Retro 3 German

Day Three Monday May 09 2011

Es folgt nun mal ein Eintrag auf Deutsch. Vorgestern hat es mich in den Botanischen Garten in Linz verschlagen. Zuerst wollte ich in der Krypta des Mariendoms meditieren, aber ich habe keinen gemütlichen Platz gefunden. Also marschierte ich durch den Bauernbergpark zum Botanischen Garten. Ich kann und möchte gar nicht aufzählen was dort alles blüht. Ich war beeindruckt und versuchte möglichst die ganze Fläche des Gartens abzugehen.

Es ist nach wie vor trocken während die Mississippi Region in den USA ein Jahrhunderthochwasser erlebt. Ich genoss die Trockenheit und die Tatsache dass die apokalyptischen Reiter noch woanders herum galoppieren bevor sie zu uns kommen.

Im Japanischen Garten setzte ich mich dann zur Meditation in einen der weißen Gartenstühle.

Als ich dann den westlichen Teil des Gartens abging bemerkte ich dass gerade ein LASK Spiel war. Scheinbar wurde das von Wien ins Stadion übertragen, denn wie mir das Internet gerade mitgeteilt hat, hat der LASK gegen die Wiener Austria 0:5 verloren, und zwar in Wien. Die Schlachtengesänge der Fans stellten einen seltsamen Kontrast zur Blumenpracht des Botanischen Gartens dar. Aber so ist die Welt nun mal.

Von mir aus könnten die ja das Stadion einreißen und noch einen Botanischen Garten dort hin pflanzen. Aber wo gehen dann die ganzen Fußballfans hin? Und die Leichtathletikfans? Und die Pink-Fans?

Der Botanische Garten ist trotzdem eine Stätte des Friedens, die ich wohl noch öfter aufsuchen muss. 

Retro 2

Day Two Friday May 06 2011

It seems as if narrative passages help to make at text readable. Anyway, there will be a mixture of biography, facts and confusion. And amidst all of this, and well hidden, there will be my teachings. There might also be some passages in German but I am not sure of that.

I don’t want this to be a diary or a blog or a story or a novel. I want it to be a mixture of all of that, miscellaneous debris from my sometimes weird and sometimes rather logical brain.

It has been a bit dry outside lately. While usually we suffer from floods around this time of year we are now struck with a rather arid period. Why do I mention this? I suppose you can get this information from any kind of weather records about Austria in the first half of 2011. Well, it is because I do not like climate change for mere personal reasons.

I love the cold, just like polar bears would do. Instead of enjoying some piece of seal in a nice cold spot, my white cousins are doomed to swim for their lives between melting ice floes. And I suffer a little, too. It is May and the temperatures are rather high already. I would like them to stay like that for the rest of the summer but I am sure there will be much warmer periods again. However, I have learned to enjoy every cold moment, every cool breeze and chilly morning.

Basically, I want to get rid of this attitude and I want to learn to take the weather and the climate as it is. I do not mean to act irresponsibly in the face of climate change. From my point of view it is too late for feeling sorry about burning fossil fuels within 200 years that have taken more than 200 million years to accumulate. It is time to learn to live with catastrophes, floods and droughts, storms and bushfire. 

Therefore I like to develop calmness in this matter, too. I want to learn to sweat without complaint, when it is time to sweat and to see nature living, dying and struggling as we continue to attempt to murder it.

Weather forecast: Well I have promised too much. According to wetter.at there should be some rain next week. My apocalyptic visions of an Austrian desert seem to be wrong. What a pity. See! There is no use worrying about the weather. There will be some kind of it, anyway.

I am tired now after speaking about the weather in such an emotional way. This is the reason why I will go to bed now, to dream about the winter.

Retro 1

Day almost One: Wednesday May 4 2011

This is 2011, the year of Fukushima and of the war in Libya, the year of the death of Osama Bin Laden and the year of whatever will still come. For me it shall be another year of enlightenment and another year of science, two aspects of life and this world that seem to contradict each other more and more.

As regards science, for some reason I have found a close relation with biology. First, I wrote my diploma thesis on the press coverage of Darwin’s evolution theory in the Darwin year 2009. Then I started to work for a project about medical applications of synthetic biology. My part in this project seems to be to do whatever I want and in the course of this to find out about the ethical and social implications of the project.

On the other hand I have discovered Zen as my way of seeking my path through life. Unfortunately I have not found personal guidance to a sufficient extent that one could call master. Nevertheless I regard myself as a follower of the wise master Shinryu Suzuki.

I find a great deal of consolation and wisdom in his teachings and in the way of Zen Buddhism.

There are of course several other important aspects in my life, like for instance my love with X and our responsibility for our dog Y, my relationship with my parents and my personal health and wellbeing.

So this will be the story about my life, about the way through the field of sociology and synthetic biology with the help of Zen, about the way that led me to this place in life and about the more or less complicated turns that my life has taken so far and will take in the future.

This is a beginning. It seems to be a beginning. In fact it is just a place somewhere in time.