Re-direct — This blog is now closed.

Find me here: topnine-fifty.com and here blog.topnine-fifty.com

 

Sich selbst in Szene setzen – Presenting yourself

Vor einiger Zeit traf ich einen Mann, der ‘in Frage kam’. Beim ersten Kaffee wollten wir uns etwas näher kennenlernen, und zu meinem Entsetzen stellte ich fest, dass ich kaum bereit bin mich im Privatleben darzustellen. Ganz einfach deshalb, weil ich auch nicht dazu bereit bin, eine solche Darstellung auf längere Zeit mit dem passenden Hintergrund zu verdichten. Im Berufsleben ist meine Darstellung zeitlich so wohltuend scharf begrenzt.Er hatte Erfahrung mit seiner eigenen Inszenierung, brachte aus eigenem Impuls all die Informationen ein, die Frauen interessieren: Familienverhältnisse, Fitness, berufliche Aussichten, Hobbys, religiöse Ansichten, seine Lebensgeschichte.Was mir da alles durch den Kopf ging: ich müsste meine Essgewohnheiten umstellen, mir eine Art Lifestyle zulegen, einen modischen Geschmack, Vorlieben und Abneigungen zu allem Möglichen und Unmöglichen, und diese dann auch durchsetzen (nichts ist lähmender als ein ‘Ist mir egal’), ich müsste diesem Mann Gelegenheiten schaffen mir zu gefallen. (damit er seine eigenen Ungereimtheiten wieder gutmachen kann). Kurzum, ich müsste Geld (und schlimmer: Gedanken) an Fragen verwenden, die meine Lebensqualität um keinen Deut verbessern. Und obendrein dürfte er von meiner muffeligen Einstellung nichts bemerken. Was dabei für mich rausspringen könnte, Sex und vielleicht auf lange Sicht finanzielles Teilen, (ungelogen, so denken Frauen) würde mir unter den Umständen wenig Freude machen. Also ließ ich die Inszenierung sein und fand mich noch am selben Nachmittag mit einem freundlichen Winken an der Straßenbahn abgestellt. Jeder inszeniert sich, hat schon lange und unermüdlich an einem glaubwürdigen Abbild seiner selbst gebastelt. Das ist Teil der üblichen Sitten und des allgemeinen Anstandes. Hier ist der öffentliche Raum so wohltuend: nicht was man ist, sondern dass man etwas darstellt, sichert einem Menschen einen Anteil. Am besten sieht man das an Senioren, die sich für den Sonntagsspaziergang sorgsam in Schale geworfen haben, und somit genau soviel gelten, wie ein poppiger Mountainbikefahrer in der Blüte seiner Jahre. Die Wissenschaft geht inzwischen soweit, dass es gar kein Ich gibt. Wir wählen nach Bedarf – in den jeweiligen Situationen – aus unserem Repertoire verschiedene Persönlichkeiten aus, Konstrukte, die wir dann möglichst glaubhaft präsentieren. Man trete nur mal während einer Party auf die Terrasse, um die frische Nachtluft zu genießen. Drinnen und draußen ist man jeweils ein anderer Mensch. Es it eine Leistung unseres Gehirns, dass wir das Ich als kontinuierlich erleben. Ist es denn angebracht überhaupt von Authentizität zu sprechen? Geht es denn nicht eher um ein hohes Maß an Glaubwürdigkeit? Nun kommt es gar nicht darauf an, ob man das Ich für gegeben nimmt oder nicht. Die inneren Abläufe nehmen ihren Lauf. Somit ist die eigene Internetpräsenz lediglich eine weitere Persönlichkeit in der Palette. Vielleicht stört uns daran nur, dass der konstruierende Mechanismus zu offensichtlich ist, über den wir uns sonst gerne hinwegtäuschen: die Inszenierung. Warum geht dann der Deutsche so zögerlich auf die Sozialen Medien zu, ist er doch bereit sich in anderen Lebenslagen bewusst oder unbewusst zu inszenieren? Das nervt: sich noch mal die Mühe machen ein ganzes Bild zu weben, mit Mitteln, die neu und aufwändig sind, ohne ein verlässliches Feedback von Körpersprache und zwischenmenschlichen Schwingungen, mit zweifelhaftem persönlichen Gewinn, unter ungenauen rechtlichen Umständen. Und unterschwellig fühlt jeder, was Harold Jarche hier so präzise ausdrückt: Wer zum ersten Mal an die Sozialen Medien herantritt, ist wie ein Erwachsener beim Sprachenlernen. Man kann nicht mit den gleichen ausgefeilten Gedankenmodellen und -bildern der Erstsprache arbeiten. Zudem wird der eigene Gedankengang von der Ausdrucksweise und der Kultur der neuen Sprache geformt, wenn man ein höheres Niveau erreicht hat. Dies ist der eigentliche Veränderungsprozess, der von den Sozialen Geschäftsmedien ausgeht; der Mensch denkt anders. Die Sozialen Medien erfordern zunächst eine Bereitschaft zum Umdenken und erbringen dann ein neues Denken. Wir wissen inzwischen, dass es buchstäblich an die Substanz geht; das Gehirn wird neu verdrahtet. Und bevor man sich’s versieht, hat man mit dem bisherigen sozialen Umfeld nichts mehr gemeinsam und hat sich in eine Welt gestürzt, die als soziales Netz noch nicht ausgefeilt ist. Aber es ist nur eine Frage der Zeit. Hierzu Derek Sivers kurze Darstellung:

