In the early nineties I was still living in Switzerland, and I remember the railway privatisation debate the way you remember a bad family dinner: loud at the start, uncomfortably quiet by the end. The arguments sounded modern, the promises gleamed. Efficiency. Competition. Private innovation in service of the citizen. Switzerland listened, turned the argument in its hand like a stone — and then set it quietly back down. Not with fanfare, but with the calm resolve of a country that understands its infrastructure as collective memory, not as a line item on a balance sheet.

Then I moved to Canada. And now I sit here, with a coffee that is too strong, reading about the Canada Strong Fund. And inspired by listening to a report by The Rational National.

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about this fund with a brightness I recognise. He cites Norway. He says sovereign fund and means by it, I think, something noble — generational thinking, resource stewardship, long-term capital in service of the nation. That sounds good. That even sounds right. Only the Norwegian fund is not a dealmaker. It does not acquire minority stakes, it does not sit at a table with private partners dividing up risks and returns. It is a sovereign owner, belonging to Norway entirely, without a comma of negotiation. When Carney uses the same term for a model that explicitly relies on public-private partnerships, that is not an oversight. That is vocabulary as costume.

The Auditor of Ontario said in numbers in 2014 what I could only put into gut feeling: 74 P3 projects, eight billion dollars in extra costs. Eight billion that landed somewhere in private balance sheets, while the bridges and clinics remained exposed to the weather all the same. That is not a political argument — that is a receipt. And when the same logic is now to be applied to airports, while at the same time 1.2 billion dollars for mental health services is being allowed to lapse because temporary agreements are not being renewed, then the direction of travel is fairly clear. The returns go private. The risks stay with us.

I am not alone in this hesitation — which reassures me and unsettles me in equal measure. Unions are saying it. Provincial auditors have documented it. Health associations are running the numbers right now. When so many different voices point to the same pattern, that is not coincidence and not complaining — that is social memory, making itself heard.

The old hippie in me would say: what belongs to the people should stay with the people. But the Swiss in me prefers to put it this way: sometimes the wisest decision is the one made quietly and without fanfare — by picking up a stone, turning it briefly in your hand, and then simply setting it back down.

In Switzerland, it was the people in the western part of the Jura who wanted to break free from Switzerland — or at least from the canton of Bern. And they did. The struggle in the rocky Jura took decades. But freedom from an uncomprehending authority is too sweet to ignore. The youngest canton is called Jura, and so far it cuts a fine figure in the Confoederatio Helvetica.

Something about this story stirs a memory. Ah yes, now it comes back to me. My own “liberation story” ten years ago has similar traits — or flights — that motivated me to leave Switzerland for good. No, Switzerland never ignored me. Basel least of all. The lure was adventure, the new, the unknown, and the sweetness of discovery. My decision to exit Switzerland (!) took all of two full, long seconds. Then I packed my two cats and a suitcase and landed in Toronto.

The difference from the Madeleine Islands? I’m no islander. I landed in the community — on Team Canada. Gently, and into a culture of openness and opportunity that I never could have anticipated. And yes, Basel had prepared me for this life: the borders with Germany and France were never obstacles, but invitations to openness and tolerance.

In the province of Alberta, the signs right now all point to leaving Team Canada. Whether that too was a two-second decision is not on record. But the timing is surely poorly chosen. When the threats from the south of the continent grow steadily stronger and more intense, the value of holding together is the most powerful force a nation has.

Sit back and sip a Caesar — the quintessentially Canadian cocktail? Oh no. The Canadian team spirit is wide awake and ready to defend the sovereignty of Canada.

This time, more than two seconds.

Well then — where do these unsettling, disruptive ideas come from?

Back then, sixty-five years ago, it was books — exclusively — that wanted to play with my synapses.

"What if?" was my daily occupation, my way of finding my footing in the world.

One author in particular, in Berlin at the start of the twentieth century, stirred something in me — unsettled me inwardly and made me rebellious outwardly: Kurt Tucholsky. The man lived only forty-five years, but moved an enormous amount.

What an excellent storyteller, journalist, satirist, and critic, this Tucholsky — a man who could put into words the moments of his time that were barely graspable as moments.

To this day he remains the one author whose writing style and philosophy I want to draw close to.

Throughout his short life, this man described those dark times through wide-awake observation and scalpel-sharp words. 
Trained as a lawyer, violations of social justice got under his skin badly. 
And his typewriter had to pay for it.

This Kurt Tucholsky planted the first seed in me for a sense of justice.
And kindled something of an interest in politics.

Back then, in the kingdom of puberty, I wouldn't have wanted to live in a time like today — not even in my worst nightmare. 
A time of monstrosities. 
Of political upheaval and the political circus between left and right.

Speaking of which: the terms *left wing* and "right wing" are Made in France, during that famous Revolution.
Which was also, yes, Made in France.

The radical Jacobin party had their offices in the left wing, and the conservative Girondists were housed in the right wing of the building. People took the geographical position of the offices and mocked the left and right politics of the parties.

"Merci beaucoup, La France."

Today, in the year 2026, geography matters less than the political effects between communism and fascism. 
The two regimes are far apart. Very far apart.

Or so it seems.

When we speak of figures like Hitler or Stalin, we don't mean specifically the communist or fascist governments. 
No — we're talking about a totalitarian government.
Left as well as right.

