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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Forest
The forest is a wonderful habitat. Recently, I heard a little story about a man who, whenever he entered the forest, would whistle a melody. After a while, the animals recognized him by it and accepted his presence. They no longer ran away, sometimes they even greeted him. We often don't see the forest as it is because we disturb it so much. Today I was in the forest. Instead of going for a walk as usual, I meditated a bit, and then a little...
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It takes a village
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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Home
Last year, I participated in a Zen meditation circle. Less because I consider myself a Zen Buddhist, and more because I was seeking the quiet community to pursue my practice. During dokusan, I engaged with actively sensing my questions. I let go and left behind a lot. That was surprisingly easy. The ‚teacher‘ pointed out to me that the homelessness I am actively initiating is also a spiritual state. That was liberating. Instead of dedicating one's self to an identity...
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Growing pains
An intense month is ending. Moving, separation, friends parting ways, the love of godchildren, new friendships, longings, waiting... I could write a screenplay about the last few weeks in Provence. Each day filled with pain, compassion, and love – collectively in various constellations. But I don't want to tell these little stories, even though Marcel Pagnol might have enjoyed them. What occupies me is the question of pain. Life is suffering, Buddhists say – very simplified. The wanting...
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Imagination
The Kena Upanishad describes how the Self as such does not exist. Who sees in seeing, who hears in hearing? This is unanswerable. In the Christian tradition, a Self has been constructed for this. I see, I hear, cogito ergo sum, imago ergo sum... What is this cogito (I think), this imago (I imagine)? That Self which establishes identity, possesses responsibility, acts, and interacts. That thinking, when it becomes aware of itself, ...
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Marx
For so many years I've thought about Marx. Who hasn't? The idea of an equal and solidaristic community, free from ideological superstructure, or irrational will-o'-the-wisps. A world that only knows matter, and sees in it a scientific, progressive movement. Its goal? A world in which humanity is perfect, i.e., harmonious, without envy and resentment, solidaristic and equal, without alienation and external determination, which alone enables the unfolding of the individual within a collective. This dream of a better...
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Time
Cézanne drew and painted Mont Saint-Victoire over 80 times. Although from different perspectives, it was essentially just the mountain. This mountain has been there for a very long time; it exists in another era. A fruit fly has one day to live, then it's all over. We think in terms of generations when we expand our time horizon. A few hundred years seems like a lot to us. Our cultural history began 5000 years ago. For a mountain, that's practically yesterday. What do we see when we look at the same...
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