Esteemed Will! 

What a title for a text in a travel blog? Surely not something like that again, where at the end you don't know where your head is at anymore and wonder why this text has exactly this title now. I’m trying to improve!

This text is a commissioned text; I'm writing it because my almost only fan, who appreciates me and my writing, wanted it. And this after only five days, during which he had not been able to read any of my texts, and was already missing them. That touched me very much. Your wish is my command – and my mission!

The strange thing is that he had always read my texts at my request. I looked for his opinion on the texts before I published them, to make sure that at least someone would appreciate them. Then I risked publication. I need a reader. One. At least, at least myself, but preferably someone else. You. I like that better.

Although he wanted this assignment, he didn't want to tell me what it was about. It would have been easier if he had. He also did not comment on my suggestion to call the text "There is someone who appreciates...". So the will then came to my mind, the will of "You can get it if you really want", a song which was brought back to my mind yesterday on the occasion of a TV portrait of Roger Schawinski - the trademark of this person, so to speak. He who has achieved so much! Because he wanted it! I have been working on this message all my life. I had always found this Schawinski to be cheeky and arrogant. True, I admired him, but he was also very annoying. A walking accusation of my inability to want to do anything right. Period.

Hey man, where did you get that will?! Is it yours, your own invention? Your achievement?!

But yesterday - I have to admit - I held him in high esteem - Schawinski - and in retrospect I rehabilitated him with all my heart, from A to Z, perhaps simply because for once he did not praise himself, but rather dedicated most of his honor to his parents, his circumstances and life. Ooops, does this sentence ooze morality? I already sound like my esteemed follower that asked me to write! There is much to learn.

The key passage in relation to this esteemed will is "you just have to want to!” Stop smoking, it's easy, you just have to want to. But nobody asks me if I actually want to quit. There's no point in not wanting to. It is clear (according to statistics) that smoking can lead to death. That's why you can't say that you want to smoke or even enjoy it. Only crazy people can think like that. No herb can grow against this reason: it stands there like a wall! So then I simply say, distressed, even desperate, I cannot stop, and ask: Where (the f...) do I find the will to want the right thing, even if I do not consider the tunnel vision of modern knowledge to be right, do not want it to determine everything? Such questions have always driven me mad. My request: Convince me, let me forget smoking! But of course this is not the attitude of an adult and independent person.

So, as always, I feared that I should or should want to do something that I cannot do in this way. Your will, my will. Like when I don't love, but should love. Actually an idea that we - all? - share, but also the question of what love is and how it works. Stalemate or checkmate? I was always looking for the loose end of this tangled ball of wool, from which the entanglement could be untangled again most easily, so that I wouldn't have to throw the cord away completely – as if it were my own life. Who wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

This unbending will of my follower to appreciate things, people, others, I admired more and more. I hated it too. It was annoying, especially in the past. Sycophants, no, not really, but always trying to please others, even forcing them to be happy, terribly boring positive thinkers! It's upsetting. My favorite hobby is always to criticize others, often secretly, in hiding, so to share my self-criticism generously with others. Yes, I always like to share that, but always in fear of not being allowed to share it. One should not criticize others, but seize yourself by the scruff of the neck and take the mote out of your own eye. No, don’t criticize others, only yourself. Don’t bring death to others, a death unwanted and unrecognized, because perhaps you have not washed your hands. So it's better to arrange this death with yourself. Where it belongs. With yourself.

So smoke, that works. But that's not wanted either: the bad example is not wanted, it could turn out to be too attractive, or are you afraid you'll have to miss me? Or are you reminded of the great unknown? Yes, sharing properly is difficult, a challenge. Without the criticism of others I probably would not have learned to appreciate sharing.

In the meantime, I have also learned to appreciate the person who is something like my big brother in terms of not knowing what he wants. He's a master. I always wanted to show him that he also has a will, but he quickly escapes me and keeps insisting on not knowing what he wants. But he seems to know exactly what he wants somehow. It's just not suitable for everyday use. Maybe that's why he doesn't want to know. He remains the tender person that he is. He has this unbending will to be tender, to be insecure, and through him I have learned to appreciate my insecurity, too, and to recognize a will in it.

I could write about this will for a long time and about the fact that I also appreciate it. Sometimes a difficult, but also welcome guest. The will to do good, the will to use salt and pepper, which helps many a too sweet person to find the right, bearable mixture. The spices do not always have to be evenly distributed in a person or a dish. One may well get annoyed and complain that the dish gets its own, even if unbalanced taste. From a slightly different viewpoint, the unbalanced can show itself to be balanced. Your perspective is decisive.

Yesterday a friend wrote to me, surprised that I insist on my trip despite the corona virus and travel ban. This will of mine! Of course, I asked myself where this will comes from, which I have come to appreciate in the meantime. I still do not know. From the head, from the heart? Is the task calling me? I don't want to go, to leave. No, I never, never want to leave, never, never want to be left. But because I have found out that the prodigal son always, always finds his way home, I am slowly beginning to understand, and I hope that you also realize that I don't want to leave you. I just want to share more with you. The whole world. My world. Yours. Ours. Mother Earth. Thy will be done.

PS: In the meantime I have learned to appreciate this song more, to look at it differently, to listen differently. Jimmy Cliff sings: "You can get it if you really want"! Whatever.

Book: The Bible? Oh God, too confusing, which translation, which source? The stories are too wild and contradictory! I love to hear them from the mouth of those who tell them, who live them, each in their own way.

Another song, because it fits somehow, Aretha: "You make me Feel like..."

Book alternative to metaphysics: Fritz (Frederick) Perl's "In and Out the Garbage Pail". (Appreciate differences.)