birth-between-death

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Waking up

So I find myself something to do, an activity that forces me out of the numbness. One morning I stand up and decide that this is not how my life will go on. The clothes scattered around in my room get sorted, the floor scrubbed, the dishes cleaned. What I do is supposed to be an act of cleansing, in hopes that it will transfer onto me. I shower myself, thoroughly and extensively. Hot water runs down my body. This naked body of mine, which, once it leaves this shower will start a new life. The water helps sorting my thoughts, finding a way through the loud vortex that is my mind, rushing wildly in my head. Slowly it decelerates, I can pull out individual strings of thoughts in my mind and hold them tight: I have interests and desires that exceed the numbness I feel. I am living in the here and now and I have abilities waiting to be trained and improved. And once evolved they can be put to good use in our world. By any means, I am far from being useless, least of all for myself. Enough encouragement. Out of the shower I go, through my apartment, whose clean brightness gives me new strenght, pack up my stuff and make a run for the city. In the library I find like-minded people. The university houses every type of human. So many of us students meet with our reputation of lazyness. But so many of us are far from being numbed. On the contrary, especially in the library between all the procrastinating I see diligent people, bending over their books, trying to understand. And to them in my mind I call out "Hello there! I'm joining your hard-working force now. Let's make it our quest to train our abilities, to broaden our knowledge of the world and eventually find and create correlations where no one has seen them before." I will make myself useful to other people with what society, or better the institution of humanity embodied in the university has given me. We tend to forget this: How splendid is the fact, that we in our history of mankind not only knew how to wage wars and kill each other off, but also wrote a history of love, of affection, curiosity and of the eagerness for knowledge? It is necessary to remind oneself every now and then, especially in these times.

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The Numbed

How numb we grow. That is, if we don't challenge ourselves on a regular basis. I feel like it is appropriate to write 'we' at this point because I'm definetly not alone on this one. In fact, out there we are legion, whole generations of numbed. Anyone living alone is more prone than someone who shares his everyday life with another person. But nobody is immune, it is in our nature to let ourselves go. As soon as we overcame natural selection, laying back became an integral part of us. How often was I sitting home alone these last months and absorbed some kind of media like a sponge, I don’t know. Countless times I was just too lazy to think for myself and chose the easy way out through consumption. Youtube, Game consoles, netflix, computer, content here, content there, consuming the ordinary, to a certain degree that’s entirely fine, sure, however it is easy to be consumed yourself by all these things, become hollow. All this brings great joy and relaxation, but I can't help but think it isn't much better than taking the usual drugs. Sure, it's not as damaging, but in the back of my head there is this frequent knocking, that voice, telling me I'm wasting the time of my life. Harsh words - and I can't deny my parent's education plays some part in these thoughts aswell. Nonetheless I was always aware for myself of how I am spending my time. I'm not dumb, most of us aren't. There is a difference between these two words. I was and am always aware. In this sense the usual drugs are ahead of their electronic counterparts: one can daze his or hers mind one way or the other and make oneself forget. I for my part always stay lucid and clear. I know what I'm doing and I have fun doing it. But there is so much of me falling by the wayside. There is more in me than being the numbed, one of the silent consumers. I want to be more than just one of these flickering bluish windows in the night.

to be continued...

[birth-between-death]

Pipe organs always have some special aura to them. You seldom hear them, but they always draw your attention in a church. Have you ever payed a closer look at them? They must be one of the biggest musical instruments, more like an architectural piece than just a corpus for music. And the sound they produce. It is most different from any other instrument, the deep tones you can feel more in your bowels than with your ears. Very fitting especially for ambient music. I wonder why there isn’t more current music putting them to use and experimenting with them. (Maybe because they are damn expensive...) I believe there is still much more than just the old church pieces to discover for this instrument.

One great exception: Nils Frahm and his wood organ pipe.

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaPKU_eqwgo  

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpzBMlCujt8

(at the Paradiso in Amsterdam)

- Freiburger Münster 2016

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From hill to hill, looking for Heidi.

