An auto-biographical blog of [and about] a self-centered, porn-addicted psycho with a clearly fucked-up mind who tries to reobtain true and mutually felt love in this world. Maybe irrelevant, stupid and backwards... but in many ways the only read (about weed) you need. Made for true friends and lazy readers worldwide. [Free temporary ads colored red in all posts]
Dear friends, Dear families, and all the affected workers who now have a shitload of fairly sensitive work ahead,
I am the wrong person to help most of the people who are suddenly overwhelmed with what happened yesterday in Graz, Eggenberg--since my approach on handling "fresh" death isn't quite usual or accepted. However, I care for the living and I hope each and everyone of you finds a way to carefully comfort the bereaved and to help the officials do their works the weeks to come. By the way, only help the officials if they ask for it. I assume, everyone is trying to "do" her, its or his part--but we probably can't, as much as we certainly would love to.
I hope none of you guys gets as euphoric about the shooting as mainstream media does. Watch the news once in a while to see how things unfold, but don't get too involved, so it won't drag you down.
I think, now that shit happens, there are two issues we should focus on:
Develop an awareness that the list of bereaved citizens is huge and needs financial support from the government. There are families, school colleagues, frightened teachers, friends from other places,.... far too many people who now can't make sense of the world for quite some time and who need stability within their communities.
Let's discuss gun control in a country without a constitutional amendment that promotes owning a gun as a private person. Maybe we as Austrians get things done that Americans hardly ever will.
As a scholar of English-speaking cultures I am familiar with school shootings in America, how they occur and what kinda measurements are discussed nowadays. I'll maybe add a post to my German-speaking blog Probleme unserer Welt.. to give you an idea what we're currently dealing with; maybe. But guys, most of you I'd love to tell: Just breathe in and be thankful that you're not affected. For all of us life will go on and we have each other.
Peace 🐍Michael🐌
By the way, compassionate words do not have to be mine. Listen to the following instead:
Allright. Let's see where we're standing. We have the 15th of May, five o'clock in the morning and I got up earlier to get some stuff done. As promised, no serious content this time--provided you scroll down to the main story. Cuz as usual I'll start the writing with a brief diary entry in which I blab about things that momentarily bug me, so I get them off my chest; it simply helps me to focus on the ideas of the main writing once it's out. So, let's do that quickly...
As I've mentioned in past posts, I let go of all drugs and I'm more or less free from my addictions. But that's not entirely true. Alcohol, nicotine and anal porn are still on my shopping list, so I'd lie to myself if I alleged that I'm totally free at the moment.
Now, alcohol is not an issue for me personally. Actually, most alcoholic drinks I hate. There are only a few drinks that I swallow once in a blue moon: tasteful Scotch whisky or Irish whiskey and a few bottles of beer when I meet with friends. I'd recommend those drinks to anyone and I pray to the universe that Allah may soon release a sequel to the Quran including that recommendation so that even devout, sweet-tempered, good-natured muslims out there no longer feel blasphemous when having a delicious Austrian beer. I hate getting drunk, I hate hangovers, and seeing how real alcoholics crawl through their private hells is warning enough for me to never have too much booze. In a nutshell, alcohol is not my problem.
I also don't consider my porn addiction a problem. In fact, I'm quite grateful that, despite of all my unhealthy life choices the last couple of years, I'm randy all day; and going vegan again will keep everything happy down there, I assume. What's more, at the moment I can't afford any services of our local sexworkers and no one else is fucking me. So, why shouldn't I watch messy movies at night when my favorite toy down there wants to vomit all day. There is just one thing I changed about that habit of mine since I saw the movie Pleasure --a Cannes-awarded Swedish movie about the contemporary porn industry in the US, pictured from a feminist angle. The movie tells a story about a cute, blonde, skinny Swedish girl that wants to be a porn star in the US. A few decent and famous male characters from the real contemporary porn industry serve as actors and play their sexist counterparts in a movie that portrays an industry that in sum--up to this day--is sexist, violent, racist and inhumane; definitely worth the watch. However, having seen that movie, I decided to pick only such movies where the girls aren't portrayed in a condescending way and obviously enjoy every part of the rite. For instance, I canceled deepthroats from my watchlist cuz I can't imagine that she would truly like that stuff, even if she smiles happily after spitting out cum. Anyway, porn is not my problem either.
