Human Value Exchange
or HuVEx
Well, hi! Here is the short manuscript of that little philosophy that kept me alive when traveling major parts of Europe and in Tanzania by foot with a backpack and a tent - without money! I am using this self experience of travels to highlight and showcase this concept, since it embodies the most extreme and society distanced lifestyle imaginable for many people in our time, but it couldn't be closer related to the reality we all share when living this same life as human on earth. I'm not sure if people are supposed to hear about this already. It doesn't fit into the state of society we're in right at this time, but we will get there. My optimism is sure of it since I see the bright path of opportunity that goes parallel to money... and I see the destruction and how much those insights are truly needed.
Living without a source of income in from of currency often is considered impossible, at least based on those reactions I received from people meeting me on the path of travels. The foundational explanation about how this works, is basically always the same and it always comes down to this HuVEx, the Human Value Exchange. I will expense this idea of a concept and a legitimate life style now for the first time in a written form. I hope this will cause many people to enrich their lives and the experience that their potential has gifted them on earth! My words aim to enrich you and your time on earth by taking your focus of the money. Open up your mind and be ready to learn what is never taught in school. How to live as a human being, how to see the world as a human, how to connect, experience and grow as a human. All of this doesn’t need money! Here is how -
In the following I will report of concepts, ideas and ways of integration in my own life and in the life of people I know that would benefit greatly from the approaches shared here. With that being said, there is something to be won from everyone out of this, since it's about being human and living life. This shall be your guide of how to establish a great new aspect of living as human being and how to acquire great advantages by being simply human.
It's a part of the journey to come back to our roots. It is what is needed most if there ever existed something like unity. We need to become human again.
1 This is who I share to be in public!
Luckily I am not really getting tired of introducing myself in the depths of this Blog again and again, so I will also not skip that part in this - let's call it essay. All for the sacred context, right?
I am Lennart. I have built a character and the concept of a movement, a club and a way of living, mainly connected to the letters Gen.ZM. You might have been familiar with it before. As this character, which wears a poncho, a self decorated linen pant and is most of his life time barefoot, I travel the world as a volunteer and author and student, learning from the world and its people. Through this journey I came up with a frame to be integrated bit by bit in the reach of my potential. Without shoes and without money, this isn't the norm, but it works and I am not going to hide how it's done and how each of us can benefit of the aspects and the values I want to transmit.
Finally we will be able to see our own life more freely, clearer and in a better relation to reality itself. Also, this might be your first insight into the way of breaking out, living beyond norms, growing beyond a systems border, experiencing freely and enjoying all that the world has to offer. If it overwhelms at first, take a break but don't ignore it. Because it's all about us and about this one shot that we are giving to be on this world. Please, don't just let it slip! This is a door opening towards your potential future...
This is about a potential inside of us, that a world driven by money instead of human value tries to suppress. We are able to do much more than money allows us and here are a few hints to it. We will begin with me. Because, why not?
When I finished school and I didn't fit in, I found a place in Canada and a community life I shared for a year and that was beautiful! I made my first experience with volunteer work and remembered the time during school, when I worked on weekends to afford my Canadian stay for one year, and I disliked many of the aspects presented. I was afraid of ever entering this world of life long work, from paycheck to paycheck. My certainty about not fitting into that system grew day by day during school and it had many faces - the fear of drowning in this type of society. Still being in the current western world, North America, everything around me still worked with money and beyond realising the joy it brings me, to do such a labor without payment in cash, but only for gratitude from others and a good and very social time, not much really changed on the idea about what to do with this upcoming life. Yet, I didn't really have a plan. I just liked to do work with people, I loved the untouched, beautiful nature, I loved the adults with mental disabilities and my coworkers just as much. Not having money enhanced the clear perception of joy I had about this. My time in Canada was very good, but could not be the final stage... life goes on even if everything is wonderful.
