How to communicate with someone who declared one’s love to you

There is so much beauty in not replying to the other person when you are told, the person fell in love with you.
It is so socially competent, so full of self-esteem and smart, not to talk to the other person about it, especially if you don’t requite the feelings of the other person the same way.

You do your best not to hurt the person, not having to be honest with yourself and not having to deal with a difficult situation.

Also, you show, you gained lots of power by showing, you are the one who is currently stronger.

This way, you can also build your self-esteem by doing it on behalf of someone else and not having to deal with yourself and your own shortcomings.
The whole situation gets even times better when you write about your relationship problems on Facebook and other social media channels instead of talking to the person who told you, she fell in love with you.
Girls from next door who do not fit into the stereotype of the fascist manosphere internet-subculture don’t have to be treated with respect. They have to learn, they are less worth as emasculating feminists. We all know, every woman who does not fit into the stereotype of neofascist men’s rights activists is an evil feminist. And of course, feminism only exists to emasculate men and is nothing but pure hate towards men. Also, feminists are only welcome as part of the general infotainment if they are topless Femen from the Ukraine.

These girls from next door have to learn their love is not wanted.
Therefore they have to be treated abusively by not talking to them if they tell you, they love you. Talking to them could also mean, you might like them. Therefore, they have to be treated with a silent treatment. That shows, how advanced you are, and that you had it all together in middle school and did not have to learn any lesson of life afterwards.
(This little text is of course pure irony.)
The best relationship-adviser is of course JP Sears.

The social and political effects of scientific development

The possibility of ectogenesis will be going to change human existence dramatically, more dramatically than what people have seen in the twentieth century when women got the right to vote and the contraceptive pill was invented.
We are close: the second lamb was born outside of an artificial womb and researchers at Cambridge University hospital were able to keep a fetus in an artificial womb alive for thirteen days. However they had to terminate the ectogenesis because of legal prohibitions.
The effect of this be might be a positive turn around in problems related to demographic change in Western societies.
Personally this is going to be a relief in women’s lives. The terrible and awkward state of the damsel in distress might come to an end. Also women are finally going to be biologically equal to men which will be a huge change politically and socially.
However, as one comment suggested, men might get more aggressive towards women. Todays MRAs and Reddits might look innocent compared to the possible aggressiveness turning up at that point of biomedical, social and political development. It is hard for the former leading group of people when privileges are going to slip away due to developments changing the game.

A wonderful article I reblogged from Neel Burton on the first gays in recorded history.

The journey is the destination- The journey of education

Often it is not just the money but also the mind-set

Education is probably one big headline in my life. Wanting to leave the petite bourgeois back ground and the intellectual narrow-mindedness of the German village behind I grew up in, I wanted to go out into the world after I had finished school and wanted to learn more languages.

Language Learning after finishing prep-school

I had two options, either going to China as an au pair of an Austrian-Chinese couple from Vienna, she was Austrian, he Chinese who had a little boy and were about to go to China or going to Italy to work on my Italian language skills. I already had learned some Italian at school and had a friend in Italy who I was communicating with: I wrote him in Italian, he in English. We tried to correct each others writing. I had always hoped, my parents would understand me and have a bit of logic and mindfulness. I thought, a lot things useful for life in a modern society would be clear, e.g. the importance of learning languages. I thought, I just have to be a little compromising, show good will and work hard , and everything will be ok. Unfortunately I was wrong and it became the conflict that still shapes my education and my life. My parents said things like “Why did you learn Latin and Classical Greek at school? You should not have learned these languages.” For them learning languages was just a waste of time and money. I had to listen to strange, almost senseless arguments  like “The German foreign minister also does not speak Chinese, so why do you need to learn Chinese?” (They meant Guido Westerwelle.) In my opinion it was really arrogant of him to say in 2009 when he came into office to say to a journalist from the BBC in German “This is Germany and we speak German in here.” – Also, requirements change and sugggesting the lack of education of someone else would be a model for future generations is anti-intellectual and narrow-minded.)

