Life’s kinda interesting recently, and I’m learning. I’m learning to let go, to acknowledge the things around me, and let them go their way. I do not need to intervene, I do not need to help. I’ve voiced my concerns, I’ve offered, and you know that when you are ready to go, you can call on me. Until then, I mind my own business.

It’s as if I’m scared.
It’s as if I’m terrified.

Yet, the prospects scare me to hell. I’m juggling too many possible futures, and not all of them are inviting. I’m searching for control, looking for a way of influencing these futures, to plan. I cannot. I learn to let go, to detach myself, to choose my responsibilities. Change is coming, and all change is risk and opportunity at the same time.

Relax, take it easy
For there is nothing that we can do.

Part of me wants to leave it all behind and start anew. While it’s probably the easiest solution, it would feel like flight, it wouldn’t be right. The times are getting more difficult. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn, to grow. When you are ready to go, let me know.

Lyrics: Mika – Relax (Take it easy)

Inspired by lifehack‘s recent post on theme songs, I’ve found myself looking around a motivational song for the time. At the moment, it looks like I’ll stick to Reamonn:

You can tell by the way she talks she rules the world
You can see in her eyes that no one is her Chi

And then she’d say it’s OK I got lost on the way
But I’m a Supergirl and Supergirls don’t cry
And she’d say it’s allright I got home late last night
But I’m a Supergirl and Supergirls just fly
And then she’d say that nothing can go wrong

When you’re in love what can go wrong
And then she’d laugh the night time into the day
Pushing her fears further along [...]

Then she’d shout down the line tell me she’s got no more time
Cause she’s a Supergirl and Supergirls don’t hide
Then she’d scream in my face tell me to leave leave this place
Cause she’s a Supergirl and Supergirls just fly

Phew. Here’s what’s left unread after four years collection on three different Amazon wishlists:

Fiction

• A Woman Who (Rebecca Miller)
• Any Human Heart (William Boyd)
• Berlin. Steinerne Stadt (Jason Lutes)
• Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
• Die Bibliothek von Babel. (Jorge L. Borges)
• Fiktionen. Erzählungen 1939 – 1944 (Jorge L. Borges)
• Liebesgedichte (Spanisch – Deutsch) (Pablo Neruda)
• Love Poems (Erich Fried)
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)
• Talk Talk (T. C. Boyle)
• The Big Over Easy. An investigation with the Nursery Crime Division (Jasper Fforde)
• The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: Children’s Edition (Mark Haddon)
• The Fourth Bear (Jasper Fforde)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

Communication and Communities

• Communities Dominate Brands: Business and Marketing Challenges for the 21st Century (Tomi Ahonen)
• Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities (Amy Jo Kim)
• Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge (Etienne Wenger)
• Die heimliche Medienrevolution – Wie Weblogs, Wikis und freie Software die Welt verändern (TELEPOLIS) (Erik Möller)
• On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (William Zinsser)
• Style Guide (Profile Books Ltd)
• Sustainable Development and Learning: Framing the Issues (Sir Neil Chalmers)
• The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World (Paul H. Ray)
• Zielgerichtet moderieren (Martin Hartmann)

Music

• Altes Gasthaus Love (Erdmöbel)
• Faking the Books (Lali Puna)
• Lady in Satin (Billie Holiday)
• Lilith Fair [2cd] (Various)
• Pure Vernunft Darf Niemals Siegen (Tocotronic)
• Stolz der Rose – das Beste und mehr (Rosenstolz)

Politics

• A Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (Nelson Mandela)
• An Inconvenient Truth (DVD ~ Davis Guggenheim)
• Erste Rechts-Hilfe (Rolf Gössner)
• Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Climate Change – Is Time Running Out? (Elizabeth Kolbert)
• go. stop. act! (Marc Amann)
• Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Amartya Sen)
• Rules for Radicals (Saul Alinsky)
• The Campaigning Handbook (Mark Lattimer)
• The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen)
• The Root Causes of Biodiversity Loss (Alexander Wood)
• Trade, Aid and Security: An Agenda for Peace and Development (Lloyd Axworthy)
• Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche (by Haruki Murakami)
• Was für eine Welt wollen wir? (Richard von Weizsäcker)

Life and Stuff

• Kauderwelsch, Scots, die Sprache der Schotten (Manfred Malzahn)
• Kochen (fast) ohne Rezept (Hans Gerlach)
• Kochen! Das Gelbe von GU. 1295 Rezepte, die man wirklich braucht (Sebastian Dickhaut)
• Proofs from the Book (Martin Aigner)
• Self-Made Man (Norah Vincent)
• The Ancestor’s Tale (Richard Dawkins)
• The Good Shopping Guide: Your Guide to Shopping with a Clear Conscience (Ethical Consumer Research Association)
• The Return of the Naked Chef (Jamie Oliver)
• The Tao of Pooh & the Te of Piglet (Benjamin Hoff)

Business and Productivity

• Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out (Douglas Rushkoff)
• Getting Things Done. The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (David Allen)
• Managing from Clarity (James L. Ritchie-Dunham)
• Never Check E-mail in the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work (Julie Morgenstern)
• On Bullshit (by Harry G. Frankfurt)
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen R. Covey)
• The Dilbert Principle (Scott Adams)
• The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management (Peter F. Drucker)
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (by Malcolm Gladwell)
• The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations (by James Surowiecki (Author))
• What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Guide for Job-Hunters and Career Changers (Richard N. Bolles)
• Why Smart People Do Dumb Things (Mortimer R. Feinberg)

Guess it’s time for a visit to my local bookshop.

Yes, I admit: I went to Live8 in Berlin yesterday and I enjoyed it. Being revolutionary has never been so easy. Go there and sit in the sun while listening to some music. Anne Will made a good effort in reminding the crowd why they were there, that this was a demonstration, not a pop concert. Wir Sind Helden went one step further and demanded to “Fuck Pop” and to “Join Punk” in going to Edinburgh by bus the next morning. I seriously considered following them, but then there is an election coming up and I really have to get this campaign going. Not a good time for spontaneous decisions. And I was seriously impressed by the millions and millions of signatures for three simple but effective demands. Last time I checked the numbers were about to hit the 25th million. Whoa.

However, despite being the biggest concert ever and being for a good cause, I do have my doubts about how much this will actually change. There was an interesting article in the German Weekly Die Zeit just now stating that Blair and Geldof had agreed that Blair would address government leaders while Geldofs would organise the masses. No disagreement on the issues. But am I to cheer for Blair’s power play and – indirectly – for the Iraq war in joining Live8? And then: Why did Blair make the EU summit last week fail? Was it because he couldn’t agree to keeping EU’s Common Agricultural Policy which is a main block to a more just trade regime? I am curious how things will turn out – in the G8 and the EU. At least, the agreement on debt relief looks like a step in the right direction.

In the UK, the “Make Poverty History” campaign had to face massive criticism: For being racist, for ignoring HIV and climate change, for oversimplifying the problems in Africa. There’s a lot of truth in this, but the dilemma remains: How can one reach and activate millions of people without oversimplifying, without asking for the obvious? I still believe that one needs all three: Campaigns that reach out to the masses, experts that refine the demands and make them happen and attentive warners that prevent assimilation and remind us of other important issues and questions. I went to Live8 in Berlin yesterday and I actually enjoyed it.

By the way: Does anyone have an explanation for the long breaks during the Berlin show? Or why they chose Michael Mittermaier as presenter? Please do tell me.