My real problem that I can't get rid of so far is nicotine. The moment I write down these lines I'm smoking and the three packages a day I mentioned in an earlier post are now at least four packages daily. I sit here and do all kind of office stuff, writing, designing and reading, but while I'm doing that I permanently burn the fags down to the filter. I usually leave the house every third hour to buy a new pack of Chesterfield at the gas station on the opposite of the street and then continue feeding the little demons in my head*. I know that it would take me ridiculous three weeks of not smoking until these little bastards would eventually lack the energy to constantly yell for the drug, but at the moment that knowledge doesn't help; no ever so well-thought-out mindset can currently keep me from being stupid--and everyone everywhere who is currently smoking cigarettes is just that--stupid; no exception. Cuz face it: you hear it from others, you read it everywhere and you constantly experience it yourself... that smoking cigarettes is useless and unhealthy; and that nicotine is the most addictive drug of all.
Okay, before I'll start with the main story, I'll preach [to you and myself] a few lines from a book that helped me quit smoking for 12 years in the past (I put a link below). Maybe that'll help. Scroll down to the main story if you're non-smoker; you know all that.
It costs you the dear--and the profit of these permanently rising direct taxes you pay when you buy that pack of cancer... those profits are very likely to be distributed to the governments and industries that brought that shit in the first place.
It doesn't even taste good. In fact, it doesn't taste at all: The taste buds in our tongue makes us perceive five different tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami. None of these describe the taste of a cigarette puff. You wouldn't be able to write a wine review about your favorite cigarette label since there's no taste. What your tongue perceives is merely disgust. Observe it yourself the next time you smoke if you think I'm bullshitting you. You're best smoking that one in front of the mirror just to let you know what your face looks like when you "enjoy the taste". Spoiler alert: You'll look as if you just ate shit.
You won't get high. You may live as foolish as I do, meaning you're stupid enough to try every drug at least once in order to make up your own mind about what it's like. My big exception in that view is heroin. I've read, seen and heard enough to be fully convinced that once you try heroin, your life is over, you'll live a few more years for the drug and you'll soon end your then miserable life when you finally find a dealer who sells you the overdose. The reality about heroin is that harsh. It is that addictive, that dangerous, that hopeless; and whenever I see someone preparing a needle not far from me, I turn around, run as fast as I can until my feet bleed, just to make sure that this drug won't get me too. Anyway, the reason why people sometimes even take heroin voluntarily is cuz of an amazing high that makes you feel like you're in heaven; and that's what even heroin has in common with all the other drugs, nicotine beeing the great exception: In the beginning, it is useful cuz it helps you escape the harsh reality you can't handle at the time since it brings you an incomparable high, a temporary feeling of ecstasy, light-weight and joy that you won't feel without taking drugs. But I'm being licentious now. My point is, if you smoke a cigarette, you don't even have that. You have only the addiction. You only raise those little demons in your head that loudly yell "Gimme more" into your ear. Let them starve and they'll calm down.
You smell and taste disgusting all the time. One cigarette is enough to smell like ashtray. You yourself will never notice it, friends who don't smoke might tolerate it, and maybe a few honest dudes may mention it politely once in a while. But minutes after you light up your first cigarette in the morning after your morning shower, you'll smell worse than a homeless dude who didn't have a shower for weeks. What is more, your non-smoking girlfriend/boyfriend doesn't enjoy French kisses as much as you do since she has to lick up the entire ashtray every tim his/her tongue touches yours.
