Britta's Letters from her life divided between city-life in German's capital Berlin and life in a Bavarian village

Tuesday 24 March 2020

With your help I used my sense

I am glad.
Glad for your empathy, for a very good advice, and for having learned something.

Thank you, my brave blogger friends with all my heart for that!


In a Russian fairy tale someone says: "The morning is wiser than the evening" (maybe it is the other way round - but that doesn't matter much, it makes sense in both ways).

I asked myself a few questions. I used my brains. I slept over it. Wondered about myself, especially as I had just quoted in a manuscript for a new book the German philosopher, Friedrich Schlegel (1772 - 1829). He treats hurtful remarks like a sort of unwelcome gifts :

"It is impossible to give offence to someone if he doesn't want to take it."

I asked myself why I am evidently unable to follow my own given advices - and remembered Rousseau: "A signpost doesn't have to walk." The flowers on my balcony are unimpressed.

Maybe I thought anger a way to channel my fear about our "interesting times" - fear for all people, not only the triplets - into another direction?
But that is not my way to handle fear.
I removed my post.

Your kind words helped me immensely - thank you for that! 





11 comments:

  1. Some long time ago, I decided never to respond to an insult with an apology. I learn here that Herr Schlegel preceded me with a more comprehensive axiom. I learn here all the time, dear Brigitta. Thank you!

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    1. Dear Geo., that is a very good strategy that I will remember, thank you! I learn a lot from you, Geo.!

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  2. I would do well to remember Wittgenstein's words "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". A new day today Britta and we move on. xx

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    1. Yes, dear Rachel - and I would have been happy if the commentator had read Wittgenstein too!
      A new bright sunny day, today - though most of us sit inside, so moving is a bit difficult :-) But I do them indoors, my 10.000 steps per day (honestly). Stay healthy! XX

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  3. Dear Britta - life for us all just now feels totally unreal, but I think about all of those caring people who are working day and night out there on the front line - our doctors, nurses, and countless others. They are putting their own health and that of their families at risk for everyone else. Mean minded people are not worthy of either our time or our attention whatsoever.

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    1. Dear Rosemary, I am so full of admiration for all those people who carry on with their work to help, surrounded by real danger. And we are all so angry that even for them there are not enough protective masks and suits - it is really horrible. In some front gardens in our street people have put up signs with thank-you-notes - also for the geriatric nurses who come into the apartments to help the old and very lonely ones.
      For me it is a wonderful proof that most men and woman are downright good.

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  4. Strange times. I think they are going to get stranger.

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    1. Dear Tom, yes - that might (and will) happen. Depends on the time they need to stop that virus - but even then: our sight of the world will have changed.

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  5. It is very easy for me to identify with the pain that this remark has caused you, during a time of anxiety any criticism of who you are or who you represent is superfluous, and smart people would avoid it.

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    1. Dear Yael, you cannot imagine how much I am touched by your kind words! I thank you so much for them, also for those from yesterday, they made me sleep much better!

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