Ich sah den fernen Morgen: Heller Schnee an dunklem Firmament, ein Spiegel seiner selbst, klar und rein.
Ich sah die Dunkelheit: Aus dem Schatten getrieben, gewachsen in das Licht, und doch nur ein Schatten seines selbst geblieben.
Ich sah den stolzen Gang vor den Massen der Gleichartigkeit. 100 stolze Gänge, alle für sich allein.
Ich sah euch, versteckt im Unterholz, im Schatten der Giganten, in der Blüte der Zeit, ihr branntet aus wie leise letzte Sterne, und verschwandet für immer.
Ich sah dich, trotz deiner lautlosen Schwingen der Sehnsucht, gestrandet am fernen Strand. Zusammen mit mir.
Timid and likable, that’s what I am. And I could pass any exam, as knowledge comes quite easily. But I am scared of new ideas, and scared of authenticity. Real novelty – that’s what we need. But while I work against the bad, mankind does not adapt. Instead, anxiety is strapped on faces all around and I am being handicapped. Restrained, impaired, declared as dangerous. A clot in lifelines of society, as no one sees the signs: I am the solution, I begin the substitution revolution, harbinger of new epochs. Bold and unpopular, I’d like to be. To tear apart the walls around, to break free and be unbound, to burn my prisons to the ground. Experience the depths out there, and breathe fresh air of consciousness, and slowly grow to clarity, a single singularity.
Missed opportunities amidst routines,
thoughts caught by obtrusive screens –
for laziness we stride for now,
hide from duties, disallow
old habits to creep in, begin
a time with generosity,
a life without velocity.
We are currently in the midst of a thorough clean up. Sorting out and getting rid of all the things that haven’t been used in a long time. All those things where I’am telling myself every year ‘next year I will use it’; and with every passing year they continue to gather dust. All those things whose acquisition seemed so necessary when I bought them; but most weren’t necessary after all. I enjoy the decluttering, it gives a good perspective onto future purchases: By now, I rarely buy stuff out of an instinct. Instead, I wait for several months and only if my desire or need remains, I proceed with the purchase. Only from time to time, consumption prevails over reason.
So – I am looking forward to my newly preordered camera.
Besides the physical things, there are also the non-physical: Contracts, friendships, data files, a hard drive full of old memories, another hard drive full of new memories. I would guess that I deleted 3 out of 4 photos I took this year. However, 4769 pictures from 2022 still reside on may laptop and wait to be combed out; all those shots where focus didn’t hit, where the composition is off, or which lack any message or visuals of interest.
As with new physical purchases, I need to learn how to take less photos. Especially less photos of low quality. It would save a lot of time and hassle.
I promise, there will also be other topics in future posts; but not today…
Glue on streets and food on art,
repeats each day, matter of heart?
"Not really," says the scientists
who gets the gist and is quite pissed
by egoists that do insist that a cold week
refutes the claim of climate change:
"To blame are others anyway."
The charts are clear, the problem sheer unsolvable;
each year is worse, each choice adverse,
the globe does not reverse its course – quite yet.
They marched on Fridays for a while,
but didn't reach the other isle:
Of people who don't care and stare
on their small screens where it just seems
as if the world is fine right now;
of people who don't share the bare
reality of what's to come;
of people who are still concerned
about their hard-earned treasuries
and do revel in memories about the past
as if they last apocalypse.
And now they found what upsets most:
A simple frowned upon protest
– where streets are used as seats –
defeats the calmness of the crowd
that clings to cars and is in rage
about the new found stage.
In galleries they do reside
throw calories with pride to guide
social debate where it belongs:
What are the values we esteem?
Why does it have to be extreme?
Why do we tolerate the wrongs?
And try to acclimate as if
the floods would stop? As if the crop
grows magically? While livestock drops
quite tragically dead onto barren desert floors –
necessity starts frightful wars.
Who really are the radicals?
Who really are the extremists?
Those who request a fair world
and are obsessed with equity?
Or those who halt the change,
assault the poor, default to strange
conventions from the past and cast
a future for us all that will, at last,
result in unsurpassed distress?
What is allowed, what justified?
This climate activism does
indeed evoke more buzz
than any boring chart. Apart:
It has a heart, and does still act in peace.
