Newsletter 07

Hometown visits & some deeper thoughts

It’s been a long time so I’ve got quite a bit to read for you. (Substack says it’s a 10min read.) I would also like to add a disclaimer that I did not pay attention to any rules about commas and where to place them in a sentence because I don’t know and Substack doesn’t let me know either.

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Update 01 - Back to Germany

It’s been a long time that I have been back in Germany and it felt good being back and seeing my parents, my grandparents and most of all my friends. Long-distance friendships just can’t do it as well as being right there in the same city, in the same café drinking a drink and smoking a cig while talking about everything. I forgot how much of a German I will always be. I love to stare at people, I love to eat good bread, I love to talk about the weather and logistical technicalities and I loved that this time it felt like a vacation, like I was a visitor who gets a fresh experience. So, I romanticised everything I could: The Turkish bakeries, the drugstore (dm!), German TV, forests, and my hometown that is neatly tugged in between hills and the up and down topography that embodies it. Here are some pictures from my stay:

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Update 02 - Everything happens for a reason

What a better way to come back to this newsletter than letting you know the sweet lesson I learned recently. I would really like to get to know the butterfly that first flapped its wings because of the unfolding of tiny actions which have been reaching me lately. This is to say, I have become a strong believer that everything happens for a reason and it seems (without wanting to jinx anything) that a chain of events are showing their impact. Especially because the last month, or even the last two months, have been tiring, difficult, and full of effort to sustain situations and begin again.

I feel like the saying of “Everything happens for a reason” is usually thrown into conversations about missed chances, rejections, and break ups and I agree that it relates to big trajectories but, truthfully, it is the small details that you didn’t pay attention to that one day connect you to a bigger thing, a grander purpose, or a specific person - the sky is the limit in which a butterfly flaps its wings. Just to give you an example, the past months I have been applying for “serious” jobs and internships. I also have been hustling in university the past few years while always choosing hobbies on the side, be it in sports or creative pursuits. Rarely did I feel like I had figured out just about anything and, if I did, it would change quickly. Of course, there were signs that brought me back to a red thread every now and then, but I don’t have a dream job nor a place I ultimately see myself in (although Barcelona feels perfect right now). Originally, I wanted to work in gastronomy but thought that my Spanish wasn’t good enough and, just when I had been declined from my other job applications, I found a job in gastronomy. This is when I had already decided to go back to Germany to work there, thinking I wouldn’t find any job in Barcelona. Then in Germany I worked at a convention I didn’t know before and didn’t really have anything to do with the particular industry but I got to talk with someone from the industry. They connected me to their wife, whose career is extremely inspiring and similar to what interests me, and who, on top of that, knows someone in Barcelona working in a niche of the field. We even started talking in Spanish, since she was Latina, and my impatience to learn the language had finally proven my insecurities wrong. This niche that I had not known before would, for the first time, let me combine my previous university degree with what I am doing now and the creative pursuit I ultimately want to end up in. At the same time, learning other things, like a new language or how to talk to people through years of working in service industries, mattered in this situation as well. All of a sudden all my detours and additional stuff seemed to work together and not in parallel.

I am aware that reading the last paragraph might have felt like an Instagram post from a dubious career advisor but seeing that these things happen to me and that I was lucky but also had something to show for it without getting up at 5 a.m., only surrounding myself around aspiring millionaires, and acting as an Alpha male has been one of the most refreshing experiences in a long time since I started out in academia. Timing and interests feel like a silly thing until it comes together.

So, I want to pass on this experience to you by telling you that I am sure you will get where you want to go and so will I. Just this single person willing to give me a chance with zero real experience made me believe in it as she told me that it was my vibe, how I talked about what I like, and what I am passionate about that had her convinced about me.

I am sure you will get where you want to go whether it is your career, your friendships, your relationships, your location, or yourself. The last months I felt like that wasn’t true and I confused myself with where I want to go and what I am feeling or whether I even want go anywhere or feel certain things but a change of location and meeting new people and old people made many things a lot clearer. The feeling after waiting out a rough phase to feel the good phase roll in again really is one of the best feelings to be in. This is also why I am writing these kitschy paragraphs now, because if I can have these optimistic, promising moments I want to treasure their energy and transfer it to you as a reminder to be happy about good phases and to wait for the feeling of a bad phase passing you and emerging from it anew. Maybe I changed like the seasons and it is true that April does what it wants.

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Update 03 - How to cope?

To keep to the original reason for this newsletter, I also want to include some thought on being back on social media. The condensed version of these thoughts is that living in the real world and the virtual world is one world too much for me and I cannot find a balance. And maybe there is also the painful realisation that we don’t have a problem with social media but with ourselves. It’s cynical but ultimately I see it play out - that what is given to us manifests in how we use it, but I don’t mean to engage in a “we live in a society”-discussion or throw around ideas on the nature of the digital society. Yet, I have tried self-enquiry and the quest to manage independency within mechanisms of dependency and I have failed doing so.

