At night, it’s less bad.
I hold my breath, I feel myself tensing up.
Every time I drive here.
This narrowness.
Tightness.
The bent guardrails.
Crumbling asphalt.
It goes uphill, it goes downhill.
I never know what might be coming towards me beyond this curve.
Often a dance with the haste of others.
Navigating and working through the fear, the uncertainty.
Mindfulness and slowness.
Daring to give in to doubt.
The surrender of just stopping and waiting.
I want to keep this post vague. It’s about funny coincidences again.
There’s a problem I have had my whole life. Only, I didn’t know it was a problem until recently. It was always there, but I had no words for it.
Then, a little over a month ago, I learned there was a name for it. What relief–to know that I’m not alone, that it’s actually quite common, that there is the hope of healing from it.
It’s a time where I feel like I am exactly where I need to be. Something that fell into my life just when I needed it to. How this problem, and others, have all come to a head right now–right when there’s help.
The little signs of it popping up in my life. The nonchalant mentions of it in conversation. It’s just so strange.
I’m learning how to be more compassionate, nurturing, and kind… to myself. I’m going to continue to grow and overcome.
Say it out loud with me:
I am strong.
And then, of course, there’s the other side too. The one I only subtly hinted last time.
I’m still in the middle of tidying up here, and it’s likely that this task will keep me busy for another week or longer. In the meantime I’ve divided a large basket of books among several “free book exchange shelves” around my home and some more at an “open bookcase” in my favourite coffeehouse in Linz.
Of course I have unearthed many more, new and surprising “trails of breadcrumbs” (of course just metaphorically speaking), each a more or less intense journey back into the past 40 or so years of my life. Whereas I focused in my last blogpost on how it is for me to let go or release this or that relict of my past I want to put the emphasis of my this week’s blogpost on the opposite principle, the, so to say, other side of the coin: the realization of how important it is to not let go of certain things, to keep them and to care for them more than ever before.
One prime example of what I mean is the surprising rediscovery of a tiny box full of old and beloved children’s and youth audio dramas. I’m genuinely curious whether something like this ever existed in the United States or if it’s just one of those quirky trends that inexplicably only emerged in German-speaking countries. Whether it’s acoustic adventures about and with Enid Blyton’s Five Friends, spooky audio dramas, fairy tales, or – as pictured above – the Three Investigators – it’s that I, my sister and apparently many other children of our age “devoured” these recordings.
Now, so many years later, I’m beginning to realize just how much this media format shaped me in hindsight. A two-sided cassette tape, with its ominous (yet timelessly expressive) cover art, could unlock 2×30 minutes of pure imagination through my then young ears, opening up entirely new worlds through sound alone.
Once again I find it almost impossible to put the feelings I had when I stumbled upon that box of old audio dramas in words. It’s like seeing an old childhood friend for the first time in decades again, only to realize that nothing about him or her has changed ever since. With just the push of a button, you could relive the same joy you had about 35 years ago. Happiness, nostalgia, excitement, awe – the usual emotional lineup for sentimental souls like me.
So this time it isn’t just about letting go and forgetting. It’s equally about remembering and holding on. Tidying up and reminiscing, like life itself, is rarely a straight path or a straight story. Even here that process can and maybe should meander. I find it wonderful not to act according to rigid rules. Every breadcrumb matters and deserves its place and attention. Marie Kondo would likely nod and laugh in agreement. In the end, it’s also about valuing things, recognizing their personal significance, honoring them as kind-hearted messengers of and to the past, and, ultimately: about keeping them, with double the care.
Back in 2023 when I was in my first artist residency, I made the realization that I put a lot of pressure on myself with my art and decided to make an effort not to do that again. Fast forward to recent days. I’m in a couple commercial galleries, starting to break into the Boston art scene, and have been asked to give a presentation to the Newport Photo Guild about my work. Wow–I’m really building something here.
But I realized again that I’m putting an awful lot of pressure on myself. When I go out for a photoshoot, in the back of my mind I’m thinking about if the photo will be good for my project, for a gallery show, or whatever else I might want to use it for. There’s always got to be some purpose for the photos I’m taking. I’m losing sight of just having fun.
My solution? Try something completely new and different.
In this photograph, I’m holding up the very first monotype I’ve ever made. It’s not very good… but that’s fine! It was a wonderful experience to create something without pressure or cares if it’s a new best seller. I also recently started creating collages, and now I’m taking an etching class. All to simply get out of my own head and create without a purpose. Just fun!
What will come next? Right now it’s that question that applies not only to the future but also to my past.
It just came over me last week. Out of the blue. A pretty unexplainable reason to tidy up my archive, find a new order, and the hardest part for me, to decide which things to let go of, which ones I release after decades of holding everything close – and: finally laying a foundation for forgetting, to make room for the new.
In doing so, many things and memories surface. Very personal things I haven’t had in front of my eyes for an unbelievably long time and memories from deeply buried in my hippocampus. Often it’s a cheerful reunion, sometimes exciting, then sad, and occasionally quite embarrassing (like finding my old mixtapes).
It’s like following a trail of breadcrumbs back into my past—a trail I left for myself to see how much I’ve changed over the years (no more collecting habit), where I’ve more or less obviously grown (my first attempts with photo editing software are a decent witness here), where I’m still the same old guy (like a hearty love for pop culture and humor in any form), and where painful shards of the past still linger inside me (as i recently read in some old love letters from the 90s).
