Goals for 2019

I’m usually not a fan of new year’s resolutions, I don’t like the idea of unnecessarily putting on oneself, especially since the time between Christmas and NYE already can be stressful enough. So far, I’ve always had my goals for a new year to come some time during fall. This year, I decided to do a shopping (for clothes and accessories) detox for three months, and even though I had to push the date from when I begin, I’m not less committed to it. Until today, my other resolutions were pretty basic, the stuff you hear all the time: exercise more (which I keep telling myself throughout the year – but I went on a run yesterday and even today) and eat healthy (not so easy, because it’s still hard for me to find a balance). But these two were mostly it. At least up to this day.

As you may know, I just recently moved to Cologne. It was such a hassle to find a place at first, then I suddenly had two appartments (I was a catsitter in the second), which meant that I constantly had to go back and forth the places I lived. In addition to that, I’m currently working two jobs, neither of them in Cologne, and so on an average day, I spend at least 3 hours in public transportation. At the moment, the catsitting part has been sorted out. And by the end of January, one of my temporary work contracts will also come to an end. Things will become easier eventually.

Now that you know the story, my first resolution for the new year probably won’t come as a surprise. Spending an insane amount of time on trains has made me realize that getting a driver’s license isn’t that much of an option as I once thought. I used to think that having a car is a luxury I don’t need. But that was when I lived in Paris. Now, it’s very different, it even makes more sense to have a car than having to go by train all the time. Sure, it’s not great for the environment, but having to spend 3 hrs vs 40 min just to get to and from work, it’s a no brainer. And that’s coming from me, who hates driving, gets easily distracted and immediately feels the need of taking a nap as soon as the car starts moving. But passing my driver’s license would definitely be an achievement. And I would only drive automatic or hopefully one of these robot cars that do everything for you.

My second resolution also has to do with my current living situation. Right now, I’m sharing an appartment with 3 other people. (3 seems to be the magic number in this post.) We get along well, at least so far (I think one month is hardly enough to assess that). But of course, it can also be challenging, especially because we only have a tiny kitchen and also just one typically German bathroom, meaning that the toilet is not separated. So you better don’t come home totally shit-faced – there’s always a risk of someone taking a long, relaxing bubble bath while you, destroyed from what was supposed to be just one drink after work, are frantically trying to find a bucket or anything to contain all the drinks you ingurgitated, and which are just about to make a second appearance. (Of course, wine country France has the toilet/bathroom situation figured out.)
I’ve also learned that living in a shared appartment with just one bathroom is not the moment for latent food intolerances to become apparant.

But it’s not just a question of practicality and comfort. Having to live with other people means adapting to their mentalities. I just found out that my roommates and I seem to have a different understanding of cleaning, which is funny, because I always thought to be the complicated one. It’s not new to me that cleanliness in a shared household becomes at least a tiny issue, sooner or later. What’s new is that I’m the one being told to clean better. And though I’ve never been an obsessive cleaner, I do like to keep my place nice and tidy. But my theory is that the 7 years I’ve spent in France as well as the years I worked in food service (which can be really gross) have changed my attitude towards cleaning and what is acceptable or not. In France, life is oriented to the outside. You go meet your friends in a café, go have a picnic, go out, most social activity happens outside of your home. In Germany, people tend to spend much more time at home. They invite people over, but they would never do so without having cleaned the entire appartment first. I remember that my parents would announce on a Wednesday that my grnad-parents would come over on the weekend. Just so that I had my room tidy and presentable. And my mom would go nuts vacuuming and dusting.
I’m much more relaxed than that. I don’t care if there’s still a dust particle in some corner. I don’t mind when people don’t take off their shoes when they enter my room. (I only would if I had a carpet.) And I definitely don’t want to spend hours cleaning. So I do small chunks throughout the week, whenever it’s necessary. On the contrary my roommates prefer to sacrifice an entire day to clean, no matter if things got disgusting two days before cleaning day. And so my second goal for 2019 is: Get a place on my own!

