Getting out is a question of perspective
Life is so complex, and there are so many different ways to live. There is no right or wrong way to live. Life is a gift. But what do you say about the negative energies, destruction and aggression, greed and envy? All of that is part of it. There is only acceptance. But acceptance doesn't mean approving of everything, nor does it mean tolerating everything. If a community decides to establish rules and penalize the violation of those rules, then…
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Moist media
Our brain is not the seat of our mind, but the medium through which we can reach the spiritual. When I first heard this many years ago at a conference on media theory, I was astonished. Did they really mean it? Is that crazy or brilliant? There is this beautiful old-fashioned word, ‚subtle.‘ Our body is a medium through which we can reach this. Our media theories are generally conceived in a technological way. There is...
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Carried by feelings
I live in a hypercomplex society. I notice this in political and social issues, which nobody can truly grasp in their complexity anymore. We can hold onto principles, for example, justice, equality, freedom, consideration, sustainability, etc. But when it comes to concrete actions, it gets difficult. Should I take one side or the other in a conflict, or is there a third way? Which of my own actions should I change, and how radical should I be…
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Kinematograf - Images of thought
During meditation, I often observe my thinking, letting thoughts come and go, and try to slow down the thinking process. Thoughts come and go, and I often don't understand where they come from, or why they are eventually replaced by a completely different thought. What chain of association is at work there? These chains of thought seem random, triggered by experiences that are still resonating and being processed. This reminds me of a philosophical idea. It begins with an observation by Henri Bergson…
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Elan Vital - Vitality
I've always had stomachaches with an atomistic worldview. We learn in school that the smallest building blocks of the universe are atoms. Now, physics has advanced, and we talk about protons, electrons, positrons, quarks, and strings, etc. ... At its core, the idea remains the same: the world is composed of the smallest parts of matter. This is such a widespread idea that few people doubt it, meaning they doubt the exclusivity of this worldview. I explicitly do not want to [cover] physics, chemistry, or...
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How do you build a city?
I'm embarking on an experiment. A city is being built in Auroville. It is dedicated to humanity. It's about exploring consciousness, spirituality, and unity. UNESCO supports the project, the Indian state, many people around the world. There is a charter, a plan, many plans, many opinions, progress, and difficulties. Nobody is perfect... I'm going there to help, and therefore I don't want to comment before my arrival. That would be completely presumptuous. I...
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Social utopia
One of the most consequential misunderstandings of recent generations is the confusion of economic and political theory. It seems almost a consensus that capitalism is understood as a political theory. There may be many reasons why capitalism must be understood politically. Certainly, there are also reasons why capitalism is often thought of together with democracy. For many people, that is the same thing anyway. Democracy without capitalism or capitalism without democracy seems unimaginable to many. It sounds synonymous. That is dangerous because it suggests...
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History of ideas
I love complexity, but sometimes also radical simplification – to get some clarity. For example, the history of ideas in visual art. In Europe, after the great migration period, art history can be sketched woodcut-style as a history of ideas: In medieval art, stories were told visually – mainly the stories from the Bible. Most people couldn't read, let alone Latin or Greek. The wood panel painting of the altars is therefore a kind of comic strip, and just as free in its spatial...
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Event horizon
Black holes pose puzzles for us. I am not a cosmologist and approach black holes through popular science with a philosophical interest. They mark a boundary of our imagination. Gravity influences space and time, science says. Concentrated to a point, it condenses matter to its pure substance, crushing atomic nuclei and electrons together into a mass (atoms essentially consist of emptiness). This mass, with its incredible gravitational force, attracts everything and bends and distorts space and time. The black...
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Participate
Today, after many years, I've perhaps arrived at the market here for the first time. There are so many economies here. Shopping – of course – routines also go on… Efficiency – the best thing for the best price. Meeting people, looking out for acquaintances. What I've never seen is the social aspect. People know each other and play music for one another. Share coffee and quiche, stories, and sing together. How does one perceive a market, how does one participate in it? A person who…
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Working on a utopia
It is now definitely time to rethink. What our fathers and grandfathers called progress is destroying our planet. Science is not an end in itself, not everything that is technically feasible is good, not everything that is fun and satisfies our senses is meaningful. Now we hear from many sides repeatedly to concentrate on the small steps ahead, and that only then will we move forward together. This may be right occasionally, but it distracts from what is essential. Where do we actually want to go? Power…
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Plato's cave
In Plato's Allegory of the Cave, people sit facing a wall where they see the shadows of real objects from the world. Since they have only seen shadows their entire lives, they believe these to be reality. The philosopher's task is to explain to people that they should turn around to see how the apparatus of light, which serves as a projection mechanism, creates an illusion. Once people recognize this, they will break free from their chains...
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