27th of February to the 6th of March

I have been to London last week. It was fantastic. I finished reading two books. So if you like to read books and want to read reviews about the books I read. Please do connect on Goodreads. Unfortunately, I am sick again. The throat pain is back, a different set of antibiotics and all new are my glued-shut eyes in the morning. Good stuff! I am getting better though. But yeah, London was great. I was able to catch up with old Shanghai friends and give a speech about content marketing and an event and lit some fires under some imaginary butts. At least this is what I think I did. So here we go with my writing to prompts from the book.

27th of February: “A number between one and twelve and my associations”

I am not sure why but I always liked 4. Apparently, when you ask someone to pick a number between one and seven it is most of the time the number four. I did learn that by reading a pick-up artist book in my early 20s. The thing is that the number 4 is not very well-liked in China. It sounds like “death”. So often there is no fourth floor or people don’t want that number on their license plates and whatnot. Pretty much like the 13 in western worlds. 4 is cool. 4 can be easily divided and multiplied. Four is a small enough number to keep track of. So let’s say you have a book with four main characters then that is great. Four tones. Four people to get to know. It’s just a good number. It could also be 2 couples that hang out together. No one will be bored if they get along. Four people find seats in a car and they can hopefully quickly decide on things. Four is good. Looking forward to our little one turning four. But for now, three is good!

28th of February: “A moment of fear as a child“

I don’t remember being a fearful child. My dad forgot me at the soccer stadium in the snow when I was three. I apparently slept through that and they picked me up with a layer of snow on my carriage and undisturbed by the sudden silence around me. I do remember that I was afraid of Santa Claus for a bit. I mean come on. A tall man with dark boots, a huge beard, all in red and that deep voice. Otherworldly these dressed-up uncles found their way to hundreds of homes in my village when I was little. They smelled of alcohol and cigarettes and we knew they bring gifts. But they also had a branch to hit you with (they never did) and your family or mostly your dad told you they might put you in that potato sack. Scary! The cats fled when they rang the bell (of your house/flat or their very own) and the kids hid under the table or behind the sofa. That is what we did. Then was that scary thought of having to recite a poem or sing a song to that uncle that only dares to show up once a year. I did not like that and rather hid behind the sofa. Two or three years later I used my detective skills and questioned my dad’s absence and saw the same boots he used on that Santa guy. Much less scary. Still told no one that I knew, but I did.

1st of March: “passionate virtuosity”

I love misfits. I like weird. I find people that have edges and quirks are the most lovely out there. I also believe that almost anyone can be funny. There is always technique and skill involved with a lot of things we do or want to excel in. Let’s take stand-up comedy. The oddballs like Theo Von, Bobby Lee and William Montgomery make me laugh more with just “normal” stories than someone with the right technique of telling a joke but without the character and authenticity. The same goes for creative skills in business. I find the people that are “characters” just have more of an effect on the people around them and therefore in business. They just stay true to themselves and they might step into a puddle here or there but we all prefer them to some slick know-it-all that seems to have been polished from head to toe. It’s endearing if someone is truly passionate about something and it won’t hinder them much if they don’t know every minute detail about their topic. At the end of the day, it matters only a small percentage of what we talk about, the much bigger percentage is how we talk about it. Let’s be weird and passionate!

2nd of March: “You are at a friend’s house you lift the lid of the pot and to your horror it is…“

… something sweet with raisins or worse something savoury with raisins. You can’t shock me much food-wise. As with people I do love the weird here. Insects? Love it! Innards? Love it! Unusual meats? Probably love it! Out of all the different tastes only sweet is the one I have to be in the mood for. And raisins? They can go get fucked. I don’t like them. I can eat them. They don’t make me throw up or anything. They are just too sweet and overpowering. Don’t put them in cakes please and please don’t put them in savoury dishes. Just this week we were watching a cooking show and the Belgian cook put a handful of raisins in his carefully prepared goulash dish. What a monster! He ruined it. So if I would lift the lid off a pot at a friend’s house and find that goulash and then there are raisins swimming around it would be like ordering a case of beer and then opening all the bottles and letting them stand in the sun before we get to drink them the next day. Ugh, raisins! Horror!

3rd of March: “A path in the woods and something appears“

This really happened. Every time I ride my bike to the lake for a dip I try to switch up the route a bit. One time it lead me through a big graveyard and being a Friday morning it was very quiet in the graveyard. I was also just listening to some podcast, so maybe it wasn’t that silent. Trying to find my way out of the graveyard in the rough direction of the lake I wanted to bike to, suddenly in the middle of that path, right in front of me: a deer. It looked at me. On my bike, like a deer in headlights would. No headlights on my bike while standing still though. My lights are dynamo powered. Majestic. Tall like me on the bike. It stood there and just stared right at me. I wondered how much it would have to eat to maintain that size and if it finds all that stuff there in the graveyard. I also wondered how it got in or if it lives there forever. I once heard that deer are opportunistic carnivores, so when baby birds fall out of their nests then deer eat them. Easy protein. That is life. As suddenly as the deer appeared it disappeared. Almost weightless it hopped through the graves and trees. Just to appear in front of someone else, hopefully not baby birds.

4th of March: “Apology as a poem“

So sorry for what happened,

so sorry for what didn’t happen.

Am I afraid to find out,

or are you afraid to find out?

When nothing gets done or

everything happens as we imagine.

Then what are we?

Angry about what didn’t happen?

Or happy about what is happening?

Let’s find out what it is. I am sorry and we are a bit happier.

5th of March: “The birth of a baby“

So here is a true story too. Pretty much three years ago. We are in a hospital. It’s good times. Both of us are happy we take a smiling picture in the bathroom next to the room where our child would be born. My wife is a fighter. So we didn’t have to wait long until the birthing process took it’s course. Pain was in the room but initially my wife saved up the epidural to push through to a certain point. At some point and I was not prepared for this. Everyone is gone from the room. It’s just us two. I’m holding her hand. The pain is ualmost unberable for her and apparantly it was way too late to get an epidural. So without any other painkillers my wife. A fighter is pushing through. I ask again for some help or painkiller or just something and when everyone leaves the room again and we are apparantly on the final stretch. A pained face looks at me and just whimpers a “help” and I have never felt more useless in my life. Minutes or maybe seconds after this the doctor and second obstetrician comes back in and the wonder of life happens in front of us. The helplessness for me is instantly gone. The pain for my wife was not but definitely dulled with a new member of the family on her chest.

6th of March: “An authority figure drenched in water”

This can only be funny. Imagine the pope drenched in water. Maybe the pope mobile is leaking in heavy rain and they forget to shoot the silver rockets into the air to control the weather. Imagine the white robe slowly becoming more human shaped. A little wine belly. Shoulders that could barely carry a fifteen kilo backpack much less a human sized cross and then some black underwear slowly becomes visible. The believer crowd can’t help but look. Eyes widen. The pope is getting cold. Nipples poke through robe. And slowly but surely the bund of underwear reveals a name. Calvin Klein. And now this man, this human is part of this list: Mark Wahlberg, Travis Fimmel, Justin Bieber…