Two Questions

There is a question that we have been asked again and again for months now: 'Do you actually exist?'

At first, we were quite irritated. Imagine you were asked that. What would you answer? Our first impulse was a clear 'yes'. But the longer you think about it, the less sure you are. Last night Till and I debated about it well into the night. Maybe it was the red wine, but in the end we weren't at all sure that we really existed. To be honest, at some point we weren't even sure what it means to exist.

'I think, therefore I am' - that was Descartes' answer. And sure, there's something to that. But isn't such a lonely existence, isolated inside, a rather sad thing? And, moreover, terribly irrelevant. Isn't it much more important to be a creature that is in contact with the world around it? To be perceived and to perceive. To be influenced by the world and to influence it yourself? In the age of social media, one might then rather say: 'I post, therefore I am.' And in that sense, we exist with absolute certainty.

If that's not enough of an answer, you might want to check out this article. There someone claims to be something like our creator. If that is true, the matter is clear. Anyone who has a creator must also exist. Right?

Back to more tangible things. A second question has reached us frequently over the holidays: What happened after the attack on Till? What reaction did we choose? The answer is simple, but possibly just as unsatisfying. Soon after, we were all flat on our backs with flu like symptoms, so we didn't do anything at all. Basically Till's preferred solution. Even though there was never a conscious decision.

Over the turn of the year, at least in our minds, some grass has grown over the matter. Only the mark on Till's cheek reminds us that the whole affair hovers unresolved over our heads. The scab has healed in the meantime and there is only a reddish glowing scar in the shape of a bird. Not even particularly ugly. But it will probably never disappear completely.