Luckily one has caring parents and they do have ideas and plans for you in case that you do feel lost thinking about your future. They want to help with all their heart. In my case those wishes were truly good and of pure mother love. She wanted me to find, but also was trapped in her thoughts taught by a system that she has never come to see the border of, only the inside of the cage, the regulation and the limits and the money. Also you would never really advise your child to go a completely different way, that isn't safe, that isn't the norm for being a good parent... ok, so let's forget norms.
In the end you will always need to find the way yourself to make it truly your own path. So! Being back from this year abroad, I became a carpenter, a learning one, mainly for my mum's sake. If I had to choose, I would pick an apprenticeship in which I can learn most practical things, with actual importance for myself and my future community of people. Working with wood, building roofs and houses seemed perfect and it was totally not my thing, as expected. Tho I was allowed to learn endlessly, even if most aspects were negative. I realised what people are not like-minded; I realised what culture isn't mine; I realised to never want to drive a car to work; to never be outside on roofs in rain and snow; to not work for six euros an hour. In the end the owner of that company had a big heart and saw my situation, knowing that I belong somewhere else. He gifted me freedom. The special terms used back in the days of winter 2025 were ‘being fired’. But it came from the heart and I appreciate that still. I was fired on that day in December and I was most, really most grateful and remember dancing for what must have been my first time in Germany back to my car driving home after voluntarily finishing up the cleaning of a big hall on that cold winter morning.
There was this clear image in my mind of a bow and arrow, that have been on extreme tension for months now and by this happenstance released, they exploded into movement and action. I was able to feel the vibrating air around me that suggested that everything was about to change. I acquired the freedom my heart and mind desired for months. Everything was about to change. And it truly did!
I started my first episode of intense self studies. Convinced of that there is a way around everything that I don't seem as fitting for myself. Not by hiding of my problems or running away from obstacles, but by finding my own way in between. Pretty big words from a guy without a job. I lived on the costs of my family, since they allowed it and were capable. I also had some spare money of the apprenticeship which I didn't use. I stopped consuming, since I didn't need to and saved all of it. And after this very intense time of which I have written enough on other places like A Year in the Life of 25, I came to the realisation that all things I long for, must be hidden in this world of ours, from which I had been living so distant until now. I didn't feel like I really knew how life looks like and there was a plan.
Norway was the first backpack destination and I managed this adventure in March, freezing my ass off with zero experience in Scandinavian winter nights and living with the richtest in Oslo through platforms like Couchsurfing (very much advisable when traveling with lowest budgets, looking for deeper cultural exchange with people of the place) and after Oslo I came through the rest of the country spending 2 or 3 euros a day for maybe a loaf of bread once in a while and mainly cabbage and a dry, very dry fish. Not good on the long run, but it kept me alive. But it will stick in my memory of how basic life can look when living with little money. The rest of my limited money resources I spend on three train rides. The tent gave me the great opportunity to choose freely at night where to be. Norway is a very great country based on the Jedermannsgesetz which you might now. They say nature belongs to everyone and you can almost camp anywhere. A few weeks I managed to live like this, met buddhist monks on the top of the world famous pulpit rock and they invited me to their monastery close to the city of Bergen. I lived with them, they changed my life and handed me the dream of my life to become a monk in Tibet. And then I returned home.
A day after being back in this place where I was locked into self studies for way too long, I decided something spontaneous on the morning of the 1st of April very much to the discontent of my beloved mother. I had a visa process running for the United States of America and there was an Camphill Academy requesting me to be of their studies, in the only way that I could imagine studying, either way. They would take over all the studying costs and I would become a Social Therapist student. Amazing isn't it?
