Pattern Recognition

In Estonia [Older Fragment]

2008-04-23T02:13:00.006+02:00

I’m reading the mails of my team, as if this was any other evening in my life, as if it didn’t matter anymore where or with whom I was – only determined by and limited to what I had taken on as a responsibility. I watch the snowflakes dance and listen to Marjams voice telling a fairytale to her son in a language I will never understand.

We had talked about happiness, about ambition, about ability and how life can sometimes cross your plans and throw you offtrack in a way that you will never be the same person again. Her tea tasted like sun while outside winter was claiming the city.

It will be... right?

2008-01-28T00:21:00.000+01:00

Early bird

2008-01-08T09:53:00.000+01:00

As I recently went to extremes in my over a decade established habit to go to bed later and later and coming to the conclusion that 10 AM is NOT a time to go to bed and 3.30 PM NOT a time to get up, I decided to break my habit by force and skip a night of sleep in order to be so tired that I will be able to comply to a normal time schedule.

So, after almost falling asleep over an important mail, unable to grasp my own sentences, opening my eyes and figuring out that half of the mail contains the phrase "öööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööö" because I my hand rested there when my eyes closed last, I close my laptop at exactly 10 PM and set my alarm clock to a reasonable time, providing enough recovery from the lack of one night of sleep and getting me up early enough for starting a nice early day. I immediately fall asleep.

When I open my eyes again I'm immediately awake.
I lie there for a moment, unable to believe this feeling even though just having slept. It is still dark outside. I'm confused about what to do.
"Well", I think, "take the chance or let it be" and have a look at the time.
It's exactly 5.30 AM. I had slept exactly 7,5 hours.
I remember studies saying that a sleeping phase takes 1,5 hours and I'm astonished by this exact compliance of my body.
"Hm", I think and don't know what to do.
It's too early to start working on anything or going to the office, too early to eat breakfast, too late to chat with anybody and I don't have any kind of morning practise in that term, too cold to go running. So I decide reading a bit, while observing myself and looking for signs of being only accidentally and temporarily in such a fresh state.
I'm not very concentrated.

After an hour of reading, I turn on my computer, check my mails, surf around in the internet, discover a new tool and play around with it a bit.

The first light of the morning crawls over the roof of the Cathederal of St. Stephan that I can see from my window. Usually that is a sign for me to hurry up finishing my stuff and going to bed. Now I'm confused experiencing the same sensation even though it's a new day.

A good friend is online. He writes "Early to bed, early to rise - keeps a man healthy, wealthy and wise". Let's see about that.

It's 7.30 when I decide to start the "real" day and go to have a shower. When I'm finished I meet my flatmate, who reacts with a tired and completely puzzled look to my cheerful "Good morning, Hannes! What a wonderful new day, eh?". I start talking about how good it is, to rise early, be a productive member of society and comply to the system with a slightly ironic undertone. After 15 minutes of doing so my flatmates says "I don't know, if it's really a good thing that you wake up so early..." and laughs.
I'm still confused about how to structure my day now. When should I eat? Obviously I needed to get back to the classical 3-meal-structure. When should I sleep? That is a harder question and I postpone answering it to the evening.

When I arrive at the office at 8.45 there is nobody there. Of course.
I always enjoy working alone in the nights, now I experience the same for the morning. I thought it would be harder to get myself into this.
The doorbell rings, the post-woman gives me a letter. She also looks a bit surprised. Then she asks "Are you always here at that time of the day?". "Well, from 10 AM onwards we should be here, but I'm here a bit earlier today." I say and smile.

I sit down at my desk and greet the new working day.
My alarm clock rings. It was set to 9 AM.
I smile and start working.

Against the pride of the titans

2007-12-14T00:19:00.000+01:00

He sat at his desk as he had sat at the table in his classroom back then when the world was not bigger than the small town he had lived in somewhere in the countryside.
There were several piles of papers without any significant mark of order spread around his laptop before him, which might have been of importance - or not.
He was sitting slackly in his chair, the hands resting on the keyboard of his notebook - ready to send out whatever thought worthwile sharing struck his mind.
But he did not feel like there was anything worthwile in his head. Instead he felt a faint echo of the restlessness that smote him from time to time ever since the big doubts had been muted by a dull aloofness whose nature he could neither name nor grasp.
He was reading an e-mail explaining in an angry, imperious style what he needed to improve at something he had written the day before. Most of the points were at a closer look not really valid, but he opened the file and started making smaller adjustements.

[...]

He closed the mail and started gathering additional materials he would need to attach to the document. His movements were impassionate, his thoughts slow, as if they were making their way to his consciousness through thick mucus.
"Something is not ok", he thought and there was no concern in this thought. "There has to be a pattern", he tried to continue, "a pattern of being human, which needs to be identified in order to understand what is going on in my head". He thought of the connections in his head, of the constellation of experiences and their interpretation, of the neurological explanations for consciousness. There was the key, he told himself. It needs to be mapped out, he thought, thoroughly and completely, to be understood, to be made accessible, to make it applicable. "No", he heard his voice, while focussed again on his task , "No, that is not important right now. That is not priority. It does not bring you nearer to the goals you are pursuing, the goals you set by dedicating yourself towards what you are doing right now." He dimly felt how the thought vanished with the awkward feeling of resentment against the inaccessible depth it had conveyed. He did not feel like chasing the ghosts of possible interconnections in the world. There was not the time for digging into the unknown.
He suddenly sat straight. What had he just thought?
If one would have looked into his eyes, he would have seen his usual glance of incomprehensible perceptiveness just with a slight feature of looking inwards - but the sensation which he actually had was blank terror.
He had condemned curiosity and stopped digging deeper where he would have needed to use the sharpness of his mind and not just his intuition. He had denied the possibility of a new knowledge for the sake of focussing on what he was told was absolutely necessary for success.
Success of what?
He rose from his chair and started packing his belongings as if he was trying to escape not from his desk but from something it represented. "Something is wrong", he repeated over and over again in his mind, "Something is terribly wrong!".

[...]

Do schools today kill creativity?

2007-09-20T15:04:00.001+02:00

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize - much less cultivate - the talents of many brilliant people.

Some Quotes:
"We are educating people out of their creativity"

"Children are not afraid to be wrong. Allow me to say that being wrong is the same as being creative. What we do know is that if you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with something original. By the time children become adults they are frightened to be wrong"

"All educational systems came into being to meet the need of industrialism"

"Many highly talented, brilliant highly creative people think they are not. Because they think what they were good at at school wasn't valued or was actually stigmatised. And I think we can't afford to go on that way"

Status Report

2007-09-08T00:19:00.000+02:00

Despite original assumptions, extensive tests throughout the last few years couldn't proof the possession of any supernatural powers.
The experiment will be continued until final conclusions can be made.

