You don't choose your life. Your life chooses you.

I don't know if that's a real saying and too lazy to google, but if not - well now it is.

I have always felt like you can control what you do, you can choose how you dress, you can dye your hair...

but the really important stuff. The stuff that really matters... you can't choose that. It chooses you.

Your talents, your opportunities in life. Who you are... that you can't choose.

I got distracted writing this entry for a few days and lost my chain of thought. Sorry about that

Aaaand now it's again one day later. I cannot get this entry right for the life of me. Who knows where this will end. Wouldn't it be kinda funny if this morphes into the best entry ever? I wonder what that would say about this blog in general...

And now it's 3 years later and I'll finally publish this. It's time.

BEDA 12

I read an article today (ok, on wikipedia, but still) about Shakespeare's sonnet #20, which I love. I admit though, I have never even tried to analyze it. Now there's this whole page about the "playful duality" of the poem. About male and female jambi, about phallic poem shapes (really? I mean... really?) and what not.

I don't really know how I feel about analyzing art. If you need to read a book to understand a painting, it doesn't really serve its purpose and if you need to attend a class to understand a piece of music, it probably doesn't reach you in the right places.

Having said that, there are some pieces of art that get more intense if you know the meaning behind it. Know what the artist wanted to show you, tell you, make you understand.

However, I read many many years ago in a book about Zen (of which I've read too many, I admit) that true art is the transparency to transcendency. Meaning that true art can catapult your soul into a state that you can connect to the higher energies of the universe and understand something about the piece, but more importantly, understand something about life and about yourself.

There are many pieces of art that I consider true art, but there are also many pieces I can't connect to at all. That's totally fine though, because maybe there's a person out there who can and they will be the better for it.

A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

BEDA 11

Today, I would like to write about stereotypes. Btw, there's not really a good German word for stereotype.

If I look at myself, I am a lot of things. Many of which would be considered stereotypical.

I am a nerd.

Meaning, I love books more than some people. I am a scientist. I can explain to you the differences between plants and fungi. I am happy when I can stay inside for a few days to catch up on my reading.

I am gay.

Meaning, I love nice clothes. I adore musical theater, Glee, rainbows, double rainbows, Jake Gyllenhaal.

I am a child.

Meaning, I am a Disney fan, I love Pixar and Ghibli. I have difficulties seeing people as sexual beings and not just as people.

I am an old man.

Meaning, I can quote poems of Rilke, Shakespeare, Goethe, Dickinson by heart. I sometimes think the world is too loud. I don't understand what people around me mean when they are talking.

I am German.

Meaning, I am punctual. I like it when things are in order. I have a thing for desserts.

I am European.

Meaning, I have to shake my head when I see an American city celebrate it's 100th birthday when the village I grew up in is way way over a thousand years old. I have no problem with nudity, be it in film or elsewhere. I don't see my religion as my life's purpose. I love it that there is a plethora of countries at my fingertips, each with different languages, views, foods, cultures that I can experience.

I am a man.

Meaning, I love watching action movies. I can be very easily distracted by something I see. I am almost unable to talk about my feelings, nay to talk at all ;) I am worried about losing my hair some time in the future.

I am many many more things. Each can be attributed to a stereotype. But does that mean I'm stereotypical? We all have facets of stereotypes in our character line-up, but as long as we don't artificially stress and enhance these features, but rather let them go and grow and jump over other features that overshadow them now and again, we can all just be unique and not worry about stereotypes or about what people think of us. In which box people want to put us...

BEDA 9

So what happened today... oh yes, I spent too much time on an examination table at the enterologist's. But let's face it, every second on a table like that is too much time.

To nicer topics: my parents are visiting...

Oook... to nicer topics. True Blood is amazing. I mean, it's not that it has the best story line ever told or the best actors ever to grace the screen, but it's so non-apologetic, which is something I love in everything. People, TV shows, music... just doing your thing no matter what. TB mixes gore and violence with emotions and sex and swirls it around in a big bowl of mystery, sets all up in the south where apparently everyone is always sweating and swearing and firing guns at each other - it's glorious. Simply marvelous. It's wonderful.

I think one of the reasons why TB is so successful is because it doesn't really care about the audience. They want to kill someone off, they will. They want to tear some character down till you don't like them no mo', they will. And they will for sure cut a bitch.

It's something I loved about Six Feet Under (which was one of the best shows ever to grace TV, but in the end got so near to real life, it scared me) and it's something I love about TB.

It's like the Lucifer to Glee. Glee goes for it, but stays clean and fresh, TB goes for it and gets down and dirty. Both have their admirers. And I love them both, which leaves me to wonder...

What does that say about me and religion?

Anyway, I have rambled enough, my parents are already looking at me funny, because I keep typing and typing. See you guys tomorrow and take care.

BEDA 8

What can I say about this day? Well I could say a lot of things. Like for example that I saw Zombieland, L'auberge éspanol 1 & 2 and am a bit anxious concerning tomorrow's doctor's appointment.

What I will say instead is this:

We are all human beings. We have flaws. We have merits. And the fact that the song "No Surprises" by Radiohead is one of the most beautiful songs ever written should indeed be no surprise.

I would like to write much, much more, but my thoughts are swirling in my head and I need to lay back, relax and watch them like the Hubble telescope watches swirling galaxies from far, far away and try to judge from the colour and pattern how it must feel to be inside them.

BEDA 7

Oops, I did it again. I "forgot" to blog. Sorry. My life can be a bit turbulent at times and it might happen that I don't have the time and/or energy to blog.

I'm here now... the thing is that I'm home this weekend, because I have a doctor's appointment on Monday in my home town. So I'm home and watch the parents go crazier and crazier every time I leave. They re-arrange, re-paint, re-do everything. I come home to find out they had an excavator come by to bulldoze the front yard in front of my window. Great. It's now a plain field of earth with exactly 3 big stones in it. Pretty. Thank you. It's not that I loved the mountain ash that stood in front of my window for a few decades -.- Parents, I tell you... nothing but trouble.

Tonight I'll go to the celebration of a wedding of one of my friends. The wedding itself was last December, but the celebration is now, because they didn't have any money before that. Money... always an issue. It's ridiculous. Several of my colleagues are pondering getting second jobs at a supermarket or something like that in the evenings and on weekends to get by. That shouldn't be necessary in my opinion, but the pay is actually not great (euphemism of the week). But there you go, you pick a job and you have to live with the payment. I could have been a medical professional, but I'm not, so it's my fault, right? Right? Oh I don't know.

Today, I ordered frames for several of my photographs that will look beautiful in my apartment (the walls are frighteningly white right now). I already see it coming. Once my apartment is finished I'll have a new job and have to move...

Anyway, I can already smell the fresh garlic so dinner is almost ready. See you guys tomorrow! Promise.

BEDA 4

I saw Inception today. An exceptionally good film by all measures. I have to admit though that it didn't reach me emotionally, but rather intellectually, which is fine. A truly great movie, for my taste, makes me feel and not just think, but that's probably just me.

I had among other things a 3h meeting today where I had to present some data etc and I'm really tired, so please excuse this short blog. More tomorrow.