Thoughts
On Postcards

Thinking In Language

Dear Enzo,

I can think in language, but my thoughts are certainly not limited to it.

If language were the reason for complex thinking, shouldn’t I then be able to express my complex thoughts? If emotions are an act of thinking without the use of language, how can I then translate them into an intellectual reaction without losing some of the essential details?

Could the problem lie in our definition or even anticipation of language, or is it that we sometimes confuse communication with verbal exchange?

I hope you understand what I am trying to say.

Alexander

Mirror Image

Dear Eva,

This morning when I was looking into the mirror, I saw myself seeing myself. I went a bit closer, just to make sure it’s me and not someone else. I appeared passive, two dimensional.

Water was dripping from my eyebrows blurring my vision. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure whether I was the one looking or the one being looked at. I was a stranger to myself, someone I recognized but could not make sense of. Just like when I listen to my own recorded voice. I’ll never get used to it and I’ll never be able to objectively tell anyone about it, not even myself.

It’s as if we have a mechanism preventing us from getting too close to our selves. Unless, of course, you are a narcissist.

Hope you’re fine! - Alexander

Moving Soul

Dear Sunita,

My soul felt kind of heavy this morning, when I sat on the bus on the way to my studio.

Whenever my body shifted from left to right or from right to left due to the reckless driving performance, I could feel my soul sitting still in the center of the seat. It just didn’t move, as if it was seat-belted.

At first I was worried, wondering if there was something wrong, if it was still asleep or if it might be thinking about something I have not yet thought about. But when I got off the bus, it slipped right back into me and told me that it was happy to be with me despite the fact that I did not believe in it.

Hope you are fine!

Alexander

Entangled

Dear Erwin,

There was this car parked right outside my window. A guy with a suit and tie, sitting behind the wheel. Next to him a woman, young, mainstream pretty, wearing a shiny white shirt, slightly unbuttoned, summer style.

Everything was quiet when the woman suddenly turned to the guy and punched him in the arm. It was the opening chapter of a long and loud argument, a monologue, it seemed. The guy just looked and listened. When he got blamed for not reacting, he pointed in my direction, indicating his motivation.

Having thought that he might have found a good reason for calming her down, my presence, or for that matter, the lack of his, it turned out to have quite the opposite effect on her. Feeling entangled by simple observation, I turned away to write this postcard.

I hope you are fine! - Alexander

Identity

Dear Rene,

One morning, after an endless night of strange dreams about an airplane flying around the world, desperately looking for a place to land but never finding one, I finally woke up wondering where I was.

Later, in the shower, while counting the tiles on the wall, still somewhat confused, I thought about my nationality and the effect it might have on my identity. I asked myself if my geographical place of birth is a required part of my identity or if it merely helped me to form an identity.

If I was old enough to let go of this bizarre attachment to be myself without the luggage that had been given to me when I was born there by pure chance. Staying in the air might not be such a bad idea after all, unless I ran out of kerosene.

Hope you are fine! - Alexander

Shopping Window

Dear Heiko,

Working with concepts of different identities made me think about my own person, my reflection in the shopping window when quickly passing by, only seeing a ghostly image of myself, not really being able to identify anything but a blurry contour.

Feeling strangely comfortable with that self-image, I wondered if my persona is identical to my personality and if not, which one I should be identified by.

As more time I spend thinking about identities as blurrier the definition becomes, and maybe that is why the image I see in the shopping window is making perfect sense.

Hope you are fine!

Alexander

White Wall

Dear Anthony,

My sister used to sit on a large dark green leather sofa, staring at a freshly white painted wall for hours on end.

Naturally, everyone around her thought that she was behaving weird. But from adopting her technique I learned that it is much easier to achieve silence in my thoughts when looking at an empty surface than just closing my eyes.

After all, I don’t want to dream when I am trying to forget.

Hope you are fine!

Alexander

The Idea

Dear Talei,

Yesterday, just before falling asleep, while listening to the raindrops bouncing off the windows, I had this fabulous idea, an idea that would beat all the previous ideas. You know, the kind of idea that only comes once in a while, or maybe even once in a lifetime.