There are still some breadcrumbs left here that I want to follow soon. It’s fascinating – this fine line between liking and having to. And it’s nice to notice in myself how this liking is connected with consistency, curiosity, courage, openness, and ultimately: the willingness to let go.
Look closely. Do you see it?
A funny little detail, which I missed until I got home later to look at the photo.
A Foggy Day. I hadn’t even noticed that’s what was playing on my car’s speakers as I was stopped at the intersection… on a foggy day.
It made me think of all the funny little coincidences that happen to me. How I speak about something, and suddenly there it is. How I think about someone, and suddenly there’s a call from them on my phone. I tell people I’m a great manifestor, but I don’t know that what happens to me is special.
I think what it really comes down to is noticing. Opening yourself up to the possibilities. Seeing opportunity. If you go through life distracted and confused, you’ll miss all these funny little coincidences. But when you pay attention to each moment, magic starts to appear.
I think that’s also the secret to Stefan’s New Year’s Resolution of trusting in the good to appear. It’s there! Open your eyes and you’ll see it.
What you are looking for will be right in front of your eyes.
I was driving along in my car, almost in a trance. A grey day. Rain. No snow. No pre-Christmas idyll. Then, as I glanced out my right car window, I saw – contrary to all weather forecasts – that scene from above. A quiet, yet unmistakably astonished “Oha!” escaped me (a softly yet firmly whispered Austrian word, expressing overwhelming surprise). I slammed on the brakes, grabbed my phone, shifted into reverse, and took this completely unplanned and unexpected photo during the golden hour, somewhere amidst the lonesome fields of Upper Austria.
It often just happens that the unexpectedly good appears. Trusting in that more will be one of my resolutions for the new year. Actually I don’t like resolutation but this one feels different. Staying active. Staying attentive. Being less blinded by very specific expectations. Allowing myself to be surprised more often – in all directions. Oha!
when will i feel better? i just want to get back to normal!
am i even improving?
why don’t i feel well yet? it’s been weeks!
i want to go out photographing. i want to go to the gym.
i want to take a sunset stroll on the beach. i want to go for a hike. i want to walk around the city. i want to walk around town.
what a bummer to feel this way.
at least there’s the hope that someday i will feel better. some people don’t even have that.
Lots of thoughts. Some days I feel better, some worse. Every day I’m tired, weary, fatigued.
On “My Saturday,” I decided to go to Galilee. I planned on walking around the beach and the town, taking photos of the sunset and the full moon rise. I was so looking forward to it–it’s been weeks since I got to take photos. It’s good for my soul to have my camera in hand.
But… I was just too tired. I had been coughing all day. I knew if I tried to walk anywhere, it would be too much for me. I sat in my car in the beach parking lot, watching the sun reach towards the horizon, feeling disappointed.
Then I decided, as I often do, to make the best of things. I started the car and drove down the street. The wonderful thing about where I live is you don’t have to go far to find beauty. I pulled over on the side of the road, bundled up in my winter hat and scarf, and took it all in. No walking, no pushing myself. Just a roadside view that gets passed by hundreds of people every day as they zoom down the road towards the ferry. I surprised myself by taking 7 photos. Once the sun dipped below the horizon, I got back in the car and drove away.
While I want to feel better, of course, I suppose I should use this time to rest. Perhaps it’s the universe’s way of telling me to slow down and take it easy. Admittedly, I have a habit of taking on too much. Though I’m eager to get back to my normal routine, I’m going to try to enjoy this in some way. It’s easy enough to be sad for no good reason; can we be happy for no good reason too?
“The world is complex and contradictory.”.
This is one of the phrases that has been crossing my mind repeatedly lately. The deep human longing for everything to be logical and simple. And yet, if it were, life would probably feel quite barren. The incomprehensible complexity of life is, at least in my opinion, a kind of metaphysical “perpetuum mobile” that continuously spits out wonders. Be it friendships that, against all odds, suddenly “happen” (a warm wink goes out to Rhode Island) or seemingly trivial things like reflections or thoughts that travel through this miraculous complexity across the world, only to be rediscovered, expanded, altered, or even remixed over and over again.
The saying my this week’s blogpost is all about originates, so the story goes, in Central Russia in the mind of the author Andrei Platonovich Platonov. It comes from a dialogue in his utopian-philosophical book “Chevengur”, which revolves around two people talking about a fish. Years later it’s this passage that catches the attention of the controversial Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica, who incorporates the thought of that dialogue into the lyrics of a song for the soundtrack of one of his more famous films. That song is sung by none other than Iggy Pop and finds its way into my head sometime in the mid-’90s, from where it now embarks on yet another journey through this blog post.
The phrase, the story, the dialogue, the lyrics goes as follows:
This is a film about a man and a fish…this is a film about dramatic relationship between man and fish…the man stands between life and death…the man thinks…the horse thinks…the sheep thinks…the cow thinks…the dog thinks
The fish doesn’t think…the fish is mute…expressionless
The fish doesn’t think…because the fish knows…everything
The fish knows… … everything.
PS. I’m no vegetarian. At least not yet.
