Günther, I almost recognise some of the German books on your shelves
Lange Zeit seitdem wir miteinander Kontakt hatten. Was gibt es Neues am anderen Ende der Welt? In Europa überschlagen sich die Ereignisse und in Deutschland herrscht Chaos und viele sind bang. Dein Blog ist so interessant. Eine sagenhafte Lebenserinnerung. Du müsstest einen Verlag finden der das druckt." [Translation]
So wrote an old acquaintance from the (c)old country in a recent email. "Danke für die Blumen, Günther", but I only write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say. And writing helps me to keep up my grammar which is the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit. Unlike the stomach, the brain doesn't alert me when it is empty, so I want to keep feeding it just in case. We all know that social media is the most whitewashed form of communication where people describe the outside of their lives without ever revealing anything from their inside, so for all that ugly "inside", for all "the truth and nothing but the truth", you may have to wait for my memoirs.
For all those "inside" thoughts, I do keep a personal diary, erratically and irregularly, in cursive longhand which, more than typing, stimulates ideas, links them, and puts them in relation. Not by chance does the word cursive come from the Latin "currere", which runs, which flows, because thought is winged, it runs, it flies. Cursive writing gives breath to our thoughts again. Without breath, as the ancient Greeks said, there is no thought. And without thoughts there is no life. More is the pity that elegant cursive writing has no place in today's world, a world that does everything possible to slow down the development of thought.
And before writing comes reading, but that is a story for another day.