A new morning

2007-08-05T05:39:00.000+02:00

As the first light of the morning starts banishing the darkness of the night, the battle is over.
"For years I have waited for this moment!" he says and I can almost feel his invisible grim smile.
"Just look into your heart. Just read everything you wrote in the past years - It was there all along!
In your dreams you tore apart what they made you do!
The thousand faces in your stories all belong to the same hero you want to become!
You always knew it.
Listen to my words!
Your time is now!
You are ready!"

I don't feel ready.
I feel sad.
My hands glide over my face as if they want to take of a mask. Or put one on.

He is right.
The sun rises and blinds me as I welcome the new morning.
I don't shed a tear, although I feel like doing so.

My time is now.

Grown up

2007-07-17T01:40:00.000+02:00

I stare at the screen and wait for the download to finish.

It is late. It is night. I had hoped that with the darkness also ease would come from the boiling heat. I was wrong.
I stare at the screen and think about what there is still left to do for this night. I did not allow myself a break and yet the breaks sneaked in from the backdoor and sabotaged my efforts for today. I live on my own, far away from home. I have a job and I’m even my own boss there. I’m independent.

I have grown up.

I am aware of how things get more serious. And with the seriousness come rules and structures, guidelines and processes, power and weakness, judgement and justice. My work has an impact. You could argue how big it is, but you cannot argue that it has some.

Sometimes cannot feel the seriousness.

Then I feel something between serenity and indifference, a state between feeling omniscient and lost.

I am independent. I am grown up. I am growing up. This seems to be a part of it. I am on my own. I am the one to contain my wandering spirit. To cast into the mere unbreakable armour and weapon of adulthood that have been promised to me by everybody and everything.

Yet – for the moment it is too hot to do it.

And I am stuck to the screen. Stuck to some deeper concept it represents. Something it seems to catalyze.

I silently count the seconds until the “Finished” sign pops up. Then I turn off the computer and open the window. I cannot feel the cold wind I expected. No ease for the sweating soul.

I take the money out of my pocket and put on my shoes. The light-switch is warm as everything else is. I open the door of my flat.

The sound of the closing door echoes through the darkness of the staircase. For a moment I feel all the fears of my childhood forming schemes in the blackness before me. I slowly go down the stairs, my hand at the stairrail. My steps echo in the ghostly blackness. I am alone. I am on my own. Nothing lights my way. It feels good.

As I leave the house, I can’t sense any difference in temperature.

Where should I go? The unknown ways as I always love to do? Or a quick walk around the block, where everything is secure?

I still have a lot of work to do. Just quickly clear my mind.

I take the known way to the left and listen to the sounds of the night. Everything is calm. I hear the sound of a cricket like the ones I heard in Italy and Greece. Everything is clear. What should be seen is enlightened, what should not be seen remains in darkness. This is the world of the grownups. I pass the supermarket and let its unusual peace sink in for a moment. The fastfood restaurant up the street is about to close and serving its last costumers – a group of Chinese girls. I try to find some trees to feel home, but at the one I find there is a group of shady looking guys waiting for something I don’t want to know.

Then I am home.

It was a quick round. Too quick, I decide and take the one street I haven’t explored yet. After 5 minutes I find a tiny playground that is hidden between the big houses. It lies in darkness. No place for grownups during day and no place to be at night.

I examine the playground in silent awe without knowing why.

As I enter it I can see the few toys it has. If this place inbetween urbanity really would make children happy?

I sit down on the swing. My shoulders are much too broad for it.

I loved it when I was a child. I could swing for hours, feeling the wind, feeling like a bird, dreaming away until my mother called me for dinner. My shoulders seem to have become to broad for flying – and they didn’t grow wings.

I start swinging a bit and remember how fascinated I was by the rapid change of perspective I could experience when I put all my strength into carrying me up into the air. Ground from above, heaven from below and inbetween a blast of impressions. I always jumped off from the highest point when I finished. I felt free.

I don’t jump off the swing. I simply get up and walk over to the little wooden castle in the middle of the playground. “My castle”, I think and grope up the little ladder to the platform on top of it. “I’m the king of the hill!” I soberly note without any irony. I don’t smile. I always took these kind of games deadly serious. Often even more serious then I took what other told me to take serious. In these games, I was always the leader of my team.

But they all grew up. They all started caring about more important things. Good grades. Good careers. Important organisations. Powerful companies. Serious things.

Sometimes I ask myself if they really left the little castle we used to play in.

But now I have grown up. I’m not anymore the boy with the tousled blond hair and the thousand unrealistic, visionary ideas. I’m not anymore the child living in wondrous worlds far away from reality. I worked hard to ground myself in reality. I shaped my behaviour so that I would not need to stay in hidden isolation any longer. I still wrestle with myself and my creativity to streamline it and channel it towards what I was expecting myself to work hard for. Every day is a struggle for integrating myself into this world.

I grew up.

Didn’t I?

I enjoy the darkness and silence of the playground. While I examine the sandbox from above, I remember the a question my former flatmate asked me once “How can you be so incredibly childish and mature at the same time?”. I don’t remember, what I answered to her. I only remember how I often started my epic projects in sandboxes, digging deeper and deeper, digging through the sandbox, through the normal ground below it until my little shovel was broken by the big stones in the soil.

I didn’t take a watch with me. But I know I wanted to get one step further towards being an strong and able adult today. There is around half an hour left. As always I will start the coming day with doing what is supposed to bring me nearer to it. I will grow up a little bit more. Like all the others did.

I ask myself if I’m on the right track, while I glide down the slide of the castle. The hair of my arms charges with electricity from rubbing against the plastic.

Maybe we understood wrongly, what growing up means.

Morning Glory

2007-07-02T05:12:00.000+02:00

As I watch the sunrise, I think to myself: "What a great time for getting up and starting the day!"
It is the moment I'm going to bed.
My working times are really screwed up.

They are to blame!

2007-06-27T01:06:00.000+02:00

Rick Cotton, one of NBC Universals CEOs recently made an interesting point about what evil movie piracy does to the world:

"Because of our nation’s interlocking economy, two-thirds of the lost earnings and lost jobs are in industries other than motion picture production. For example, in the absence of movie piracy, video retailers would sell and rent more titles. Movie theatres would sell more tickets and popcorn. Corn growers would earn greater profits and buy more farm equipment."

In other words: Movie piracy is to blame for farmers not getting the hard-earned money they deserve.
Or interpreting it on a bigger scale: Movie piracy is responsible for curbing economic growth of ALL sectors - the service sector (movie theatres), the agricultural sector (corn growers), the industrial sector (farm equipment) and in the possible infinitive extension of the above statement a good financial state of every single individual (farm equipping industry employs people, who buy all kind of stuff, and the industry itself needs ressources and the providers of these ressources again need other things).
Damn these movie pirates!