Sometime ago, I met a man who might have been ‘Mr. Right’. We wanted to get to know each other a bit over a cup of coffee, and to my dismay I discovered that I am hardly prepared to present myself in a private way. Simply because I haven’t what it takes to support such a presentation with the appropriate background. On the job, luckily presenting myself is reduced to a distinct time frame.He was experienced in presenting himself. On his own accord he mentioned all the points a woman would be interested in: his family, health, professional plans, hobbies, religious views, his life story.And oh, the things that went through my head: I would have to change my eating habits, acquire some sort of lifestyle, fashion taste, likes and dislikes concerning a bunch of inconsequential things. Not only that, I would have to assert them (‘I don’t care’ just won’t do); I would have to make ways for him to please me (in order to make up for his own idiosyncracies). In short, I would have to spend money (and worse: thought) on matters which don’t contribute to the quality of my life. On top of it all, he shouldn’t ever notice my grumpy attitudes. Whatever were in it for me – sex and perhaps longterm financial sharing (honestly, that’s the way women think) wouldn’t be worth the trouble. So I refrained from staging my own self and in no time I found myself left at the next bus stop with a cheery good-bye. Everyone is staging their own presence and has spent considerable time tinkering to build a credible representation. It’s part of decency and convention. This is where the public space comes in so handy: you share in it, not by who you are, but by what you present to be. It’s easily seen when senior citizens dress up carefully for their sunday walk and command as much significance as does a sturdy youth on a mountain bike. Science has reached a point saying that there is no ‘I’. According to the need and the respective situations we choose from a range of personalities that are within our repertoire. These are constructs which we make an effort to bring across realistically.  For example during a party night you may step on the terrace to enjoy some fresh air. The person you were inside and the one you’re outside are substantially different. The fact that we continually experience ourselves as one being is due to a smooth performance of our brains. Can we really be authentic? Or aren’t we rather operating with a high level of credibility? It doen’t matter at all whether one takes the ‘I’ for real or not. Inner processes take their course and one’s presence on the net is just another personality one among many. Perhaps the constructing mechanism shows far too plainly and crudely, whereas in everyday life we love to deceive ourselves about the fact that we’re performing. So how come Germans are so slow to embrace Social Media, when they have no problems whatsoever presenting themselves in other situations? Here’s the problem: taking the trouble of weaving a whole new image, using new and involved means, without receiving reliable body-language vibes as feedback, with doubtful personal profit, under ambiguous legal terms. Everyone uncannily feels what Harold Jarche expressed here: Those who come to social media for the first time are like adults learning a new language.  They cannot start with the same advanced mental models and metaphors they may have in a primary language. Furthermore, once they get to an advanced level in this new language, its idioms, metaphors and culture may have changed how they think in that language. This is the real change process enabled by social business; people will start thinking differently. Initially Social Media calls for mental flexibility only to eventually change our minds. By now we know that our substance is affected directly; the brain is rewired. And before you know it, your social ties are inadequate, if not obsolete and you’ve plunged into a world that hasn’t got the scope of a functional social net yet. However, it’s just a matter of time. Watch Derek Siver’s short explanation:

In response to
http://blog.talkabout.de/?p=3416/trackback/

Google drawbacks – Google Nachteile

The drawbacks of Google Google is working to create the most comprehensive user platform ever. Some folks have raised concerns about how they do this. Basically, when you sign in to Google, your movements on the internet get tracked and then used by algorithms to present you choices that are based on your previous preferences. Two major issues are connected with this: the fact that your actions are tracked (this seems like an infringement on your privacy) the fact that what you see on the Internet is pre-selected (this seems like an infringement on your free will) A very fine explanation can be seen in this TED video: Beware online “filter bubbles” Of course, there is no denying that these issues exist, and they seem to touch on a person’s innermost ethics. That is if a person values privacy and free will above opportunities to connect and interact. Note that while I’m talking about facts, these issues really are about emotions that run very deep in the Western idea of human values. What I personally don’t like about the privacy and free-will stance is that it completely ignores facts about human nature itself. The last decade or so of brain studies have brought up some embarrassing details.

Die Nachteile von Google Google hat die Absicht, die umfassendste Nutzerplattform aller Zeiten zu schaffen. Manche Leute haben Bedenken über die Vorgehensweise. Ganz elementar: wenn man sich bei Google anmeldet werden alle Bewegungen im Internet mitverfolgt und dann von Algorithmen verwendet um dem Nutzer eine Auswahl von Inhalten zu unterbreiten, die auf die vorgegebenen Vorlieben aufbauen. Da gibt es zwei Hauptbedenken: die Tatsache, dass Tätigkeiten mitverfolgt werden (das kann man als Eingriff in die Privatsphäre sehen) die Tatsache, dass das Internet dann nicht mehr auf dem Zufallsprinzip aufbaut (das kann man als Eingriff in die Willensfreiheit sehen) Ein sehr schöne Erklärung kann man in diesem TED Video sehen: Beware online “filter bubbles” (mit deutschen Untertiteln) Natürlich kann man nicht leugnen, dass es diese Probleme gibt und auch nicht, dass sie an die persönliche Ethik rühren mögen, wenn denn jemand Privatsphäre und Willensfreiheit höher wertet als die Gelegenheit sich mit anderen zu verbinden und auszutauschen. Man bemerke, dass die Problematik nicht in den Tatsachen liegt, sonden in den Gefühlen, die sie in westlichen Vertretern der Menschenwerte auslösen. Ich persönlich habe ein Problem mit dieser Wertigkeit, da sie gewisse Tatsachen der menschlichen Natur völlig ignoriert. Die Gehirnstudien der letzten zehn Jahre haben da einige eher ungelegene Einzelheiten aufgezeigt.

These studies have shown that indeed before any information ever comes to our attention it is already pre-processed by neural paths in the brain which in turn are again created by our previous preferences. Decisions can be traced as neural activities in the brain up to ten seconds before we consciously think about them. This is sort of embarrassing news, because it raises a whole slew of questions about how we’ve handled the human condition so far.I dare say two things though: in my opinion, Google is so successful because it imitates our brain circuitry. I dare say that they are not the only ones, but they seem to be the only ones willing to disclose the inner workings of how they do what, which is by far the best deal of what we can get at the moment: one great learning process about our own existence.

