Der “Covid-19 Gap”

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Heute fiel mir ein neues Wort ein: Der “Covid-19-Gap”
Damit meine ich einen angenommenen Verlust aller denkbaren ond möglichen Vorgänge, die stattgefunden hätten ohne den eingetretenen Stillstand der Gesellschaft.
In jeglicher denkbarer Hinsicht entsteht hier eine Anti-Materie zu dem, was ursprünglich vorgesehen war.
Die Frage, die sich daraus ergibt, ist, inwieweit das, was vorgesehen war, zu späterem Zeitpunkkt nachgeholt werden wird, oder letztlich ganz ausfällt. Und genau um diesen partiell möglichen Totalausfall geht es mir, denn wir werden es nie erfahren, was da gewesen wäre, da es ja nicht ist und nicht wird.

Also zusammenfassend zwei Dinge:

das momentane Nicht-geschehen

das künftige Nicht-mehr-Nachholen

Gedanken für Danach

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Was es jetzt braucht, ist das Danach. Wenn jetzt die Börsen ihre größten Wertsteigerungen verzeichnen, dann heißt das: Wir anderen, ohne Aktien, aber mit signifikanten Gehirnanteilen, sollten unseren Kurs ebenfalls steigen lassen.

Es braucht ein **Manifest**.
Es braucht neue Gruppen, Verbindungen zu und von Gruppen, die bestehen, und zu der politischen Partei der Grünen überall, die unlängst so große Zustimmung erhielten und nun von der Bildfläche verschwunden sind, als wäre auch die Zustimmung zu einer Wende in der Gesellschaft ein Luxus gewesen.

Ein **Manifest** gegen das _Zurückkippen_ in die alten Angewohnheiten. Die Menschheit hat schlechte Angewohnheiten entwickelt. Es gibt überall Menschen, die sich um Bewusstsein, um Entschleunigung, um die Begegnung mit ihrem inneren Selbst bemühen. Diese sind die ersten Säulen für eine generelle Formation gegen die endgültige Übernahme einer nicht mehr länger zu tolerierenden “Wirtschaft”, die im Gefolge auch Politik, Demokratie und Freiheit des Einzelnen, nicht zu sprechen von der Würde des Menschen, abschaffen.

Außer dieser post-politischen Formation gegen das _Zurückkippen_ braucht es auch die Transzendenz, die Kunst und die Immagination, um an die Stelle des aufflammenden Attavismus und Animismus, konservativer religiöser Schuld-Konstrukte und überholter Moralvorstellungen zu treten und das in der Kunst der Gesellschaft zu geben, was sie benötigt, um ein Ideal zu haben.
Was wir brauchen ist ein **Manifest der Ideale**

Dazu gehört auch die völlige Veränderung unserer Haltung zur “Arbeit”. Nach dem Postkapitalismus kann nicht der Korporalismus kommen, sondern es kommt das ZOON, der Mensch als soziales Wesen.
Den Glauben an die Nähe müssen wir uns erst wieder zurückholen. Das, was “Arbeit” uns bedeutet, was es für den Menschen in seinem Leben wirklich bedeutet, muss ebenfalls grundlegend verändert werden. Feldarbeit, Fleischereiarbeit, Pflegearbeit, Nähereiarbeit: Bewegung des Körpers und Arbeit vereint. Eine Absage an die großen Maschinen. Eine Ansage an die kollektive Handarbeit.

Greek Drama? I don’t dig it.

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After visiting the stage play of “Bakchen” at the Vienna Burgtheater the other day some questions arose for me what I actually had been watching. Later I saw a claim from a tourism ad, “Enjoy culture!”. The latter always gives me a shiver. In German “Kultur genießen” amalgamises art and culture in a way to make them synonimous. Wrong.
Do we need to “enjoy” culture – or art? Of course, tourism comercials try to be nice, appealing and seduce people with a lot of sugar coat promises. Forget about it. Let’s dig to the core of stuff.

