Individual reality

You know that sometimes people are condescending. You know that, right? People (and by people I mean mostly others, but sometimes myself) tend to think that their conception of reality is the right one and others are mistaken. This happens especially with older people (e.g. parents) and younger people (e.g. childern).

Parents tend to think that they know better. That the children might think something or feel something, but they are of course wrong. This is apparent when the child first falls in love and gets his/her heart broken. It might feel like the end of the world for the child, but the parents say "Oh well, that's normal, it's not so bad, he'll survive, it'll all be better soon".

The point I want to make here is this. The reality of an individual is real. It's right. It might not be the end of the world for you, but it might feel like that for him. So for him it's real and it feels like the end of the world. Something might be exciting for him and you might find it boring, but that doesn't mean it IS boring. In his reality, it might be the most exciting thing in the whole wide world.

The reality of an individual is probably very different from yours, but that doesn't make it less real, worth less, less interesting.

This might all make sense, if you let it settle in your head and it could even be important to keep it in the back of your mind next time you roll your eyes at someone. Not that I would assume that my blog readers do such a thing, but... you know... I sometimes do.

Lyrics of the day: I don't want to wait by Paula Cole.

So open up your morning light

And say a little prayer for Rye

You know that if we are to stay alive

And see the peace in every eye

She had two babies

One was six months one was three

In the war of '44

Every telephone ring

Every heartbeat stinging

When she thought it was God calling her

Oh would her son grow to know his father

I don't want to wait

For our lives to be over

I want to know right now

What will it be

I don't want to wait

For our lives to be over

Will it be yes or will it be

Sorry

He showed up all wet

On the rainy front step

Wearing shrapnel in his skin

And the war he saw

Lives inside him still

It's so hard to be gentle and warm

The years passed by and now

He had granddaughters

Oh so you look at me

From across the room

You're wearing your anguish again

Believe me, I know the feeling

It sucks you into the jaws of anger

Oh, so dig a little more deeply,

All we have is the very moment

And I don't want to do what

His father and his father and his father did

I want to be here now

So open up your morning light

And say a little prayer for right

You know that if we are to stay alive

And see the peace in every eye

So open up your morning light

And say a little prayer for right

You know that if we are to stay alive

And see warmth in every eye

Things people do

There are things I can do. You know... that I can do reasonably ok. These things are my job.

There are things I can do. You know... that I can do quite well. These things are my hobbies.

Wouldn't it be nice, if I could earn my moneyz by doing things I can do quite well? It would.

I got to thinking about this, because as you might (not) know, I have discovered blip.fm q few months ago and I love it :)

You can be the DJ of your own little channel and play music for people and I have so much fun doing that. Music is what I'm about. I could listen to music all day long and if I could earn money for that? Oi, that'd be nice. www.blip.fm/nichi

Also, I have discovered the charming TV show "Chuck", so I'm a bit occupied catching up :)

I'll see you soon, take care.

Lyrics of the day: Theme from Mahogany by Diana Ross

Do you know where you're going to?

Do you like the things that life is showing you?

Where are you going to? Do you know?

Do you get what you're hoping for,

When you look behind you theres no open door?

What are you hoping for? Do you know?

Once we were standing still in time,

Chasing the fantasies that filled our minds.

You knew how Iloved you, but my spirit was free

Laughing at the questions that you once asked of me.

Do you know where you're going to?

Do you like the things that life is showing you?

Where are you going to? Do you know?

Now looking back at all we've had,

We let so many dreams just slip through our hands.

Why must we wait so long before we see,

How sad the answers to those questions can be?

Do you know where you're going to?

Do you like the things that life is showing you?

Where are you going to? Do you know?

Do you get what you're hoping for,

When you look behind you theres no open door?

What are you hoping for? Do you know?

Oh boy.

I have actually many things to tell you, but I don't know if I have the energy to write them all ;) or at least not in a text that I'd like (you) to read. I'll try anyway.

I just stubbed my big toe and it hurts now. Wait... that's actually not that interesting.

Today, I drove 4.5h to the northwest just to take a look at a building. Or rather some rooms in that building. That took an hour. I am home now and spent about 9-10h in a car just to look at empty rooms. Ok... that's totally not that interesting either. Not for me and not for you.

Now let's come to one of the more interesting parts. I took my first diving lesson on Wednesday and I loved it. But let me start at the very beginning (a really good place to start ;). I drove to the sports building of my uni for the first time and it was like right from a movie. I drove there, looked up, and there it was. All concrete, 70ies build, looked like a jail or an asylum that got deserted 10 years ago. Completely grown-in by vines and trees way up on a hill looking over the city. I was a bit frightened. And not only because I was going to do physical excercise.

I got my passport for the sememster, which was easy enough.

I was sitting there and waiting for the course to start and had some time to look at all the people taking classes in the centre. There were way more guys than girls (I guess guys like sports more than girls do?) and let me tell you something: It's one thing to wear comfortable clothes when doing sports, but when you're walking around, anything that allows you to jog in, stretch in, sweat in, roll in the mud in, without worries - is not acceptable.

