Something ends, something begins. A year ago New York was the silent world crisis center, at night we didn’t hear a car on Houston Street, just a barking dog. Today, in Hamburg, people on the Elbe beach are laughing and singing, and the mask, symbol of worry, accessory of the world crisis, falls. The American colleague David Brooks advises that we now draw up a table of our passions: life begins again, what is important? Brooks quotes Annie Dillard: “How we spend our days, so we spend our lives.” In Okinawa in southern Japan, centenarians have a word for this important thing: Ikigai. What we are about.
– What news at the end of two studies: The vaccines work, presumably for a long time, maybe for a lifetime, because our bodies are learning to work with the vaccines.
– “Have we become more solidary after the experience or have we become a people of egocentric computer nerds? Have we learned renunciation or new ruthlessness? ”And have we actually experienced the“ blessing of digital instruments ”or just“ the curse of being fixed on the screen? ”Jens Jessen asks in“ Die Zeit ”and writes that life and pain remain completely analogue. I think the elders and the children are the two groups that the crisis has inflicted the greatest pain on: The elders miss goodbyes, the grandchildren, warmth at the very end, the many last times. The children did not experience or feel something, and the exact age for that exact feeling will not return.
[Klaus Brinkbäumer war zuletzt Chefredakteur des „Spiegel“ und arbeitet heute als Autor unter anderem für „Die Zeit“. Sie erreichen ihn unter [email protected] oder auf Twitter unter @Brinkbaeumer]
– At this point I have praised nurses and doctors many times, but sometimes things turn out differently in life. Corona makes relatives pass out, keeps them away, locks them out. A. is in the Hiltrup hospital for twelve days, and we, the family, are a nuisance. A doctor is standing next to the nurses when I call them and whispers: “I’m not here,” and it stays that way: no answer, no conversation, no diagnosis, no prognosis, for twelve days.
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– Outside catering: hug? Yes. We are both vaccinated. First a road beer in Clara-Zetkin-Park, then a dinner at Viet Village Streetfood, with Simone Buchholz, the writer and friend from St. Pauli, as a guest in Leipzig, as Leipzig reads again and listens to the readers. Simone tells of Jeffrey Eugenides, who writes in “Liebeshandlung” that all parents write something on their children’s minds; The children spend their lives trying to decipher this text. Former generations of parents wrote that love only when you perform. We decide to be more affectionate and not press so hard.
– The compound is a combination of at least two words, is a German (and Austrian) specialty. This is how we created the vaccine muffle, the unconventional thinker, the model region and outdoor catering, but I didn’t know this compound: my own urine amulet. The colleague Stefan Niggemeier noticed when the Austrian politician Heinz-Christian Strache sent the “Falter” a reply and assured him that he had never worn a self-urine amulet or an egg-shaped and consecrated brass bowl in his underpants, consequently not how from the “Falter” claims, out of fear of performance. Since we have debated German debates here several times, we can state that Austria still has a level of debate.
– The next wave: lovely Aust interviews. The man did clever things (and nonsense), was a creative, demanding boss, now he is 75 and denies the climate crisis and scientifically documented truth. Stefan Aust is, as A. would have said, not made of sugar, you could ask him questions.