Totalitarianism is the ideology that always exists at the outermost edge of both left and right.
Both carry the same characteristics in their portfolio.

Nationalism is hoisted high, human rights are curtailed, science and art are held in contempt, media is state-controlled, unions are not tolerated — but corruption is in full bloom, the cult of personality grows into a state religion, and rigged elections become the norm.

Aha.

And there you have it: both ideologies, existing at the extreme outer edge — communism and fascism — pursue one and the same goal: totalitarian government.

Kurt Tucholsky planted some of his human visions and philosophies deep in my head.
To him I owe my deep love of justice and community — quite apart from any political position.

Somehow, Kurt laid the first cornerstone of my hippie philosophy.

Today I am reminded of this Tucholsky quote: "Germany is an anatomical curiosity: it writes with the left hand and acts with the right.»

Let us enjoy the era of peaceful resistance against extremism.

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It probably has something to do with the relatives of "kreuzweise" — cross-wise, cross-ways, crossed. Because that lot had some rather bewildering and abstruse hobbies. Some of them enjoyed sliding down the other person's hump. They kept at it until the hump's owner would rather have had them stolen away entirely. Which is all the more remarkable because, just moments earlier, that same hunched soul had said: "You're welcome to me." Well then — love trumps everything.

Yes, «du kannst mich kreuzweise» works in German more dramatically. Sorry.

Words are mostly in a holding pattern, waiting for a sign. A stirring, a moment they've been wide awake for. Only then do they step forward and allow themselves to be woven into a sentence, like "You can go cross yourself sideways..." and so on. Some of these waiting words carry a slightly bitter to outright nasty undertone in their luggage. That usually shows in the facial expressions of whoever receives them — how the sentence landed. Which naturally, and also somewhat artificially, raises the question of why the sender reached for that particular word. Or even had to. Had they perhaps run out of Latin? Was there really no other, friendlier word available?

The agony of word choice is a delicate business. After all, some chosen words carry more weight than their cousins. That is to say: the arsenal in the rhetoric department has plenty of explosive and toxic material on offer — but also soothing and consoling. And sometimes one rhetorician or another reaches into the wrong word-bin.

In writing, at least, there is a grace period before a text is sent off into the cyber-cosmos or printed out and tucked into an envelope. There is plenty of time to look the sentence over once more before firing it at the other person.

Such a safety system would often be more than welcome in spoken rhetoric. But the mouth is often faster than the brain. Or the frustration is bigger than the caution in the china shop.

How often have I kicked myself when a word left my mouth and aggressively demanded entry into someone else's ear. A brief moment of sending turns into long moments of regret.

And then I sat there in the word-pit, and the original anger of the moment transformed into accusations directed at myself. "Think first, then speak, you dimwit!" I heard myself say in the quiet of my little room.

Cutting, toxic, insulting, and defamatory words have staying power. And they are deeply wounding. Wounds that are never visible from the outside — but they are there. Helping themselves to a little toxin for breakfast.

Rhetorical pollution can do terrible things in a society.
Rhetorical protection of the environment can cause its hopefully smiling opposite.

But like so many other important things, this requires practice. And one pacifist, considerate filter before hitting send.

Rhetoric is a fascinating tic.

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There is a moment I did not want to name for a long time. Not because it was painful, but because it looked so unspectacular from the outside. A Tuesday afternoon. I was sitting in front of a blank white screen that looked bleak — the page was white and stayed white. I was sitting in front of the headline of an article I was supposed to write, and instead I was writing notes about an idea that had been following me for weeks. Not occupying me. Following me. That is the right word. Until that particular day, I had the idea. After that, it had me.

I would not have put it that way back then. I would have said: I am very engaged. I am motivated. I am investing a great deal. All sentences in which an I appears that stays in control, that decides, that chooses. But what I was actually doing was: giving in. Giving in more and more completely. The possessing I still thought it was directing things. The possessed I had already turned the key.

The turn from possessing-obsession to being-possessed was only a brief flicker. But the consequences were considerable.

Back in Basel I had possessed quite a few things. All those material, comfortable, status-laden things that make a life look successful. Which feels exactly like that. The flip side of that luxury coin is the pressure, the stress, the marathon of staying successful. Whatever happened to the relaxed fellow in hippie mode?

Lisa saw it. My sister saw it. Even my landlord asked at some point whether everything was alright with me, because I said the same thing three times while collecting the mail. What these people noticed was not a symptom. It was evidence of a shift in the balance of power between me and an idea. And I filed their words away at the time, bent them, shelved them as exaggeration. Now I hear them again — word for word, without commentary — and realise: they were right. I had taken a wrong turn. I was possessed.

The conflict is not dramatic. It is quieter than expected. The possessing I wants to choose when and how much. It wants to stop in the evenings, it wants to take pleasure in other things, it wants to be present at dinner. The possessed I, on the other hand, has no closing time. It finds its way in through detours — through a conversation about the weather, through a song, through a window tipped open on an afternoon. It no longer needs an invitation. It already lives here.

What I am looking for is not a return to before. That would be nostalgia, not a goal. What I am looking for is the moment just before that afternoon — that last instant in which both still existed side by side, the choice and the pull, the I and the object of my obsession, still separated by a thin, permeable membrane. Because in that in-between space — perhaps — lies the story I actually want to tell. Not the after. The exactly-then.

Lisa was right. I had known it for a long time.