The sooner you quit, the higher the chances you won't die from it. Everything you just read in the last two paragraphs I got from a guy who spent his lifetime on convincing people that quitting nicotine is easy and only takes three weeks. When I read his book I stopped smoking for seven years, then smoked another three months; and remembering his well-thought-out mindset helped me stop smoking for another twelve years. Today, I'm counting about three years since I started smoking again; and every time, after years without cigarettes, I fall for the drug and smoke much more than I smoked before. The writer I told you about--formerly a heavy smoker--preached his ideas for about thirty years without consuming any cigarette. A few years ago--passive smoking among smokers might not have done him a favor--he died on lung cancer...
Okay, I think I'm done. Let's get to the funny part. Hope you enjoy.
My so far desperate endeavors trying to convert the ravers into metalheads
Those of you who know me personally may have noticed that I cherish solitude and barely leave the house. (That's a bit paradoxical, by the way: On the one hand loneliness makes me suffer; on the other hand I need plenty of time for myself, Anyway...) I pretty much spent a coma at home the last decade, probably due to my mental disease that I've written about fairly little so far. That's cuz--as I've told you--I'll teach madness gently. Just so much for a start, I need a safe haven I can escape to when paranoid episodes are on the rise. However, lately my mental health improved considerably and I continued hanging out in the city with my best friends again. Years have gone by since I enjoyed life in the real world out there; and when I eventually crawled out of my cave, not dissolving into dust when sunlight touched my skin, I realized that METAL IS DEAD.
Fortunately, I kept and defiled a few cadavers in my cave (--you know them as YouTube-Videos) while it happened and I'm about to dig out some holes and put up some tombstones so that you as a compassionate friend can help me mourn adequately. Luckily, my cave has always been a tiny, cozy temple for metal culture and as it turns out, it is now what the Vatican is for the Roman Catholic Church; and when I tell you stories from the HeavyMetal fairyland, I'm usually telling you about what is left of a once worldwide empire.
Many things in this cave may arouse you. For instance, as a matter of fact, I do have little fairies in there. I smuggled a handful of them from Ireland and keep them in little cages cuz they usually bite cock-blocking visitors when I let them fly around. They feast on Death Metal blast-beats and bark, scream and moan to choruses of my At The Gates lullabies at night, when I turn off the light. Strange thing about fairies, they die if the don't have that proper diet and meditation setting. If you wonder why there are only few fairies left and people even come to this naive conclusion that they don't exist – that's why: Because people stopped nourishing them. In Styria, Austria's largest federal state, we already knew about the ongoing fairy extinction back in the day and we had the necessary resources to produce Metal within the region. In order to keep stocks high we produced on a regular basis and to keep breeding fairy mother's healthy, we invested in quality over quantity. But cock-blockers and tit-hiders from the conservative political spectrum did everything to wipe out the fairy population. And the few concerts were metalheads catered for fairy satisfaction were regularly corrupted by those envy people. They found out that by only turning down the volume of a Metal live performance fairies don't feel the groove they emotionally need in order to bang their heads ecstatically; and they found out that every time you turn off a Metal song a fairy dies. Cruel bastards.
Today fairy research is scientifically neglected and what people think to know about fairies nowadays may stem from foul stories people tell about them. I realized that when I visited my first Drum and Base concert about a year ago in a former post office garage. (Spoiler alert: there were no drums.) When I asked for the ticket prices they said "15 bucks each". I was a bit suspicious then, because at a time when I myself catered for the environment, we would charge about 5 bucks per visitor. So I asked the cutie at the box office what kind of music they usually play in this garage. She said "We play absolutely everything, except Metal." Perplexed by her answer I got goose bumps and started shivering. I might have been about to enter an institution that in their very nature was cock-blocking, tit-hiding or even speciecist. Whether my assumption was right or too far-fetched I had to figure out personally. So I decided to spy on the local industry to find out more about rave culture. To give you an idea, I'll first compare Metal with Rave.
