Mother and child with dwarfism on her parenting journey

Recommendable!

Does Alone Time Make you Lonely? Here’s why it May be Good for you with Palki Sharma

Recommendable! Choosing occasional solitude can be a blessing! E.g. where did Albert Einstein find some of his inspirations?

On The Idiom: To Pull The Trigger

Posted: 7/2/2019

Sometimes in your life one finds himself or herself in a critical situation (perhaps a life or death decision) where the positive outcome depends very much on your personal very own decision and it will make all the difference, but you are facing strong opposition, you have to muster a lot of courage, you have to overcome serious self doubt, you might risk or endanger your own life, you may suffer lifelong regret or self doubt, and whatnot. Hopefully, these situations are very or extremely infrequent in one’s life!

In that critical moment or situation, will you have what it takes to pull the trigger? It’s all about individualism and individual consciousness. When it comes down to you alone will you have the courage to do the right thing?

I believe, perhaps very mistakenly, there is no equivalent expression e.g. in the German or Chinese language. Worse, German translation omit this specific meaning of the idiom! Could this be another example American Exceptionalism?

Another American english expression is trigger happy, but this expression is about something very different!

Statue Of Responsibility On The West Coast

Posted: 6/25/2019

Yesterday, I was watching again a biography documentary by the excellent Biographics channel on YouTube. This time it was about the life and works of Viktor Frankl.

Among many other things, Frankl apparently made also the astonishing proposal to mirror or bookend the Statue of Liberty on the east coast of the U.S. with a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast of the U.S. I was immediately intrigued by his foresight and insight into the meaning of life! Indeed, there is no true freedom without genuine responsibility! Many of our contemporaries like to forget or are ignorant of the responsibility part of the duality! 

Here is the relevant screen shot from the above documentary:

Beware Of Misanthropes And Nihilists In Our Midst

Posted: 5/5/2019

I wish, I had more time to flesh out this post.

Now, that I (homo sapiens) have roamed this planet for over 50 years, I come to realize more sharply that many of our controversial debates of our times can be reduced to that a significant number of opponents or advocates of one side of the debate are either misanthropes and/or nihilists.

Combined with the incomprehensible prevalence of superstition and ignorance you can understand and participate in current and past debates much better.

With the waning influence of most world religions (at least in Western countries) and the search for new faith/purpose/meaning or the widespread adoption of pseudo religions (e.g. climate and environmental protection), human discourse can only get worse, before it gets better again.

Perhaps, we ought to learn more from the Jewish people: Despite their tragic history and internal strife over many issues, they seem to be overall optimistic, life affirming people. Just take as an example the famous book by Victor Frankl “Man's Search for Meaning”. And he is by far not the only Jew who tried to convert the Holocaust into a love of life and God is stronger than any evil.