Not that I want to say that piracy is a ethically good thing, but my point is that these kind of seemingly logical argumentations are able to twist our image of reality to an extent dangerously near to brainwashing (or probably it already is, eh?), without really providing a more un-biased view on reality. They are merely manipulation tools to serve the purpose (in this case assumably money/power) of the one using them.

"Ah, it's obvious, don't be a smartass!", you say?

Well... In fact, we face these kind of manipulations every day and often in a much more subtle way, unconsciously forming tiny points of view, gradually influencing our perceptions and over time adding up to a completely artificially shaped set of worldviews, principles and even values originally not having been our own ones.

We are exposed to mostly monocausally built curriculums where everything is in place, makes sense, will work. And to make it even harder to see this, questioning is even allowed and encouraged. But what kind of "challenging" questions are we getting in our courses? What kind of answers are given to us? Everything has to take place within a certain frame and follow a certain order.

The real revolutionary questions and ideas are often punished with the argument of not fitting into the frame, of being inappropriate, of being illogical.
And at that point, almost nobody dares (or is even able) to question the very fundamental paradigms constituting this "logic" and gives in to what is in place for him to think. Almost nobody undertakes the dangerous adventure to challenge seemingly fundamental parts of his own assumed identity. Almost nobody wants to risk the basics of his existence (as for example an university title or a seemingly highly desirable position would be) by deconstructing what lies within them.

Well, lets turn the tables for our little example.
If more movies were pirated, people would have more money available that they would have spent for the movies. They would go out to eat more often and better food. So farmers would sell more of their products and would have more money for their farming equipment.
In other words: The movie industry is to blame for farmers not getting the hard-earned money they deserve. Tschakka!

Now, who is to blame?
And who dares to really think deeper than we are supposed to think?

Source: Public Knowledge

Ordinary day II

2007-05-23T23:45:00.000+02:00

Today I tried to show my flatmate how we could improve our dish-washing problem by the means of a SWOT-analysis. She was not very excited about the different solutions I presented here based on a case study about different scenarios of exponential dish-usage, outlining different economic concepts applicable in the particular situation and finally ended the conversation by slamming the door of her room in my face.

Where is it?

2007-05-02T01:16:00.000+02:00

"Is it in your heart?" they asked
"I don't know!" I replied as I listened still
"When it is in your heart, you have to act it out!" they said
And I looked at my heart as I started to act

"Is it in your heart?" they asked
"It is!" I replied
"When it is in your heart, you have to act it out!" they said
And I acted it out and it was in my heart.

"Is it in your heart?" they asked
"It is!" I replied as I acted it out
"If it is in your heart, you have to act it out!" they said
And I acted it out and it was in my heart

"Is it in your heart?" they asked
"It is!" I replied as I acted it out
"If it is in your heart, you have to act it out!" they said
And I looked at my heart and faltered

"Is it in your heart?" they asked
"It was!" I replied as I looked at my heart
"If it was in your heart, it is still there!" they said
And I looked at my heart and came to a halt

"Is it in your heart?" they asked
"I don't know!" I replied as I listened still
"When it is in your heart, you have to act it out!" they said
And I looked at my heart
And I saw
It was there
When I acted it out

And I looked at my heart
And I saw
It was lost
When I stopped to act it out

Tribute

2007-04-18T03:45:00.000+02:00

Although I learn a lot about myself, develop skills and discover other sides of my personality since I'm in AIESEC, over the last couple of months I increasingly have the terrifying feeling that I'm more and more losing wit and ingenuity. My thoughts seem be less and less outstanding, my ideas less and less brilliant and my communication with other people losing more and more the esprit and depth it had 2 years ago.

I'm not quite sure about the reasons for that development and if it is something temporary or a dangerous development. Some of the possible reasons I could identify right now are:

- I don't anymore take time to read complex (philosophical) texts and books
- I don't really take time to think through and write down own complex ideas (like e.g. when I tried to develop processes and systems to permeate and change society on a multi-level basis)
- I don't anymore try to start discussions out of sporty passion for discussing and I don't try to win discussions just for fun
- I cut down all my other activities (that have always been very diverse) which lead to a loss of a lot of different sources for different world-views, mental challenges and new ideas
- I don't sleep as much as I did before and sometimes find myself in a terribly tired state during the days
- Although some parts of my AIESEC activities need a higher level of thinking most of them relies on skills and not on wit and ingenuity right now

My tribute.
Need to change it.

Being fate

2007-03-10T01:08:00.000+01:00

During the past months I consciously started to learn what it means to really accept fate.
Today I took a lesson about what it means to be fate.

Out of the applicants for the leadership-body of AIESEC in Austria I chose one person to accompany me and the rest of the already built team for the next year starting in July, providing this person with a unique and most likely life-changing experience. Probably for the first time in my life I intensely felt what it means to decide upon the future of somebody else.

I was afraid of announcing my decision and telling the ones I didn't take.
In the moment of power I only felt the weight of responsibility for the lives of these people. I only saw the crossroad in their lives and me being the one deciding which way they would have to take.
As hard as it was starting to accept fate for myself - accepting the fact that I will have to take tough decisions about the life and fate of others is harder than I thought.

When will be the time I have to decide upon life or death of the ones I love?
Even if I wish decisions like that will never be necessary to make, I have to prepare myself for them.
What more important is there about leadership than being able to take the toughest decisions while keeping your heart, your mind and your sanity?

Playing fate

2007-03-09T22:50:00.000+01:00

When he was a little boy he always wanted to change other peoples lives.
It was not about helping them or destroying them, it was just about seeing and feeling that he mattered in the world. Probably it was the wish to feel himself by being recognised by others and even imprinting his identity on theirs.
He imagined wonderful worlds in which he was valiant hero and evil villain aswell - facing incredible challenges and fighting in epic battles. He lived a whole life in these mirror-worlds, in which all the people he knew and encountered were present as they were present in his real life.
Seldom he found a link between these worlds and ours. Seldom he found a fellow which he was able to spark to discover the dream-realities with him. Only in games and plays one could see tremendous fires enlightening the dreamy eyes of this little boy.
Oh, what a joyful life he lived, forging his identity in a world not meant to be.

Years passed by and society started making demands.
And the more he was pushed into the harsh reality in which he was nothing more but a small boy within the hundreds at his school, in which he was nothing more but a single human within the billions on the world, the more he built up resistance against this world in which he was about to lose himself.
But the more he had to discover this new old world, the more he became aware of another side of his personality: Over the years he had developed the ability to drag others into the dream-worlds that slowly started merging with the real one.
He discovered the feeling of having power over others.
And he felt how much this bittersweet emotion was amplified by carrying it over from a hypothetical dream into reality.
He started experimenting with merging different realities and different dream-worlds and explored different methods to expose them to other humans.
He figured out that they all secretly wanted to live in their own dream-worlds, but that most of them lost the memory of these dreams and the ability to create and manifest them in reality. They all wanted to feel themselves. They all wanted to see and feel themselves being present in a common world. They all wanted to be. Every movement was an expression of this wish to be oneself. Every action originated from the will to carve ones identity into reality.
There was no reality, there was only the convergence of individual dream-worlds, clashing and mingling at their borders, creating a fragile common world.

