Originally posted on PATREON.
Freigeschaltet
Sorry. I ATEN´T DEAD.
Beauties,
I am so sorry 😛
No, I ain´t dead. Nor kidnapped, or held hostage.
I´m just at home,
writing and editing and listening and checking and fx´ing and watching and re-editing and promoting and…
…and thus, I entirely forgot that I was so scared of Putin´s bloody war being dragged right to Berlin and either a bomb falling onto our heads or us disappearng in a hurry to avoid first Christoph and then me being pulled into a war. Or, in case the war was already lost, to avoid being imprisoned for being to loud.
Sounds ridiculous?
Well, war, in my books, IS ridiculous. It is a waste of time nobody has to achieve something that will be destroyed or lost by the time either party gets to have or rule over it. It is little kids in a sandbox, hitting each other with their forms, until either they, or the heads, or the sandbox break, irretrievably.
War, in my books, is meaningless, and senseless, and nothing but destructive.
And I am very much aware that destructive seems to be the new fashion. In our lives, in our pretty peaceful „First“ world lives.
Someone lives in a way I don´t? Beat them up.
Someone wants you to act in a way beneficial to others? Protest against it.
Someone wants to be named correctly? Silence them.
Someone speaks their mind and, beware, people even listen? Imprison them. Like Irdorath. Or Gülsen.
Yes, I am scared.
I know, for sure, that neither me nor Christoph are able nor willing to hurt a person. Much much less to kill them.
Which makes this war a conundrum, of course.
Because neither do we want to lose our freedom.
While I think I could even arrange, Christoph won´t. Remember he spent the first 2 decades of his life in GDR? under a regime which one could call a caricature of Russian regime? He knowws very well how that feels. How it feels to not be able to decide over one´s own life. To be threatened into treason at your friends and even family. To be imprisoned for one single joke. Or a song. Did you know Christoph´s punk band „Background“ was illegal in GDR? Because of a song about ketchup. I kid you not. They had been warned before to not make political songs again. So they wrote about toast with ketchup.
This was considered political, because in GDR, you couldn´t just go into a store and buy what you wanted. You would queue, and then buy what was available. Ketchup was not available on a regular basis. Also, of course, it was a US American invention. So, the band was prohibited to perform ever again.
Christoph, who was considered a cello prodigy, was not allowed to go to conservatory because his aunt lived in the US. He had never even met her at that time. At the school he went to instead, he made a joke when asked about the time he wanted to serve in the military. So he wasn´t allowed to finish school at academic level (Abitur) and go to university. Later, he went into IT and taught himself programming, a skill that was really sought after in GDR. He was offered a job but under the condition to break all ties with his aunt. He refused again, because that had also meant to break ties for his mother, her sister. So his only chance was to learn tool maker, a profession he already knew was dying out because he already knew at that time how to program machines doing the very same job. Still, he was lucky, because having a stable tuition meant he only had to spent 48 hours in Stasi custody for interrogation when his brother tried to escape to the West (he was caught and in prison until even after the fall of the wall).
That is what living in a dictatorship means.
FOR NORMAL PEOPLE.
Not rebels, not people who demonstrate (well Christoph did but it was too late for him at that point anyway), not partisans, not guerilla.
NORMAL PEOPLE.
Who lead NORMAL LIVES.
And in that account, Christoph and I consider us very much normal people. People who just want to carry on with their fucking lives. Who just want to be happy, and are delighted when others are happy, too, no matter in what fashion. Who like to learn new things, and also our little habits. Who have a big mouth but are not able to hit someone in the face. Who do not intend, under whichever circumstances, to ever kill any person.
So we would have run away from being pulled. We are cowards.
And I have seen what my own country, one of the wealthiest in the WORLD and in dire need of both citizens and skilled people, does to refugees. Correction: I haven´t seen a TENTH of it really. Having to run from this country which has hurt so many other countries as a nation in history – oh my.
So, I was scared.
And I still am.
None of us knows what will happen. I doubt even Putin has a plan by now.
Also, how good is any plan after contact with reality?
So, I scheduled my book to be delivered to you, from a US server, in the form it was in around the time the war started.
Back then, I was concinced, like probably a lot of people on this planet, that this war would be over very soon, one way or the other. Definitely, half a year later. And that I could deactivate the post, and have a release date for the book, and we all could go on with our lives, save the planet maybe, or at least what is left of the art scene.
Surprise – it isn´t over.
Well, I don´t have kids. My works are my children. And they don´t exist if they do not get an audience.
So I will do this again, in the future, whenever I think something is REALLY REALLY FINISHED (it never is), and there´s a reason to not publish it to you right away (in this case, the hope to find an editor willing to print it on reeeeaaaal paper <3).
But I might not write such a dramatic introduction 🙂
Let´s hope we all get very very old, have a lot of fun together coming, and will remember one day, very far in the future, how I was so scared of dying or becoming a refugee that I gave my book to you in one mahoosive post.
Also, it´s only in German.
I haven´t thought up yet what to do in the future; I will proceed translating of course and give the chunks to you but of course I won´t charge you for them again 🙂 my bad! Maybe it´s about time I switch from work payment to monthly payment? My tax accountant would love that…! what do you think?
I personally love the „…done!“ feeling of posting a Work to you. I also love that I can just write what I think to you, no „who might read this“ or „facebook jail“ filters applied.
Nevertheless, times change. For all of us. Let´s see what they bring.
Let