We already found out that the ravers don't have drums, so they can't produce blast-beats. But, by the way, metalheads don't necessarily need or like blast-beats either. It's an element that we usually have in uncompromising Death-Metal and Black-Metal, not so much in Metalcore, T[h]rash Metal, hardly ever in Power Metal, True Metal and New Metal, and never in Progressive Metal, Gothic Metal, Techno Metal, Hardrock or Scandinavian Schlager. By the way, you can light a candle upon a single tombstone by clicking one of the links. If you listen, for instance, to an entire Black Metal song from the beginning to the end, ancient evil, mostly satanic creatures from the past may be unleashed but you may also attract starving fairies in the neighborhood.
Anyway, ravers, unlike metalheads don't sing. There are usually a few motivation coaches on stage who pretend to be rappers, but the music usually comes from two instruments: the mixer and the turntables. Whereas you sometimes have entire orchestras to perform live in Metal, in rave music, Techno and DnB only a few guys put all sophistication into these two (or a combination of both in one device) and maybe a personal computer.
Alrighty then. Fuck, my brain hurts... Since I gave up weed, I smoke at least three packages of Chesterfield Blue per day and for now I would lie if I told you that quitting weed was easy. Next to weed I also tempered out a few pharmaceutical bonbons that lately brought about a mix of cramps and constraints in my lower jaw that sometimes made me want to kill myself. Almost ascetically, ignoring the mentioned cancer sticks, I'm now coping with highly uncomfortable depression and I'm overwhelmed, almost flabergasted, with the feelings and thoughts that come with the cold turkey. Those my little demons definitely don't stem from the weed but from the missing pills, my head is longing for. But I'm still contemplating going back to weed due to those hellish depressions that I can't get rid of. Plus, weed used to shut off my brain and helped me fall asleep. The sleeping pills that I still use as on-demand medicines help me through the night, but they are far too strong; my heart beats like a fucking Black Metal drummer and I constantly swallow water to give my tortured body something healthy to work with. In a nutshell, life sucks these days and since I cannot sleep and my friends are gone, I hope writing helps. So, let's give it a try...
Before I start, I'd love to apologize to those who read the manuscript of the last post before my best friend did the peer review. With him I usually go through stuff that is absolutely crazy and can be too much for beginners, however patient and truth-loving the reader. In other words, sometimes my writings appear as if Hitler wrote it. That happens a lot when I'm manic and in future events I would love to show you even the deepest of my thoughts--just not like Hitler did. My friend and I decided to teach madness gently. So we had to delete a few lines that were inappropriate and simply not funny, at least for people who don't know me. But there is something that I would like to write down in advance, whether you like it or not...
I hope you've read my past posts and still feel like reading, cuz I tried really hard to keep my fucked-up worldview appear funny and entertaining. I sometimes do that by showcasing foul and provocative language, making remarks that are not always polite--locker room talk, Donald Trump would say. And here I need to clarify why I do that. In my opinion, cherry-picking won't bring me or anyone honest in this world any further. And only listening to the things, thoughts, and ideas we wanna hear is just that--cherry picking. To understand how other people think and feel, we sometimes have to confront ourselves with not-so-pleasant ways of expressing emotions, and--admit it--we often turn away when people say or do things that we don't want to confront ourselves with; we're being lazy and ignorant. So, face it, the big problems we're dealing with today are not easy to explain; and the same is to say about the solutions we have to find. We're all, to a certain extent, facing hardship in life and we want simple solutions to complicated problems; we want easy answers to hard questions; but that is just wishful thinking. Life can be a pain in the arse. And so we have phenomena like Donald Trump in the US and right-wing populists like Herbert Kickl in Austria who--through fear-mongering--preach simple but understandable racism and xenophobia to people in rural areas where there are almost no foreigners, black people, turks, or whoever present. But those people nowadays make up a third of the voters in our country; and you're fooling yourself if you think that we can ignore these manipulated 33 percent any longer. It makes sense to neglect the interests of the politicians those people vote for since they are assholes, but we mustn't neglect the real and understandable problems these 33 percent of the voters might have to deal with,... and--as much as you would love to do differently--we have to have our serious conversations with each and every one of them if we don't want our world views to polarize. Just so much.