The third resolution is an old one. I still want to finish my studies, even though I find it really hard to make it a priority. It’s just more appealing to have job where I get paid. Of course I know that a degree can be useful for getting better positions with higher paychecks, but I have to provide for myself right now, too. And so far, working and studying at the same time hasn’t worked that well for me, and it’s not just an issue with time managment. I hope that’ll change this year.

Last but not least, I’d like to start a podcast with a friend. I have no idea what that’ll be like, but I’m sure it’ll be fun, even if no one will listen.

And that concludes my list. What are your resolutions? Also, happy new year!

Just blogging, Lifestyle

Moving and commuting

Lost time is never found again.
Benjamin Franklin

This week has been exhausting. Since I moved to Cologne, I roughly spend 3 hours of my day commuting. One reason is that my university and my friends are in Bonn, a town which is quite nearby, but if you don’t have a car (or a license) not exactly around the corner. Another is that my current workplaces are in Bonn as well. Since you probably don’t know the story: This summer, I started looking for a new place in Bonn, for personal reasons. I was rather optimistic and thought that one or two months should largely suffice to find a place, but it turned out to be more complicated than that. Tbh, the housing situation in Bonn is just crazy and people are clearly taking advantage of it. The amount of crappy shithole apartments people try to rent to you is insane. And so after I’ve annoyed everyone in my circle with my rants about how shitty the situation is, I realized, that I shouldn’t just concentrate on the area close by, but also consider other places. Besides, I haven’t exactly felt at home since I came back to Bonn – it’s quite provinical and I’ve always preferred cities to small towns. And even though Cologne is not exactly a metropolis either, it’s at least Germany’s fourth largest city. But more importantly, there’s stuff happening here! On my first weekend, I’ve already done more interesting stuff than I would have done in two months in Bonn. I went to series of talks, met up with a stranger, went to the Christmas market, checked out some art. I feel like Cologne is a city where I could actually see myself staying for more than just a couple of months. (To give you an idea, within the last ten years, I’ve moved exactly 10 times.) Besides, my new roommates are pretty dope. In short, I’m quite happy here. But of course, it would be too easy if that was all.

So at the same time I was looking for apartments, I also had to get a new job. (The one I had before was on a fixed-term contract.) I was lucky. Instead of just one, I got two part time jobs, which I’m both currently doing. The only inconvenience is that not only they’re both in two different places, but also both in Bonn, which brings be back to the beginning of this post. In addition to that, I’m house- and catsitting at the moment, for a lady who has cancer. This one is in Cologne, but at the other end of the city.

Therefore, I’m constantly traveling back and forth from one of the apartments to one of the workplaces and also in between. And as you can imagine, it’s very time-consuming and also very exhausting. And especially this week, it’s gotten to a point where I felt that people would just randomly claim my time, without considering what a change of schedule could mean for me, how much planning ahead, and how much time lost it would be in the end. But fact is, it’s been three weeks it’s been like that. And since most of it is related to work, it makes me feel like I’m a slave to others, without a having a say on how I to use my time. Instead of being able to plan and take time for things that are important to me, I’m now always in reaction mode. It’s just exhausting and innecessarily time-consuming. And I can actually feel how it takes away from my quality of sleep and my general well-being.

Now I know that my complaining comes from a place of privilege. I mean, at least I do have a job and a place to live, right? But the thing that really annoys me is that I’m not using all my capacities the right way and that I’m not reaching my full potential. I could and want to do so much more. And being in this situation where there’s basically no time for myself left just sucks. The only comfort right now is that everything about my current situation – or let’s say my jobs – is just temporary. I guess in the meanwhile, all I can do is to pack good books.

Lifestyle

Are you spontaneous?

I’m sure many of you have heard that question. Are you spontaneous?

