Illustration by Lena Kulla

On the Ease of Moving (#CarpoolKaraoke)

Moving is soothing. On the plane, the train, in the car, by foot, I’m paradoxically slowing down. I slow my stream of thought. I dam it in the proper places. I see! I see what’s always been there and I hold it – a full sentence! I hold it until it streams confidently down my mouth.

The effect is striking! Moving – watching the country, the city, others, me move – is the bliss point of distraction. It allows one to listen, to think, while being so engaged that most ego-driven, excessively self-critical filters are off. Moving brings out people’s purity. It makes one likeable. It makes me like myself. It naturally causes authenticity.

Dear James Corden, perhaps, you should offer Mrs. Clinton your next ride.

Illustration by Lena Kulla

On Censorship (#WPFD2016)

The term “freedom of press” is often flanked by signal words of equal importance. Whenever its letters appear in bold, the words “democracy” and “human rights” trace their lines for support. But why? Why are they ultimately linked?

Democracies assume a free electoral system. They uphold people’s freedom of choice. Censorship manipulates that choice. It manipulates people’s decisions. To omit, to alter and to forbid information ploughs our factual grounds. It creates a limited truth, on the basis of which one may lovingly support a cause s/he indeed abhors.

This scares me. The thought of being denied to knowingly decide scares me in my human right.

Illustration by Lena Kulla

 

On Strike (#JuniorDoctorsStrike #Lufthansa)

If Twitter was a person – an embodiment representing the average of all twittery trends – it would be one hell of a choleric. Today’s tantrum: “How dare people go on strike?”

I get it. Strikes are annoying. They are for me, too. But that is the point. Strikes are supposed to annoy, or else they fail to make their point in the first place.

The subject doesn’t matter. The subject most of us cannot debate. What matters is to debate at all.

Consider the alternative. Consider that there is none. Your negotiations have failed. Your threats have proven to be feckless. What to do you do?

For a strike to work, it needs many frustrated people or many people sympathising with a frustrated person. You may not have been discriminated as part of a group. But you know the feeling of being treated unfairly. It’s nagging. It frustrates. Too often, we are alone, helpless against the cause.

Now, you don’t need to empathise with every cause. But you should try to remember the feeling that’s moving others to cause annoyances to your day.