Diese Studien zeigen auf, dass die Informationen, die bis in unser Bewusstsein vordringen tatsächlich im Voraus manipuliert wurden und zwar durch Neuronenwege im Gehirn, die auf unseren vorhergehenden Vorlieben basieren. Entscheidungen können bis zu zehn Sekunden als Gehirntätigkeit aufgezeichnet werden, bevor wir bewusst an sie denken. Das bringt uns in Verlegenheit, denn da werden eine ganze Reihe von Fragen aufgeworfen, wie wir denn bisher das menschliche Sein Hand hatten.Zwei Dinge wage ich zu sagen: meiner Meinung nach hat Google Erfolg, weil ihre Vorgehensweisen den Kreisläufen in unserem Gehirn entspricht. Auch meine ich, dass sie nicht die einzigen sind, aber immerhin die einzigen, die anscheinend willends sind, die Einzelheiten zu veröffentlichen, wie sie was machen. Das ist in etwa das Beste, was wir im Moment angeboten bekommen: ein einziger großer Lernprozess mit unserer eigenen Existenz als Thema.

One question…

As long as I can think back, there was only one subject I ever pursued – with persistent commitment. Yes, there were other pathways, but they were picking-daisies kinds, never holding my attention for long. Nothing could quench that quest not even family and children. While I had a fabulous go at it, I was running a comprehensive experiment to supply me with data about my one and only question: what is life?
There is a dilemma though: how can you objectively look at life, while you’re alive? Yet what other chance have I? Or rather has my mind?
To life itself my being alive or dead is a negligible factor; it’s my mind that is making the difference and wants to understand life.
Obviously, the experiment isn’t over until I take my last breath, but I can always give an update as to the progress…
So the latest update is:
Ta Taaaa:
There is no life except in the body. All reality is in the body. And when you consider that the body functions without the mind most of the time, then the notion that life is in the world must be a construct.
It seems to me that the mind notoriously disrespects the body and there for creates reasons of its own. Perhaps it’s merely oblivious, but the mind has the gift of focusing on what’s important.
When the body is healthy the mind isn’t aware of it, turning outward to the world.
Maintaining awareness of the body is living, and living well.

Summer is over

Thinking back over the summer in Romania, what stood out is the executive role I consistently took in order to get things done. There was no letting up, one thing led to the other, and I got the hang of it after an initial rough phase.

My life here in Germany consists of flowing with events, rather than initiating processes. If I wished to do so, I’d have to up my lifestyle which is cumbersome. Here, being on the active side of life doesn’t increase my quality of life. Not so in Romania. Every little thing I do makes my life better.

This year, settling back into the winter routine seems uncomfortable. The confines feel narrow and I can’t find my step. Feels like changes are ahead.

Country Life

Summer means country life for me, in the rural Transylvanian mountains. For the first time I am connected while here, with the internet at my fingertips through my htc phone. I wondered how that would work out.
As a matter of fact, it makes less and less of a difference… to previous years. Life unplugged is just so overwhelming and demanding, that one has to carve out a few minutes to check the streams, online ones that is.
Rural life does not succumb easily to my online presence.
However I noticed that while my personality here in Transylvania is different from the one at home, my online personality has not changed and exerts a comforting stability in the back of my mind.

Cool and smooth

photo © 2010 Kirsty Andrews | more info (via: Wylio)Admitted: I play Solitaire on my phone. At first, my eyes sort of squinted, as the screen was too small. But whaddya know, my eyes got used to it. Actually, my fingertips are ravished with the cool smoothness of the phone’s surface. My touch finds a response in a slight quiver, as though the phone was alive. The tiny cards snap into place.

Aunt Martha would have been moved to tears. She was so tedious in her play, so careful not to upset the stacks.

When you didn’t grow up with them, smartphones, notebooks and tablets are somewhat of a challenge to handle – at first. Eventually, when efficiency sets in, the ease of doing things is enthralling. I often feel like – not one, not two, no like all three of Sleeping Beauty’s fairy godmothers. They changed whole outfits at the wave of a wand, I do it with a tap of my fingertip.

Y’know, I’m an early baby boomer. When I was a tot, vinyl records were the rage. We used to huddle around the radio. In the seventies and eighties, I thought that video tapes and walkmen were incredibly nouveau. We would carefully slide the records into paper covers and rewind the cassettes back and forth to make sure they didn’t get crinkles.

I look at the care of the designers, to make gadgets sensually attractive. Have you noticed, that in nature there are no parallel lines, no perfect circles, no smooth surfaces? No level paths, no straight edges, no rectangles? The knowledge of these used to be magical mysteries, so much so, that masons and builders died for them.