On the other hand, maybe I was always just an in-between person and if I was a sentimental pick-me boy my Instagram description would probably read “jack of all traits and master of none”. But instead of being a pick me boy, I will be a zodiac girly for a second: One of my favourite things to look up when I meet people is their Primal Zodiac Sign and mine is a hornet which might not sound like the most sympathetic animal but the text speaks truths that make me forget my confusion and push me to accept the following: “The one thing that the two sides of a Hornet do not conflict on, though, is being irritable. They might not show it, but you can bet that every Hornet you know gets easily irritated by things they find foolish, unjust, or just plain incorrect. This is because at their core those born under this sign are idealists. They have strong opinions on how the world should be to the point of being able to clearly envision how much better the world would be if they were in charge.” So here I am a cynic for the reality that gets me down and frustrates me and an idealist for the thoughts that make me move and see opportunity over defeat (and that, ladies and gentlemen, would be my Breakfast Club outro.)

The problem I am most struggling with is that social media completely construes self-enquiry. While I was off the phone I sat with myself and was actively with my thoughts and feelings and little distraction, meaning no overflow of thoughts, feelings and opinions. Being back on social media I have only been asking myself what and who am I triggered by posts that urge for comparison, instead of doing things that make me myself. I feel incapable being online and not becoming a reflection of display and I do not feel like the average person that fits into what social media and the digital world asks for. So how do you cope? I am open to your answers.

Also being back online is being brought back to relativism because on the internet everything is relative, and nothing is relatively right or wrong, or everything is right and wrong, or nothing you can do is right, and everything you do could be wrong. I learned that I feel more at peace without a lot of opinions about anything from things I care about to those I don’t think about. In contradiction to most, I think that in order to form an opinion it’s more helpful to not have a lot of opinions around but to step away from the bubble and gain experience.

To keep up with my cynicism, I’ve been reminded once more how individuality is a conspiracy lure of consumerism because being in this “trendy” city all the people are equally, copy-like and mistakingly similarly “trendy”. So I made this “European fashion-interested girl who moves to Barcelona without a reason”-starter-pack for your personal entertainment (Disclaimer: I am a little bitter about it but I am also one of those girls and hope no one feels offended):

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Update 03 - Starting a new job

Now that I get a break from classes and my attempt to start out in the corporate world was unsuccessful, I have started working in a Café/Brunch/Bar spot. And once more I am back to working gastronomy but being a cute barrista is a whole vibe. At the same time its an incredibly Guiri place, meaning there are mainly only international tourists visiting and the spot is incredibly “instagramable” (just like my old work so who I guess it is my pattern and not my complaint).

All of this has been exciting but also very challenging. Speaking Spanish for work, meeting very different people again and learning that I am now one of many twenty-something girls who are being hired for their looks. I take it as a compliment but at the same time it has brought me into a spiral of mirrors being held up against me. The mirror being: Everyone working there is a girl somewhat my age who moved here for the same reasons, is somewhat similar in style, listens to the same music and talks about the same things and made the same experiences. In short, I thought my experience was unique but it really it isn’t. This has been my part of the reflection, but I realise how over an eight-hour shift it is lovely how deep of conversation and connection you can build and how our experiences may be synchronous but everyone has something else to tell and something different to add. So, I am now channelling my inner barrista-chic vibes while preparing for a hot summer of running between tables carrying brunch menus and expanding my circle of people and really getting into speaking Spanish.

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Update 04 - Projects

I have been creative and exhaustingly dedicated to some projects in university and they are finally done and posted. I am quite proud of them so I would like to share them with you.

I have created a self-animated short video essay which broadly spoken talks about feminism and more specifically addresses economic perspectives on the feminine. You can watch it here:

Secondly, I designed and wrote a magazine about stamps! I really think stamps are incredibly forgotten in their significance and historical meaning and I even designed some myself. So this is some pages from the magazine:

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Weekly recommendation 01 - My new favourite playlist

I dreamt about crocodiles everyday for a week in March and their meaning in dreams has revealed to be true, however, I believe the crocodile was a good appearance necessary for realisation and readjustment and ultimately betterment. During the same time, while having crocodile dreams, I also found really good music, which is also why I think these dreams were are a good guide, so I would like to share the playlist that came from it - a wild mix of good songs:

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Weekly recommendation 02 - My new favourite movie

I can’t explain how deeply this movie moved me and have not yet found out why I simultaneously felt profoundly deep emotions of happiness and wonder as well as a calmness towards life, but that’s exactly what Wim Wender movie “Perfect Days” was. At one point I was in the movie theatre smiling and singing along to the soundtrack and it meant a lot to me. I definitely need to see this movie again because it is maybe perfect. The little dialogue and few information about Hirayama do not offer a concrete message or, at least, there is much you can interpret for yourself but to me it was exactly that which was the message: You don’t need to know much about someone, you can see them living their day over and over again and you will know their present without a hint of where they are going and where they were before. Hirayama’s present spread joy to me and acceptance of life that I had lacked in other “older” people and in aspirations to life by those around us. Is he happy? I don’t know. Does he smile? Yes. Should you watch this movie? Yes.

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Thank you for reading!

I hope you enjoyed this somewhat sappy and personal newsletter and I hope to write to you again soon. Until next time :)