I was featured in Psychology Today Magazine this month, in an article called “Place Value” about people who choose to forego material objects for the freedom of living spontaneously.
Photo by Oliver Mark for Psychology Today Magazine.
Home Base: “I never really formed a concept of home,” says Arikia Millikan, a writer and information architect who travels about three months a year and considers her one-bedroom rental in Berlin to be just one of her “bases.” As a child, Millikan moved often and says, “My mother would tell me, ‘Home is where your stuff is.’ I have internalized that.”
I was asked to pose for a photoshoot with Oliver Mark, a Berlin-based photographer who has a way of capturing subjects in their most regal state. This was a particular feat that day considering that I had just landed from an 21-hour flight from LAX through Copenhagen and finally back to Berlin, and was experiencing proper jet lag. When the intercom buzzed, I was trying to clean up my apartment, which looked like a tornado hit it from my last-minute packing frenzy (I always pack at the last possible moment). I was wearing no makeup, I hadn’t done the dishes, and Oliver came in and said, “You look great, I can work with this,” and just started moving furniture around and pulling clothes out of my closet.
It was the most fun I’ve ever had in a photoshoot, and I am honored to be immortalized by Psychology Today as a notable “minimalist traveler” of our time.
An extra bit from the interview that wasn’t included in the final version:
I sometimes joke that my brain is like the bus from Speed — if it slows below 55mph it will explode. I feel the most emotionally content and intellectually stimulated when I am in motion. I could never accept the level of monotony most people cherish. Every new place filled with new people is a series of puzzles just waiting to be solved. Perhaps Berlin feels like home to me precisely because it’s always buzzing with novelty. There are a few parts that anchor me, but it feels like a different city every day.
Read the full article here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201807/place-value
Special thanks to: Kaja Perina (EIC, Psychology Today), Hannah Kenyon-Lair (hair), and Amira Marion (wardrobe).