After having lived so long in his worlds that were not meant to be he hungered for carving himself into reality, for carving himself deeply into the souls of others, making them part of himself, letting him become the hero, the center of everything.
He hungered for becoming the whole, the everlasting, the almighty. He hungered for becoming god - the ultimate self.
By understanding this underlying pattern, he unfolded the ability to alter the streams of reality to a certain extent and to dance in the complex webs of the interwoven dream-worlds.

Yet - something was wrong.
As he tried to play fate he missed the fact that he was not in his former dream-worlds anymore.
He saw the people around him as mere functions of himself, as manifested thoughts and images. He played fate without knowing what this really meant.

He failed.

He grew up.
He failed several times.

Years later he realized that playing fate is easy when the world is only yourself. But this is not how it works. This is not how you can change the world.

Ordinary day I

2007-03-07T00:25:00.000+01:00

Today I showed my flatmate with a knife and a paper-bag what I will do to her, if she keeps bugging me this week with household-tasks.
My finger bled for approximately an hour.

Like back in these days

2007-03-05T00:22:00.000+01:00

Like back in these days when I started running again at night. When I tried to explore the outskirts of the city on the third day, running through unkown streets, passing strange houses, freeing my mind from the old, from the garbage with which I burdened my mind that day – as I always did these times. Plaguing my mind with chaos, bombing it with random information. I ran through the alien streets, freeing my mind from the chains, digging it up from the noise in my head. For hours I ran, losing myself in the alien streets, losing my mind in the depth of reflection, not remembering myself, not remembering the way I came from. Not allowing myself to ask for the way, searching for clues by myself. For hours I ran through the outskirts, never daring to stop, ignoring the red traffic lights, risking myself, but not giving up. Running through the rain and enjoying the ache, the coldness, the moistness, enjoying that I felt - my environment, felt myself. Finding familiarity, finding the way, feeling the urge to go slower, but going faster, not stopping, not letting the adversities overcome my will. Realizing, what covers my thought, realizing future events. The goal in sight. Stumbling a last time when hearing the moaning from windows above. Home.

Home, finally I’m home…

Glimpse of a legislation

2007-02-26T04:00:00.000+01:00

7.a.4. the allocation of the fund is decided by... and shall not exceed.

7.a.5 any report...

“Proposal to speak?”

Proposal?

Silence. Murmur. “Well, it refers to actually having... “

Silence.

“Who is the proposer?”

Proponent?

AI.

Another piece of paper. To the US. Pass it on.

“Discussion for? Discussion against? General discussion?”

Silence.

“France and Bulgaria. Before that, there is a point of order from Colombia.”

Colombia.

AI. “Well, if somebody of the finance committee wants to talk about that?”

Another piece of paper. CEE. Who rocks the house? A bit sad comments on that one.

“I think AIESEC will be thinking about expanding to all these countries. It will allow the leadership of AIESEC at that time to...”

“Bene, we will have to pay that amount of money for it.“

Our money for that?

“Nothing is stopping us in five years to reallocate...”

“Can we put this to vote?”

“Votes for”. Double counters. Almost run into each other. Bit laughing.

More laptops open. More msn-requests pop up on the screen.

“Votes against?”

“Abstentions?”

The motion is carried.

“Before we go on I want to clarify something. If you do this, you will...”

CC-member watching through window of the door.

“Next motion...”

“Hinnerk, how do we vote?” Show the thumb. Nodding.

Acclamation? Acclamation. Passed.

Another MSN-request.

Tired look from Netherland elect. Smile. Smile back. Blink.

Another msn-request.

Wait...

“Point of information from AIESEC in Germany, then AIESEC in Croatia comes”

A chat window openes. 20 elects in one chat.

nida sagt (22:57):

where's peter?

Alchy; Apply for MC in Croatia - Currently at ILM on IPM sagt (22:57):

yea?

René - In Egypt at IPM - Yeah welcome to global legislation!!! sagt (22:57):

what do you think about tis motion?

Bene sagt (22:57):

over there

Bene sagt (22:57):

which motion?

Alchy; Apply for MC in Croatia - Currently at ILM on IPM sagt (22:57):

do not support it

“Point of information by AIESEC in Germany”

What does “willing” mean?

Current MCPs look at us suspiciously.

Left to me a download program is being runned. Porn?

Right side: Solitaire.

nida sagt (22:58):

i think it might make expansions too dependent..

Ivo - Excited in Global Legislation sagt (22:58):

so don't worry

Bene sagt (22:59):

we cannot force them to do it

Bene sagt (22:59):

countries

Emad - Global Legislation - Blogging Live from IPM! http://mcpakistan.nomadlife.org sagt (22:59):

I need a haircut

Bene sagt (22:59):

or can we?

SebastiánB// In Global Legislation!! MC0708 in Southern Cone !!! sagt (22:59):

Me too

Expanding countries could get lazy. A good argument?

Shadow discussion. Shadow plenary. Multi-tasking. Confusion.

“How does AIESEC International plan to inform the global plenary after...”

The shadow plenary goes down.

Major paper piece movements. Russia, Romania, Scandis, Afrikans, Slovakia, Thailand, ...

“AIESEC in Italy have you readied your amendment?”

People get more uncomfortable. More coughing. Mobile phone signal in the speakers.

Germany speaking.

Right side

Italy presents amendment.

AIESEC in Ghana.

“If the application is not approved...”

Ghana curiously looks to chair. Holds micro to side, into face of Germany. Germany appals.

Bene sagt (23:09):

Nevertheless I think such a fund is a good idea.

Wraith - In EGYPT at IPM sagt (23:09):

I agree

-= Toni =- sagt (23:10):

for those cy's who have enough money there's not such a big issue!

Andries - IPM in Egypt - global legislation eh! sagt (23:10):

agree. Have lost track of the arguments, and it's becoming ... messy. Hope they will either move on or vote.

Andries - IPM in Egypt - global legislation eh! sagt (23:10):

true.

Karinchiks sagt (23:10):

i agree

Aidy! Empowered by Excellence! sagt (23:10):

$#%^&*()(

Run Ryan, carry over the micro.
”Run Ryan! Run!”

Spain gives strange signs to some country after the letter O. He wants to smoke?

“AIESEC in Canada, do you understand the motion or should it read out again?”

Bene sagt (23:14):

AIESEC in Germany is e.g. able to set up funding on its own

Hajo - IPM 07 - Global Legislation - Where is the process? sagt (23:14):

And me!