After carrying the equipment down, we had to shower to prepare for the lesson. Now I would love to look at the other guys during showertime, I mean I don't get much nude time with guys as it is, but without glasses it's not really much fun. I can hardly see shapes and I can't see hard shapes, so what's the point. And also we got divided into 2 groups and the other one has all the cute guys. Yeah well... what can you do.

After showering, we learned how to use the equipent etc, interesting stuff. Diving is so much fun. One thing about me: I have a weird (and a bit fatal) trust in technology. I just took the mouthpiece, went under and breathed. Some were nervous, some were afraid. Some were cautios and tried it over the water. I just put it in my mouth and went down (that's what he said!). This trust will probably get me in trouble or hurt one day...

Then a very funny theory lesson (not) and by then I was sleepwalking... I had been up for 15h and it was just a lot. After the practical lesson: showertime again :) I seem like a pervert now, but there's something very nice about early-20ies guys. Sue me if you wish to. I tumbled to my car and got home somehow. Next day: wake up at 5am? Sure thing.

So how pretty is the picture I just took? The moon is sooo bright it's like a small sun. I love nights like these.

I hope you're allright and I'll see you soon.

Lyrics: Hope by slut.

hope that I can make it as it comes.

hope that I can make it like the other ones.

hope, I'm getting used to what I see.

hope, I'm getting used and get in touch with what I feel.

hope and wait to undergo,

what I just didn't want to know.

hope, that I will never break and fade.

hope, to show my face again

and get in touch with all of them.

hope, that I will make it everyday...

oh everyday...

I hope, that I can take away

a little piece of yesterday.

hope, that I will never break away.

hope to show my face again

and get in touch with you again.

hope, that I wil make it everyday...

oh everyday...

everyday...

oh everyday...

everyday...

What is love?

Don't worry, I will not try to explain love to you in this post. Not that I could. I mean... I know how love feels like. Love for friends. For family. For a person. Love for hobbies, activities. Love for art. But more eloquent people than I am have written whole books about the topic.

I would like to tell you today, why I love my city and most importantly - why I know it loves me back.

The picture above shows you my city in the best possible light. The hills, lush with the spring green. Light falling from the sky that looks like angels are coming down to settle on the 58 churches (yes, 58 churches... in a town of 130.000). Old buildings and stores. Places, inviting you to spend an afternoon watching the passerbys. Stores that tell you they have been open for 351 years. Fortresses with engravings that tell you about the battles taking place 1500 years ago.

But it's not really all of these things that make me love my city. What makes me love it is the smell when it has rained on the marketplace in summer. The musicians that sit on the street and play. The crazy religious guy who shouts "Jesus is the saviour" in broken German. The sound of water under the old bridge when you cross the river. The lights that illuminate the buildings at night. The feeling to know the streets, but never know where a new shop has opened....

The question remains: How do I know that my city loves me back? The answer to this question is a bit difficult to frame, because it's a feeling. Have you ever loved someone and he didn't love you back? And have you ever loved someone and he loved you back? Until that moment, when you realize that he loves you back, you can't imagine what it would feel like and that it would make a difference... but it does. This feedback is something that I wouldn't have thought possible until roughly a year ago, but it is definitely there.

And when I look at the picture of my city, I know. I just know.

Lyrics of the day: Soon we'll be found by Sia

Come along it is the break of day

Surely now, you'll have some things to say

It's not the time for telling tales on me

So come along, it wont be long

'Til we return happy

Shut your eyes, there are no lies

In this world we call sleep

Let's desert this day of hurt

Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight

Don't Turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say

Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

Well it's been rough but we'll be just fine

Work it out yeah we'll survive

You mustn't let a few bad times dictate

So come along, it wont be long

'Til we return happy

Shut your eyes, there are no lies

In this world we call sleep

Let's desert this day of work

Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight

Don't turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say

Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

Fahion is a state of mind

I was watching one of my favourite movies. One of my many, many favourite movies... "The Devil wears Prada". In it there's a quote about fashion designers:

What they created was greater than art, because you live your life in it.

This is... an interesting point of view and I appreciate it. I am a sucker for fashion. It's not that I really wear couture, because everytime I try something on with some funky colours or patterns, I look like a clown. But I appreciate couture for what it stands. A way of expressing yourself, of expressing your view of the world. A way of showing the progress the world has been experiencing and a view back to the history of fashion. It is important that some designs and coulours/patterns repeat themselves over time, but they never ever are the same. Ever! It's just a way of remembering and appreciating fashion history for what it did for us.

Ok... Fashion blog over.

I got the news today that I will spend Thursday in a car. Driving to a city where my boss wants to spend the next 5 years, then walk through an empty building, then drive back. With my boss in my tiny, tiny car. 7h of driving. I'm looking forward to that.

I would love to bore you with more details from my life, but I'm very tired and have a 10h work day tomorrow ending with a lovely presentation by yours truly. I'm telling you... when I'm finished with this job, I'll be really good at... whatever I'm doing.