Normally, that’s a question everyone would love to answer with a big YES!, capital letters, exclamation point. I mean why wouldn’t you? Being spontaneous rhymes with being easygoing, adventurous, fun and exciting. It probably also rhymes with being really good in bed. Girls who are down to improvise a camping trip to some place where only the stars are watching you. So who wouldn’t want to be spontaneous?

I told you that I do the whole online dating thing. (Spoiler alert, it’s the worst idea ever, but at least, it gives me something to write about.) And so guys asking me about how spontaneous I am is probably one of the most frequently asked questions. And it sounds like a normal question, right? Well, that’s what I naively thought too, until I realized that the typical time frame for that question was around midnight. Aka thirsty dudes looking for booty calls, not putting in any effort.

And so it made me wonder: What does being spontaneous even mean? I mean of course I’m not going to go out of my way and meet some random guy in the middle of the night, not even if I actually have nothing better to do. But still, I strongly believe that there are acceptable times for a first date and that a first date should never begin at midnight, period. Besides, there’s Netflix. So the entertainment that awaits me instead should be pretty awesome, but what are the chances? I largely prefer spending an hour or even two meeting someone in the early evening and then forget all about it while I drink tons of white wine and rewatch Sex and the City for the umpteenth time than having my entire night ripped away. Of course, there’s nothing that should prevent anyone to meet up with the crush of their life at no matter what time of the day or night. But what are the chances? In my experience, it’s mostly the thirsty dudes that want you to come over in the middle of the night – like a prostitute who doesn’t take money. Or at the very best, a girl who doesn’t have a life but waits for some dude to make her day/night.

So my answer to the spontaneity question? Mostly yes and no. I love to be spontaneous when I’m already with a person, meaning when I have already scheduled some time for them. But I would never abandon my plans just to meet up with someone who sends me a lazy message. Not even if my only plan for the night is to Keep Up With The Kardashians. That’s why I usually answer the spontaneity question with ‘No, I’m a stuck up bitch.’

PS: Google suggests fun stuff for spontaneity. Apparently, people who are spontaneous love the outdoors and have a healthy heart.

Lifestyle

Bye bye booze!

Happy Easter everyone! As from today, the fasting period is over and on that occasion, I wanted to share my experience of going (almost) sober for a month.

A little spoiler beforehand: I didn’t exactly go sober. Firstly because I enjoy a good glass of wine, and secondly because I don’t care for any sort of extremes and so I don’t see why I should unnecessarily restrict myself. Nevertheless, I did reduce my alcohol intake significantly.

I’m not religious in any way, but after carnival season, I thought it was a good idea to get a little more careful. Last month, I was invited to a few parties, two of them turned into whole-day events. I was drinking the entire time and of course, my memories about those nights are a little blurry. And not that it would be punishment enough to have to ask your friends about what happened, I also had a small issue with my teeth afterwards. I have very sensitive teeth, but two days of drinking bubbly non-stop made it incredibly painful for me to just brush them. Just because of that, I didn’t drink for two weeks straight. I got my teeth fixed in the meanwhile, but I was still quite scary to drink again. And besides, I thought that it would be a good thing to change my drinking habits.

I’ve worked in gastronomy for around two years and during that time, my alcohol consumption got a little excessive, I have to say. One day, I took an alcohol assessment test online and it told me that with at least 5 units a day, within a year I’d drunk my body weight in booze. That was around five/six years ago. (I was 22 back then.) Fortunately, I reached a point where the thought of drinking almost made me wanna through up and so I just stopped. But at the same time, my social life kinda went out the window as well. I thought that going out would be boring without drinking and so I just wasn’t up to it anymore.

Then eventually, but only for a short period of time, I found a somewhat balanced way to handle alcohol, but I still had nights of binge-drinking. And even the occasional glass of wine soon brought me back to a bottle a day. And until last year, I pretty much maintained that quantity.

