Yay, you are on Substack! And you kick it off in true 'Dirk-style', with a thoughtful and thought-provoking essay. After reading this I was actually overcome by an immense sense of grief for that time in our Western world when, despite its ever present challenges, life indeed felt more stable and optimistic. And for all the ways I despair at the dangerous cult that Trump has created here in the US, I believe that many of his followers are driven by a similar sense of grief for an American way of life that, to them, felt safer and simpler.
Thank you, Kerstin, for your kind words. I’m sure the crisis I describe presents itself differently in different countries. Thanks for your perspective from the US.
As a psychotherapist I can see that peope need a transzendental meaning in their (otherwise boring, meaningless) life. It can be easily done with what you here implicitly do: To see the world, the meaning even in a breadcrumb, to associate my morning coffee with the high fields near the Colobian border. And the other way round: Once I met Robert Redford by chance as he crossed a river by ferry in the Midwest-USA, and I could see also the ordinary behaviour, his question after a beer or the freckled skin of a famous old man, and yet this gave me a sense of Grandeur. People who don't know the world, the arts, some concepts may not appreciate and even not feel so much the fineties of the day-day things, as well as the Kopfmenschen often don't see the little beauties, a special eyebrow, the smell of lemon, cut on a wooden plate, light on a cold winter's day. Keep on digging the world out of the daylies!
Thanks, Holger. I think it’s important to distinguish between attributions of meaning with some real-world reference and entirely arbitrary projections (e.g., conspiracy theories).
Kierkegaard's quote "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." may be overused, but it has never been more up to date. His conviction that human beings make their happiness dependent on situations outside of themselves and blame others in the process if things do not turn out well, still summarizes human fallibility perfectly. Dirk is right, we under-appreciate the things we have and only realize their value once we no longer have them. Health explicitly included. 9/11 changed my worldview in many regards. I am no longer stocking wine, I drink it instead. Life is too short to eat bad food and to drink bad wine. Just like Dirk Hohnsträter put it, I also lived "essentially unburdened by the weight of the world." Then global terrorism kicked in, migration became a massive topic, climate change did not make the world a better place to live and the once bipolar world order of the Cold War seemed almost cosy in light of the multi-faceted problems the world is facing almost 35 years after the Cold War ended. Do we have to "rethink everyday life", as the author suggests? Yes, we absolutely do. We need to reflect, we need to think ahead, we need to improve what requires improvement, but we need to be grateful for what we have. Dirk Hohnsträter's article reminded me of an old friend of mine. She said to me, 30 years ago, "the difference between you and all my other friends is that you are always doing the things that all others say they should actually be doing." I replied, "this concept has a name, it is called 'living". Or "life" if you so want. So the manifesto of Dirk Hohnsträter is by no means a call to simply seize the moment, enjoy life and not to care too much, it is the very opposite. Aware that life is terminal, we should learn to be humble and grateful for what we have, rather than mourning about the things we do not have (any longer). In Dirk Hohnsträter's incredibly well written book "Quality", which is unfortunately only available in German, he defines "quality" in a brilliant way: "At the end, quality is nothing else than combatting the knowledge that life is terminal by enjoying the immense pleasure of fine and well-made objects and experiences."
Yay, you are on Substack! And you kick it off in true 'Dirk-style', with a thoughtful and thought-provoking essay. After reading this I was actually overcome by an immense sense of grief for that time in our Western world when, despite its ever present challenges, life indeed felt more stable and optimistic. And for all the ways I despair at the dangerous cult that Trump has created here in the US, I believe that many of his followers are driven by a similar sense of grief for an American way of life that, to them, felt safer and simpler.
Thank you, Kerstin, for your kind words. I’m sure the crisis I describe presents itself differently in different countries. Thanks for your perspective from the US.
As a psychotherapist I can see that peope need a transzendental meaning in their (otherwise boring, meaningless) life. It can be easily done with what you here implicitly do: To see the world, the meaning even in a breadcrumb, to associate my morning coffee with the high fields near the Colobian border. And the other way round: Once I met Robert Redford by chance as he crossed a river by ferry in the Midwest-USA, and I could see also the ordinary behaviour, his question after a beer or the freckled skin of a famous old man, and yet this gave me a sense of Grandeur. People who don't know the world, the arts, some concepts may not appreciate and even not feel so much the fineties of the day-day things, as well as the Kopfmenschen often don't see the little beauties, a special eyebrow, the smell of lemon, cut on a wooden plate, light on a cold winter's day. Keep on digging the world out of the daylies!
Thanks, Holger. I think it’s important to distinguish between attributions of meaning with some real-world reference and entirely arbitrary projections (e.g., conspiracy theories).
Kierkegaard's quote "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." may be overused, but it has never been more up to date. His conviction that human beings make their happiness dependent on situations outside of themselves and blame others in the process if things do not turn out well, still summarizes human fallibility perfectly. Dirk is right, we under-appreciate the things we have and only realize their value once we no longer have them. Health explicitly included. 9/11 changed my worldview in many regards. I am no longer stocking wine, I drink it instead. Life is too short to eat bad food and to drink bad wine. Just like Dirk Hohnsträter put it, I also lived "essentially unburdened by the weight of the world." Then global terrorism kicked in, migration became a massive topic, climate change did not make the world a better place to live and the once bipolar world order of the Cold War seemed almost cosy in light of the multi-faceted problems the world is facing almost 35 years after the Cold War ended. Do we have to "rethink everyday life", as the author suggests? Yes, we absolutely do. We need to reflect, we need to think ahead, we need to improve what requires improvement, but we need to be grateful for what we have. Dirk Hohnsträter's article reminded me of an old friend of mine. She said to me, 30 years ago, "the difference between you and all my other friends is that you are always doing the things that all others say they should actually be doing." I replied, "this concept has a name, it is called 'living". Or "life" if you so want. So the manifesto of Dirk Hohnsträter is by no means a call to simply seize the moment, enjoy life and not to care too much, it is the very opposite. Aware that life is terminal, we should learn to be humble and grateful for what we have, rather than mourning about the things we do not have (any longer). In Dirk Hohnsträter's incredibly well written book "Quality", which is unfortunately only available in German, he defines "quality" in a brilliant way: "At the end, quality is nothing else than combatting the knowledge that life is terminal by enjoying the immense pleasure of fine and well-made objects and experiences."
Thanks so much, Uwe, for your long and thoughtful comment. I’m delighted my writing struck a chord in your own life.