Here and now I am again travelling with an idea, a vision that keeps me from sleeping. That keeps every synapse at a steady sprint. Am I possessed again?

Yes and no.

The passion for an idea, a project is the engine, the drive, and it shows few signs of obsession. Yes, I am wild about seeing this project through, for better or for obsession.

Why?

Because I can? Because I must? Because I want?

No — because the joy in this project gallops ahead so gloriously.

I am possessed.

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The salty soup of the oceans has much to hide. Especially beneath the shallow surface, the world in the darkness of the deep seems largely undiscovered. In a world without light, but with plenty of water pressure, the oddest creatures evolved over millions of years. Some of these deep-sea beings look as though a creator was having a laugh. The ocean is a branch office running on genuine algae humour.

Anyone who happens to wander — or drift — into the infamous Mariana Trench will find their yet-to-be-dreamed nightmares filled with monsters of the peculiar sort. Even H.R. Giger, the man who invented the Alien, would be frightened at the sight of these creatures. The aliens of the deep don't exactly need to win a beauty pageant. In their world, visibility itself is an unknown phenomenon. These beings rely on the darkness and the shelter it provides. Anyone who has ever caught a glimpse of one of these creatures will understand their loathing of the spotlight.

These beings live in their damp world in blissful ease. No engine-racket from enormous tankers disturbs their daily routine. Plastic waste is present only in micro-doses. Life-threatening situations from predators are probably rare, since those can't even detect their prey. No idea how the whole eat-and-be-eaten system down there is supposed to work at all. Are the inhabitants of the deep subjected to a random diet? Whoever happens to get something edible in front of their mouth-opening gets fed. The others stare — no — swim into the void.

Planet Earth doesn't just have a surface; it has real depth. And funnily enough, we think we know the blue planet inside and out. Yet here we sit on a sphere, in whose depths exists a world that is largely unknown to us.

Long live evolution.

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I sat in front of the screen and thought: What exactly is going on here? The King of Great Britain and Canada was speaking to Republicans and Democrats alike, feeding them something steeped in history. No, King Charles III did not lecture them, did not level direct criticism at the American administration. He reminded. And quietly urged them to remember history.

The hero of this story is not King Charles. He is not a politician, not a speechwriter, not a historian with the right framing. The hero is the citizen at the screen, the one who has been asking for months whether anyone out there still simply tells the truth. Not tactically. Not wrapped in strategy. But the way you'd say it to an old friend across the table.

King Charles did exactly that. He spoke about alliances, about dignity, about the shared history between Great Britain and America. He did so with the elegance of a man who has learned that real strength requires not volume but clarity. He painted a picture of the world that was unmistakable: a world in which the destruction of trust is not strength but exhaustion. A world in which walls — whether of concrete or of silence — are not foundations but symptoms.

No name was mentioned. No finger was pointed. And that is precisely why it landed so deep.

The real conflict of this story is not, as many would prefer, person versus the current US President — tidy, clear, with villains and heroes assigned. The conflict underneath everything is older and heavier: person versus indifference. The question of whether we as a society are still capable of waking up when someone stands on a stage and does not entertain us, but speaks to us.

The Republicans applauded. Slowly, then more genuinely. That is the part I did not see coming. Not because I had underestimated them, but because I had underestimated how tired even they might be. Tired of bending along. Tired of staying silent along. And there stood a King who does not need to win an election, who leads no party, who is simply a person who takes his role seriously — and he gave them something rare: permission to say Yes to what they had already known for a long time.

This story is not a political argument. It is a question: What would someone have to say for my hands to hesitate in the air before they clap? Not out of reflex agreement. But out of a genuine Yes?

Because perhaps that is the real test of our time. Not who shouts loudly enough. But who still makes us hesitate before we applaud. And whether, in that hesitation, we can still recognise something we might call truth.

At the end of King Charles III's address to the US Congress, I was reminded of a remark by Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney some time ago. During the famous Question Period in Parliament, he responded to a pointed jab from the opposition: "I am speaking here before a group of students."

That is precisely how yesterday afternoon's speech by Charles felt in the US Congress.

The King's speech.
Splendid!

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Because according to rumour — and rumours are stubborn things, unproven yet enormously attractive — the triple toi is only the beginning of a strictly regulated ceremony. y

The company of actors grabs each other by the shoulders, shapes the three syllables with conviction, and spits. 
Over one shoulder. Only then is the wish considered complete. Functional. Delivered.

"Ah, so actors are superstitious?"

No, certainly not. Because superstition brings bad luck.

Rituals and folk sayings are those things you thought were dead but simply refuse to go. 
They wait in quiet corners for their cue, then step out of the wings into the spotlight. 
And the repertoire of these immortal expressions is richly stocked. 

"Break a leg," for instance, sounds like a bad day in the emergency room but is rooted in a wish for a full and prosperous performance. 

"Keep your fingers crossed" is no torture method but a way to ward off evil spirits — proper thumb theatre, you might say. 

"Wait and see" promises composure but usually delivers lukewarm water. 

And "Time will tell" is fatalism in its Sunday best: the conviction that problems will eventually dissolve into thin air, if only you wait long enough.

What connects all these formulas? 
They are remarkably survivable, across generations, in an unusually sheltered environment. 
Rarely are they questioned. 
Rarely does anyone ask whether "It'll all work out" is genuine comfort or a scrap tossed into an awkward silence to fill it. 
And perhaps that isn't really the point.

