, unmanageable. I didn’t know what I was moving toward, only that I had to move away from what was. The second was that I wanted to hear some techno.
Getting into the club wasn’t guaranteed. Berlin nightlife is shrouded in mystique, its entry rules more myth than logic. Two nights prior, we’d been turned away at the door. But tonight, maybe because it was a Monday—or maybe by sheer chance—we made it in. I felt my shoulders drop for the first time that day. The first fifteen minutes inside were eerie and beautiful, like wandering a museum after hours.
Soon, bodies started piling into the main hall. By 1:00 a.m., the hall had filled. By 2:00, it was packed. I kept reminding myself: it was a Monday night. These people came to dance on a Monday night.
Berlin—how strange you are.
It became clear this wasn’t just a place to party. It was a refuge. A shelter for the restless, the wandering, the unmoored. A space to unravel, to exist. No photos or videos allowed. No documentation. No performance. It didn’t matter who you were by day—by night, you were nameless, faceless. A dancing vessel. A freak, a fool, a visionary—whatever you were, you belonged. The only thing to worship was the music.
I danced in ninety-minute shifts, breaking for water and the bathroom. But I stayed sober—no alcohol, no drugs. I was under the influence of the sound alone.
Somewhere in that fifth or sixth hour of dancing—when my body had grown tired but my mind was still electric—I felt something shift. A kind of clarity opened in me, like clouds parting to show the stars. The incessant, humming static of my mind dissipated, and for the first time in a long time, I felt whole. Not good or bad. Just fully present. Fully alive.
And then it hit me.
All my life—my anxious, overthinking life—I’d been trying to calm down. I’d chased stillness with everything I had. Gentle rituals. Long, deep breaths. Meditation. Journaling. Yoga. I tried to quiet the storm by chasing the eye of it.
But it never worked. Not really.
Because maybe what I needed wasn’t silence. Maybe what I needed was to burn. To turn myself up, not down. To amplify the energy inside me. To shake it loose. To let it move through me until the charge had somewhere to go.
In that dance hall, I didn’t suppress my restlessness—I gave it a place to live. I didn’t quiet my mind—I outpaced it. The music didn’t lull me into calm. It carried me to it.
And I started to wonder: How many others have been told to just relax—when what they really need is to move? How many are stretching and meditating and breathing slowly not because it helps, but because it’s what they think they should do?
What if calm isn’t the opposite of energy? What if it’s what we arrive at after expending it?
And what if, in our own restless ways, we are meant to seek novelty, or stimulation, or sensation—the very things that appease our senses and make us feel alive?
As I left the club, birds chirped brightly in the crisp morning air. The sun had just started rising, painting the overcast sky a soft, muted gray. It was after 6:00 a.m., and commuters were already slipping into their routines. The world felt strangely quiet.
And yet—stillness hadn’t stilled me.
Noise had.
Solitude hadn’t soothed me.
Motion had.
I laughed at the contradiction and closed my eyes on the train platform, the chill of dawn brushing against my skin. When the tram arrived, I stepped aboard, sank into the seat, and exhaled.
For the first time that night, I could finally rest.