Our ancestors would have been awed at the mere make and shape of our world, never mind the feats we accomplish, the mysteries into which we have delved and the refinement we have achieved.

We live with far more ease than the nobility of a few decades ago. The power of sending our words around the world…

Sometimes I cannot stand the mindlessness of taking it all for granted. Gratitude is the only attitude that behooves us.

Silence my friend

We talk when our personality has come under fire. It’s a last stand our linguistic brain takes to assert itself and construct a sense of personality.

Sometimes I have to leap across a barrier to overcome silence. It’s like leaving the embrace of a good friend that doesn’t want to let go. And talk then is like a babbling brook that won’t be stopped until the source runs dry.

Never bother about what a person says, look for what he/she doesn’t say.

When I talk, there is so much more I’m not talking about. The silent tears, the upwelling sadness, the dread of company, the futility of trying… it’s all wiped away when I use that most cunning of human gifts: the gift of the tongue.

It’s quite possible to self-hypnotise this way, creating illusion, creating reality… what’s the difference? It’s near impossible to remain silent. Company means joyous rustling of colorful peacock feathers. The dull bird is the odd one out.

And then, I return to my lonely friend, silence, collecting her due for the time of absence. It makes me wish that I had never opened my mouth and dispensed with energy at such cost.

My assessment has touched on writing as well. Crafting word to word, thought to thought, building stories, recapturing memories: it’s a good thing that the end of it is a mystery. Unfortunately I’ve come to believe that mysteries when unveiled are mostly platitudes: the obsession with words is a service we do to ourselves. There is nothing wrong with it: we play a game.

But as it goes with games: never take them too seriously. Always remember it’s just a game. Victory will be less husky, defeat less debilitating.

And life goes on.

125 Years of Automobiles

(This is an article in simple English for my students.)

Cars have been around for 125 years.
It all started with one woman’s journey.

Nothing has changed daily life like the automobile. It changed modern society and is part of Germany’s industry.
It was not easy, in the beginning. People laughed at the first car. It had three wheels and a stinking, noisy one-cylinder engine. It was a horseless coach. Carl Benz made a patent for his invention on January 25, 1886. He did not know what to use the car for.

Then, one August morning in 1888, his wife Bertha secretly took their 13- and 15-year-old sons and drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim to visit her mother. The trip is 106 km.

After 45 km they ran out of fuel which was a cleaning fluid. She bought some at a pharmacy.
Also, the motor overheated, so they had to refill water at every roadside inn they found. On uphill slopes they had to push the car. Berta fixed the brakes with leather pads and repaired the ignition cable. She cleaned the fuel duct with a pin from her hat.
When Berta later returned to Mannheim, people were more interested in cars and inventors started having ideas on how to make cars better. Berta had proven that the horseless coach was absolutely suitable for daily use.
Without this brave woman’s trip we might not have cars today.
In May 2008 a sculpture was placed in Pforzheim to remember Bertha Benz’ first car journey.

Read the full article here.

Synthesising Happiness

Dan Gilbert did this famous TED talk about ‘Why we are happy?’ Why? Because happiness can be synthesized. It’s not a thing to be found. There are mind artists who – under the most adverse circumstances – make the best of their situation to the point that they are convinced that it’s the best thing that could have happened to them.

I am one of those people. The less I have, the simpler the circumstances, the narrower the options, the happier I am. It’s weird, but consistent. Synthesised happiness for me is much more fulfilling than experienced happiness – for several reasons:

It’s reproducible. It’s cheap. It’s instant. It’s self-sufficient. It’s mine.

Wanting spells unhappiness. Submerged deep in my mind are the memories of wishing, delighting, wanting and desiring the things a little girl’s world holds: a new doll, a game, lace and ribbons, diaries and jewellery boxes with secret compartments. When these wishes bubbled to the surface of my mind, they were met with sternness: “You don’t really need it.” Or worse, litanies of supposed misbehavior and attitudes showed up how undeserving I was.

I quickly learned that the real treasures were in my mind.