Because once you start to understand these sayings — truly understand where they come from, why they stay, what they actually do — that's no reason to strip them of their magic. That would be the naive misunderstanding of growing up: believing that understanding is the same as disenchanting. It's the opposite. 

If you know that the toi only becomes complete through the spitting, you can say it with intention. If you know that "chin up" is not an instruction to your barber but a promise made to someone else's courage, you mean it differently.

Whether the triple toi came before "good luck" — or the other way around — probably can't be answered. 

But perhaps that's the real lesson: some puzzles aren't meant to be solved, but to be carried. 
And some expressions are simply good for the climate between people — especially in difficult moments, when your own words fail you.

With that in mind: chin up. And toi, toi, toi.

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The onions are still there, by the way, whenever scrambled eggs lack a bit of kick. And sunshine is still responsible for the vitamin-rich side of life. Only now I mean less the celestial-body variety and more those people who clearly operate their own private light source somewhere deep inside. These from-within-glowing contemporaries, around whom bad moods simply have no chance of survival. Sourness and sulkiness melt at the sight of these cheerfully-shining creatures like snow in March. They seem to love life fundamentally. Really love it. And savour it.

Genuinely asking: how can anyone still be in good spirits in a time that loves to call itself dreadful? Wearing a grief-mask in the minefield is generally considered the appropriate baseline attitude for getting halfway through the day. Oh really? Truly? Does the weight of fear, despair, and hopelessness become lighter when you carry it with a face like a funeral? Somehow I doubt it. The weight stays. The only question is whether you carry it with or without your own inner solar energy.

These sunny types are said to have an aura that directly strengthens resilience. They simply cope better with drama and dystopia, because somewhere they still have residual light that shows them the way out of the chaos. Whoever starts the day on a sunny footing does not only do their fellow human beings a favour — they do their immune system one too. Which is, after all, anything but immune to sunny influences.

Yes, yes, "morning wisdom brings worry and woe." Has the cup gone cloudy again? Not to worry — it happens to the best of us.

Sunny-minded people are not naïve. They see the crises, the global problems, the madness of the present moment just as clearly as everyone else. But they are simply less willing to throw themselves into despair's arms like an old acquaintance who is always around anyway. Whoever can still find the residual warmth of a sunny disposition goes looking for solutions rather than confirmation that the worst is true. And that makes these people rather attractive. And dangerously positive. And inspiring for anyone lucky enough to sit near them.

What were the ingredients of much-praised team spirit again? Cheerful optimism, inspiring relationships, a hardworking ethic, and that radiance fed from within. No accident. A choice.

Keep sunshine in your heart. And love in your belly.
Then you'll have good cheer. And butterflies as well.

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Right then, are we confused enough? 

At the end of the rainbow lies a treasure in shimmering gold. 
Yours for the taking, provided you choose the right end of the arc. 

The word treasure has always carried a certain magical decoration. 
When the treasure map tumbles out of an old bottle, when the investment adviser promises crypto-heaven on earth, when the wedding day was the most beautiful day of one's life — that's when the half-life of happiness has already been exceeded. 
Because a treasure promises a great deal, but rarely anything concrete.

«Treasure, I love you.» 
A sentence like that has never crossed my lips. 
Never. 
Oh no — the part about love is wonderful, but that slightly dismissive «treasure" is something I've never been able to bring myself to use. How am I supposed to describe my relationship with a beloved person using a term that is, at its core, deeply material? 

Even worse was the possessive: "My treasure.» 
Hey now — that's far too loaded when it comes to ownership. 
No person, no other creature, belongs to anyone. 
Not even after the Most Beautiful Day of One's Life.

What's more, a treasure like that tends to lead a rather bleak existence. 
As long as it exists, one locks it away in a vault and hopes it multiplies. 
Well, how exactly is that supposed to work, when the treasure is left alone, left entirely to its own devices?

Well then.
So is everything about the word and the meaning of treasure bad? 
Certainly not. 

After all, it's not the word itself — it's the wishes, the imaginings, the hopes contained within it. 
There's something energising about the way a person — you and I — goes chasing after some supposed treasure. 
As long as the chasing doesn't become life-threatening. 

It's motivating to regard the results of one's own doing as a kind of treasure. 
Especially when the treasure itself has renounced the material and operates purely in the emotional register.

These rather small but endearing editions of treasure are, after all, the sediment of what it means to be human. 

Especially when treasure transforms itself into an appealing adjective. 

I am appreciative, for instance. No, I don't mean the official who is supposed — or obliged — to assess the value of a house. 
But the value of an action, a moment of human decency, the wonderful lightness of being — these are the ingredients for a little more gladness in the chest.

Yes, here I am again, at the threshold of the vinyl record with the famous skip. That’s how a broken record works. 

But I still wake up — usually in the morning — and pinch myself. 
Not only because I'm single and there's no one else to do it. 

No, it's this thing with happiness, with opportunities, with the people around me who transform the value of the moment into a treasure. 
And that I know. 
And appreciate.

Right, my treasure?

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But this secretive profession does exist: the Observers. 
Now it's no longer about "or" and "not" — it's about what's creeping, combining, evaluating, and consequential, when the observer or observeress gets to work. No commotion, no threatening gestures, no obvious action. The job description lists discretion, inconspicuousness, and the appearance of non-involvement in the large print.