Hajo - IPM 07 - Global Legislation - Where is the process? sagt (23:14):

yeah, never thought about that ;-9

Bene sagt (23:14):

amendment sounds good

René - In Egypt at IPM - Yeah welcome to global legislation!!! sagt (23:14):

for the next letters I take 1 pound per passing! and then we can order pizza from the money!

Wraith - In EGYPT at IPM sagt (23:14):

FUCK i AM GOING TO THE FROOOOOOOOOOOOOONT

nida sagt (23:15):

lol

Bene sagt (23:15):

I'll win the finish-time bet

nida sagt (23:15):

kill suchitt!!

Aidy! Empowered by Excellence! sagt (23:15):

Yeah right

Andries - IPM in Egypt - global legislation eh! sagt (23:15):

well, regarding the quantity vs quality argument, this motion should be amended with a "governance & accountability" criteria that is more specific. However, this should be done by IC '07, so it can pass through legislation talks.

Distraction. Germany looks puzzled. Guy right to me plays solitaire.

Focusing on chatting.

Emad - Global Legislation - Blogging Live from IPM! http://mcpakistan.nomadlife.org sagt (23:22):

ok.. im about to get pissed off with this mindless mindlessness

Bene sagt (23:22):

after nigeria the battery went down

Bene sagt (23:23):

I don't think its mindless

Bene sagt (23:23):

its democrazy

Bene sagt (23:23):

and a bit technocrazy

Jo - MC Pakistan // MCPe AIESEC Sweden - The Big Night is here: Global Legislation!! sagt (23:23):

what is the discussion about right now anyway?

René - In Egypt at IPM - Yeah welcome to global legislation!!! sagt (23:23):

I just have CEE contacts started, but some time ago a laptop passed...

monica sagt (23:23):

how woud you defineit my friend/

Emad - Global Legislation - Blogging Live from IPM! http://mcpakistan.nomadlife.org sagt (23:23):

i love that my country does not have a democracy!

“Can we pass this by acclamation?”

We can! Slight excitement.

Was just an amendment.

Hajo - IPM 07 - Global Legislation - Where is the process? sagt (23:25):

great. Now I have to listen and smile

Bene sagt (23:25):

you don't smile Hajo

AIESEC overshadows ist der Unterhaltung hinzugefügt worden.

nida sagt (23:25):

lol

nida sagt (23:25):

yeah hajo - you dont smile

MCP - Norway - Magnus - at IPM sagt (23:25):

welcome denmark

Bene sagt (23:25):

SMILE, baby!

Hajo smiles. Spain makes strange signs again.

“Point 7.9.5...”

Right side: Minesweeper. Left side: Mails.

“Votes for?”

Looks good.

Andries - IPM in Egypt - global legislation eh! sagt (23:27):

it's passed I guess!

Aidy! Empowered by Excellence! sagt (23:27):

finally

Hajo - IPM 07 - Global Legislation - Where is the process? sagt (23:27):

vote

nida sagt (23:28):

i'd say 3 hours left

-= Toni =- sagt (23:28):

yey!

Ivo - Excited in Global Legislation sagt (23:28):

rest is easy

Ivo - Excited in Global Legislation sagt (23:28):

Alchy; Apply for MC in Croatia - Currently at ILM on IPM sagt (23:28):

45 motions left

Oksana || Yella, Jordan! sagt (23:28):

congrats expansions!

Bunch of paper-pieces coming through.

“I think the motion is clear.”

Is it?

“Discussion against?” Yep.

“I think it would be a very irresponsible act, if we would..:”

Ryan walks and walks. The microphone goes and goes.

“... which is not true. An initiative needs to be created...”

Malta completely moved to the second row and makes some stretching excersises.

Dey. “This is not for AIESEC international!”

It is left to our hands.

“Votes for?”

“Votes against?”

“Abstentions?”

Our voting is ok up to now. No need to talk to my current.

Passed.

Half past eleven.

“We have internet?” I look at his screen. He made a mistake and clicked on a bomb.

Gabitza explains the motion.

Papers pass through. Serbia. Kyrgyzstan.

Gabitza explains.

Some people seem getting a bit unsettled.

“Didn’t we agree upon limiting speaking time to two minutes?”

“That’s right.” A flexible PAI. Very good.

Amendment. Postpone payment for one year.

Hinnerk turns around. “Do you agree on that?”

“On the tool funding yes, but what about that postponment?”

“So the countries can budget it.”

I nod. He turns back to the front.

Bene - legislation ninja sagt (23:50):

The global plenary is mandated to during the ILM at IPM 2007 thank Ryan for running around.

Bene - legislation ninja sagt (23:50):

I second it

Emad - Global Legislation - Blogging Live from IPM! http://mcpakistan.nomadlife.org sagt (23:50):

send to chair

Emad - Global Legislation - Blogging Live from IPM! http://mcpakistan.nomadlife.org sagt (23:50):

go go go!

Alchy; Apply for MC in Croatia - Currently at ILM on IPM sagt (23:50):

c'mon Belgium!!!!

nida sagt (23:50):

morocco was excited

Andries - IPM in Egypt - global legislation eh! sagt (23:50):

hmm, ok, better not. This is serious stuff and I tend to agree with my currenyt

Andries - IPM in Egypt - global legislation eh! sagt (23:50):

let's keep it as a running joke

Bene - legislation ninja sagt (23:50):

use the above text, otherwise it is too awkward

Andries - IPM in Egypt - global legislation eh! sagt (23:50):

just send a paper around the rows

nida sagt (23:50):

cmon?? fun motions are allowes

connection fails.

The CC obviously turned off the Wireless LAN. Damn whoever put that through that.

Procedural Motion. The motion should now be put to be voted on.

Voting on that voting.

“The motion is defeated”.

The wireless network is back.

Mohcine.....>>> MCP-e!!! sagt (23:58):

Let's implement the S-Form

Randomness.

-=SaNdY=- MC ViPER. Global Legislation. sagt (00:01):

hang on people. It's going to affect the elects term. So seriously, listen up here.

Bene - legislation ninja sagt (00:01):

If we get this thing (as a crucial module amongst the others) implemented, we will have an incredibly powerful tool

Oksana || Yella, Jordan! sagt (00:01):

agree

nida sagt (00:01):

i think we need this.

Emad - Global Legislation - Blogging Live from IPM! http://mcpakistan.nomadlife.org sagt (00:01):

thing is CY fees shouldnt be increased for a 'strategic investment'.. but taken from reserve

Oksana || Yella, Jordan! sagt (00:02):

yes, but we need to invest smartly

nida sagt (00:02):

but it's a lot of money to be charged

Emad - Global Legislation - Blogging Live from IPM! http://mcpakistan.nomadlife.org sagt (00:02):

or strategic fund that we already have

nida sagt (00:02):

and there should be other options for where this money is coming from

“AIESEC international, do you have considered the alternative to develop...”

Shouldn’t these discussion been happening before?

“Germany, can you clarify this question?”

“Well, it is 3.1.4.7. which is...”

