There is a form of self-destruction that feels like protection. It is called: I am the victim, everyone else is to blame. I know this attitude from the inside. For years I was the poor one. When something did not work, it was down to the circumstances or the people around me. Above all to my parents. They were the address for my blame for years, for much that I should have stood up for myself. ...

The fool is one of the oldest figures in human history. He goes by many names — shaman, dervish, mystic, court jester. What connects them: an inner freedom that outlasts outer circumstances. He sees differently and speaks what others leave unsaid. He cannot be bought. The fool knows the word no — toward himself and toward others. His confusion is his raw material. His clarity, the result. They are called fools. ...

Yesterday I helped a family bury their dog. We accompanied him to his last breath. A dear, dear fighter — for those he loved. I read Psalm 23 to the family — so they could see: even this dark valley passes. In the evening I thought: now I will do something good for myself. I went out to celebrate. Into bed at six in the morning, fell straight asleep. Up again at two in the afternoon. The day was depressive. ...

The birth rate is falling. Everyone talks about money and housing. That is true. Still, it does not get to the core. The Core Is Fear People are not having children because they can no longer imagine the future. Because they believe they must be perfect to be parents. Because one mistake today is enough to be disqualified. That is how it feels. It suffocates. What I have learned as a person of faith: God forgives. God even wants us to make mistakes, so that we learn from them. That is not a weakness. That is the ground on which a person can live at all. ...

Herbert Kickl is calling for a “healthy slap” for children. The adjective is a rhetorical trick. It is meant to turn violence into medicine. As if there were a sick slap and a healthy one. As if the boundary between discipline and abuse were a matter of dosage. It is not. Children can never help it. They do what parents, surroundings, and culture have taught them. Every “difficult” behaviour in a child is a message about the system in which it lives. ...

I write this not from theory. I was a victim long enough to know what that feels like from the inside. And I have myself oppressed — made people feel small, relieved myself at their expense, passed on the burden that lay on me. Both belong to me. Neither is to be glossed over. Today I am free. Or more precisely: I am on the way. I am trying to be a warrior of light, in Coelho’s sense — that is, someone who falls, rises again, doubts, keeps going. Not a hero. A practitioner. ...

Things a machine does not have, or that only work with a living counterpart. Having a heart. Giving real hope. Reading between the lines. Irony. Standing together. Good will. Accumulating experience through the same task — like the old mechanic who knows exactly where to strike the hammer because he has worked on that engine for thirty years. The point that occupies me most was the last one. I have been working for a while with people in addiction and mental crisis. My anchor there is nothing I learned in a training program. ...

The ancients built upward: roads, houses, knowledge, peace. We inherited it. That deserves respect. Today we have everything. Information. Choice. Comfort. Stimulation without end. And we lose: depth. Quiet. Space in the mind. Whoever has everything must learn to have nothing. Jesus went into the desert. Mohammed into the cave. Both had nothing for a while. Only then came what we know them for. In the emptiness the gaze becomes clear. Without noise one hears what is one’s own. Without possessions the hands are free. ...

Mania and depression. Day and night. Light and shadow. For a long time I fought against one of the poles. I believed one was my enemy. I believed I had to choose. Today I know better. Freedom comes first. It is the first thing we receive — from God, from life, from what carries us. With it I decide every day how I live with both poles. One choice: to lose oneself in one pole. To identify with it. To take it for the whole truth. To fight against the other. ...

I was never good at staying in the lane. My mind constantly draws connections that are simply not foreseen within the lane. Theology and geopolitics. Music and spirituality. Austrian narrowness and global thinking. This was often read as unreliability. As if “staying focused” were a synonym for “seeing less far.” I grew up in a conservative culture. Austria maintains its forms. That has its value — continuity, depth, rootedness. But it also costs something: whoever thinks laterally pays for it. With isolation. With the feeling of never quite belonging. ...