I guess the problem was that I’m not really afraid of becoming an alcoholic. I never had the feeling that I needed alcohol (but then again, I did drink every single day) and I also felt like I could stop at any moment if I wanted to. I just didn’t want to. Besides, a bottle a day is actually not that much if you think about it. In fact, it’s a glass for apéro, another when you cook, a larger one that goes with your meal, then another one when you watch a movie and then you may as well finish the tiny drop that’s left in the bottle.

Again, I had that moment where I didn’t even want to drink but still did because I was used to it. I knew I had to change something, not only because alcohol makes your skin look dull, but most of all because being drunk can put you in some dangerous situations. Like that one night, where I stayed at the bar after my shift. I didn’t even want to stay until late, but you know how those nights turn out when you say you’ll “only have one drink”. In the end I made it to the train station past midnight but had missed my train. While waiting, I fell asleep on one of the benches. Fortunately, there was police patrolling the station and so it was relatively safe. However, if I’d fallen asleep somewhere else, the chances of getting all my stuff stolen would have been pretty good. (One of the officers woke me up, I realized that there was no train that would bring me home until 4 am. I went out of the station and luckily ran into the guys I was drinking with. We shared a cab and I got home safe.) This was just one of many rock bottoms.

So during the last month, I had alcohol on very few occasions only. And if I did, I had a big glass of water directly before or after. Not only does this method help to curb my appetite for more and more wine, it’s also a good way to save money. I actually did see a difference on my bank account. Before, a normal night out would usually cost me around 20 € just for drinks. Drinking less alcohol easily reduces that amount by half.

But a much more important benefit I got from drinking less is that my sleep quality improved tremendously. Before, I constantly felt tired even after 10 hours of sleep. I still need lots of sleep (ideally 9 hours), but when I wake up now, I feel well-rested. Which gives me the energy to be more active throughout my day. I now work out in the morning, even if it’s just a small workout. (Though, I still have days where I can’t get myself motivated to do anything at all, but at least it’s not due to feeling tired and having a headache because of too many drinks.)

Yet, I don’t think that I’m becoming a teetotaller anytime soon, but this past month has definitely made me be more aware of my drinking habits and has helped me learn to listen to my body more carefully. Now, I only drink if I really have the “appetite” for it. And I even then, I’m drinking less alcohol than I would have before. With that said, I’m going to top up my glass of water.

Culture, Just blogging, Lifestyle

Watching Hot Girls Wanted

Thanks to binge-watching clips on youtube, I discovered the trailer for the documentary Hot Girls Wanted. Lucky for me, there was a free Netflix trial coming my way, later and so I got to watch it quite soon after the release date. I have to add that it took my a little while before I actually dared to watch it – I was expecting something like Requiem of A Dream, which – as I vividly remember – was everything but easy to watch. And so, before finally watching the documentary on the very last day of the trial , I kept asking myself if I was ready to see some maybe disturbing content, potentially making me wanna puke. To my great relief, it’s a very well done documentary and co far, I’ve recommended it to everybody I talked to about it.

I was positively surprised about how it was made visually. I guess that, because of the subject, I expected the content to be more explicit and right in your face than it actually is. I’m glad I was wrong and that the documentary is easily accessible, even for a sissy like me.

The French journal Le Figaro describes the documentary as shocking. I wouldn’t use such a strong word. As a guy in the documentray says, porn has become mainstream and boundaries seem to be much lower than they probably used to be 30 years ago. It seems that the common acceptance of it has grown. And therefore, it’s not surprising to me at all that people want to profit from that, producers as well as young girls who think that tehy’re just going to make quick money. Besides, Hot Girls Wanted doesn’t denounce the existence of porn, it rather analyses it, showing different point of views. Instead of relying on the possible shock effect the subject entails, I think the documentary is more about encouraging people to get a wider understanding of the topic and to be critical.