Now, locker room talk is not a right-winger phenomenon. Boys do it all the time. We never perform it in offices, schools, universities, family meetings or feminist meetings--thank god (if that fucker exists); we hardly ever print it on our shirts, but we always let it out it in bars, on the streets, in warehouses, on construction sides, during our lunch breaks, during our cigarette breaks, during sex, during our strolls through the park, when we pass around a sativa joint in a sausage-party-like setting, and of course, in the locker room. But girls, don't be mad at us if we do that, cuz here is how it works--no mansplaining: When we average boys talk openly among men only, we let our hormones do the talking; we let it all out; we send our demons further South AND THEN walk towards nice ladies we wish to chat with in the North and try to be as kind as possible, cuz we think that you're far more sensitive than we are; we simply don't want to be the assholes we can be, right in front of you. If you want an asshole as a lover, fine; forbid locker room talk; I'm convinced he'll let it out on you. But don't fool yourself into thinking that nice guys don't talk like that; they sometimes do... and every dude who alleges that he doesn't and would never do is a hypocrite.
In 2016, the famous pussy grabber video appeared only days before the election in the US. Democrats back then thought that this "scandal" would be a game-changer in the elections to come. The fact that the appearance of the video in mainstream media didn't have an impact on the election pretty much proves my point. Donald Trump, back then, did exactly what I explained to you right now; and just like today, back then no one truly gave a fuck but a few hat knitters who made a profit of this fly-by-night left-wing campaign.
Okay, that felt like yelling. How are you? Still reading? Cuz I am still asking myself the question whether I shall publish these lines or not. But my friends always say that I can't be anyone's friend, so I'll have to risk it, even if it means you won't read me any longer.
...Nothing to discuss,
there are always two paths
but only one that you pass
And if you grasp that bit
it means you don't give a shit;
and sometimes that hurts.
Cuz that means above
you disappoint those you love
and that no one will suss
that for your own sake
you sometimes walk through broken glass...
Lyrics quote translated from the German original "Scherben" by Daniel Wirtz from the album "Erdling" (2009)
Well, now it's out. Enjoy the read.
NO! One more thing: don't confuse locker room talk with hate speech. You'll come across hate speech in all sorts of social media sources and if you want those conversations with right-wingers that I'd want you to have, you will be confronted with hate speech as well. Even try to get used to such violent rants but don't copy or utter them in any way. Don't condone them and report them whenever they appear in social media. And when being confronted with such slurs in your private conversations, make sure you'll do everything possible to get that hatred out of your opponents system before you continue with the argument/discussion. Just a hint: Remain calm, praise him or her for the honest, sometimes even smart and understandable points he or she mentioned before the rant, and finally express in a soothing voice what bad things might happen if we utter, repeat or share hate speech.
When you have a crush on your English teacher (2/2)
So, as I've told you in the first part of the story, I didn't pass Wacholder's classes. I remember spending my days in a hostel in quaint Ljubljana, Slovenia during the semester break, where I had a few days left to score on my blogwriting, which counted about 5 percent of the final grade in Wacholder's classes. I wrote a lot in the hostel, hoping to be sufficient this time, thought the few lines I wrote in Ljubljana would make a difference, then missed the deadline to submit, and a few hours later got the information that I didn't pass.
But I wasn't disappointed, cuz failing STEOP English classes with Wacholder, pretty much meant that I can go to her classes the year to follow. In other words, I got plenty of time--not only to be prepared for future classes but to do everything in advance to impress Wacholder the next time we would meet and chat.
