Category: Thoughts on humans (Page 1 of 4)

Invitation.

July 10, 2025 / A metaphysical entity

Alone I stand, covered in BBQ sauce, eating a pickle.

The guests at the party are of distinguished nature, some would even say the are academics and intelligentsia of some sorts. The people that can name the composer of a piece of classical music and accurately pronounce ingredients in various Western European languages. The sort in whose vocabulary the word toilet does not exist.

Yet I am here, all raggedy among them. Nobody noticed yet that I don’t hold my wineglass at the stem but fully fondle its voluptuous shape. For I am drinking faster than my hands can bring it to room temperature. Alongside the ramblings about Kants categorical imperative, I am invisible.

I stray like a cat, light on my feet, with squinting eyes, trying to make sense of it all. Who has lead me into this treacherous place, the world of competing egos and phrases that are uttered, neither understood by the author nor by the recipient? I mumble along, I am nothing but a pantomime in their play. Watch me grab my invisible rope as I swing from group to group! I am Tarzan and my glass of vino is Jane.

I found my way to the catering, a table of delicacies whose names I have never read before. Pigs in a blanket sounds fun, so I grab the piglets from the silver tray. The intelligentsia doesn’t eat, it nibbles. Thought is the real food, wine the appetiser, main course and dessert.

My piglets are mad, they pay me back by separating them from their herd on the silver plate by spraying sauce from their doughy blanket. Fair enough, I think to myself as I let them run free. Shoo, back to your comrades, go and be cosy!

What’s left is the pickle on the skewer. Sharp aromas of vinegar battle the acidity of fermented grapes. Another firework in my oral cavity.

Despite the abundance, find myself wondering. Why am I here? Who are these people?

Kant whispers into my ear: Sapere aude!

That’s right Immanuel, this is actually the wrong house!

Pick axe.

June 17, 2025 / A metaphysical entity

It’s cold, my breath burns and my heart is quenched.

The journey I started has been so long that I cannot even remember the first day of my endeavour. Stones, ice, stones, clouds. On my way up on this godforsaken mountain I encounter things that were trendy once. Colourful back then, now just disregarded and slowly turned into trash. Of purpose once, now just a reminder of what I am searching for.

It is windy, my ears are reddish-blue cauliflowers.

I ram my pick axe into the ice and it cracks. I can hold onto it, not for long. Mercilessly I have to move to prevent my fall. There’s no way but up. I dream of the days in which I was standing at the bottom. Drunk on melancholic reminiscence, I wonder whether starting this quest is even something I could have chosen. I can’t remember the reason. Did someone tell me to?

It rains, my beard is frozen to a solid mess of hair and ice.

I long for the glittering, shiny things. I am a slave to marketing. I want more and better, like everyone else. But different. Ideas in my head of things I have never really encountered, made to be something that I must have. I am the collector of presumptions and desires.

The sun shows itself, I turn towards it and my eyes burn.

I make my way up this Sisyphean hill of nothingness. My mind paints illusions of what awaits me on top. I am sure I am on the right mountain, the path everyone has trotted along. I must be right, right? Right? Only a couple more times that I slam my pick axe into the ice, just a bit more. I am driven by my illusions. Higher and higher, I suffer, sweetly.

The clouds open up, my muscles are sore but I see the top.

Everything I have ever wanted. In front of me, like the others. Alone with everyone I celebrate my achievements.

A sign marks the top.

“Welcome to Mount Average”

Flow.

April 25, 2025 / A metaphysical entity

Oh, what tormented soul, crushed between the desire to finish but lost in the pleasures of the moment.

The professor has been sitting at his desk for an eternity. A whole table filled with wax that once was part of erect candles, now facing their timely demise, a flaccid blob. Spread over the table, manuscripts, books, sheets of paper, notes, crumpled tissues and finally, beer bottles.

The scene of a fight.

Lounged against the back of his chair, the academic blankly stares in front of him, devastated by the consequences of a fight he endured and passively fought. One hand resting on the paper, fountain pen in hand, slowly spilling its ink over the notes. The other, firmly grasping another bottle of liquid gold, now devoid of its former glory. Quintessentially present but no life, no gas, just warm malty liquid.

The professor has desire. Nothing he longed for as much as to put his thoughts onto a paper, finally getting rid of the spirits that haunt his internal discussions. Relieving himself, academically, physically, spiritually. His magnum opus – at least until the next one. With no audience, still determined to outperform himself. The intrinsic drive to be one with the content, contribute, scream into the abyss that is the academic world. Who will hear him?

A fight.

But what has made the professor to be of such determination, such passion? Leading to a state of reflection some just look upon in awe? It was the same thing that now fights over the small space of his desk against the endless sheets of paper and ink. It is beer.

A simple brew, yet underestimated. It has made empires rise and fall, killed numerous but saved from the plague. Now it is haunting our dear professor. Not for the fermented sugars that numb synaptic connections, but for its diuretic characteristics. For you see, our professor is one of great magnitude, transcending fabric of society to follow his passion. But transcendence is a heavy burden on the shoulders of any mere human.