International Presidents Meeting Patterns

2007-02-24T09:57:00.000+01:00

If you want to identify the trends in a huge organisation like AIESEC it is crucial to not only look at the outputs or provided materials, but also to regonise the underlying patterns and sense the unconsciously present collective mindsets.

As I’m neither a telepath nor a sociologist, I will just provide some of the basic observations I made, I’ll leave the further interpretation up to you.

- Key- and buzzwords

o Costumized (LC/MC coaching, AIESEC experiences, etc.)

o Transformative experience

o Beautiful (more in the surrounding of current AI team)

o bottom-up approach

- from talks with many people, “take action” all around the place

- the AIESEC XP is about the individual XP

- the role of AIESEC in your country

A Message to LC Bucharest

2007-02-14T23:55:00.000+01:00

From: Benedikt Glatzl
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 4:32 AM
To: Mugur Florea
Subject: A message to you, your EB and your LC =)

Hey Mugur,

whew, finally I find some time to write this mail that I wanted to write
already a long time ago.

Life was pretty stressful over the last few months (of course due to AIESEC, what do you think? ;-) and brought me a lot of challenges, a lot of good laughs and also my share of losing. Although I'm still astonished by the speed I went through all this I wouldn't want to have missed a single thing.

While searching for your e-mail address in my Mail-Inbox I just discovered that your first mail to me was from almost a year ago, from February 2006, when you asked me about how I set up our LC blog. I bet you don't remember that was me, right? I was just being selected as a teamleader back then.

As I wrote to you in your blog, I think I went to quite a similar thinking process as you did regarding taking one step further in my AIESEC career. I know the whole culture and your life-situation is quite different from mine, but in the end we obviously both had some points of time in our life, where we took major decisions and altered the course of our life in our own ways,
be it the obvious or the not so obvious ones. I salute you for your decision to take a year of consolidation and somehow I secretly ask myself if such kind of a decision would have been the even tougher choice for me than the one I finally took.

I chose to follow the way I took shortly after I joined AIESEC. One year of mind-blowing experiences, tearing down realities and mindsets, challenging my worldview by challenging my view on myself to a point where I could not any longer deny what I did wrong and what I should do differently in the future. With pride I stood up for my values, but with pride I also denied myself from speaking out early enough what would have helped a lot of things go better. Looking back now I can clearly see that I was wrong several time, that I made stupid mistakes and that I was several times not able to say "I was wrong" or "I won't be able to do it".

Even though I saw and heard what was wrong, I couldn't see it with my heart.

Even though I read everything about life in my books, I couldn't really connect to that life.

It was this year of intensely living AIESEC that made me realize that nothing I knew really mattered.

What finally made me growing was all that I went through, all that I experienced, all that I truly lived.

This is AIESEC.

This is the meaning of the AIESEC experience. This is the true experience that can never be expressed in any diagram or chart and never measured by any balanced scorecard.

This is, what made me decide to carry on and take on seemingly unbearable challenges, because I knew that I would find enlightment about myself and the world only by dancing with the fiercest fires and carrying on these fires to those who seek life as I do.

Last Saturday I was elected Member Committee President of AIESEC in Austria for the term 2007-2008. I will try to carry out this honorable office with all the precious memories of the past year in my heart.

I wanted to thank you, your EB and your whole LC for some of the most remarkable moments of this past year, be it the empowering conference Re-imagine between LC Bucharest and LC Vienna that filled our LC relationship with a very personal meaning for me, be it the hiking tour with the EB Bucharest to the peak of Moldoveanu that steeled my will to never give up, be it the experience of chairing your LTS which gave me the last security I needed for dedicating myself fully to run for MCP. I could recall several special moments, which would never have been possible without you being who you are and being how you are.

Rock on, LC Bucharest!

There will be fun times. There will be hard times.

There will be times you will dance through the rain and sing praise to all the wonderful experiences you gained and all the wonderful people you met through AIESEC.

There will be times you will condemn the whole AIESEC and all its members and where you would like to tell all of them how wrong and narrow-minded they are.

There will be times you won't be able to hold back your tears, and words won't help you anymore to express the feelings you will have - overwhelmed by the bitter taste of losing or the sweet taste of winning.

But in the end - you will know that it all happened for a reason.

Rock on, LC Bucharest!

Thank you for sharing some of these moments with me and thank you for all the moments that are still there to be shared.

See you in this world or another,

Bene

Yes or no?

2007-02-10T19:54:00.000+01:00

As I committed myself for the future and especially for the MCP term to be very pragmatic I recently started to evaluate some personal aspects needed for pragmatism. One of them is the capability to make decisions. Without being able to make quick and downright decisions as a leader you are easily lost in the surge of compromise and bring yourself in a state of eternal doubt and reactivity.

In order to measure my personal decision-making capability I today started to carry out an idea I came up with during the "Solution" conference of AIESEC in Austria: The decision-log.
It is quite similar to usual work-logs, except for the addition that you don't only enter everything you do, but as well everything you do NOT (or better: everything you actually think about doing, but are not doing in the end).
Today I tried it this way: whenever I make a not too small decision (e.g. scratching my head is not included), I enter a closed question in the form and say if I did it or not.
To give an example here the decision-log for the beginning of my day:

10:53 Get up? – NO
10:58 Get up? – NO
11:03 Get up? – NO
11:05 Drink water? - YES
11:08 Get up? – NO
11:11 Get up? – YES
11:11 Drink water? - YES
11:12 Dress very warmly? – YES
11:18 Eat chocolate? – NO
(as you can see, I have hard times getting up)

It is important to note that due to time-constraints I am not entering the reasons for my decisions. I think this would anyway disturb the whole experiment as the log should give you insights into your habits and decisions and not immediately facilitate a day of intense self-reflection.

Using a log like this can get you a number of interesting insights about how yourself:

it becomes more clearly where your (unconscious) priorities are
you can see, where you accept trade offs for decisions
you get a more holistic picture about what you are actually doing and what actions are already in your mind

Some ideas and questions on how to analyse and use a filled out decision log:

The easiest thing is to look at your decisions and ask yourself for each and every point "Why did I decide like that?"
by looking at all your Non-actions you can create some sort of an alternative "shadow day" or (if you have enough materials to see patterns in your NO-decisions) even extract "negative habits" or "habits of non-actions".
Some "No"-decisions are more like "Not yet" decisions. What are the reasons for postponing these decisions and for how long are they postponed? How often does the thought about (bot) doing them occur? These decisions could be decisions you (out of whatever reason) fear to take, do not feel capable to take or would like to do but feel they are not so urgent (writing mails to friends would be such a point for me)
Have your decisions really been what you would have liked to do? How many of them are more reactive decisions and how many more proactive ones?
What makes you take a decision faster/more efficiently/right? How could you foster these factors for future decisions?

