Europe is the future

I was born in 1988, just one year before the wall came down. For me there never was a divided country because I have no memories of it. There were moments where a division in the mind was still noticeable. We had classmates that moved to the west and me, as well as other classmates, called them Ossis (nickname for people from East Germany). It made them feel as if they didn’t belong and they were foreign and the stupid thing is, everyone picked up these nicknames from their parents. They were the ones growing up with the divide and they were the ones coming up with cliches and prejudices because they couldn’t tell how life was in East Germany. So they made things up or just exaggerated. And children in the age of 8 obviously pick this shit up. So careful what you say in front of your offspring. Anyway. I quickly learned that most of these cliches were obviously bullshit and that there was no real difference between people from West or East Germany, especially not between people that are about eight years old. I am 31 now and from time to time you still hear these stupid nicknames, and prejudices are still growing strong because especially East Germany has a problem with right-wing parties. As alarming as this situation is, making every person living in East Germany a suspect of voting right-wing certainly doesn’t help and it brings the division back. A division that is 30 years in the past. And this way of thinking is so small-scale.

Today we can decide how we want the future of Europe to look like. The collapse of the soviet union and the fall of the wall made one of the best projects of this continent possible, the European Union. As someone working with people from loads of different countries I don’t want to think of a situation that would again divide us or make working in a different European country almost impossible again. We are privileged to travel through Europe, without having to show our passports and without having to have permits to visit certain countries. We can pay with the same currency in most countries and we can decide on important future laws together. And it’s very easy to learn from another because there is no border that divides us. I get that some people are afraid of this big thing that is hard to understand. I get that some people get angry because of European laws that affect their daily lives without knowing what their real struggles are, I get that. But I cannot imagine a better alternative. Europe is the future. Europe is our guarantee for freedom and Europe has so many great things to offer.

I never felt pride in being German. Because of our violent and tragic history pride is not a well-known concept for Germans. But, especially looking at the last couple of years, with so many sad news like Brexit, or the rise of right-wing parties all over Europe I am proud to say that I’m a European. It is the best weapon against all the right-wing parties that want to divide us again and it is the best and most logical move for a better future. It’s everyones duty to take a stand against those who want to divide us because Europe is the future.

What I learned last week

Now to something completely different. Last week was rather short, because I got sick in the middle of it unfortunately. Last week was basically working on a presentation and negotiating a contract. As many other agencies as well we have general terms and conditions that are relevant for every project we take on. While having those general terms is a good thing (because you don’t have to write these terms from scratch any time) it’s kinda hard to apply them to every kind of project because a designing and building a digital product is way different over a strategy process or a print project and clients just get irritated when the contract talks about all kinds of situations. It just adds unnecessary clutter to be honest. Being in this company game for more than three years now I obviously learned of the importance of a solid contract but it still bothers me that you always have a hard time writing these contracts in an understandable way. When I was still freelancing I used this contract killer by Andy Clarke because it was easy to understand and clients had never complained about it. Our lawyer would probably only shake his head if he’d read it. My take-away is that we probably need more project specific contracts that require less discussions as they are more on point.

Links of the week

Another climate catastrophe link this week. Scientists built a CO2 doomsday countdown, so if you want to ruin your day, check this out.

This video dominated the news in Germany last week (it’s in German) and if you understand Germany and did not watch it yet, do so! A 26 year old guy is “destroying” the Conservative party (and the Social Democrats a bit too) and did a lot of research to underline the fact why you should not vote for these parties. It’s really good and the Conservative party is going crazy because of it.

Because I am building a house right now, I will have a garden soon. And what is a garden without a decent grill and pizza oven, right? I found this one this week and I think once everything is ready, I will give it a shot.

That’s it for this week. Take care and good bye!