Alas, when the state of unburdening of human mediocrities has been done, the academic, intellectual flow within our dear professor starts. Lit by the numerous candles, he rambles and rushes through evidence, his own word and ideas. Rocking back and forth on his chair, grounding the wooden boards to dust. But you see, the beverage which oh so comfortably took some burdens is now expecting to be released, together with all that is has taken with it.

It is time for the professor to unburden the burdens. And so it happens that when the fountain pen hits the paper, ready to chisel words onto it for eternity, the professor ready to let his genius flow through his hands, must hurry to pay the price.

Returning onto his desk, the pen is dry. His mind, scattered. Beer bottles, empty.

For more thoughts on humans click here.

Toe.

March 5, 2025 / A metaphysical entity

Humanity has walked many paths. It might walk down the path of self-destruction as these lines are being written and you, reading this. It might walk the path of ascending to a place where no civilisation has ever been before. We never know. What we do know is this: there is something always ahead of us. It’s part of us but we never acknowledge them. It’s our toes.

When do we feel them? When bumping into furniture. Or when taking socks off to feel the grass / sand / water between them. Pleasure and pain, yet again so close. Every step that we take towards doom, pleasure or, said more normative, the right or wrong way, our toes are in the forefront of everything. So why not give them more importance? We could base society more on these little fleshy things that are hidden most of the time.

For sure, the big toe is a force to be reckon with in this new society. You can already see it, in sandals for example. The big toe is parted by the others. But how do we measure who is to be the ruler, the peak of toe-performance? Toes can be ugly, cute, beautiful, sick…. All of these classifications are in the eye of the spectator. So how do we measure? Well, measure is the right way actually.

Queens and kings, nobility, that is people with long toes. In relation to their feet of course. Bear with me on this one. So, toes are literally at the forefront of us, gaining ground. And people with longer toes in relation to feet size are, of course, able to gain more ground.

I myself am a peasant. It is hard to come to that realisation. So even as the creator of this new order I have fallen to the lowest position in this feudal toe-system. Perhaps it is wise to abolish these standards. Perhaps we should stop doing the same for other body parts. Perhaps, we can strive, as a civilisation, only when we stop comparing. Not just toes.

Drawer.

October 25, 2023 / A metaphysical entity / 0 Comments

H: “Don´t break it, idiot!”
G: “I am not! Why don´t you back off a bit and let me try it? You had your turn.”
H: “Fine, go ahead then.”
G: “You called me and here I am. I usually don´t do this, just so you know. In most cases, people just keep getting stuck or choose a different one. So just appreciate it a little, man.”
H: “Yeah, yeah… but can´t you observe that all of the other ones have already been opened? They all have the same label, they all look the same, they all opened the same way. So this must be it.”
G: “Man, you don´t even know what you are looking for!”
H: “Of course I do!”
G: “Sure, just like the others that have shouted until I came.”

G continued to fidget around while H turned his back and watched out the window. The winds were carrying clouds through the sky and the conducter sat on his hill in the middle of the city.

H: “Why is the conductor always waving around his arms, even though there is no sound or even movement he is conducting?”
G: “Do NOT fuck around with the conductor, I am telling you! He was there way before any of us. I don´t even know how he got onto that hill. One time this one guy got drunk and tried to walk to him, but the conductor just opened his eyes, bent his thumb and the guy turned into slush.”

H watched the conductor and tried to interpret the signs he was signalling. There didn´t seem to be any coherent pattern. “Maybe he is just a mad guy”, thought H.

G: “He certainly is not. But you are all just too limited to see.”
H: “What´s that supposed to mean?”
G: “Well, 80-something years are just not enough.”

H cringed and waited for an answer by G. G did not explain any further and continued to work.

H: “Man, how long is this taking? I thought you are supposed to open all of these regularly?”
G: “Everyone thinks that. But they just keep calling me. So usually I just sit back because it will open itself at some point. Sometimes with force, sometimes not. But in any case, they thank me as if it was my doing. To be honest, the conductor probably works more than I do. And he is doing it with closed eyes. He could be sleeping or dreaming, for all I know.”

H looked around the room. There was dust everyone and empty beer bottles. He couldn´t even remember for how long he was trying to open that thing. He didn´t eat, didn´t sleep, didn´t go out or meet anyone. It could have been years. Although probably, it was just a couple of days.

G: “There you go, maybe it´s working now.”

H stepped closer to the wall and pulled. The whole front broke off.

H: “The whole thing broke!”
G: “Well, you are the one who desperately wanted to open it. The only option was force now.”
H: “Know-it-all.”

He looked deep into the cavity that missed the front cover.

H: “What the fuck is this? Are you kidding me?”
G: “What? I didn´t put it there.”

H grabbed into the drawer and pulled out a watch.

H: “This is it?”

But G was already gone. H looked at the watch. It was counting up, continuously ticking. He checked the label of the drawer again.

“SOLUTION”.

With his back turned against the wall and with the watch in hand, he slid down to the ground. From the middle of the village, you could hear the conductor laughing out loud.

And here we leave our protagonist. Please enjoy the following soundtrack as the conductor sits on the hill, waving his arms, laughing.