"Mauer im Kopf"

Hello again.
I'm not quite ready to close this blog, if only because I keep finding interesting things to learn about Germany. There are certainly lots of movies I haven't seen yet (e.g., Wings of Desire), and many, many excellent books in translation remain to be read. I wish I could review them all soon - but there are so many other things to do!
Just this week, I found this article about our very own spaceman, Chris Hadfield, and his photo of Berlin from the space station! Wow, Germany and outer space have ended up in this blog together! And Hadfield's a fellow Canadian as well!
The photo shows the two different kinds of street lights, one yellow, the other white, that still outline the former east and west areas of the capital. Even after unification, there are still signs of the wall's vestigial presence. This reflects a social phenomenon: the wall, as they say, remains in the mind - "Mauer im Kopf" (actually the head - same thing).
I'm sure that stubborn reminders remain in the mind in many other cases, in Europe, which is full of history that won't go away, and in lots of other countries, groups, and cultures. Things may change as more progressive thinking develops, but the old boundaries and divisions linger in both the individual and the collective consciousness. This can keep causing harm, apparently out of sight, like a drift net that disappears off a boat but continues to ensnare thousands of unlucky animals for years.
Food for thought as we take great strides forward as a species - or seem to.... Some things really never change. It's better we stay vigilant.

Rosenstrasse - the movie

Yes, yes, I took a lot longer than planned to get back. But there was little to say until I saw a wonderful movie on Friday: Margarethe von Trotte's "Rosenstrasse."
The beautiful-sounding Rosenstrasse, the street of the roses, is in the Mitte part of Berlin. I was there last year, and remember well the story associated with it.

Memorial to the women of Rosenstrasse, 1943

In 1943, a group of Christian women married to Jewish men staged a week-long vigil outside the building where their husbands had been taken and held, prior to deportation to the camps. The men - most of them, anyway - were eventually released to their waiting wives. (How long they escaped the clutches of the S.S. is another matter, which I should investigate. It is not mentioned in the movie, in order for the focus to remain on the women's efforts.) The movie is partially told in flashbacks from a surviving wife.
The acting, direction, script, and photography in "Rosenstrasse" are all excellent. It is an unusual movie because it presents the war from the German point of view. At the same time, it shows some of the many bureaucratic steps involved in the genocide of the European Jews. As horrible as the concept was, not to mention the way it was carried out, it often boiled down to mundane paper-pushing, signing endless documents, and making small decisions within that bigger plan. Those small decisions added up, and affected human lives by the thousands.
As Hannah Arendt said, it was the banality of evil that created the Holocaust. It very well be the reason things proceeded as long and as insididiously as they did: a huge wave of murder and destruction would have been socially disruptive, and the Nazis required social cohesion (the opposite, I suppose, of anarchy or chaos) for their plan to go well. As powerful as they were, they required infrastructure as much as anyone else.
It's important to see a movie like this, with its emphasis on human psychology instead of action, and think about how future acts of mass murder could be carried out from a series of simple desks, by people who look perfectly normal.

I'm Still Here

As you can see, I have not posted since Goethe's birthday in August.
I have a big book on German history sitting in the living room, just waiting for me to pick it up again. But I'm in fiction mode right now, and cannot "switch over."
When I do, if all goes well, I will start reading, then continue this blog on my impressions of Germany.
I can imagine that when the first anniversay of my trip rolls along in May, 2013, the memories will rush back in waves.
But I fully intend to post here long before May!
Stayed in touch. Have a good November.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, J.W.!

Today would have been Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 263rd birthday.

I used to be a tremendous fan of his life -- not so much of his work, which took longer to appreciate -- but his life. Someone back in the 19th century said Goethe's life was his greatest work of art! I wonder what that would mean in the modern era. Except for celebrities who are famous for being famous, most people are known for what they've created or otherwise achieved. The way they conduct their lives is another matter.
Perhaps the ethical structure of everyday life is not what it used to be.
In the next few months, in between finishing up my novel (which is very much about ethical structures) and trying to earn a bit of money, I hope to return to Goethe's work. Just rereading the beginning of The Sorrows of Young Werther while heading to Weimar was an eye opener (see above photo of Weimar's commercialization of its most famous son).
I invite you to check back to see my progress -- in this and other ongoing German lessons.