Euripides, who wrote the Βάκχαι [Bakchai] the year preceding his death as part of a trilogy won a prize in a drama competition in 405 B.C. More than twothousandfivehundred years ago. The text presented at the Burgtheater was in German and speckled with some other texts which weren’t credited in the program book as far as I could see. So what was I actually listening to? Some of the surviving greek (“old greek”) texts are from handwritten books of the Renaissance. More striking to me is the fact that I will never understand what the original ment to the “old greek fellows”. I sense the incredible cruelty of the mind behind the texts, an expression of – yes! – a culture delving in bloody gruesome fantasies. More than that I fear those greeks drawing amusement, a from of humor, from these shows in which people and animals are slaughtered and torn appart, spilling blood n’ guts all over. A voyeuristic spectacle the Romans later adopted for their shows with gladiators in the colosseum and alike. Ripping people apart seems to be a strange, attavistic combination of anatomy and entertainment. The gruel event makes people laugh, maybe to collectively get rid of the horror they are actually witnessing. Right, the greek had some intellectual conundrum build into it, like a overly talkative porno, whereas moving westwards to Rome, – and later to Spain, the producers of those shows let go of the talking part and got right to the hot action. The spanish “corrida” is a pornographic event in this sense, deprived of any narrative content and just focusing on the physical action and combat. I am honestly not up to neither the spanish version, nor would I probabely to the Roman gladiator’s fights. The greek drama tells me a lot of rationales why things happen and sort-of justifying the upcoming bloodspill. Come on: catharsis, that is just another sort-of justification of something societies of the west tried to get rid of in the last thousand years. “Eastern” societies are different in this case as the cruelty seems to level in perfection to the techniques of meditation and combat. Holistic world views unify cruelty with peacefulness, too, stupid.
We westerners try to outsource, analyse and specialise all these aspects of life. And see what we get? I feel urged to estimate a drama from 2500 years ago I don’t understand, neither the language nor the culture nor the action. WTF.

Love, and good and bad energy?

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We just crossed the two neighbours, Mister Franz who is now 82 years, and his charming wife, slightly younger. They entertain a positive and friendly outlook into the world, so it’ s always nice to meet Mister Franz. They will be going to Venice next week and slightly the conversations changes the temperature, as Mister Franz speaks about their Hotel, having changed owners after fifty years, about fines for parking, and some other irritating and obviously un-Italian things. Their family now is in Nicaragua und Chile. “Travelling far like the blackcurrent coming from Chile in our supermarket“, I comment. “You shouldn’t always be so negative“, my wife tells me. Fair enough, I think. “Ciao and nice trip to Venice!

That conversation made me think:

  1. Why are negative things more interesting than “positive” things?
  2. When and how does a conversation slide into a different sort of energy, say from “positive” to “negative”?

The first question seems easy to answer. Negative things – in case you find the right people who agree on the “negativity” of the subject – are either some general themes, like the Corona Virus outbreak in China, whereas others might sensibly differ, for example about Migrants or Political Correctness. “Negative” things as well as the resulting negative emotions (anger, grief, …) are more “complex” and thus more challenging and are consuming more creative energy. Maybe one could say they “suck” mental energy. There is more “solidarity” within the speakers, while “positive” things are not firing and fuelling the conversation, making simple acquitting and confirming a boring contribution. Moreover, positive experiences can raise jealosy from a bystander’s point of view.

The second question is much more difficult and complex. On one hand, as the question “what is negative?” is not easy to be answered, we have to be sure to know what we are talking about. As I said above, the negative emotions coming from “negative information” consume energy to sustain or regain our balanced state of mental power. We could think about an atmosphere that hovers over a situation, like good or bad meteorological weather.

Master Lee says, there is no such thing as “good” or “bad” energy. As an example he always crams out the human breathing of oxygene, changed into exhaled CO2. Trees inhale CO2 but exhale O2. So what is good for us is bad for trees and vice versa.

There is a notion in the Western hemisphere of “psychology” which changes the game. Asia hasn’t a big record on psychology. The whole system works in a different way. And, adding to that, we would have to consider neurology and biochemistry etc. What is DMT, serotonine, amandamine, dopamines etc. to the “positive” feeling of the human being? Add some drug to our cocktail and you will feel different. So, what are we talking about? Also the famous “Qi” isn’t Oxygene, I guess, neither CO2, is it? It is about movement, flow, as far as I am informed on it. Some energy flows up, other down. Some is “dispersed” in many directions, and some might be stagnant and useless or “blocking” the way.