Unfortunately, no matter how many climate change conferences are arranged, the large-scale subsidization and expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure continues to take place with each passing month. However, the immediate halt of any further investments into these sources of energy are one of the key factors to mitigate the climate emergency, according to the latest IPCC report. To the best of our knowledge, we steadily continue our path to more than 3 degrees of global warming, if we are lucky and tipping points don’t start to blow up all around us (and the likely do). If the choice is between some paintings and many many lives, I am gladly taking the latter.
Long summer days. I take my bike
through fields of maize, enjoy a hike
through nature which decays and fades
below the sun, without real shades.
Water is sparse, efforts a farce;
records are shattered every week,
the future seems a little bleak.
Some keep silent, some play dumb,
some object, but their effect
seems paltry, like a tiny drop
into an ocean, and they stop
too soon: there is no change.
Another flood, another slum,
1000 dead, and thousands fled,
a joke compared with what's to come.
It will be millions without bread.
It will be billions' awful threat.
In Germany alone, every single second 20 chickens are murdered. Tick-tock, 20 chickens dead. Tick-tock, 40 chickens dead. When you finished reading this post 2.400 chickens will have died. Tomorrow at this time it will be 1.700.000 million. It is absurd. It is grotesque. There is no excuse; the only reason is our own pleasure, our greed, our arrogance.
Pigs are among the most social and intelligent animals we know; they are comparable to dogs in terms of their social life and cleverness. In the next 24 hours, 150.000 pigs will be slaughtered: in Germany alone on a single day. How can this happen? I doubt I will ever find the answer. And: for most of them it will be the greatest relief of their life after they have suffered in cages that are so small they cannot even turn around. Imagine how our western society would react if this would be dogs. What the outcry would be, the outrage and disgust. But there is no difference, the despicable act stays the same: The murdering of innocent beings after robbing them their only existence they will ever have. Their only chance to enjoy this earth. Writing this makes me despise us; the presumptuous human.
Animals do not belong in captivity. They do not belong to us humans. They belong to themselves. They always have and they always will.
Yet we sometimes visit wildlife parks because animals are fascinating after all, aren’t they? We visit mostly those parks that try to do the right thing: raise lynxes to release them into the wild; save bears from their chains in the circus. But is this any better? Saving them from a small cage to put them in a large cage? Is it the lesser evil?
I wish for a future where this won’t be necessary. Where we are not trapped in such a dilemma. Where bears are not trapped in such a dilemma. Where they roam the forests in Scandinavia and Canada and most people will only dream of seeing a bear in real life.
Besides: you should go vegan. Even if it’s for only 80%, it will be the best decision of your life. Not only for the animals, also for us. Going vegan has a significant impact on climate change, we won’t run into troubles by wasting powerful antibiotics in factory farming, we will have more food to feed all the humans, the amazon rainforest will be around for a little longer, and you will be healthier. Going vegan is probably among the most impactful decision you can easily incorporate into your daily life to bring this world onto a better path.
We see faces where there are none. We see patterns where there is only chaos. When we are tasked to produce a series of random numbers, the result does not pass the simplest quality criteria we would demand from computers. In a complex world, we fall back to things we know, concepts we understand, and patterns we have engrained. But: It is brave to acknowledge ‘I don’t know’ – there is no shame in unintentional unknowingness. There is always time to learn. And it’s courageous to think outside the box and propose the unusual. However, this is not to be confused with refuting the consensus. And it does not equate to ignoring or denying the facts. Unfortunately, a non-negligible proportion of society does not seem to be aware of this difference. Instead of arguing in the realm of reality they spread lies. Instead of acknowledging the unknown they act as the keepers of truth. And surely: the other side does the same, however, with another truth. How can such a split society regenerate and reclaim a common truth?
Scattered bodies,
overrun,
a single error,
one last breath,
machine gun terror,
reign of death.
Barren friendships,
endless war clips,
dreadful horror,
needless sorrow.
Sons with guns are
rolling dice,
to sacrifice
their universe.
Little time has passed since I wrote about peace. And here we are, shaken by war – it has been a rude awakening. The mind is trapped in a not so distant country while the body remains comfortably at home. The war is close now and, as it seems, this makes all the difference. Back then I asked myself: Would I fight? What for? The questions keep lingering, flare up, and sink down again. I don’t want to fight. I cannot fight. But then again, the mind is made for adaptation. Many men over there were probably thinking the same a few weeks ago. And in presence of such blatant failure of the human race we still wonder what the great filter might be.
Punkt im Dunkeln 