Talking about chatting with Wacholder, there was only one single event where we would talk "unter vier Augen" (eng.: among four eyes, which technically means where we would talk eye-to-eye when no one else but the two of us is around); and it was not a private conversation; it was a professional meeting in her office. She then solely did her job as a teacher, giving each of her students the opportunity to chat with her eye-to-eye about individual language learning issues, thereby preparing us students for the upcoming progress-check. I used that conversation for exactly that purpose, but in the same time I was hoping, dreaming and fantasising that she'd want to have a private conversation on which I could build on mentally and emotionally. Unfortunately, the only two things she mentioned about her private life was first, that she is vegan, and second, that she likes books (and that books might help me personally to improve my skills as a language learner). And that was all I needed to go nuts on myself:
My thought was that if I really wanted to impress a woman that for the moment is totally out of my league and doesn't consider me a potential lover,... if I really wanted to impress such a women, I would have to change myself entirely, not only for her but for myself. And for those of you who say that's madness or even plain stupid, let me explain by telling you what I changed throughout a year without ever suffering and without the idea of not being myself.
1. Going vegan
When I left her office--by the way, totally enchanted cuz of her being funny, smart, kind, sexy, mysterious and thoughtful within ten minutes of a conversation with me,... when I left that office, I became vegan, not the other day but immediately 😂. From that moment on, I would cancel all kind of food that is in any way responsible for animal suffering--so I thought. But let me explain a few paragraphs later. First, let me tell you about the mindset that made me turn vegan so easily.
The next few paragraphs introduce you to my views and experiences about what I think is real and responsible veganism and what people perceive as veganism; views and experiences that I think are worth sharing. If you're not interested in the topic or the feelings of people like me, skip the following three paragraphs; they're not made for you. ...and if you can't count till three, just go fuck yourself.
First, let's or let me define veganism, so that we're on the same page. Uncompromising veganism is an ethical movement and a philosophical or at least ideological approach that abstains from any kind of behaviour that through your own conscious micro-political choices leads to unnecessary animal suffering. I know, plants also have measurable feelings--fact--but I haven't found a way out of that particular hell yet. Veganism takes plants out of the equation and so do I when I preach it in my writings. Anyway, the ideal motivation to go vegan is one that bases on respect for life and the feelings of other animals. Practical veganism is by any means always compromising but there are millions of things every single individual can do to walk in the right direction, performing veganism in the real not so utopian world.
And here I'm not trying to convince you. Just a few examples of what veganism isn't: condoning bull fights, condoning palm oil production even if the economy of your country doesn't depend on it, shooting animals for sports, keeping animals other than cats and dogs as pets, buying unhealthy products from the obviously green-washed "vegan" industry, using dairy products regularly when plenty of other more healthier resources are available for the same price, buying fish from the ocean or using plastic or more plastic than necessary (for instance for food that can be packaged differently)...the list is endless.
When I, back in the day, considered myself a vegan, I did many things wrong. For instance, I used the wrong products for nutrition. That's why throughout six years of thinking that I was a decent vegan, I gained about 40 kilos (basically fat) with the food I ate. I became fatigue and in the end, I had to give in and continued eating meat, basically cuz I couldn't get enough human-like proteins for my muscles. Working in an office instead of performing physical labor would also bring about health issues that I couldn't accept. I had to think of my own health, even if it meant that I had to demand chicken meat in stores.
But the idea to go vegan was a choice that I don't regret. In these six years I was true to myself, not ignoring the fact that many animal species suffer cuz of the ignorant, most powerful, most complacent animal species in our contemporary world... and there are still a thousand right reasons left to go back to veganism, not only for the fantastic chic I would have loved to rock all night, but for myself.