On that pretty random morning I decided to never go to university in my life. To not lock myself into one place, with one direction of studies in the frame how the West presents it. I fell in love with the freedom of self studies way too much and also with that freedom that travels brought. My life seemed to escalate but in loving thoughts about my parents, I caught myself quickly again in a way that was calming for them in some way. I cancelled my studies but immediately I applied for my second volunteering service, this time in Tansania. My parents would lose me again for another year but at least I was a safer there than walking through freezing countries without much money. Or so we thought... I did my paid work long enough to pay for the social service costs in April and then I afforded a flight to Spain, Alicante, in the middle of May. The next eleven weeks I would walk back home to Germany but I didn't know that at this point. I just knew of three weeks in Spain, traveling with my soulmate Martin. And that thought was overwhelming enough. I had money to keep living like in Norway and that honestly sucked, but! Experience! Knowing what you don't want for the future is worth gold. Martin flew home afterwards from Madrid and I missed the opportunity and got to the island Sardinia instead, which was much closer and also the place where my family was doing their holidays on the other side of the giant mediterranean isle. My second journey alone started and I met them which was a great bonus on this tour. I could've returned home with them just then, and I remember the moments of decision most clearly since that should be a key decision point in my life, but when I said them goodbye and started to walk towards the next island, Corsica, day by day my decision proved to be the right one to the point until I met this guy.
We were sleeping on the same beach in Ajaccio, Corsica, and he was the one requesting to join my dinner made of random cans and pears. It was the beach that was used not many decades ago by the prison and its inmates a bit further down that beach and it had a vibe. This young black man who joined was from Paris and not from its rich districts. He lived without money for a while but his life style of current travels consisted of trying to find a job to get money and to other times just ask bakeries for left over old bread. I loved that idea and so we started living like that together, for five weeks... we had the idea that we could travel all the way back to my home country and we did so. Soon we experienced that people really liked the thing we were doing and they wanted to support us in some ways. They gave us money and we bought a ticket to leave the island of Corsica. They gifted us fruits and pizza and meat and we lived a good life without any hunger. They invited us in and so we lived in Corsica, South France, Monaco, North Italy, all of Switzerland and at the Lake Constance before reaching my home on one rainy evening in Germany. When we reached Monaco and stayed there in this life style just much better for two weeks, we became clear of what we had discovered, of what life parallel to all the money existed. We learned about HuVEx and exchanged a lot of what we had to give. Our presence was often a great gift alone, our conversations were enriching to almost all, our physical strength given without payment was desired and the memories made were dear to all of us. We lived without money and we had it all. Day by day we looked at each other laughing badly, about being as light as a feather and living the life of billionaires, just more free and at even more beautiful places, with more loving people and with less responsibilities. We had found our key to Life. This felt amazing. We found something real. Something that works and something most never knew to exist. It made you feel that you’ve found something very special. And our way proved that day by day again.
Do you remember this Tanzania social service I earlier talked about. That happened still, but I didn't really plan it in the journey. Having had this experience, I was very much about to head straight out trying to travel to Tibet, but so instead I came to the east of Africa and lived in Tanzania for a year. When I had holidays in December I traveled the same way for six weeks through the entire country, but this time alone, without shoes and in a country in which language and animals were a bigger problem. Luckily After three months of living there I knew enough Swahili and expect for one encounter at night, the animals gifted me peace. People were amazed of this German barefoot guy who just had passed them, telling them in their mother tongue of what he's up to. Surviving with such an appearance, such a story and such a philosophy as HuVEx people made it most wonderful and easy to survive in this way. Yeah well, that's me. I'm sitting here in Dar es Salaam and writing about it all. Feels nice! It's all not that long ago but it has a really special place in my heart and the memory is golden. I want to share this!
2 What is HuVEx
It was through the process of asking other people about their thoughts, to then realise that my definition and perception of the words are not equal with those of others. That wasn't surprising otherwise something in my way of being raised had been done very wrong. So I knew that we have different ideas of what 'Human Value Exchange' means when we each hear of it the first time and I thought to give this explanation of my own view, to be on the same page when continuing the exchange... Exchange? What is an exchange about this? Well, there we are...
My Google research without AI brings results. If you want to search something on the web without committing the crime of using AI wastefully, then simply type '- AI' behind whatever you are searching. God or someone will be thankful...