So what do these people actually do all the livelong day? Why, observe — I know that much. But what does that mean in practice? When an observer — or observator? — gets to work, it officially happens rather incidentally. The grey mice of the watching world want one thing above all: not to be discovered, not to be seen, and not to be watched themselves. They are the team of the suspicious, who want to inform first themselves, and then their superiors. This isn't generally about any particular group of people who have given themselves over to criminal behaviour. They observe in order to understand. They observe everything that might contribute. Their work is always varied, even if the realistic execution of it can seem quite tedious.

When a threat looms over a group of people or an institution — a threat assembled from clues and hints gathered by observers — then security may be at risk. And so the building and the group get observed. Watched, that is. While one is at it with the cheerful-silent observing, the behaviour of people and animals gets noted and subsequently evaluated. One is, after all, busy learning for the whole of one's life. When a doctor examines a patient to find the fault in the body's biological-medical system, that doctor has, rather incidentally, become an observer too.

Does serving or observing make you happy? No idea — but in certain situations, what's been observed is surely useful. Because this act of watching and evaluating is one of the fundamental activities through which humanity creates knowledge.
Or something like that.

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My own school years weren't particularly bad. 
So I tell myself, at least. 
The bitter episodes of that school-march owed less to the school stuff than to the school staff. 
That is, to the people who prowled the playground and the classroom. 

There was this malicious, sadistic caretaker who always wore lace-up boots with steel toecaps. 
And those very caps of steel landed too often in some pupil's backside. 

Or that one teacher with the little hunch and the big ego, who scanned the room with Argus eyes for his next victim. 
His favourite pastime, alongside teaching, was corporal punishment. 
No, not the rhetorical kind — it came bamboo-armed, and painfully found its target on bare buttocks. 
Once, in front of the assembled class, I was granted this public showing: ten well-seasoned strokes across both cheeks. Yes, the lower ones.

Looking back today on that time of curious, often unsure growing-up, it was rarely the school material itself that made me uneasy. 
It was the way a school atmosphere was shaped. 
Joy of learning rarely had a seat at the table. 
Not among the teachers, nor among the pupils. 

Naturally, some subjects repelled me — algebra, geometry, mathematics. Simply too dull, and too strict when it came to results. 
Every misrecorded number was instant drama, pilloried without mercy in deep-red pen: «WRONG». 
Relaxed flexibility had no place in math class.

In German class, things were different. 
Well — not when it came to grammar; there the same iron rules held — but in the imaginative, renewable rhetoric, I always felt at home. 

As a teenager, I hadn't yet grasped how powerful words strung together in whole sentences can be. 
I mean, really powerful. 
After a schoolyard scuffle, the body hurts for a while. 
A few days later, the pain has vanished, gone from life and flesh. 
But a sentence brutally hurled with the intent to wound another's psyche — that has a half-life comparable to the decay of spent fuel rods in a nuclear plant.

There were subjects of my schooling I would gladly have done without. 
The compulsive funnelling of stuff — school stuff, that is — struck me as wilful squandering of my lifetime. 

Granted, I wouldn't have phrased it that way back then, but the sentence holds. 

But back to the enthusiastic listening, the joining in, when language was on the table. 

In my case, the German language. 
Books were my treasure chamber, my consolation, my inspiration for coming to terms with life. 

When I stumbled upon that author from Berlin, Kurt Tucholsky, peace of mind was over — and the passionate dream of writing stood at the starting line, engine roaring. 
How could a man like Tucholsky describe life in 1930s Berlin with words so mighty, so compassionate, so direct that they got under the skin? Tucholsky had only a short life ahead of him, yet he left masterworks behind for which your run-of-the-mill scribbler would have needed a century.

Back then, «AI» stood for «Author's Intelligence» — Kurt's kind, at least. 
So I tell myself. 

Where was I? Aah, back to the mostly grey routine of school. 

How might I have enjoyed schooldays if I'd been allowed to lean into my own gifts and interests — language, philosophy? 

Geometry and math? I'd have asked the experts. 

It still seems a little foolish today to force a crowd of utterly different girls and boys to sit in school benches and then feed them with standardized fare. 
How many talents have walked away from their passion because school, teachers, and perhaps parents talked those so-called fancies out of them — or drove them out altogether?

«Find yourself a safe apprenticeship. Become a commercial clerk.» That was the most hated catchphrase of my youth, flung in my face again and again.

And what happened to me? 

Well, first, a young man who spent his three-year apprentice-ship — or was it, more honestly, an absentee-ship? — bored to death, day in, day out. I cannot recall a single task at that crane factory offering the slightest fun.

Because once again, I was wrestling with the norm. «We don't do this that way!» or «We've always done it this way.» — those still set off the standardized alarm clock in my head today.

So. That had to come out.

And what did this late bloomer still manage to pull off?
I live off writing. And for writing.
So there!

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Stop! 

What in heaven's name — or under what other circumstances — makes me sound this dystopian? 
Yes, I am overwhelmed by the state of world politics. 
By politicians and other powerful figures who stand by watching people being slaughtered. 
Or who have built a business model out of it.

My stomach is turning more often than ever in the last seventy years. 
And it burns quietly away. 
My stomach has feelings.

This innate humanity of ours — made of empathy and respect for people and other animals — is being trampled underfoot. 
It is being bombed. 
It is being starved. 
It is being slaughtered.