2. Reading books
To start with, if a pal or whoever says "Read a book", he or she in a flourishing way (dt. durch die Blume) tells you that you're stupid and work is necessary to change that; no hard feelings. The problem with books nowadays is that every stupid mothafucka has the resources to write a book. That's a problem we may have since the invention of the book press in the 15th century. Since that period of time, propaganda can be easily spread through readings and even in creating what Benedict Anderson calls imagined communities, mass-produced writings play a vital role. The good thing about books is that if you use them wisely, they're like silent friends who are not mad at you if you put them away--and if you put them away, you have all the time in the world to make up your own mind whether what you just read was bullshit or not. But you don't need that knowledge to enjoy reading a good book. In fact, sometimes reading books can be joyful only if you consume them without too much thinking-breaks in between. A good example for that are the world-famous and Nobel Prize winning South American so-called magical realism writings of García Marquez and Allende. If you read them without too much thinking in between you may dive in a world that is absurd and unreal, fantastic and mind-blowing. In García Marquez's case, while you're diving in there, you even come to grips with South American history, such as the exploitation of banana trusts in Columbia or wars between liberal and conservative movements that changed South American society.
I didn't pick such books in the beginning of my year-long reading mission. I first read a wide-spread German version of the Old Testament, a German interpretation of the Holy Quran and Herman Hesse's Buddha novel, hoping that by reading such material I would find the right religion, at least for myself. That didn't work out, by the way. The opposite was the case. I drove myself crazy by trying to find solutions for an issue even the smartest people in the world haven't found solutions yet... and here is how I fared:
I concluded that the written traditions of holy books, especially those of the three major monotheistic religions, are too radical and intolerant towards other usually older and now extinct beliefs and if you start believing that your chosen religion is the only right one, you're very likely to wish that you are part of the chosen people and that you sooner or later legitimate violence, killing, even genocide towards different-thinking tribes once you're convinced that everything you do, you do in the name of the super-natural being you want to believe in; history proves me right manifold. But that I personally came to conclude that I don't need to believe in gods or one particular god doesn't mean that we should give up religions entirely. It just means that religious institutions nowadays have a great deal of work and progressive reformation and interpretation in front of them if they want to serve mankind as a whole in our contemporary world. They can do that by permanently acting out of love and compassion towards others in their temples, churches and mosque associations; and they can do it in exchange with atheists by letting only arguments count that are accessible in both world views, the religious and the atheistic.
If you want to make writings of Christian mythology count for everyone, you can do that by something I usually condemn, which is cherry-picking. Pick everything from the teachings of Jesus Christ that goes hand in hand with all other world views that claim to be egalitarian, loving and peaceful and no one will question your beliefs. Get that right and you may even get followers for what even the Roman Catholic Church got right in the first place. Things like praying as a source of meditation, choir concerts in churches, letting kids in school draw pictures of Jesus during a rave party where five loafs of bread and two fish were sufficient catering for the entire crowd*.... such things.
About the Islamic world I know fairly little and integrating or even including muslim believers into Austrian society is something most Austrians, me included, can't handle with ease. Reading a German interpretation of the Holy Quran was not as fruitful as I was hoping since I couldn't understand what I personally couldn't believe in. And when I read that interpretation I also first came to conclude that cherry-picking might be at least part of the answer. But after reading Tom Harris' "Islam and the future of tolerance" and throughout the research for a scientific pro-seminar exercise at the university (using an Arabic and four English interpretations of the Holy Quran as primary sources), I realized that most liberal muslims, who consider Islam to be an egalitarian movement (which is the way I want to see it), wish the teachings of the Holy Quran to be understood as a whole; no cherry-picking. Well, if that is necessary, plus you want to calm down Austrian politicians like former FPÖ-candidate for presidency, Helmut Hofer--who during a TV discussion (with present president Sasha van der Bellen) asked for a standardized German version of the Quran to be used in Austria,... if you want all that... if you want a modern version of a book that permanently used to be criticised for being man-made, so let feminist approaches count and--doing that, render interpretations like Laleh Bakthiar's "The Sublime Quran" into your language and then recommend it to your local mosque associations to serve as a source we all can live with. Cuz face it: Every contemporary version of The Holy Quran, including all existing Arabic versions, is only an interpretation of what muslims believe is the ancient word of God/Allah**.