Definitely what we need is a third element, a third notion. Master Lee calls it “Love”, citing Master Chia, and maybe Jesus, too. “Love”, and we speak about “infinite love”, includes good and bad energy. It’s to me the only way to understand why “love” should be greater than all emotions.

Robert Plutchik‘s theory defines that the eight basic emotions are:[1]

Plutchik‘s Wheel of Emotions

  • Fear → feeling of being afraid, frightened, scared.
  • Anger → feeling angry. A stronger word for anger is rage
  • Sadness → feeling sad. Other words are sorrow, grief (a stronger feeling, for example when someone has died)
  • Joy → feeling happy. Other words are happiness, gladness
  • Disgust → feeling something is wrong or nasty. Strong disapproval.
  • Surprise → being unprepared for something.
  • Trust → a positive emotion; admiration is stronger; acceptance is weaker.
  • Anticipation → in the sense of looking forward positively to something which is going to happen. Expectation is more neutral

(Source: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emotions)

This nice coloured flower, Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions, a daisy wheel, could be petals of a flower called “love”. How does this sound?

What else? How long can you be “positive” about the world until you are lying to yourself? A question for another day.

 

 

Toscani’s Morandi breakdown

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About collapsing bridges, campaigns and governments. (A part of “collapsology”)

Note: I am interested in “collapsology”. I don’t see why it should be restricted as a term to mere “survival” attitude and research of a possible end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it. Saying that such an end might be a creeping, slow process, what I guess it might very well be, one has to consider also intellectual, moral and spritiual collapses as well. Part of this “END OF PROGRESS and the penultimate man” (see my larger project on this. Coming.) indeed are examples where human beings are just mere “content” for postings to fuel excitment and in consequence “visibility” and “reach” /”coverage” of the content providers or networks. The a-social networks have no moral at all. Now, read on…
First week of February, 2020, I am travelling back from Italy. Reading national newspapers featuring the incident of Benetton art-director-photographer Oliviero Toscani at Un giorno da pecora radio program. Toscani is snoringly audible on a telephone connection, often interrupted or overvoiced by the journalist. The conversation is about a photo depicting activists from “le Sardine” who are a political anti-Salvini group, Luciano Benetton, and Toscani in front of a cultural center sponsored by Benetton. Will Benetton be going to sponsor financially the “Sardine” group? Then the conversation moves on about Benettons financial engagement, not only the mentioned cultural center, but his share in the Italian highway company which is responsible for not maintaining the Genova bridge (Viadotto Polcevera, built 1967) of architect Morandi, which eventually collapsed on August 14, 2018, killing 48 people. This tragedy was widely broadcasted and discussed.
In my personal view, the following Toscani MIGHT HAVE WANTED TO SAY (but didn’t in this way, which caused the meltdown of his whole career!):
Is a shareholder of a motorway-managing-agency to be held responsible for the neglect of maintaining?
Not easy a question. A shareholder is
not “interested” in the collapse of a bridge, as she is only interested in here dividends. Right?
I am not talking about morality here, which might have go come in at some point. But: This isn’t so obvious at all.
What Toscani really said was: “Ma a chi interessa se casca un ponte?”
Corriere della Sera (Fr., 7 Feb 2020, p.23) 
 
The whole sentence is barely audible, while the radio speaker interrupts on top of Toscanis voics.
Corriere del Veneto (Fr., 7 Feb 2020, p.5) which is a sub-page of Corriere della Sera writes: “Ma a chi volete che interessi se casca un ponte?”
 