How am I supposed to simply carry on and lead a normal life? 
How do I explain this chaos, this cold-bloodedness, to my stomach?

I keep trying. 
Every day anew, I try to bring this unfolding a little closer to the grumpy old stomach down there in the pit. 
But it doesn't care for that closeness. 
Because then it turns sour.

And once again I come back to that one undying genetic trait we Homo Sapiens folks (of all genders) carry within us. 
That one force of standing together, of sharing outrage at injustice. 
And of comfort. 
Because the world and its politics are no longer quite in their right mind.

Let me pause for a moment on the people who managed to make something bigger out of nothing, out of the impossible. 
And still do. 
People like you and me, who refuse to be fobbed off. 
Who refuse to surrender to fatalism. 

People who stand up and act. 
And once again, many of these people are women — women who care. 
Who roll up their sleeves and set things straight. 
And who steer my stomach walls into calmer waters.

Oh yes, I woke up this morning with that bitter aftertaste. 
Then my gaze wandered into the distance, and I see all these names and faces who don't give up. 
Who don't cower. 
Who don't stay silent. 

And all of these active people are no superhumans, no heroes in the usual sense. 
Yet they are ready to make the world a few inches better. 
And to keep going.

My stomach and I pay enormous respect to all of these people. 
And together we support their efforts as far and as strongly as we can. 
Yes, my stomach and I.

The list of these people grows longer every day. 
And they give me courage and, above all, hope that we can move something. 
For the better. 

Well, would you look at that: my second coffee this morning tastes delicious.
There we have it.

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"Listen to the experts" was the other line that made my blood boil. 
Of course I listen to people who know a field inside and out. 

Scientists, for instance. Because those folks are focused on facts and experience. And that makes their judgment pretty darn valuable.

There's one thing where experts often fall short — ideas and visions that have no past. Not yet, anyway. There it would be, and still is, presumptuous to hand down a clear and crushing opinion. The real experts know this and hold back. Sometimes. But the couch experts have no idea about these conditions — the condition of speaking up only when at least a little bit of basic data is actually on the table.

Looking back over the last 51 years as an entrepreneur, I see a long list of projects. 
They've sorted themselves into two groups. On one side — the botched, the bungled, and the unsuccessful. And on the other side — the much smaller group of visions that actually got built.

I could look at both camps with wistfulness and ask myself: "Why didn't I listen to the experts?» 

Well, that turns out to be the wrong question. Because the smaller, scrappy band of the Realized — every single one of them got buried under negative, hopeless commentary the moment I opened my mouth about my plans. 
Only one expert usually had a decent read on things: my gut.

Now — I'm not letting wistfulness in. Maybe just the "will" part of it. Because both groups — the unsuccessful and the successful — share one enormous gift: they all cost a pile of passion, enthusiasm, sweat, blood, work, and money. 

And yet I'm glad — genuinely glad — that I took a run at every single one of them. 
I regret not trying far more than I regret failing. Or losing heart.

Today I'm getting my two new projects ready to launch. 

Which group will they end up in? 
No idea — but my investment of passion, enthusiasm, sweat, blood, work, and money is worth it either way.
"Wish me luck, eh?"

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Do you have a tendency to collect things? 
Or has it already grown into a full-blown collecting passion? 
Well then, tell me what you love to collect most. 
No, I'm not asking why. That's your private business, after all.

What do you mean you don't know the word private? 
Ah, I see what you mean. 
Private was a thing of the past. 
Back in the days when social and media were still two separate things. 
The days when people would cry out in outrage if the state dared ask citizens about their personal lives. 
Like, say, how many people lived together in a shared apartment or house. 

That used to be called private data.

But now, in the modern and supposedly better times of human development, the data is still personal — only the owners of that personal information have lost sight of that fact, and so they've sent it all out onto the screens. 

Yes, the public monitors of phones and computers.

And there, these massive quantities of highly private, personal information about you and me are being collected. 
Not manually, mind you. 

For decades now, industrious HiTech companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn have been at it 24/7, pursuing this passion with remarkable dedication.

The transparent citizen has been created. 
Often unknowingly, but more or less voluntarily.

Compared to that, we Homo Sapiens-ers are rather modest in our collecting passions. 
We collect experiences — by the bucketload, every single day — and we collect other things that matter to us. 

Money, stamps, relationships, travels, and status.

Since we're already busy collecting, let's make sure we also gather together every now and then. 

Because the social wiring of human genes doesn't need any media for that. 
The pure exchange of thoughts and emotions under the Woodstockian imperative of assembly is uplifting and makes us stronger.

This phenomenon, I believe, is called community. 
Because together, we accomplish more. 
Solo fighters may come across as heroic, but they're consistently in the minority.

Ready to collect? Let's go!

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Pardon? 
Have I betrayed my principles? 
Am I cosying up to the nuclear lobby? 

Oh no — the nuclear test — or text — merely makes parts of the body more visible. 
That’s all. 

Because all those dear Uncles-Who-Are-Doctors caught a brief flicker during my most recent examination of the rather heart-felt neighbourhood of my body. 
What kind of flicker? 
No facts. 
Just a hunch. 

So today I’ll rendezvous in active radio — I do love radio — and I’ll have the radioactive isotopes along as photographers. 
Because these fellows carry massive quantities of gamma rays in their luggage, which they’ll send, fresh and active, right through my body. And precisely that radiation is to be captured by a special camera. 
To bring that brief flicker from a few weeks ago into focus.

Now, I am somewhat curious about how this atomic stuff is supposed to get into my body — and what happens after. 

Meanwhile, I’m briefly switching my “No Nukes” sign to “Welcome” — but only today. 

The doctor mentioned, rather matter-of-factly, that this hyper-radio-active pharmaceutical is introduced either orally, by inhalation, or — in my case — intra-nervously.

What? 
No, the medicine itself is not being introduced for the first time — it’s been on the market for ages. 
But how the thing gets introduced into my body, and how it introduces itself once inside — that is the whole procedure. 

Later in this six-hour procedure I’ll be introduced to scintigraphy. 
At least that’s my assumption. 
Because scintigraphy is responsible for ensuring that the images of my organs appear crystal-clear, detailed and finely rendered on the screen. So the doctor can form an image of my warm-heartedness and its surrounding territory. 

Nervous? 
No. 
Because the doctors know what they’re doing. 
And risks pave the daily path of every living creature anyway.

But I do like the history of this procedure. 
Because it, too, was born from a mixture of curiosity, the joy of discovery, and the desire to solve a problem. 

My plan after the nuclear test? I’ll immediately set the radio — active and alive — to 107.5, and happily tune into Q107 Toronto.

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They all have to go through the exact same procedure in the very first line and the very first millisecond of their lives: being born. 

And right there lies this heroine, wrestling with the pain, the despair, and the wish that this one thing – the giving of life – turns out alright. 
No, she had little or no chance to prepare for this moment of life-gifting. 
Now, what if this heroine also brought a future hero into the world? 
Well, a hero’s delight, probably.

Those who hold the profession of “hero” accomplish extraordinary deeds, take on serious risks, and do so only to protect or promote the wellbeing of others. 
Originally, “hero” first appeared in Greek as “heros” and now means “protector” everywhere. 
Well, would you look at that.

Heroes have it tough. 
And they often struggle to follow their calling in desperate and dystopian situations. 
Too many of the challenges facing heroism are buried in the extremely fine print. 

On top of that, there are at least two kinds of heroes. 
There are, first of all, the interpreters of the hero profession – the pure performers, showing us what a hero must look like. 

These figures can be found in books, films, and plays. 
That’s what they’re hired for. 
And they do a good-to-heroic job of presenting themselves as brave, unshakeable, and winning. 
Or performing. 

This masterpiece of the art of portrayal, of playing a role, is so convincing that many people have wanted to cut themselves more than just a slice of it. 
Because where does the light shine brighter and the excitement run higher than when the hero takes the stage? 
Yes, it doesn’t matter which stage that happens to be. 

The portrayal of heroism is gripping and fascinating everywhere. 
That’s where the hero-performers are born – in politics, in business, and in the land of narcissism. 
Not physically. More mystically and mentally, birthed into being.

Now then, let me turn around and try to find the other group of hero-like beings. 

Oh, that’s easy. 
Because the tiny but powerful thing for future heroes lives inside most of us. 
We often don’t know it. 
And maybe that’s just as well.

The long and yet, in the grand scheme, extremely brief history of humanity has often turned for the better because this thing awoke at exactly the right moments. 
And bravely faced the situation. 

Courage is extremely ticklish, but necessary if you want to act in any heroic way. 
It is also blissfully unaware of any possible dangers or risks when its time has come. 
When it recognises itself as courage and acts. 

No, these heroes are not muscular and armed with swords or other strange things. 

They simply raise their heads and say “No.” 

No, racism has no place here. 
No, women and children are not mistreated here. 
No, justice is not disregarded here. 
No, sexism is not a minor offence.

And lo and behold – when this hero gene shows up in peaceful protests, in courageous civil disobedience, certain “God-given” situations do change. 

Lately, I’ve been seeing news again that offers more real utopia than current dystopia. 

And everywhere there are thousands upon thousands of heroes to be seen, who have remembered their courage and are rising up.

Holy smokes. 

Good thing that someone in the Department of Evolution invented the wonderfully important profession of hero.

Well then – no hell then.

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A life can't be planned in stretches of time — hardly has it begun with a gasp for air. 
Baby Peter would have known something similar. 
Back then he was far more concerned with a full belly and a full diaper than with any kind of future. 
But his Dutch parents hoped for a long and extraordinary life for their little one.

Peter is a friend and neighbour here at Specialty Lofts. 
We've known each other since the summer of 2019, when he and Peggy moved in right next door. 
Peter is the man who wanted to reveal all the secrets of this venerable old building to me. 
And it worked out surprisingly well — I followed Peter around with my mouth hanging open, because I had no idea about any of these amenities. 

I was just over the moon to be moving into my loft. 
Living in Newmarket, full stop, is honestly enough for me. 
But Peter saw things differently. 

We wandered through the long corridors, chatting our way down to the ground floor. 
In the sidewing, a few "Aaah"s and "Ooh"s escaped my still wide-open mouth. 

Peter introduced me to the fitness room — small but perfectly formed. 
Right next door was the party room. 
No, that's not some political corner — it's a space for good-spirited festivities, i.e., parties.

And then — holy smokes — a sweet little movie theatre with deeply comfortable seats and a big screen. 
Oh yes, absolutely paradise. 
And of course there had to be a playroom, fitted out with a billiard table, a dartboard, and a card table. 

