People think the more money you have the happier you will be.
After a certain level of stability more money does not bring happiness.
Freedom brings happiness.
To have the freedom to make personal decisions in your life the way you see fit, that is happiness..
To choose where and how to contribute to people and society and have satisfaction out of your contribution, that is happiness.
To love and be loved by people of your choice, that is happiness.
To earn your own money and have access to education and career opportunities, that is happiness. Continue reading happiness needs freedom→
Our planet earth is breathtakingly beautiful.
From the clouds that form in amazing formations, the oceans, nature, trees, plants, flowers, rain and animals everything around us is stunningly beautiful.
And we can breathe here.
But most of us don’t notice it.
We are too busy thinking we are the center of the universe – in our lives, in our groups and in our societies.
This is a reminder. Continue reading planet earth is our spaceship→
San Francisco is full of very steep hills.
In the last few years skaters have started barreling down these steep hills without stopping.
From top to bottom.
Even though there is a 4 way stop sign at every intersection!
The other day my friend’s car was hit by a skater speeding down 18th Street, one of the steepest longest hills.
He rolled off the front of her car.
The ambulance took him to the emergency hospital as he was bragging to his fellow skaters how fast he was going and how skillfully he rolled off the car. Continue reading Skaters are risking their lives by choice→
When movies and TV have found a success formula like action movies they are exploiting it to the bitter end.
And since it is the same “storyline” every time it has to get more violent, more bloody and more abusive.
More guns
More blood
More violence
More car chases
More helpless women to be rescued
More extreme everything Continue reading blood, guns and car chases→
There is a big difference between breaking a rule and a basic wrong.
If you are not supposed to be make a turn on a red light and
you do it anyway, that is breaking a rule.
If you try to deliberately harm another person that is a basic wrong.
Even kids know that difference.
It is the primal ethical structure on which common decency
is built.
And it is in our collective genetics.
It comes with our human structure. Continue reading Difference between breaking rules and basic wrong→
When I came here from Europe so many years ago I was puzzled.
I had to choose into what race/ethnicity category I would fit:
White
Black or African American
American Indian
Asian
Hispanic or Latino etc.
I had never identified myself by a color or a category.
And it wouldn’t have been white.
German or maybe, possibly, European by a long shot.
I have never felt comfortable choosing the “White” category.
It has made no sense to me. Continue reading Who the hell is “white”?→
We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more… Albert Camus
There never has been real justice for all. Good attempts, yes.
But real justice has eluded us.
How to have justice for all in practice?
In theory it is all nice and we think we should be full of love until we run into the next upset, the next outrage and the next disappointment.
Is voting alone going to fix the hatred that has been spread?
Not at all. Continue reading Make justice imaginable→
I am sitting on a bench at the Embarcadero. At the spur of the moment I had parked in South Beach. Behind me a steady stream of traffic goes by. People are out, strolling. It is a rare sunny spring-summer day in San Francisco. The bay is calm and intensely blue. A huge ocean liner stacked with containers 6 high hustles under the Bay Bridge on the way to the open ocean. Continue reading sitting on the dock of the bay→
“Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down on their level and beat you with experience.” Mark Twain
“How can you, for example, discuss anything with a “Flat-Earther?”
That would be the extreme.
And yet, many people don’t know how to discuss anymore.
Quite often there is no desire to have an exchange of opinions to learn from each other. Continue reading discussions versus battles→
If you are living at the poverty line you will be happy for every
extra dollar that comes your way.
But once you are in the higher income brackets the connection between every extra dollar and happiness starts to diminish proportionally. Continue reading Money and happiness→