Wings

There is nothing more frustrating than wanting someone to understand me but not getting through to them. It’s ignorance, egotism, desire to be loved, or sheer incapability to comprehend trains of thought of other people. Although – thinking about it – that kind of sheer incapability doesn’t exist. In the end it does come down to egotism. Satisfying own desires instead of putting a loved one’s desires before the own. Who does that anyway? But some things are more important than others. When it comes to romantic love it is almost impossible for human beings to want to see the other one happy at any cost. We want to see ourselves happy. Not pretty, but true. When, however, it comes to – let’s say – family accepting each other’s lives I think it isn’t asking too much to want a little understanding and support. Romantic love is about holding on. Family love can – without fear of losing – be about letting go. Why, oh, why don’t people let go?

Why I do what I do

You could say that there are two different kinds of sciences. Natural sciences deal with chemistry, biology, physics, or math. The humanities deal with literature, philosophy, culture, and art. I know that most people would say that today the computer sciences make up a third very important branch but I won’t even get started on that. The thing we gained from technology is electricity and that’s one.
The reason mankind engages in the sciences is to gain knowledge. The knowledge might be considered essential to our lives. It either makes it easier or it makes it more comfortable or it helps us be more sociable or it gives us the prospect of living longer.
From the beginning of time man has been obsessed with the idea of eternal life. With death being the only thing that can’t be cured, the outlook on eternal life is pretty pleasant. People think that eternal life will make them happy. we will be invincible.
Medical science strives to keep people alive who would long be dead under natural circumstances. People with fatal heart diseases and inner organ failure are kept alive more or less artificially. A great achievement, but it will only be a matter of time until someone will have to start to admit that death can’t be defeated. It may be noble as hell to fight for eternal life but that fight will not be won.
There is, however, a second point of view on eternal life. Do not the humanities just like the natural sciences search for eternal life? As already mentioned there is hardly anything as important to humankind. It doesn’t matter if we’re interested in pharmacy or in British literature we’re all human.
If one, however, studies medicine in order to find a cure for death than that is a hopeless mission. Death will never be defeated. We’ve been trying for millions of years; no one has ever come close to succeeding.
If one writes a philosophical piece on life and its meaning than that is a first encounter with the idea of death. Death will happen. When we start having an opinion on it instead of pushing it away we start defeating it. Looking at death without fear is equivalent to having defeated death.
These days more and more diseases are coming up. Medicine is reaching its boundaries. We have to learn to deal with it. We need to develop an attitude that helps us live despite the ever-present threat that death presents. That is how we have to fight death today. Natural sciences are over.

How to become a Genius

There are a lot of people who graduate high school and then … many, many of you don’t know what to do next. Most probably you will go off to college and study something that has a fancy sound to it (philosophy, economics, sociology) or/and will have earned you a lot of money by the time your life will be over (medicine, law, engineering). That procedure is completely legitimate. Approximately 99.9 % of all people do it like that so why shouldn’t you, too?

For those of you who want to try something revolutionary and new that will bring you respect, a great reputation, and loads of dough I have a different suggestion: Become a genius. Albert Einstein did it and he’s been dead for over 50 years now. People are still talking about him. What about Shakespeare? I know that most of you might think he was a boring doofus with no life but trust me, there is some reason why you are still being tortured with the analysis of his sonnets.

In order to get to the point where everybody will talk about you for a very long time and for an entirely positive reason you only need to follow four tiny steps.

First: Think of yourself as better than others. It does not matter at all what your field of “study” will be. You need to somehow come up with the necessary self-confidence that will catapult you right past all those dopey losers amidst the Gods on mount Olymp. It is essential that you are absolutely convinced that what you think cannot ever be thought by any other person. Only that way will you start to consider your ideas important enough to be written down and maybe expressed loudly.