Berlin Tops List of Cities with Most Democratic Spaces

Persusing the excellent Science Daily site I usually look at on a Sunday, I came upon an article that made me smile. According to the study by Dr. John Parkinson, of the U of Warwick, Berlin has the most democratic spaces out of the eleven cities he examined. (Ottawa is #3!) I am definitely not surprised.

Dr Parkinson carefully selected 11 capital cities and assessed how well they provide space for all kinds of democratic action. He visited Berlin, Washington, Ottawa, Canberra, Wellington, Hong Kong, Mexico City, London, Tokyo, Santiago and Cape Town.
He said: "In my book I have tried to answer the question, what makes for a good capital city from a democratic point of view? Even though revolutions and protests may be co-ordinated via Facebook and Twitter, they still involve real people who take up, occupy, share and contest physical space. Politics is still a physical pursuit, even in an online, interconnected world."
Dr Parkinson looked at a number of criteria, including the accessibility of public buildings, but also the availability of public meeting space, parks and footpaths, public transport systems and more.

 I like the idea of characterizing democracy as a promise to be fulfilled or acted out, not just a political concept. In other words, it's a verb rather than a noun. In so many ways, Berlin allows democracy to flourish.
Sniff! Nice memories flooding back!!!

Tiergarten

One World

Die Welt  (the world)

Just a short note today. I have a small request for the people out in the world who have been looking at (and let's hope, reading) this blog and my other two (one inactive!) without leaving even a tiny comment. Go ahead, please tell me what you think! Even a little hello would be nice.
According to google, people from such places as Canada, Germany, the U.S., and Russia visit my site. I am really curious about the readers from non-English-speaking nations - and thrilled to see this "fan base."
I would be pleased to write back with book suggestions, travel advice, etc.
I will never visit Russia, Israel, India, Latvia, etc., so hearing about them from someone still living there would be especially exciting.

The Germans Have Another Right Approach to Life

Stop and smell the roses (house in Lübeck).

The Italians have a great phrase for what I want to talk about today: dolce far niente. It means doing sweet nothing, or the sweetness of doing nothing. Italians (and Germans, and other Europeans) know very well how sweet it is to have room to think and feel and allow the day to swirl around you. Unstructured time - even a few moments here and there - is essential for good mental health, for having a life worth living.

How many of us in North America allow ourselves that simple joy, even on our supposed time off?
After being away, I saw my own culture with new eyes. It seems that everyone here feels the need to fill time. That could be while eating a meal, riding public transport, or even driving a car. The act of being busy, of not "wasting" time, has become a social disease in the guise of a virtue. Idle thought - even while eating! - is something to avoid.
I read this recent article in the New York Times http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/, and several memories from Germany rushed back.

• People talking to each other in sidewalk cafés or restaurants, instead of sitting "alone together" as each got lost in a portable screen device;
• Almost no one walks with take-out drinks - they sit and enjoy the beverage; over here, the streets are full of hurried people with coffee to go, and I often catch people eating sandwiches or even containers of food while they're walking;
• Certain neighborhoods in Berlin and elsewhere appealed to me partially due to their proper mix of commercial and residential, which Canadian urban planning guru Jane Jacobs tried to bring to NY and Toronto more than 50 years ago; walkable neighborhoods are living communities, not just buildings and pavement.

 This relates to some of my posts in my first blog, ONLY CONNECT: mindfulness. If you have a full life, with many obligations, you certainly cannot stare out of a window for three hours, musing on the meaning of life. But you still can be mindful of whatever you do. You can make a sacrament of little pleasures, thereby making it easier to question the frantic pace of your life. It will never change unless you examine it--and it's better to do that voluntarily. No one wants to be forced to do so by circumstances outside their control (e.g., illness).
Read the article, even if you already know these things, perhaps because you're reading this from Europe or Russia or even Australia! See the comments - some real eye-openers. Many people know this "creative idleness" is a balm to the soul, while constant hamster-wheel busy-ness, very often for empty pursuits, is not really living at all. Others cling to their belief that being busy is a sign of success or self-worth.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates

Take a deep breath. Stop playing those video games. Check Facebook once a day instead of every hour. Filter your e-mails. Call a friend "just because." Pat that friendly dog on the street as you wait for the light to change.
Enjoy the moment!