My parents came from a different world, a less globalized society and a very locally oriented society. When they were young, you finished school, did an apprenticeship for three years, earned already money during that time and started working somewhere and stayed there for decades.  Learning languages was more or less, something for the educated. My parents both learned English and French at school which was not nothing ordinary in Germany before the seventies. Most did not. And this was not just the missing opportunity due to the social class and money but also a bit of laziness, even if a lot of people always try to blame the class-society for their mistakes. In a world without internet, somewhere in the country, with only the radio and maybe some newspapers, at a place where it might take some effort to get an international newspaper you can only buy at one place in town, people will not emphasize the effort of learning languages, except for if they really want to. I grew up in North Western Germany, at a politically very stable and remote place. People never really had to change and to over think themselves. I often found Eastern Europeans being much more open towards education after school. Most of my German classmates from Grammar school did an apprenticeship and went to the university of applied science and just stuck to the English they had to learn at school,  lived up to materialistic ideals like having a car and pursuing hardcore shopping and consumerism. It was even seen as freaky to like going to a museum, to be interested in intellectual subjects and to like archaeology. The point was the grown ups and the young people had the same mind-set. Eastern Europeans in contradiction to that often were very open and straight forward in solving these problems. They probably had not as much money as the parents of my former classmates but they had a rich treasure trove of experience which helped them going there way and facing the problems of reality. Their world changed after 1989, left nothing as it was and made old principles irrelevant, in contradiction the wel groomed Westerners did not have to change. They stayed as they were and they did not change their attitude. Sometimes their children do or try to do it but they lack of the experience that suddenly everything can be lost and all that is left is what you have in your brain and what you have learned. My experience after all is that it is almost impossible explaining my parents these very simple principles. It is as if I would talk to a wall. They still believe stuff like that learning languages is nothing you need to have to get a job. When I told my parents, I would need a language course for uni, they said, I could learn languages after my degree when I would earn money. Even if IO would have already a secure job at the foreign office and would just need to show, I learned one or two certain languages besides the languages I am already firm in, my family would not even understand the need for that. They probably like the fancy job their daughter could have but they just do not see the way to reach that goal. I tell you one thing, living like that is very hard and physically and emotionally draining.

P.S. And the other point is: how can you ever be free in a developed society if you do not have the chance to learn to be able to make a living?

By the way: Germany is at place 19 according to OECD statistics according the chances to achieve something independently of your social background. The social background plays a huge role in Germany regarding educational success and the educational and professional level the student will reach as adult later in life. The intellectual and academic openness of the family background also has a huge impact o the future of the student considered the fact that student finance in Germany mostly lies on the students and their families. Even if the educational system is state run, it is totally under-financed. It consists of only basics and sometimes huge scientific and political university research show-off projects.

Educating Our Children for the Future (Photo credit: 350.org)

The purpose of life

Did you know that in our world of standardized tests and an economy ruled by corporations this will be the purpose of your life?

Life is not just living but keeping up with fitting into the standards set by the ruling parties of society.

Of course, I am kidding but this tombstone is the extreme outcome of the mentality of contemporary society in the co called “developed world”.

Never give up!

Life can change from one moment to another!

Never allow others to turn you down!

Do not believe those who tell you, you are nothing, worthless and have no talent or brain!

Always believe in yourself, stick to your goals and believes.

You never know what might happen.

Sometimes there is light when you do not expect it anymore.

Taking the energy and the will from young people away

A postface

This Ted talk by a clinical psychologist clearly shows what happens when you tell a young person there is enough time, you do not have to worry, just go with the flow, don’t rush. Taken to extremes, it takes away the energy to make it in this world and takes away a lot of strength, cleverness and intelligence to make it in this world. It is a subtle way to keep the social classes closed and prevent possible competitors from showing up on the social scene of society.

Tonfilm ist Kitsch

Against talkie! Favor living artists!

To the audience!

Be aware! Dangers of Talkie!

a lot of cinemas have to close because of the invention of talkie and due to the lack of a multifacetted program!

Talikie is kitsch!

The one who loves artists and art has to reject talkie!

Talkie is a monocululture.

100% talkie= 100% triviality.

Talikie is economical and intellectual murder!

Its can-like apparatus sounds basement-like, squeaks, damages the hearing and ruins the existence of musicians and artists.

Talkie is badly conserved theatre on increased prices.

Therefore:

Demand good silent movies.

Demand the acccompaniment of an orchestra by musicians.

Demand a stage show with artists!

Reject talkie!

If there is no theatre with musicians and stage show: visit the vaudeville!

International artists league Ltd- Fossil

  German musicians association- Karl Schiementz

Print: Brothers Unger, Berlin 21.

Even 83 years ago people and the industrie were preoccupied against new inventions, like the introduction of sound into film. The ressentiments seem to be the same as today, like the ressentiments against computer games. (Even if these ressentiments often have a good reason. There is a passage in the terms and conditions of facebook that for the case people discussing on facebook coming up with new inventions, the rights for these new inventions belong to facebook. Most people do not read these passages but it is a fact.)

We can be sure that after the next case of a schoolyard-massaker people will tell again, computer games have caused it, instead of truly facing and adressing the real reasons: bullying, school structures that do not fit the real needs of the students and social problems.

Another parallele to this in modern history is the reaction of the music industry when people used MP3-files to share their songs on the internet when the music industry failed to catch up with the real wishes of the customers.

But this also shows that tecchnical progress is nohting that can be stopped.

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Writing on Writersblock- The life and the mind in the digital age

A few months ago I met someone whose blog I had been reading almost since he started his blog. At first I was not sure if I should really meet him or just remain a quite reader in the back ground. I wrote him, not even considering he would write any line back to me. I thought, I had at least given my best and written a nice mail. Surprisingly he wrote back to me and we spent a wonderful afternoon in a museum together. (At least I hope, I was not too horrible in his point of view. He is really nice and has not deserved being treated badly.) Since that time he seems to want me to write even if he has never clearly said that to me. It is always included in subtle messages.

Writing could be nice but as Christian Mihai once pointed put, often you fear the critique, even if probably most people write nice things and trolling is not about constructive criticism but more a way of personal aggression to get rid of personal anger by using the works of someone else to make themselves feel better.

I would describe myself as a dynamic writer and researcher. I can do several things at a time. On my bedside cabinet there are several books I read simultaneously. If I act according to my personal nature, I do several different things all together. Of course not at the time but during in a day or a week. My Mum was always afraid when I was at school, I would work too hard and would demand too much of myself. She and all my friends at that time told me, I should do one thing at a time.

Eclectic thinking

In my essays at school were always marked as excellent in the meaning and the information but I always got an average grade in style. I had the tendency to try to put a wide range of topics into my works. (This is a high art, only few people are able to really do this.)

However, if you have several thoughts running in your brain simultaneously, it is sometimes hard to write it down because you have only one hand, one pen and one piece of paper. The point is of you think like that, you really have to learn how to write. It is an even more complex step than just writing. It is writing with a sophisticated structure which was not taught at school in my country when I went to school. The problem was, they basically tried to use one solution that fits all but something like that never works out. People are different. Teaching an expressive extrovert to hide the emotions and to consider them being something negative is destructive for the personality of this person because this person will never be able to live up to the full potential. It is like the failed public housing projects of the 1960s in Germany or the socialism of the former USSR, a ‘one size fits all’ solution is just against human nature.

Pre-ecological  awareness nature conservation and purpose oriented anonymous architecture

The houses of Berlin Gropius Stadt which were supposed to be fancy and modern turned into a dangerous area, the home of youth gangs and drug dealers, the home of those who do not have the money to move away.

Berlin, Gropius-Stadt

When it started to become popular and affordable in the late seventies and eighties to live in their own single houses or to live in a big turn of the century flat (late 19th to early 20th century) with high ceilings (like in Berlin), the social structure of towns changed, and people moved into the suburbs and the gentrification of historical parts of town in Western Germany started. Places like Berlin Gropius-Stadt were abandoned which used to be prestige projects of great Bauhaus architects and designers like Walter Gropius. Being a great and admirable designer and artist, being loved by scholars, critics, art-minded and art-educated people does not necessarily mean always meeting the real needs of people.

(In my opinion books like the children of the Bahnhof Zoo, describes what happened to the social structure of some places like Berlin Gropius-Stadt in the end very well. [That is my own opinion. I am not an art historian or a sociologist. This is just the connection I see between the book and what happened in reality.])

The problem with architecture like this was that it was soaking out the individuality out of people’s lives. Nontheless people were yearning for individuality, for finally being themselves.

                                          

Ludwigkirchplatz-Berlin         Altbauwohung-Berlin                            Künsterlerwohnung-Berlin

It is like regulating a river and consolidating land and then wondering why the number of species of plants and animals is reduced and wondering why the soil is vanishing. It is like the questionable nature conservation style before people started to be ecologically aware. This was against nature, against the real necessities of nature.

The Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna

Friedensreich Hundertwasser who was my art project when I was thinking of applying for architecture at university years ago who had the mission to heal the cold, non individual buildings with his work. He tried to bring color, different materials, even plants into the anonymous, purpose oriented post WWII architecture which was originally even only built to reduce poverty and destruction, and give people home and shelter after WWII.

People are like nature, people are part of nature and its wilderness. One cannot force people and nature into a formalistic structure. Every try doing so will ultimately lead to failure.

Trying to force different personalities into a 'one size fits all' personality-development concept does not work.
It is highly destructive.

The inner nature of blogging

For a long time, I was really afraid of blogging. It is not that I do not enjoy or appreciate blogging. Blogging really is an art itself.  I often find that in our digital age especially some lawyers tend to turn into great bloggers and publicists. It is a bit like the founder of WordPress.com Matt Mullenweg pointed out in one post a while ago: “Real lawyers have blogs“.

Furthermore there are other issues that always kept me from blogging. With ones writing one shows the world who one really is. One opens up one’s  heart and shows something of the inner soul to the rest of the world. It is a very intimate process. It is not problem as long as it is just interesting food or landscape pictures but if one is writing a literature critique one automatically shows the emphasis of ones thinking. The other point is I live in a country which does not really appreciate an outgoing, open-minded, authentic and emotional person. The ideal of how the perfect person has to be in the country I live in, is being a non emotional, strict person. Of course if one would talk to them in private, everyone would tell, they appreciate authentic, open-minded, emotional personalities but real life gives the evidence that they don’t do so. This does not sound nice but that is my experience.

In my year abroad I had the first time in my life the opportunity to really be as I am. This was a wonderful experience: I could finally live up to my out-going, extroverted, artsy character and was not regarded strange. When I am with some of my international friends I also can be a bit more who I am.

However, I still find that too much emotional striptease does not really fit into an online blogging world. If one writes something online, it is still public. Some people use their blog like people would use diaries. In my opinion blogging should not be like that. Blogging should be about topics that matter but not emotional striptease. (The contradictory point is, this post is probably emotional striptease.)

Of course it is nice when one can express one’s emotions freely and be honest but people generally abuse this sincerity and take it for granted. Even without the danger of constant digital surveillance this would be a problem.

Dita von Teese, the queen of Burlesque, the art which lead to striptease
We do a striptease of our deepest thoughts in front of our digital surveillants. 
We are nacked in front of them.

The security-political dimension

Another important problem with blogging and surfing on the internet I see is the  fact that one has to be careful what to say. I sympathize with political liberalism and I can be quite critical even if that did not really come across on this blog.

What if you study international relations, law or public administration and apply for certain jobs? You generally get checked. All this would not really matter, if one would not want to apply for these kinds of jobs and be just the beauty-blogger or the plumber next door. But something like this matters. Having always been very informed and aware the privacy law discussions I always knew the glamorous internet world had a dark side: tracking via IP addresses, project Indect or Clean IT etc.. Nothing is one-sided. The opportunities coming with the use of certain techniques can be used for good reasons or abused for malevolent purposes. Furthermore even what is considered good or bad depends on the circumstances and on the individual point of view of the parties in charge.

                           

And as long as people live in a democratic world with a functioning legal system and the right for everyone to politically participate, all this is manageable if educated, critically thinking and mindful people are alert enough, even if this sometimes can be hard.

However no one knows what the future brings and because often it is almost like a fight of David against Goliath (and I am not sure if this time David will finally be successful).

I am open about my thoughts but I am fully aware of what is going on and the dark potential of the digital age.

“Die Gedanken sind frei” (Thoughts are free) from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”.
In the digital age this message is important and should be more than just a line of a verse.

The problem is, being aware o the danger of the digital age really implies leasing to some kind of inner censorship. It could prevent one from writing anything. But then the internet would not full-fill what it is doing. Sinister public policy makers would win. Then there would be no revolution and no free press.

I always thought I would be on the safe side with my strict no-internet publication agenda but by that attitude you even miss out technical inventions because you just do not use them due to strict rules of privacy. You miss out a lot, even if the personal connections you make on the internet are not comparable to personal connections in real life and to friendships. They are nice to have and you never know. You probably have made the experience from time to time that suddenly people  you have briefly known and only had a chat with from time to time turned into friends.

                               

At the moment my personal paradigm changes. I think one just has to be aware of what one is doing and one has to make sure to give out as few personal information as possible.

But I assume that is quite difficult. Also like Christian Mihai writes, it is the personal information and  the blogger personality which makes blogging interesting for the audience. On the other hand side there are millions of blogs, millions of homepages and a whole human life-span would not be enough to read them all and acknowledge them as they deserve. So one could hope to just end up in anonymity. But if the blog gets better known this is going to be a different kind of thing.

You cannot be on the internet and not be invisible.

My advice: as few information as possible, take care, no strange photo of you is online.

The movie “Enemy of the state” (1998) was almost a prophecy of the upcoming digital age. Important aspects of privacy are discussed. “The data protection law was only there to create more data insecurity”. One will be surveyed 24h of the day, it is known how one lives, each of ones steps can be tracked. In this movie they used a technical equipment which was state of the art in 1998 but how would it be today?

Ok, let’s stop being paranoid here.