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. ...

It was a hard day. Someone I love was transferred to a more intensive psychiatric ward. I was there. There was trust. That is enough to say. The Scene At a door. My hand. A sentence, quietly: “They will do you good.” Trust had found a way through the storm. What I felt in that moment: love. Simple. Complete. Fear too, yes — but the courage was greater. And the courage came from the fear that someone would experience what I had to experience. ...

You understand her. Really. You see what shaped her, where her wounds sit. You can predict her reactions before they happen. That feels like love. It is love too. But it is a love with a blind spot. Understanding as a Trap The blind spot is not understanding itself. It is the confusion of understanding with taking away burden. Understanding can also mean: I see what hurts you — and I say it anyway. Understanding can demand. If it does not demand, it is not understanding. Then it is conflict avoidance disguising itself as understanding. ...

The person wants to be good. The compass sits in the heart. The sensitive person especially. They do not want to hurt — and that is exactly what makes them small. They swallow, they adapt, they wait. And yet the opposite is true: whoever sets no boundaries is not authentic. They are merely polite. Setting boundaries requires the shadow. Whoever knows only their light cannot say no — because the no comes from the dark part, the one that can also fight, that can also protect. Getting to know one’s own shadow and allowing it is not a defeat. It is the precondition for real boundaries. And for real authenticity. ...

Today I ended the contact. Not out of anger. Because it had to be — for her and her new partner, and for me. It hurts. The time with her was beautiful. Head and Heart The head knows what it is doing. The heart loves unconditionally. Two different things entirely. Three years of relationship. Three years of friendship after that. And now: silence. Hosea Hosea married a woman who would betray him. He knew it. He did it anyway. Later he bought her back — fifteen pieces of silver and some barley. ...

It began with a question about Satan. But actually it was always something else. Freedom I believe in a God who wants real freedom. Not a simulation — but freedom built into creation itself, even when we use it against him. For me, Satan is proof that this is meant seriously. Whoever can fall is truly free. Imago Dei Created in his image. That is not a goal — it is the starting point. ...

Europe 1.0 was an economic project and a peace project. That was not wrong. It was just unfinished. A market was built and the hope was that politics would follow. It did not follow. Now people experience Brussels as regulation — but not as democracy. That is not a communication problem. That is a design flaw. “Independent journalism is an anchor in a world that is increasingly difficult to see through.” ...

At the Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, an older gentleman sat quietly upright and ate his burrata. Shots. Panic. He stayed seated. Bad back, he said afterward. New tuxedo. Dirty floor. That is cool. It is also an image for something larger. “Thousands from the journalistic and political elite of the country have now experienced what countless other Americans have had to live through in their schools, offices, shopping centres, and churches.” ...