Thoughts, problems & Points to improve

The world is not binary (yes or no). A "and, or, or" decision has to be split up into three separate points in my current way of doing it. Thus the connection between them could be lost.
No-decisions are very quickly forgotten due to their seeming non-impact on ones life. My current log has much more "yes" then "no" answers. This is the reason why I decided for the "yes-no" way of doing it. In a more open way the single No-decisions would quickly get out of sight. Probably I should just just enter some more "or" questions

Oh those Viennese membership applications

2007-02-08T00:25:00.000+01:00

It is an old tradition in LC Vienna that the application for full member status should consist of (besides the formal criteria and an interview) a creative way of showing the applicants passion to the public.
This already lead to a lot of self-made dramas, songs, Christmas-events, self-designed youth magazines and even a radio-broadcast on a Viennese radio-station.

Today one of our members, Alex, sent the EB of LC Vienna an invitation to a self-made dinner. The most important condition he gave us is this one:
"condition 4: suggestions are only accepted via mail, message board, blog, telephone, letter, f2f, mime, on tape (no video 2000 please), on a flipchart paper, over the radio and in the most spread newspapers of vienna and kalibukbuk (not including the bali times, i hate that one). other methods are not accepted. YOU have to make sure i'll receive the suggestion!"

So I will do this now:
I'm not that sure about the detailed recipe, but I would like to make some recommendations
- as this will be a vegetarian menu, I don't want any casserole (auflauf), as I don't like vegetarian casserole
- I would suggest something with these chinese noodles (glass noodles?), with some garlic and spices they taste wonderful!
- I like roasted or fried stuff very much in general. Baking is also fine (in my flat we once made baked sesam-potatoes as a side-dish. I hate stew.

Enough? If not, comment, dear Alex.

(the picture below is there for purely illustratory reasons - as we will have a vegetarian dinner, our actual dish may look differently)

Victory!

2007-01-30T03:31:00.000+01:00

Many called me crazy, when I told them about my plans some months ago.
I myself had to grow and develop until I felt finally ready. But then again I wouldn't have pushed this development forward without having had this clear goal in my mind.
It was not an easy time going through the process and it was even harder when I had to face the fact that it wasn't over when I had given as much as I can.
Actually it wasn't really as much as I can, as I discovered later. And one year from now it will probably even look ridiculously little.

It was hard, but it was not impossible.
Probably I had luck, probably luck is only standing on the side of the bold.

I was elected Member Committee President of AIESEC in Austria for the term 2007/2008 - and I will do my best to honor this position with a lot of dedication, a lot of sweat, some sacrifices, but also a lot of fun.

Let's get the party started!

"See you next time!"

2007-01-26T04:37:00.000+01:00

Trying a new approach and targeting organisations like the chambers of commerce was really a good decision. After some usual meeting, selling and follow up stuff we managed to get invitations to the business cocktail of the American chamber of commerce for Robert and me.
I think as young students with no experience in events like that we had a reason to be at least a bit nervous in advance about what there was to come.

We enter the lobby of the Hilton Hotel, give our jackets to the wardrobe-guy and shyly greet the woman that invited us here. Some words to express our deep thanks.
We pass by the securities and a waiter, which is almost blocking our way with his tablet. He enumerates some drinks he has on his tablet and looks at us hopefully. What the hell did he just talk about? I cannot identify any of the drinks, so I just say "Um... I'll take that one..." take one and go on.
We didn't expect so many small challenges for this evening.
How should this drink be drunk?
How could we best establish contact to any of these persons?
How should we treat a person in regards of respect and personal connection?
"And now...?" I ask Robert, who nervously takes a look around. "I don't know...". Well... no selling training prepared us for a situation like that. Most probably no training would anyway be able to do so.
An older man takes a seat near to me and thoughtfully starts sipping from his wine. I think I should approach him. "I think you should approach him..." Robert whispers. "Yes", I say and nod. "You are right", I affirm that after a couple of seconds. "Whew", Robert says, "good to know you are as shy as I am...". I smile. Well... what do I have to lose? I turn to the older man and greet him. He seems to be really glad to be approached. After a short introduction he starts telling me stories about his life and his work. After some minutes a second man joins us.
Within the next 40 minutes I'm getting a crash course in Austrian economic history and international relations. Countries, people and positions are whirring in my head as I try to keep pace with the stories of these two men. Their words speak of an incredible treasure of experiences in their working fields.
And that's just the beginning...

At the end of the event we gathered more promising contacts and proposals than after 100 cold calls or the last 15 meetings we went to. And we learned a lot about establishing contacts and how to behave in such occasions. How could we ever learn that in our studies? No course or training could truly teach you such a thing.

I take my jacket and approach the woman who invited us. I find her chatting in a bigger group of people. As she notices me, she smiles and turns over to me. "Just wanted to say goodbye and thank you again for the invitation to your business cocktail, Mrs. D.!". Her smile gets broader. "I hope you could get a lot out of it. By the way you can call me Veronica."
Well... ok...
I turn over to the marketing manager of this training company for teaching english skills. "I'm leaving now. Goodbye! I will call you within the next week about the possibilities for cooperation."
He smiles "Ok! Hope you liked it here. See you next time!"

December 25th 2057 – the snow falls silently, the children are happy, the roasted Austrian tastes wonderful

2007-01-21T18:15:00.000+01:00

(This post is a submission to the "Love to lead" competition by Toshiba were you have answer questions. The one post that gets the most votes wins a top-notch Laptop. The question this week was "If we could hold conversations with animals, would we all be vegetarians?"

If I win I will donate this Laptop to the NGO AIESEC in Austria. So spread the word!)

It was only 50 years ago when our world changed forever. Even after all these years scientists couldn’t figure out how it happened. What can be read in all history books is still a mystery to all of us – the day when animals started to speak with us.

No scientific report had prepared us for it. No trend-scout could have predicted it. It hit us unexpectedly and changed the course of history completely.

How? Did the groundhog that sat next to you for three years in highschool infect you with sleepiness? Everybody knows how it all went…

August 2007

During the attempt to mate the Albino-Gorilla “Whitaker” – the main attraction of the London-Zoo – with the female gorilla “Babe”, Whitaker manages to escape from his enclosure. He throws one of the keepers trying to stop him down a trench. In an interview with The Sun Bob Hown - the keeper – afterwards states, he clearly heard the gorilla saying “Fuck her yourself, asshole”. The following waves of scornful articles, the public witch-hunting and the dismissal from his job finally leads to the suicide of Bob 4 months later. Whitaker is accidentally shot dead by the police shortly afterwards in front of Gate A of the London Airport.

November 2007

The Russian biologist Anna Kolikova attacks her teamleader of the group for researching on side-effects of the new HugeMacs hamburger on rats with a knife. In the following trial the judge does not accept her argument that the rats told her to kill her teamleader and sends her into a psychiatry for curing her schizophrenia.