All the muslims I live with--no one excluded--are good from the bottom of their hearts and I don't fully get why right-wingers from the Austrian nazi party FPÖ still harrass them publicly. They wouldn't if they knew that in cities like mine muslims give to the poor, whether you're muslim, christian or atheist; and faithful muslims probably do that, I assume, because the Holy Quran asks them to do***
In a nutshell, reading one single book and then relying on that one as a source of wisdom in order to find my place in the world seemed unmanageable and ignorant to me--especially when it comes to religion. In that field of interest I had to read much in order to understand little... to understand what is accessible to the human mind; or as I'd interpret a popular line in a useful way:
[May the universe] grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom always to know the difference...
Splinters taken and slightly rearranged
Original source: "Slaugtherhouse Five"
by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
Anyway, if I wanted to impress Wacholder the next year, I would have to read many page turners. Religion wasn't my tool to escape reality; I fell for fiction, Disney comics and detective novels. Between 2012 and 2013 I enjoyed well over a hundred books. Most of them I read out loud in order to improve my pronunciation. But that wasn't always possible in the hostels, where I spent most of my nights. Some room colleagues there just couldn't handle reading noises in the background when they had to loudly chat with one another...
But I couldn't care less. While spending time with my silent friends, thereby ignoring real people around me, I dreamed of meeting Wacholder again. With all the love fantasies soothing my mind I felt free and it also felt as if I could let go of the Viennese chic that stole my heart years ago. My fantasy girlfriend Wacholder would take care of me, slowly heal my wounds and tell me fiction stories that help me fall asleep. Finally she would even reappear in the real world. Well, that final thing didn't happen. But I'll tell you later. Let's first sum up why reading books was important and useful.
To start with, my readings weren't always readable. My blogging used to be at best cryptic if not merely utter nonsense; short, my writings didn't make sense. I didn't have a feeling for the language and when I had to answer questions during the mentioned progress-checks at the department, I always struggled to explain simple things, even if I understood them. But I always wanted to write in order to share ideas and express my feelings understandably towards others. With every book I finished I became better at writing and faster at reading. I would soon finish STEOP phase at the department and evolve as a student. So, it was all worth it.
Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance trying to impress Wacholder. She left for another institution pretty close to ours the following semester and never came back. Slightly frustrated and on top of that obsessed [as if haunted] with the idea that nazis and Germans would have too much influence on Austrian society, I requested a vacation semester at the university/department and left for Australia with the money left of my heritage. But that's another story.
Before I crossed the Indian ocean, I also let go of the idea that efforts to impress Wacholder were smart. I could have found her easily in the city if I wanted but didn't want another woman to think of me as a stalker, therefore canceled all my plans. My efforts to impress Wacholder should have helped me to kinda relegate into a higher league one day, where women of my fashion would challenge me even more than Wacholder ever did. But that wasn't the case. I felt exhausted like a mountain lion who after chasing deer unsuccessfully needed a break from hunting, although he needed to eat... and I was chasing a dream, again fooling myself into thinking that if I wanted something bad enough I would sooner or later get it.
I
didn't do Wacholder a single time and absolutely nothing happened, so it wasn't
supposed to hurt. But of course, it did; and I left Austria 💔, convinced that I won't find a soulmate here...
Of course, the conclusion I have to accept one more time is that I didn't see the forest for the trees and friends that constantly tell me "Låss den Wåld net wegn am Bam steh'n" of course are partially right. But if you want not only a decent fucker in your bedroom but a real friend you can identify with as a lover and soulmate, you'd sooner or later have to leap up that particular tree you fancy the most; and you'll be driven by songs like the one I listened to all day:
