There's a place for us

Boy, am I getting old or what...

I was out last night at the post CSD party and it was a lot of fun :) However, 4-5h of sleep are not really what I'm used to nowadays, so I lie here under these lilacs bushes/trees in the picture and daydream the day away listening to music.

This has become my favourite Sunday activity. I feel like I aged 40 years just by typing that...

Today is the last day of August (the last month of summer) and tomorrow will be the meteorological beginning of autumn. I wish you could smell the falling leaves of the Katsura tree, like caramel cookies growing on a tree.

The next few weeks will be very exhausting and the weeks after that as well. My next break will (hopefully) be somewhere in November, so I'll sleep the day away, dreaming of somehow, some day, somewhere.

If you can't find what you're looking for in your own backyard, maybe you never really lost it at all.

It's pride weekend in my home town and the weather is celebrating with the community. I took the opportunity and walked through my town in the morning to take some pictures.

I know that this is probably untrue for many young people, who wish nothing more than getting out of their home town, but for me it's different. I love my town, I really do. You can feel history wherever you walk. In the pavement, the churches and fortresses, the houses and in the general pulse of life.

We have a big university, so there are loads of young people populating the streets at night meandering between the pubs and bars and clubs. There is a big police training facility, so there is like no crime. Well, almost no crime.

With my job, I could work literally anywhere in the world. I could move to New York or San Francisco, Vancouver or Paris, London or Sydney... but I kinda don't want to. The only thing that could draw me to a big city like that is the density of gays (the more gays, the more suitable candidates for me. bad math, I know...).

The older I get, the more attached I get to my home. The hills and vineyards, forests and villages. I love traveling and visiting big cities for a while (Tokyo was awesome, so was Lisbon and Berlin... I'll tell you about those another time), but in the end it's like Faithless put it. "This is my church. This is where I heal my hurts."

Ah, linger on, thou art so fair! (Verweile doch, Du bist so schön)

It is in moments like this that life is happening... 

When I took this rather crappy picture with my ancient cell phone, I was at a festival with my bff Doris in 2005. It had been raining a lot, but in the evening the sky got clear.

When the bands came up that we wanted to see, the weather was great. It was August and a warm summer's night. The people were so happy that it had stopped raining, they were frantic when the bands played. I stood on a little hill besides the masses and saved this moment in my memory. I also took some pictures, just to be on the safe side memory-wise ;)

We had backstage passes, which saved us quite some trouble concerning rain, general wetness and many people wanting to get to one point at the same time... it was grand. Honestly.

Oh, btw the bands I enjoyed there were Slut, Mando Diao, and Teitur.

I just wanted to tell you that this is what it's about. Being somewhere with people that you love, doing something you enjoy (even if it's "only" their company and no activity in particular). Appealing surroundings help, of course.

I'm a people person... yeah. Not so much.

There are days when you ask yourself in the end: What did I actually accomplish today?

Well... today I have to dig quite deep in that regard. I didn't achieve too much at work, I surfed YouTube for too long after I got home...

...but I met 2 nice persons online (Shoutout to Kayleebob and Nicole :P) and isn't this enough? A big part of life consists of meeting various people. Connecting with others through whatever medium we see fit. 

In principle, I like meeting new people, because I always find that I can learn something from them. It always astonishes me how many people are out there... I mean, I know that there are over 6.6 billion people on this earth, but that's a number I cannot fathom. Like - at all. 

But sometimes I grasp it a little bit and especially when I meet new people. Nice people, creepy people, crazy people, kind people, etcpp. There are millions of people in every of those categories and getting to know them excites me quite a bit. Maybe not the creepy people...

For the record: I'm shy and awkward and dorky and I'm not very good at meeting new people. Doesn't mean I don't like it though :)

Let me cite the song "For Good" from Wicked:

I've heard it said

that people come into our lives for a reason,

bringing something we must learn.

And we are lead to those, who help us most to grow,

if we let them and we help them in return...

Reflections

What do people see when they look at us? I know what I see when I look in the mirror, but what about everybody else?

There's an old jewish saying "When you look in the mirror, you see your best friend" and I have found this to be very true. I am my best friend. Nobody knows me as well as I know myself, my history, feelings, wishes, my strengths and weaknesses... but what do others see?

In the past, I have found it to be like this: 

People try to see themselves in you. 

They try to see characteristics that they can put into little boxes to know how to handle you. 

They try to see other people they "knew" in you, to feel more comfortable around you. That way, they think they don't have to start fresh, they can start with pre-formed opinions. 

They apply stereotypes to you, to be able to brush you off as "one of those". 

(Almost) noone really tries to look at you as a new person. 

Someone who hasn't been on this world before. 

Someone who doesn't necessarily have to make the same mistakes you made or the people before made. 

Someone who brings something new to the table, where you can't say "Oh, you're like this guy I knew. Oh, you can do this thing I've seen before. Oh, you remind me of myself, when I was young". 

Someone. 

Just someone. Not anyone.

It is human nature to try and classify people we meet, because we want to make it easy for ourselves. It's one of the biggest mistakes we can possibly make and one of the most offensive ones, because it robs us of the possibility to connect with someone on a level where someone is, rather than seems to be.

Late summer. Say what?

The other day, someone said the term "late summer" and at first, I was laughing on the inside... it's not late summer yet, the summer hasn't really begun.

Boy was I wrong. It's my mum's birthday tomorrow and that's always the beginning of "late summer". Where did the summer go? I didn't see it! It might be due to the fact that my last holiday was in May... yep, that could have something to do with it.

I don't really mind the fact that the summer's almost over, I'm more of an autumn person anyway... but the fact that I didn't realize that it was over, scares me :)

I had so much work stuff (still do) and although I always try to enjoy life regardless of work ;) I enjoy it much more when I don't have to work.

This summer seemed kind of void of happenings in my life. In spring there was sooo much happening to me, maybe it was the universe's way of giving me a break. Well, at least someone is thinking about my well-being :)

Let's all just enjoy the last days of summer and "late summer" and early autumn (does that exist?) and what not... I love it when there is some fog in the vineyards in the morning when I drive to work and the sun drives it back into the forests over the course of the morning. In the afternoon the wind is getting stronger and blowing the leaves from the trees... I think it's going to be a fabulous 3rd season.

All work and no play makes Nichi a dull boy.

I really don't want to seem like I'm obsessed with clouds, but this one was too good to let it pass ;)

These days, I'm walking a borderline between many things. I'd like a job where I'm flexible. I want to be able to say "Oh it's such a nice day, I'll go to the forest and take pictures" without the hassle of trying to get a holiday. I'd like to work with people, to be creative. I would also like to achieve something with my work. After a day of work, my world should have been changed. I don't really care much about money, as long as the necessities are covered. I don't really need a yacht or a gigantic car...

I'd like a job where I can travel. Pack my car, my camera and laptop and drive somewhere. Take pictures, write stories... 

I'd like to give advice to others, who have influence in the world... like politicians. I myself could never be in politics, but I'd like to change how things are with the things I know. I'd like to be challenged in my job and I'd like to have a job that I can do better than anybody else, because otherwise... what's the point if anybody could replace me and do my job as well as I can...? I'd like to get up in the morning and be happy to start a new work day.

Is all of this too much to ask? Or should everyone ask for it. How would the world be like, if everyone did?

If someone has a job like that - message me :)

A cloudy day. Yay :)

I'm doing one of my favourite things in the whole world... I'm sitting in my room in the sun, looking at that exact sky you see in the pic, it's Sunday morning, I drink hot peach tea, read (John Green's Looking for Alaska), and listen to music (Every time - The Radio Dept.).

Looking at the sky could actually be considered my hobby, as I really do it a lot. It helps me think and it makes me happy.

I can't really explain it, but reading for me is like a power infusion for my brain. I can actually feel my thoughts branching out in more than one direction at the same time. To say that I enjoy reading would be like saying dogs enjoy being petted - it's a given. However, I tend to read in spurts. Sometimes, I don't read a book for weeks and then I read several in one week...

I don't know how my (non-existent) readers feel about their future, but I sometimes think that I can catch a glimpse of it in the skies I observe. Just like life, the clouds move and change, they get illuminated by the sun when they glide by, they block the sun and moon in exchange for getting set in a divine corona of light... they even interact, circle around each other, melt and become one, drift upward and change shapes. Looking at that dance makes me see the life down here from a different perspective, in a different light.

A (new) start

I'd like to start this blog with a phrase from Gregory Maguire's Wicked:

...we're not old yet, but we're old enough to be old friends already, aren't we?

I feel that this is kind of true. I met people over the internet, watched their videos and read their blogs and although I haven't known them for a long time, I feel very close to them.

The internet has changed the dynamics of getting to know people. We virtually meet people from all over the world. People, who can be completely themselves in the virtual realm. We can say what we mean and how we feel without the dangers that would accompany these actions in reality. This allows friendships, relationships, communications to get to a way deeper lever way faster than before. 

Some people (mostly older people) just cannot understand that the rules have changed. Maybe forever. We can find and meet people that have similar interests, similar personalities and both sides have total control as to how deep these connections get. The digital age opens up possibilities that just haven't been there before. In any form.

This in itself is frightening to some and can be a danger to others, but it's the world we live in and I for myself enjoy it immensely. Belonging to a minority has never felt this comfortable ;)