- Freiburg im Breisgau 2016

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Some interesting pictures, some beautiful, some surprising and some dull, just as China itself

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- Elbsandsteingebirge 2015

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Some might say, this is the tombstone of the Rabbi Loew, the creator of the deviant magical creature Golem. Some might say, nobody knows where the Rabbi Loew was burried exactly. Some might shiver at the thought of the Golem haunting the old city of Prague seeking for his careless master. Some might not care about this tale at all.

But I assure you, nobody will deny a certain unease, when visiting the old jewish graveyard in prague. Might it be of the historical weight of this place, or simply its peculiar atmosphere. So many tombstones on one ground.

- old Jewish Graveyard Prague 2015

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Grooving Tree - Prague Castle district 2015

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Birds dancing - Rudolfinum Prague 2015

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Shapes and Shadows - Prague 2015

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Enjoying the view - Vinohrady Prague 2015

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mosquitos, feathers and snowlakes - fishing lake Horneburg 2015

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paint the wall - KDF-beach Rügen 2015

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I dig this

Explore (Chris Burkard)

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Revue '14

(Pictures: 1. somewhere in the himalayas at the border between Yunnan and Sichuan, 2. Yuanyang rice Terraces near Duoyishu, 3. same place, 4. jungle in Xishuangbanna, 5. Yading, Daocheng in Sichuan)

Today I sat down in front of my laptop and thought: It's not too late to take a look back at 2014, is it?

It's the middle of the first month of the new year, so I guess it is alright, I mumbled to myself and used it as an excuse to start digging through my photographs of the past year. Two hours later I realised that I didnt do anything but slowly scrolling through the pictures of my china experience. Thats why I dedicate the first post of 2015 to some more impressions of this paradox country. And still there are way to many pictures I'd like to show you, dear readers.

What did you bring with you, year 2014? Looking back through the posts in this blog I can divide the year into two parts. The first one being the more important one, namely my china trip. I am not being sentimental when I say that in the near future there won't be a similar experience for me. Being abroad for almost one year doesnt sound like a very long time. Countless people are doing it. But it's also not very short. Eleven months of diving into another culture, breathing different air (*cough*) and tasting new spices can form your identity completely new. As much as I hope that my character didn't change to the worse while living on my own, as much I'm hoping it did change to be way more openminded and tolerant to all other humans on earth. And I'm quite positive I changed for the better. Almost everyone, who went to China for more than just a few months did. Thats ironic, isn't it? But it is one of the perks, that come along enduring all the little strange things in China (strange to us westerners). Conclusion of part one: Even after half a year after coming home I am still happy that I went to China and I think about that experience fairly often.

Part two of 2014 is being back in germany and its the part that got quite boring for you, my readers here on tumblr. I am sorry for that. First of all I wanted to enjoy the silence, fresh air and tranquility of being home and meeting all my friends. Nothing really exciting happened for you in that time (except one or two day trips).

For 2015 I decided to return to my original aim of this blog: along everydaylife

Compared to the china time here will be less photographs (still one of my new years resolutions is to take my camera outside more often) but more thoughts and stories for everyone!

I hope some of you are still following me up until here, you are a worthy child of tumblr. May you receive only the brightest thoughts and ideas!

Have a great 2015 everyone

HB

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Say it loud and say it clear

Refugees are welcome here

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Rocks and Woods

The time has come. Our autumn days grow dark and gloom, today we had the first dense white fog hanging infront of our windows. As someone famous once said: the winter is coming. And I believe it is the perfect time to show you some of the photos my brother and I shot while hiking with our parents in the german woods of Saxon Switzerland near Dresden. The weather was changing from rainy to damp and wet to clear sunshine in minutes and the deep woods were quiet and calm. Makes me feel like turning on the heating, making some tea and listening to Nils Frahm's atmospheric piano pieces.

- Saxon Switzerland