Maybe other citations are around in the medias.
Whatever the true words were, as I said before, Toscani created in my view an “ellipse”. What he might has left out was
But who [at the shareholders] are interested if a bridge collapses [as long as they get their share]”
Easily a stupid argument of Toscani could change into an accusation of immoral attitude of shareholders, not caring about they companies they have a share in.
Toscani was fired immideatly after his remark. He confirmed to be devastated about his remark himself when he apologized for it. No way back.
Curiously I was just reading Walter Michel’s “The Marshmallow Test” at the same time, when I hit the chapter: “Why do smart people act stupidly?”
I thought this Toscani-incident might have been an example for Michel’s findings. Now I don’t think it is. On one hand a sort of “set-up” by the radio journalist to drive Toscani in that path, on the other hand a simple, barely audible remark, even misunderstood, runs like an atomic bomb through all medias, ruining this iconic figure of Italian photography’s career.
Maybe Toscani was astonishingly too naive in his attitude to behave like a Trump who fucks around with his malformed Tweets and stupid, inappropriate remarks and behavior – without any consequences so far. Anyone else besides crazy dictators including the president of the USA is shot down im-media-tly, so to say. Blame the media. Yes. Maybe blame people who have “good intentions”. (They are the worst, I guess.) Combine those two, you get the mess we are in now.
Trump is another story, obviously, and the downfall of democracy in the USA and its downfall morally, politically, and in other hinsights too.
Regarding the “Marshmallow Test” maybe there is more to find in the even more recent incident about Benjamin Griveau and an alledged “Sex Tape” on the net, spilled by Russian “artist” P.
What ever truth lies behind these media-shit-story isn’t very clear (appearantly the video doesn’t prove Griveau’s presence), besides the fact that it bombed the REM candidate to Paris major Griveau out of space.
And then, remember the DSK New York incidents. Many questions never answered.
And, of course, above many others, the “IBIZA” video with Austrian ex-vice-chancellor H.C. Strache. The Austrian government collapsed at that time.
Sources: You might want to search the net yourself using the mentioned keywords. 
The original sound is heard here: 
2020-02-15 td

Beethovens Therapeut

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… ist nicht unbekannt. Es gab keinen. Und dabei hätte der angebliche “Rebel” (NY Times, heute) dringend einen gebraucht. Dann hätte er vielleicht auch nicht so sehr eines Arztes bedurft.

Mit einem Wort: das Wunder Beethovens und seiner WUT (Leberzirrhose!) ist wohl nur das Ergebnis mentalen Leides eine sehr unglücklichen Kindheit. Macht die Kinder glücklich, dann brauchen wir nicht Musik wie die von Beethoven zu hören. Logisch. Leider wahr. Symptomatisch für die europäische Kultur und Kunst insgesamt.

Changing habits

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To words that seem to have little to say, as banal s they seem. It occurs to me to understand that on one hand it works not be exaggerated to say that we are habits, we are layered habits, multitude of habits, seamlessly glued together to what we believe to be our free will. And, secondly, to change such habits, is a daunting, difficult task. So these two words: changing habits, encompass our whole existential drama, nearly as in the famous phrase: to be or not to be.

Self Discipline?

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Self Discipline, time Management? Great! But what if you have a family? What does it take to cut out the time for you and you alone?

They need you, you need them. Working alone means alone, no-one interfering.

It’s a discipline inside the discipline, to stay easy and smooth: your habit becomes their habit. And in exchange, at times their habit become yours.

You have to learn to switch off reacting to every and each single input, question, comment. As if you were not there: focus on your task. If they don’t believe it, make it clear. Shut off, it’s the only possible pathway to work alone.

responsibility?

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Arriving on the bar of the re-re-vived Café Drechsler, one gets the feeling that the four girls behind the bar are having a good time, but working for themselves. Feeling completely ignored as a customer for a time span of minutes which seem an eternity, I start talking on my mind about what is going on.

I hate these situations, but they occur. Finally I employ a slightly raised volume, still in friendly words to order an espresso.

It works, and at a sudden all four are taking notice of my presence. Funny because I give a shit about their show -off coolness displayed. This is just yet another ordinary neo Café and no fancy Ibiza bar.

The word responsibility comes to my mind. Those girls are in their mid- twenties, and floating on a world view of hyper individualism, which comes with a proportional loss of caring and responsibility for others outside of their prefabricated perception.

Yes it is generational, yes it is also a question of age, and yes it’s a question of not knowing, a lack of true culture: Italian barista culture.

I have to ask the girl to wipe off the café she spilled when hitting the cups in front of me on the counter, jerking into my direction. no words of sorry or excuse, just a stupid face.

Responsibility hurts the individualist’s world view. This is true apokalypse: starting in the ego bubble.