'Exchange' comes from the french word 'eschangier'. The spelling was influenced through this dead language called Latin which I studied for five years to reach this desperate point in life. Latin came up with the prefix called 'ex'! English had the word of 'change' after being the offspring language of the Anglos and the Saxons and just added the latin bit to make it EXCHANGE. Very beautiful indeed. A long unnecessary explanation later and the meaning is probably still to give and to receive. Let's bring this into our beloved context.
I put in efforts and energy to come up and write those lines you are reading here. If I'm doing the excellent job that nobody demands and read over my own written stuff once more and correct it again, than that's the amount of work put in to have it here. I give but what do I receive? Usually, if this was usual, my work as an author would hope for payment... I would publish, advertise and pray for that next mention of a writing fellow and for a few subscriptions to get my daily bread. I don't think I even have a subscription possibility set up for this page. And by the way, this art is deadly poor if you're not the absolute hit. Like Rowling.
I don't do it for the money and therefore I consider my writing as free art. I write, because the writing gives me greatest joy. I write in order for others to find this, benefit from it and maybe have a conversation later on, a word exchange in person, and that would be all the payment that I could wish for. Also I have a potential of change which I constantly strive for. This being a part of it. And as a giant extra, people read this and still want to support with money... and what can they do? They donate to the project that I am volunteering for! The greatest compliment for me as an unpaid Fundraiser! This gives me quite something, this whole experience of living. And so I want to give back, naturally right? That's part of the Exchange... now, what are Human Values then and how could you possibly exchange them?
The hardest part will be to determine the meaning of 'Value'. A friend of mine said that it is something, that you respect... Oxford Dictionary says 'how much something is worth in money or other goods for which it can be exchanged'. If we are into the philosophy behind value, which is called axiology, we will find the separation of two types of value. One is called 'intrinsic value' and it's apparently a good in itself, for example joy when watching a beautiful cloud form on a spring day. A feeling has intrinsic value...
The other type of value they name 'instrumental value', which is embodied by a good, that serves for the purpose to acquire another good. Golden coins or printed paper are often used for that purpose of exchange.
In my own words there is something quite clear I had seen as a Human Value before knowing those definitions. Because there are certain things which have a value about my being as well. And you see it everywhere. Every job pays you money for the Human Values that you contribute, time being one of them. Also the education you own is considered a human value. Your capacity to think, solve problems and creating things is certainly valuable. But this Human Value is even more present when we're down on the interaction with each other. Simply having a conversation can have a lot of value. Sometimes less when only greeting, sometimes more when not having slept a night but instead talked with your closest friend. Words have a huge value and being able to share them with people gives us a lot. Being heard is just as important and if you have somebody listening to you, then this attention they offer to you, is a Human Value.
But also your physical body owns a great aspect when talking about the entire value your being possesses. There are endless editions to this long list, but generally speaking are Human Values those things created by a human for another human. Let's overtake the things we now gathered first on the context of traveling and then the one, of making life happening.
3 Life without money
We are coming closer to the essence and closer to the practical guide of how you and the people of your surrounding can benefit from this.
Life without money sounds impossible and for many people it might be. There is some easiness about money that many wouldn't want to give up if they had the choice. But I will repeat freedom as the key aspect, that should motivate the few of us, that really search for it. And being educated about the process makes it digestible and comprehendible to the point that it won't feel impossible anymore.
But actual life without money is something I haven't experienced until now. It is the great goal to which I dedicate my striving in order to make it most impactful. Living without money is the mastery of what I'm doing and cannot simply be decided to be done just now, but it's the path and the journey. I'm sharing my journey in order for you to see how far I've gotten so far and how you can make your adventure start. I can travel without money and my intention is to get rid of the money I still have, but that needs preparation. People are the key!
05.02.2026
What is a life without money like, then? If I truly not own anything, am I not totally unable to fight life? How do I get my food and my housing and my medicine and my perspective for a life that enables me to think of family and future? Well, think about it yourself. I have my way and my clear vision but this won't be necessary to be taught here. Not now. We first wonder how to integrate it partially for free time projects, travels and our personal life with other human beings. My own way will be the art project of my life itself. I will prove it not through words, but through the action of my life.
4 Travel without money
We have to differentiate. I strive to find a way in this world, on which I don't have to own a single cent in order to live the life that I have dreamt for myself. There is still money floating around, but it simply won't be mine. On the other hand, if you strive for something in that direction then it's most likely not as myself to really be free of money completely, but you wish rightfully to be enriched by the values and secrets that lie behind the way of living without money at hand. This will create a totally new perspective for you on how you can possibly expereince your surrounding. Especially when travelling. We want to distance ourselves from what is modern tourism, equal to consuming on a screen, walking from sight to sight always with the phone at hand, knowing nothing of a place except the inside of your hotel - this is the crucial part we need to exchange since travelling is mostly about the human at that place. It's about culture and nature, maybe the way of creating food, handcrafts and their history and tradition. In a way traveling should represent the following: when you're moving around in the world, this would be your most direct thread for receiving world knowledge and real education. You should learn and experience as richly and new every time as possible. Or not? Travelling is the ultimate way to be inspired. It's the best option to create networks with people of other countries. Enriching someone from another place with your human values and being enriched by hers or his - that's the great gift of learning to travel more human instead with money. And my path can teaches you the direction. Your action will always stay the crucial and essential part of it all. Common sense... but if you manage you end up looking back at your life and you can truly say, that you lived and loved a human life instead one that was only based on money and profit growth.
The life that I strive for has travel integrated in its core. Either in the world or in the two years of a rotation starting 2027 in Germany. This is a form of activism but about that on another page. If I long for a place to stay I need to find an option for volunteering work. This can be contract bound, but it doesn't have to. This aspect will by the way be the basic element and the foundation of making all this work. Volunteer work. The most direct way of transmitting your value. The best way to bond with people and to be truly a part of something. Not for the money that you earn but for the love that you share and because you're able to be there. Volunteering brings a sense of enjoyment that I can't find anywhere else. What you get is a place to stay, food and water and a beautiful community. In my life I've lived one year on Vancouver Island in Canada at the truly most beautiful place in this world, the Glenora Farm Camphill. Being here in Tansania is nothing else. Volunteering work to experience the world. If the mean voice in your head is now whispering that this all needs money as well, visa, travel, contact - yeah! You're right but this evolved on the concept of volunteering work and later was institutionalised to make people benefit from it with money. Such an experience should belong to all of us and everyone benefits from it. It should've never been a paid service! And it isn't - if you know your way around our system. Oh oh! System... Because it stays a human gift and it waits for our knowledge and understanding to be explored. The point is, when I travel I do nothing else than volunteering. Everyday my energy is used to move myself in order to live. That alone is voluntarily. I by free will stand up everyday and keep walking. Life itself exchanges my struggles and efforts with the reward of people and experience. Meeting those people we apply the same concept. You share your story and sometimes they give you no choice. They take you in and you can't work for them and express your gratitude in using your workforce. Sometimes your story and your appearance - your presence - alone is the key that brings you into Monaco's core, or into the six headed Tanzanian family or into the hearts of people - which is probably the most important place to travel to. You live together. Because they life, you live and the time you spend there you use all your energy to make them benefit. You play with children and teach them. You listen to life struggles and beautiful memories of new friends. You go onto their fields together in the morning to prepare four new fields and in the late afternoon you're out again to harvest all of their seven giant mango trees. What you get is a memory. Another day. Food and water and a safe place, hopefully. They make you able to live for another day and continue your journey. It gives people an awareness of what they are part of. Your adventure amazes and they see that they are in it. That because of them everything else on your journey will happen as it will. Also, when you tell people to travel without money, that is usually taken much more serious than it might be for you. There is an alert going off in many people's heads and they really want to help. They are worried about a stranger and even tho that's not the goal, the mix of amazement and worry of people will make you live pretty safely. This is the price to unlock an ultimate human connection where each party lives of the other. For them it will be an event as none will ever follow. They met you and that's quite something. The memory will be golden for all and you have the power to create that memory. To shape it to become anything through your intention and the energy you let flow towards that. Just because you are there something memorable is being created. That has value and you know it. What would we be without our beloved memories. Every time it's on you to make the most beautiful out of it. Because that is your gift. It's the time you created together and for that you receive what they have to offer.
People of every society layer will take you in. Also those who have barely enough to survive themselves and who struggle to get from day to day. Reflect on your inner world and how you feel about it. And then see one aspect that allows you to make a great change. Since you might have only chosen to live without money but you actually have some, you can reward such an act of kindness after having spend a night there. You have the money but you received your experience because you were human and not because you paid to get the experience. Do you clearly the this big difference? When I traveled the 3.000 kilometres in Tanzania in seven weeks by foot without money, getting lifts from time to time sleeping in my tent, I received also money from wealthy strangers on the way. Not just a little. I told them to really travel without money but they insisted often so I took it all the way back to our House of Hope, my one year home in Tanzania, to give it to that place. But also, when staying with very poor people I contributed what I had when leaving. What I got on the road went to their own people back again. Through that way I was able to pay as much as you would have payed when staying in Lodges every night, but instead all that money went to families and their future. The left over money and the direct funds for the House of Hope I brought home. I was robbed in Moshi at the Kilimanjaro that one day, yeah true, but if you believe it our not - they listened to my tiny Swahili and did something I would've really never expected. Read what happened HERE in the fifth chapter of the book of travels in Tanzania without money!
What is important to say at this point - you are not supposed to travel without money now. This isn't a suggestion about you should stand up now and just try it out. This is purely to expand your mind about what's possible. A long time of further studies and planning has to follow on your side. Slow appraoches. Travelling literally in your neighbourhood or neighbour town like that. Having money with you in order to return at any point or buying a meal when it's deadly necessary. But you could soon try to walk for a whole weekend into one direction and return with a bus afterwards. This can go longer and longer and at some point you'll make your first experience of telling someone that you travel without money. What are they going to say? How well can you explain yourself? Can you be serious about? If it's staged it's harder. When I ran out of money on Corsica while walking home from Spain to Germany, and I met my new Parisian companion, we had no choice and learned it just like that. Being thrown into the reality of traveling without money. You learn quickly then but it's not what you wish for others. Well, actually it is, but I can't say so or else I get into troubles if you get into troubles. Get some people to support you through it. Don't randomly risk to die at the beginning of such a beautiful road of experiencing the world totally new. The path is long and you should approach it slowly and safely. Pole pole! Here in those books of mine and in our Gen.ZM community lies your key of deeply understanding and then implementing into your life. By reading this, your adventure has already started. You will find your very own way to integrate it into your world experience and we're here waiting and watching you to grow into it until we can soon travel side by side together through the world. As that community!
4 Integration for people who can benefit greatly
Well, we all do! That's the short answer... we all greatly benefit from knowing about this. Yourself and everyone around you. It's education about the human being itself. A never-ending study. We teach you a way to experience more richly and see more things, know more people, feel more purely, understand the world deeper and acquire a greater freedom. Freedom of the mind, of travels, of creativity - thinking without limits. Instead of being focused on money alone we discover being human for us. What's not to like? True richness starts here.
We will look at a few of my people in situations that I can deeply relate to and whose struggles I absolutely feel. A young and wealthy med student feeling unsure if his broad recreational, modern travel experience was even worth the time and money. A freelancing stock trader looking for a starting capital to gain independence. A beautiful soul wishing to travel through the world starting with the wish to get into the business of container ships, getting to Germany to volunteer there and then have the freedom of the world. And myself, who wants to change everything in the reach of my inner potential and who's tired of conventional borders and limitations to life, who's sick of a cancer like system and who suffers with the world population about not having the necessary perspective of freedom and fulfilment.
people who would benefit from it. - travel and work search and life start