My perception changes when I arrive in India. The smell, the sounds, the slowness, the intuition, the acceptance, hope are wonderful things that I see. Others may see stench, noise, inefficiency, irrationality, and resignation, despair. I think it is this different perspective that allows me to feel comfortable in India. So I have had wonderful experiences. Thus I learned that different people have different perspectives on the same things. I learned by going from A to…
On a boulevard in Paris, a café and bad music, sun and many people. So many people want to be seen. They present themselves as busy, sexy, cool, knowledgeable, adventurous, athletic, educated, cultured, or indifferent. Many want others to notice them. They see this as who they want to be. Perhaps they live their lives in a certain way, happy and content, or externally influenced and bored, outcast or privileged. That's the beauty of Paris and other big cities, that people...
Highways have always been special places for me. Most of the time, I wasn't under time pressure; I rarely had to get from A to B by a certain time. Rather, highways are travel routes. I find myself in transitional states there, a kind of no-man's-land with endless possibilities. That opens up room for thought. Often, these rooms are simply empty. The brain is busy navigating safely in traffic. It's a pleasant form of occupation; consciousness is occupied and alert, a mistake would be fatal. When I...
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…
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...
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…
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...
I'm sitting in a café in France. There's lively chatter all around me. This morning I was ‚on the internet‘. How different these experiences are. Of course, pears aren't easily compared to apples, and yet we often do it. Working in an office and working from home, for example, are similar; seeking community on social networks or in a café, for example; reading in a library or researching on the internet. These are apples and pears, similar and yet categorically different. On the internet, we are...
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