Brandeins in May – This Magazine Makes You Look Sexy!

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2. May 2010

This magazine makes you look sexy – true! That, however, is not my personal comment. Instead, it is actually the title of the May edition of Brandeins. Of course, I want to be sexy (even better: I want to be very sexy 🙂 ).

Consequently, I feel that the title is directed at me.

What gets my attention even more is the sub-title:

The Victory of Irrationality!
That is grist for my mill. After all, I witness on a daily basis how hard-won, minutely planned and beautifully constructed plans go up in smoke, even though they have been based on complicated and rational requirements. Conversely, the nicest things in life and the best projects often originate in the most obscure corners where you would never have thought anything might develop from. In some way of other, it is always like this.

For many years of my life, I believed that rationality was my most precious companion. Now I have learned that in reality the old common knowledge is true: “Man proposes, God disposes” (however or whatever this “God” is supposed to be). Consequently, I am now convinced that:

We must act wisely instead of thinking too much and in a too complicated way.

When I say “act wisely”, what I mean is “based on ethically responsible values, experience in life and intuition, instead of intellectual, complicated and rational considerations” – see also my article on “entrepreneur“ (Unternehmer).

And, apparently, the Brandeins team shares my opinion. On the title page, you can find it all in a nutshell:

The Victory of Irrationality!

And then the magazine continues to offer us a colourful bouquet of articles that fit perfectly. Great!

Our Brandeins arrived last Thursday, I started reading yesterday. First and foremost, as always, comes the editorial by Frau Gabriele Fischer This time it is titled Parallel Worlds. It really struck gold. Absolutely brilliant. Frau Fischer is echoing my sentiments.

And as early as page four, my “friend” Woody looks back at me. Besides John Lennun, Albert Camus and a few more, Woody Allen is one of my idols. They accompanied me as I grew up. Instantly, Casino Royale (1967), Woody, der Unglücksrabe (Take the Money and Run – 1969) or Bananas (1971), but also Die letzte Nacht des Boris Gruschenko (Love and death – 1975) or Zelig (1983) come to mind. It was all some (nice) madness!

Then there is the World of Numbers and I read that the part of the earth where forests grow is 8 %, whereas the part of the earth that is covered with plastic waste strewn around the ocean is 25 %. This is unbelievable. I interpret this as meaning that we can find plastic waste on 25 % of what is ocean.

Or that the time that passed between Barrack Obama’s inauguration and the passing of the health bill that provided insurance to all US citizens was 14 months, whereas the value increase of American health insurance companies during the same time was 71 in percent.

And more information continues in quick succession!

Yes, Frau Fischer is quite right. It is hard to decide what is reasonable as opposed to what is crazy. We are indeed on a tightrope walk between normality and lunacy.

The articles in Brandeins strengthen my resolve that we should question things that seem to be self-evident. For me, that is a reason to change my life. For instance, I get less annoyed at myself and others, will no longer insist on being right, try to stop thinking about all the things I might have done better and, above all, no longer put myself and the outside world around me centre-stage. Also, I sometimes enjoy letting myself be guided by emotions and switching off rationality. All this makes me a more content person. I will probably even find it easier to accept when I die.

And I can read in Brandeins that I am not alone. That is certainly a nice feeling!

So:

Read It, Read It, Read It

And

Recommend it to Others, Recommend it to Others, Recommend it to Others!

We all live in a yellow submarine!

RMD
(Translated by EG)

P.S.
All the older editions of Brandeins have a special appeal through timeless validity. So if you shun the way to the kiosk, you can just read them on brandeins.de. Have fun!

The movie …