And presiding over all these surprises is the massive rooftop terrace for summer events.

Peter is drawn to many things that don't announce themselves loudly. 

He paints wonderful pictures of the Canadian landscape — villages, people, lakes. 
He does this almost in passing, because he hardly ever talks about his passion for painting. 

His small personal treasury of history comes in the form of stamps. 
Not a wild jumble of stamps from around the world, mind you. 

He has a thing for Dutch stamps. 
His collection of every postal issue ever produced by the Netherlands has one tiny little gap. 
A single stamp is missing. 
The blue 25-cent stamp bearing King Willem III is nowhere to be found. 
Oh, it was available for purchase, alright. 
But the asking price exceeded 25 cents by a few hundred thousand.

In those 29,200 days, Peter has experienced a great deal. 
Japan, for instance, back when Western faces were a rare sight there. 

Now, today, he has been present on Planet Earth for 80 years. 
And how. He is sharp, curious, and engaged — always.

All qualities you'd more likely expect in a young man. 
And in Peter.
Happy Birthday, Peter.

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This year, some people I love dearly have said goodbye for good. 
They didn't do so willingly, and certainly not with any joy. 

No, their lives were simply and plainly finished, as the cycle of life dictates. 
That's the way of time. And of dying.

"She parted from me." reads almost Shakespearean, yet it's merely a short sentence that arrives with salty tears and quiet hope. 
A farewell before a journey is, in principle, a rather heartening thing. 

After all, we're all travellers, somehow. 
And when someone stands at the gate or on the platform, ready to discover this very world — what a joy. 
Yet even here, people are left behind in the familiar world, reluctant to let the traveller go. 

Parents watch their children set out, building their own families and lives — independently. 
The advice, the support is less in demand. The time shared grows rare and rarer.

"They've said goodbye to their humanity." Ouch. These are the moments that surface sour, toxic, and incomprehensible. When a tendency toward violence, hatred, and incitement takes hold — one that seems to face little resistance — the times grow dark. And bitter. We've seen this before in the brief history of humankind.
And, how was it back then, eighty years ago?

Hey, why don't we simply flip the ugly side of human nature on its head? Let's say goodbye to tendencies like these.
Let's send all these strange ideas to board the train to Nowheresville. Thoughts and attitudes laced with fascist ingredients, with hatred toward minorities, with the urge to dominate women and children, with narcissistic behaviour.

OK, I'm sliding back into my hippie-esque dreams again.
And I love it.
Because right now, today, what we citizens, friends, neighbours, and family need is exactly this one thing — to say: "No, we do not accept that kind of behaviour."

So much begins with language, with rhetoric — how we ourselves develop mentally, and how our children do. And that very rhetoric is growing increasingly wild, defamatory, and contemptuous toward those who think differently, live differently, and act differently.
In German and in English.
Good grief.

Yet the hopeful signs are there, even in these times of violence. When people organize, come together, support one another, and show their resistance peacefully in the streets — hope marches right along with them. More than that. The protests are making a difference.
It's becoming more of a pleasure again to take in the news. Because heads of state in Spain, in Canada, and elsewhere are showing that resistance guided by reason can make quite a striking impact.

Saying goodbye to inhumanity is the welcome of a world worth living in.
Doable, wouldn't you say?

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Where did this flightiness come from, and why did it settle into such a sensitive, heart-straining trade? 

Flightiness should have known better — it's forever keeping company with uncertainty and the loose life. 

Flighty types are unreliable, and bored quickly on top of that. 

Which of the exes once sworn into the service of being-in-love are still there after two years? 
After twenty of the same? 
Quite. 

Flightiness can be bad for your health, because the organs of almost any body frame need to be able to rely on the organ next door. And not be left by it. 

For this whole troop of pumping, filtering, guarding, life-preserving residents of the body has one main task: never take a break. Never refuse service. Never be distracted. And never be damaged. 

The loudest voice is still the liver, because all sorts of things pass through it now and then — things rarely named, yet they put the owner in a sour mood.

So, folks — which fool let Flightiness into the game? 
Well? 

Oh, an ex of Flightiness did? And what's the fellow's name? Constantine? 
Constantine the Constant? 
Yeah, that guy is annoying and dull. 

Forever devoting himself to iron rules, forever trying to look reliable. 

What a stinker. 

Where is the fun of surprise if the rules dictate every second of the clock? 

How would the creative even survive, if the creative one held themselves strictly to the rules? 
Standard results. 

The imaginative wants to draw from the full cupboard of the unforeseen, of the never-yet-been. 

And creatives want to — have to — be able to flutter. 
Otherwise no butterfly will ever come of it.

Constantine says: “And what if everybody did that.”

Well, cheers — how wonderful would that be, if the creative element spread itself across every region. 

Imagine flightiness as a permanent fixture. 
Nobody would know whether the colleagues will make the meeting on time, whether they have finished their tasks, or whether they even still remember what Project XYZ is about. 

It would be like traffic in Milan or Paris. 

Everyone does what they want, but everyone is also extremely alert to what everyone else is about to do. 

Flightiness wakes you up. 

The fluttering creates new paths, widened inspiration.

The normal, the routine — those two are the killers of every future development that might make life better. 

“That’s how it’s always been” is their rallying cry. 

Don’t change a thing. 

Making changes is…hmm… ah yes: flighty. 

Right, enough mischief for now. I’m going to take flight. Here and now.

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