Lyrics of the day: I hope that I don't fall in love with you by Tom Waits.

Well I hope that I dont fall in love with you

cause falling in love just makes me blue,

Well the music plays and you display

Your heart for me to see,

I had a beer and now I hear you

Calling out for me

And I hope that I dont fall in love with you.

Well the room is crowded, people everywhere

And I wonder, should I offer you a chair?

Well if you sit down with this old clown,

Take that frown and break it,

Before the evenings gone away,

I think that we could make it,

And I hope that I dont fall in love with you.

Well the night does funny things inside a man

These old tom-cat feelings you dont understand,

Well I turn around to look at you,

You light a cigarette,

I wish I had the guts to bum one,

But weve never met,

And I hope that I dont fall in love with you.

I can see that you are lonesome just like me,

And it being late, youd like some some company,

Well I turn around to look at you,

And you look back at me,

The guy youre with has up and split,

The chair next to yous free,

And I hope that you dont fall in love with me.

Now its closing time, the musics fading out

Last call for drinks, Ill have another stout.

Well I turn around to look at you,

Youre nowhere to be found,

I search the place for your lost face,

Guess Ill have another round

And I think that I just fell in love with you.

Things are like that. Or like that.

It is interesting to me that we sometimes are so thankful to be able to put things in boxes. Something is like that. Or like that. (Hence, the title of this blog entry). It makes our live easier, when we don't always have to think about something. We can look, judge, put it away and focus our attention and energy on something else.

In the picture above, it was about midnight, but you wouldn't have guessed, because looking out the window presented a landscape like you see... well in that pic. We like to judge something as day or as night, because it gives our lives rhythm, not because it's something solid or something imposed from the outside.

Yes, at night the sun is down and the moon is up. But is it always?

Yes, at night it's dark and during the day, it's light outside. What about the artic summer? Or nights like the one depicted above where the moon is brighter than the sun sometimes is?

I'm using examples that are a bit extreme to make you see that in every situation we encounter in our lives, things don't have to be as we initially judge them to be. Things don't always turn out to be the way they seem to us in the beginning. It's important to challenge ourselves, so that we don't just put our opinions, label them and stuff things in the labelled boxes. Things that might be something else if we allowed ourselves to look more closely. To examine the truth behind the exterior appearence.

Things. Places. Books. People. Most things deserve a closer look, most might suprpise you, if you delete the usual labels.

Lyrics of the day: Magic by Nick Drake.

I was born to love no one

No one to love me

Only the wind in the long green grass

The frost in a broken tree.

I was made to love magic

All its wonder to know

But you all lost that magic

Many many years ago.

I was born to use my eyes

Dream with the sun and the skies

To float away in a lifelong song

In the mist where melody flies.

I was made to love magic...

I was born to sail away

Into a land of forever

Not to be tied to an old stone grave

In your land of never.

I was made to love magic...

Oh, you know... typical day.

Well today was as usual a little stretch between the life that's a bit more me (meaning going to a coffee bar with a book, reading, some light shopping, enjoying the weather...) and a bit more "me, when I'm out in the country with the 'rents" (meaning climbing down a well to scrape up dirt in 1' of almost freezing water 20' underground).

Let my quote the Rocky Horror Picture Show: I'm cold, I'm wet and I'm just plain scared.

That's how it's like in my life. I'm a country boy who enjoys wearing Dolce&Gabbana jeans. Maybe that's my niche?

Anyway... today I picked up some DVDs that I had made. I've been in musical performances in school and I only had those on VHS. So I had them burnt on DVD and I'll digitalize them on my computer :) Some performances were good, others weren't, but that's what it's about.

I'll go to my friend's birthday party in a little over an hour, but I have to catch some sleep till them or I'll pass out at 9pm. I'm such an old person ;)

I hope you're all feeling fine and I'll see you soon.

Lyrics: Rhymes and Reasons by John Denver

So you speak to me of sadness

And the coming of the winter

Fear that is within you now

It seems to never end

And the dreams that have escaped you

And the hope that you've forgotten

You tell me that you need me now

You want to be my friend

And you wonder where we're going

Where's the rhyme and where's the reason

And it's you cannot accept

It is here we must begin

To seek the wisdom of the children

And the graceful way of flowers in the wind

For the children and the flowers

Are my sisters and my brothers

Their laughter and their loveliness

Could clear a cloudy day

Like the music of the mountains

And the colours of the rainbow

They're a promise of the future

And a blessing for today

Though the cities start to crumble

And the towers fall around us

The sun is slowly fading

And it's colder than the sea

It is written from the desert

To the mountains they shall lead us

By the hand and by the heart

They will comfort you and me

In their innocence and trusting

They will teach us to be free

For the children and the flowers

Are my sisters and my brothers

Their laughter and their loveliness

Could clear a cloudy day

And the song that I am singing

Is a prayer to non believers

Come and stand beside us

We can find a better way