May 2008

After more and more stories of talking animals occurred over the past months, Norman Gates – an unemployed carpenter from Wisconsin - posts a video of a dialogue between him and a slater on his blog “The world is a cabinet”. On the video the slater introduces himself as “Jimmy” and talks mostly about food. Due to the bad quality of the video taken by Normans webcam he calls for a real camera team dropping by his place. In expectation of a good shot about a deranged individual the recently launched freak show “Baby Smash” sends a team to his home and makes history with the first media interview with an animal.

September 2008

The mayor of New York City barely manages to prevent mass hysteria after everywhere in New York animals start to talk to humans. The short conversations – at that point of time mainly consisting of insults – set people in a deep state of confusion leading to an almost complete break-down of the normal life in New York.

November 2008

the zoo of Chicago 20 drunk youth beat up keepers and smash doors of enclosures to the cheers of the Penguins they met few hours before that incident in front of a pub. Following their example everywhere in the world groups fiercely start attacking zoos and freeing animals.

February 2009

A poll indicates that over 86% of the Australian Non-Vegetarian people do not want to think of the fact that their daily meal could probably talk to them if it was still alive. 63% are sure that the meat they eat every day is from animals that were not able to speak at all.

January 2011

After several threats the police force put in front of a big slaughterhouse in the outskirts of Peking starts shooting into a big group of people that try to set it on fire. The UN sharply condemns this act of civil violence.

May 2012

The parrot Polly is invited to Americas popular show “Walk the talk” to discuss about animal rights with the governor of Texas as the Texan cow Martha, which was originally invited, suddenly without a trace disappeared a few days before the discussion. It is the first time an animal is invited to a show as an equal participant. Martha publicly accuses the CIA of kidnapping and killing Molly and demands from the governor to confess his knowledge about the incident, to stop Texan ranchers from treating cattle like minerals and to give her a cracker.

January 2013

The speaker of the “Global Order For Animal Treatment” (GOAT) announces that due to the merger with almost all the other young animal-right-movements and organizations GOAT over the last year got over 84 million new members world-wide and therefore became one of the strongest global organizations the world has ever seen. He repeats their demands for a global law for prohibiting eating any animals. The Time magazine titles “Be GOAT or be gone”.

October 2013

Norman Gates book “Me and Jimmy, Jimmy and me – dialogues with a slater” hits the first place of the international bestseller list and stays there for the following two years.

April 2014

The commune of humanimals is founded in Berlin by the political activist group “Sozialistische Deutsche Tierliebhaber” together with two dogs, three crows and an elephant. The commune is meant as a counter-model to the traditional human – pet relationship and wants to promote equality in all ways of living. The conservative media calls the commune a “shelter of hypocritical sodomites”.

July 2014

The plan of the commune to throw a big pile of elephant-shit on the Vice-president of the US during his visit in Berlin fails as the dogs are caught on the street and brought to an animal shelter. After a fierce debate about the responsibility for this failure the commune dissolves. La Chevaliere – the elephant (whose original name was “pfffroot”) - later in her biography writes that “most of them in fact were latent sodomites. Their disability to satisfy a strong lady lead to so much inner frustration and tension that it was impossible to carry on like that”.

December 2017

The unofficial speaker of the pigs Chrkchrk chhh is summoned to the European Food Safety Authority in Parma to speak about his demands for providing better meat in return. With brilliant negotiation skills he manages to push trough European directives improving living conditions for pigs significantly. Three years later after intense coaching by Chrkchrk the cows reach the same agreement with the EFSA.

March 2020

Chrkchrk chhh – already a world-wide star - publicly announces the foundation of the International Animals Association IAA – an umbrella organization for the company Animal International (AI), the Den for Non-Animal Affairs (DNAA) and all the smaller movements like the Animal Liberation Army (ALA). The lion Ronald Cumberstone is elected first president of IAA.

December 2021

The president of McDonalds International reports a sharp drop in the consummation of burgers with meat. He prescribes the company a rigid change of strategy. ¾ of the traditional menus are cut down and replaced with Vegetarian food.

May 2023

The rising numbers of incidents were German shepherd dogs publicly lacerate humans and feast upon their innards leads to the passing of the “Gesetz zum Schutz vor Tieren” (Law for protection from animals) or short “Tierschutzgesetz”. It will serve as a template for many similar laws worldwide.

January 2024

The radical group “Black Panther” gets outlawed by the US senate and its members set on the FBI list of the top ten most wanted criminals. The leader of the Black Panthers sends out a video message were he talks about his vision to open a “slaughterhouse for humans”.

April 2026

The United Nations agree on creating a bigger animal reservation in the jungle of Kongo. The speaker of the IAA demands an own state and the acknowledgement of animals as equal to humans, which is denied.

May 2028

On the 14^th of May, the IAA declares the independence of their reservation and founds the new state “Gaia”. It claims a significantly bigger area than the original reservation had.

July 2028

UN troops arrive in Gaia to restore order between the several African armies and the Gaians, which already started claiming more land.

January 2031

The UN “Animal resolution” declared animals falling under the human rights and human jurisdiction. The rights name is changed to “human and animal rights”. The declaration is ratified by 180 members (excluding e.g. China and the US).

March 2032

The first dolphin-therapy program is launched in Turkey. The innovative method of exposing traumatized dolphins to human babies proofs to be a resounding success with broad media coverage.

May 2033

Lifestyle magazines promote the newest top-notch luxury – restaurants for humans in Gaia with “special menus”.

July 2033

The EU sends an investigation team to Africa to research why the flood of refugees from there decreased so much over the last couple of months, though still raging civil wars.

October 2035

The company Food from animal trusts (FAT) a spin-off from Animal International focusing on producing and exporting delicacies is included in the Stock Exchange Index of the Wall Street. The company has branches in 42 countries around the world.

November 2037

After the revelation of a mass production of human meat by FAT and several other Gaian companies, the EU demands immediate stopping of all production. After a short shock-period cooks and meat-lovers all around the world start protesting against the EU proposal. A mass demonstration outside the European parliament screams chants like “Let us eat or we eat you” , “We ate them long enough! Eating humans is not tough!”.

February 2038

The global ethics commission opts for a general freedom in choice of food with one vote in majority. “We did not think the Koala would vote for this…” a frustrated enemy of the “Food-freedom proposal” is quoted later.

November 2048

Both turkey and Austrian are the most popular dish for Christmas due to their soft yet tasty meat. Austria advances to the country with the highest income per person world-wide.

Yes… the ways of history are sometimes inscrutable. Who would have thought about all these things happening within 50 years. And how barbaric these people were 50 years ago not allowing the individual to choose what it wants to eat and what not.

Oh…

The door-bell is ringing. That should be the Grmpfgrmpfs from next door. Well, thank you for your attention my strange visitor. Where are you from again…? Vienna… hm… I… see…

Probably you want to drop by next year to join us for Christmas?