Second: Set yourself very high goals. I’m thinking something along the lines of Ruling the World, melting the polar caps to flood the continents, or raising the sophistication of humankind to a level just above brain-dead. Only if you aim high you can be sure to hit something on your Odyssey to Utopia. Plus, aiming to the higher goal is going to ensure that you the only one in the pursuit of that truth. No worries about annoying sidekicks who want to achieve the same goal as you just to kick you out of the race at any convenient point.

Third: Become independent from money. I might as well tell you at this early point of the adventure that you’re probably not going to be swimming in money for the greatest part of it. Always keep in mind that your fellows are not capable of even coming close to understanding your genius. They will most probably not want to put a lot of money into ideas they can’t comprehend. You need to hang in there. You’re going to change the world. No one believed Columbus that he discovered the sea passage to India. And today every little child knows who Columbus was.

Fourth: Never lose faith. Chances are that people will think you’re a lunatic, out of your mind, or simply completely insane. They will insult you, belittle you, try to convert you. They don’t know what they’re doing. Who would have ever thought that Martin Luther would be right? The masses and – more importantly – the government wanted him shut up or locked down. No matter what happens you have to stand behind your idea. If it turns out be a good one in the end you want to be associated with it, right?

That’s how easy it is to go down in history. Be yourself. You can be absolutely sure that you are unique. Unique in your thinking, your opinions, your ideas, your revolutionary thought. It’s certain that you know a twist to the turning of the world that hasn’t occurred to anyone else, yet. Blurt it out. You can only hit the aim if you shoot.

a word to women!

i am by no means a feminist. however, i am proud of who i am and what i can achieve. i don't think that women are weaker or less talented than men.
i believe that there are people who are good at knitting and people who are good at fixing cars. there are people who like to do sports and people who enjoy arts and crafts. it has nothing to do with being a man or a woman these days, except in our heads.
when i fellow student - upon taking a looked at my new and improved calender - smugly informed me that women like to spend their time to make things pretty i answered, i'm sure some of them do, yes.
it can't be denied that the idea is still in our heads that women are weaker and of course less cool than men. we cry a lot, get touchy about things, care too much about our appearance and our health, we all like cooking and prefer things neat and clean.
i also have to add that women aren't good public speakers. in my prose seminary i heard four people give a presentation over the course of two lessons. three of them sucked. one of them was a guy.
it's like the girls know what's in everybody's heads - therefore they think we expect less from them. so they don't have to be as good. they're women after all.
everybody knows that women can't parallel park. if you're at a grocery store you will notice that the check out lines with women at the cash register move slower.
i think it's a disgrace. of course everyone of us has things they are not good at. that counts for men as well as for women. women shouldn't let others talk them into the so-called fact that no matter what they do they can't do it as good as a man could. this train of thought will depart from insecurity station and slowly move through average county until it finally arrives in inferiority land.
are you really making yourself smaller, more stupid, less talented, or not as interesting as you really are?
if you are not good at giving reports that's okay. just don't do it. leave it to the people who know what they're doing instead of working to manifest men's point of view that we are just not as good.
instead find out what you are good at. in most of the cases it won't have anything to do with being a woman. don't let society's status quo steer your life. there are many things you are great at. i know that men had been dictating the planet and it is very well possible that some of them can't help their narrow minded opinions. but i have started discovering that some of them - they call themselves liberal - don't wanna make a big difference between genders.
in some areas it simply doesn't have to matter if you're a girl or a boy. you're a person and sometimes that feels the nicest.