My eyes were closed and I could visualize letters being put into order to form words and sentences. Everything made sense, in fact, it was so exciting that I could not fall asleep before I got really comfortable with the idea of that idea.

The last conscious thought that night, immediately before diving into a pool of hand-picked cotton balls, was to get up and write it down. Today, it appears, that that would have been an even better idea!

I hope you’re fine! - Alexander

The Message

Dear Karin,

While waiting for life to continue during a power failure in the subway, I noticed the cellphone screen of a woman standing next to me lighting up.

She started writing the following text message: Dear Karin, I am sorry but I will be late for the meeting, please start without me, there seems to be a problem with the train. See you soon… Just when she was about to send this message she changed it into: Karin, I’ll be late, subway is stuck, start without me… Hesitating for a minute she edited it yet one more time and ended up writing: I’ll be late, problem with subway!

I wonder what made her change the message from what she initially wanted to write to what she thought she had to write. Well, now you know :)

Hope you are fine! - Alexander

Atoms

Dear Giovanni,

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine about the purpose of getting up in the morning. This is not to be confused with the meaning of life, even if the two questions seem to have a lot in common. She was asking for my opinion as I had a sip of wine, which gave me enough time to think while the flavors of the grapes were unfolding on my tongue.

Looking at myself as a construct of a near endless amount of cells, molecules, and atoms made me realize that the only reason I could taste the wine was because all of these were interacting with each other. Suddenly I thought that even if the meaning of each single atom appears to be insignificant, the sum of them seems to want to taste, smell, hear, feel and see their surroundings. And the only way they can do so is by coexisting. So, getting up in the morning is not just about me and my existence, but about giving trillions of little atoms the chance of having the time of their life.

Hope you are fine! - Alexander

P.S. A body consists of about 7x10^27 atoms.

Half Empty

Dear Jack,

Today is a typical glass-half-empty day, even though it’s almost full. So I took another sip, placed it back on the wooden table in front of me and considered the missing part as something that has been removed to make space for something new.

When I drank about half of the glass, by the way it was a Latte Macchiato, which makes judging the real volume of the drink a bit more difficult because of the foamed milk, I started reflecting on the whole half empty, half full issue.

Here is the thing: If you start with an empty glass and fill it to the middle, it will be half full. If you start with a full glass and empty half of it, it will be half empty. Considering this, a half empty glass is much more interesting than a half full one, simply because it was probably full at some point and you actually got to enjoy half of it. Issue solved.

Hope you are fine! - Alexander

Being Alone

Dear Carola,

The perfect place to be, a croissant, a cup of coffee and not a soul around, I thought, when suddenly another person entered the room and sat down a few tables away from me at the other end of the rather tiny room.

The simple presence of that being distorted my thoughts so much that I had to stop thinking whatever I had been thinking about. Even though I knew that I was there, I did not feel consciously present until another person confirmed my presence and enabled me to construct a sense of my individual self.

So, if I want to be by myself, I evidently need others around me to understand that I am when being with myself. In other words, it’s impossible to be alone.

Wish you a nice midsummer! - Alexander

Heights

Dear Ali,

Because the summer is still around the corner it’s raining today. While I was waiting for the red light turning green, I noticed a deep puddle just next to my feet. It had the same black colour as the surrounding wet asphalt, looked disturbingly evil and reminded me of a scary small lake I once encountered while aimlessly walking in the Alps.

Suddenly, I wondered why I’m so afraid of depths but not of heights. In a way, they both seem to be about the same thing, the distance between me and the ground below, until I noticed that heights provide you with a view while depths limit your sight.

Not being able to see beyond things scares me. Limits in general are frightening. Maybe that is why I am claustrophobic too…

Hope everything is fine with you! - Alexander

Barista

Dear Claire,

Just when I was listening to Larry Lessing’s lecture on TED I realized that I will have to find a new place to have my morning coffee. It all began yesterday when the new barista started talking to me. Not just the regular and often welcoming small talk, but a real conversation! Now I feel guilty every time I walk in there and don’t want to talk to her.

It’s just like when you look out the window and make eye contact with your neighbor from across the street. You would never wave to that person because this would lead to impossible future situations. There are moments when one wants to be ignored, as ironic that might sound.

Let’s have tea sometime soon!

Alexander