If you like, listen while reading: 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. ...
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. ...
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. ...
A sentence everyone knows. One we heard as children when we fell, when we cried, when we were afraid. Get up. Stop making a fuss. A warrior feels no pain. I cross out the “NO.” Not because I want to destroy the sentence — but because it is the wrong way round. A warrior knows pain. That is exactly what makes them strong. The Wounds Imagine you come back from the hunt. It did not go well. You carry wounds. Real ones, not just metaphorical — though the metaphorical ones hurt just as much. Childhood, loss, loneliness. People who left. People who should have stayed. Things that happened and things that should have happened but did not. Trust that was broken. Dignity that was denied. Grief that never had a place. ...
Someone says yes and means no. This happens constantly — in meetings, in therapy groups, at the kitchen table. I call it kowtowing. And I am learning more and more to name it. What Kowtowing Is Kowtowing is not listening. Not thinking. Not holding back. Kowtowing is agreement without conviction — performative, automatic, conflict-averse. The mouth says yes, the body says something else. In addiction therapy you encounter it constantly. I learned it as a client — in myself and in conversations with other clients. Someone sits in the group, nods, says: “Yes, that’s right.” Sounds like insight. Is adaptation. And from that moment on, everyone is working with false data. ...
I have been addicted to a screen for over twenty years. To a pattern. Beneath it lies the hunger for attention — for being seen. When I pay attention, I can live with it. When I forget, I am immediately back in it. The question — “What is the meaning of your life?” — has always done me harm. It was, and partly still is, too big. What helped me was something else. ...
The way I communicate is constantly changing. This becomes visible in my work on a technical project where AI is part of my daily life. I am currently working on it alone. What is changing is not only what I say, but how much, when and with what limits. This is far from finished. But I notice that something is happening. I Have Always Talked Too Much This is not new. ...