InStyle

just to make sure that there is no doubt about my honorable intentions: i have given it a lot of thought and a great deal of consideration that maybe my mother's opinion is the right one. after all, she only wants the best for me. but now, after several years of hard work i can't help but draw the conclusion that there is no way around a new wardrobe every (or every other) season. i'm not a so-called fashion victim (i think) but for some reason - that has to be researched a little more - last year's dresses look absolutely hidious on me this year. of course i will blame this on the passing of time (no way they looked this way last year). there is no way i will show myself in public in something with sleeves so puffy i look like william shakespeare in his finest ballroom garment. (were these sleeves really in fashion at some point in recent history?) and to emphasize my point: even though i'm embarrassed beyond compare i will share this next piece of trivia with you. today i was seen in a plaid dress (and i'm not talking about a nice dress shirt kind of dress in a cute cowgirl style) bearing the colors prehistoric-algae blue and medium-strength-mustard green, aforementioned puffy sleeves, and pockets to store a small vaio laptop. (don't even ask me whoever had the idea to design one of these. i don't even dare answer the question who bought one of those. and: no, shame on me, it was not a gift.) the one good thing that could possible come from this period in my life is that now my closet will become a little emptier. i will not insist on keeping every single dress i bought since i was fourteen, even though they might be in fashion again soon. instead i will loudly insist on buying new dresses. no, mom, because the dress has the same color it does not look the same way. and, yes, mom, it is necessary that i buy a third black dress with those cute rhine stones along the hemline. (i guess if i don't eat for a while i might even be able to afford it.)

time and space

it's weekend. finally! i didn't really know stress before i started university. of course, i always said: i'm so stressed. or: don't stress me. or: i've got enough stress. but if you still have time two watch one or two episodes of gilmore girls every day you're not stressed out. now i start classes at ten o'clock. i get home a little after four which basically means that in the morning i don't get much done (i like to sleep in) and when i get home in the evening the day is almost over. so, i don't get anything done then either. the little time a have off i need to use to make some money (and the emphasis is on "some" as in almost nothing) to be able to put something aside for future tuition. i'm not complaining. i'm not completely miserable and that's great. i like what i'm doing - reading, writing, discussing theories and texts - but every friday i notice that i'm completely worn out from the week. it occurs to me that i haven't really done much homework during the week so all of it is stored for the weekend. basically, that means that my weekends don't contain much free time anymore. i get to the point where i have to take time. time to have breakfast with my roommate, time to watch a movie with her at least once a week, time to tend my farm on facebook. makes you wonder what this strange concept called time really is. i don't think there's ever been a period in my life where time has passed by so quickly. and word is that from here on it doesn't exactly get better. (-:

tension headache?

i just got back from my first "real" day of university and the word that wants to continously pop into my head is 'overwhelming'. i can't say it's different than what i expected. but i guess after more than just a little time of doing nothing too intellectually challenging it's definitely a big step. i'm not having very many problems with lectures you just show up to. sit down, sign your name, and doze off. this would be american literature and history and is actually very interesting. but after that my communication skills wnat to be developed and i need to be furthermore challenged with creative writing and research. all the professors make it clear, of course, that no one is trying to torture us. they want to educate us. and, honestly, i'm sitting here wanting to be educated. i already discover that this is very much what i am and like to do. if i think about it a little i can admit with relief that - if i had more free time - i would do exactly this: reading, writing, thinking and talking about myself, trying to make new and interesting friends and spend as much time as possible with people as intelligent as they come. i'll let this first week pass and try to relax myself a little bit. everything is going to be fine. i just know it.

scorpio, oct. 9th 2009 ... ha ...

You're tired of the same old, same old. The routine. You're so tired of it that in the middle of your intense little heart, you're quite sure that if you don't do something to change it soon, you won't be any good to anyone. Not yourself, not your loved ones and certainly not the people who depend on your keen intuition and impeccable work skills to get them through the day.

legendary

this week was my first week at the gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz-university in hannover, germany. i'm taking on the dangerous task of studying german and english. you could also say i'm selling my soul. i don't want to be a teacher which sets me apart from 90 % of my fellow students. my introduction classes both took about 120 minutes each and that was my tuesday. i refused to attend the rallye for freshmen when rumor spread that silly games and free beer are involved. i guess i'll just have to find another way to get to know the other kids. yesterday i talked to a friend who is starting law school this semester. her first lectures took up the past couple of days and will continue until the end of the week. one could ponder now about the difference of importance of our subjects. i, however, am really looking forward to people not constantly telling me how much responsibility my job brings into the picture. from now on i'll only do what i like and want. if life has taught me anything so far then it is that i should give following my dreams at least a try. so, here i am. ready to make history!