So far, I didn’t have an opinion on porn. I thought if people wanted to make tapes of them or others banging, why not, it doesn’t really affect me. But I start to realize that the impact of porn on society is much bigger than I would have guessed. Before watching Hot Girls Wanted, I had no idea that stuff like torture porn existed. I also wasn’t aware that abuse is very present, to the extent that it’s practically become mainstream. The thought of it makes me feel nauseated and it’s impossible for me to understand how the idea of torture/ abuse / rape can be sexy to somebody supposedly normal. And yet, abuse porn gets around 16 million hits per month and some of the most popular sites even include the mention in their domains.

One could argue that that’s just how porn is, and that hard core niche stuff exists, and that people are acting. But honest question here, has anyone ever considered porn stars as serious actors/actresses? I also doubt that it’s easy to constantly remind oneself that nothing in porn is real and that everybody who’s watching can make that difference.

What worries me are the very weird misconceptions which keep popping up. Just think of how E.L. James glorifies an abusive relationship, and people love it, despite the fact that it’s incredibly poorly written. The wonderfully backward, gender streotype promoting magazine Cosmopolitan France also surprised me: published in the July issue, one article about how to be as sexy as can be in summer actually crept me out. In one paragraph it suggested that when having a picnic, a woman who accidentally cut herself is sexier if the cut bleeds, even sexier if some blood dripped on some carrots, and sexy as hell if she licked the blood from the carrots while staring in the eyes of a man of her choosing. Yeeahhhh…. everybody knows that mutilation always is a big turn-on, as well as blood sucking is. Get some Bella and Edward vibes in your bedroom, ahem, dungeon. Weird that Ozzy Osbourne hasn’t been elected Sexiest Man Alive after he bit off that poor bat’s head.

But even without those rather drastic examples, it’s become evident to me more than once that porn clearly influences our society and the way people interact. All it needs is one click on Instagram in order to see a photo collection of women’s arses (or, to use the correct term which has been invented for that purpose: belfies), under- and sideboobs, and lots and lots of suggestive images.

As for my personal experience, I feel like there’s not much romance going on any more. In a time where everyone can easily find a fuck buddy on Tinder, there’s no need to wait politely and patiently for a third date until getting it on. There were times when I thought of a guy as a real gentleman if he didn’t ask me if I was into anal play on the first date. Or that guy who, not long after I just met him, kept telling me how much he dreamt of face fucking me. When I told him that we didn’t have exactly the same fantasies, he just said “Fine.” and it was the last time I ever heard from him again. I admit that some of my dating choices were obviously very poor. But the actual point I intend to make with those examples is that seemingly, being able to openly talk about sex isn’t that easy sometimes. Instead, in some cases, it’s nothing but a consumed image which is spit out again, sometimes very noisily.

At school, they took sex education very seriously. From a biological point of view, everything had been explained in detail. What we never talked about in class was intimacy and how relationships (are supposed to) work. Another topic that never came up: consent. Although it’s essential. – I also never really talked to my parents about that. And I think, but that’s just a guess, that it’s the same for quite a few of my peers as well as for teens and twens today.

One girl in the documentary stated that she never had sex in real life, but only when she did porn. I find this statement particularily strange. And of course, although this very particular example surely isn’t a common case, I still conjecture that watching what’s a sheer performance for the camera has an impact on the viewers private life, and that comparisons are made in a place where they don’t belong. That being said, I think it’s reassuring, there are initiatives which try to fight that, as for example the website makelovenotporn.com, created by Cindy Gallop. The “Know It” section is quite funny.

For a quick summary of Hot Girls Wanted, the Vice interview with Rashida Jones is pretty good. And for some statistics, you can check out the Forbes article about porn and the internet, or this website, or why not the documentary.

For more posts, go to www.jlouisewinter.com.

Culture, Lifestyle

Changes

And it’s Sunday again. It came so suddenly. The last couple of days just flew by. Maybe the last week seemed to pass by so fast because I mostly stuck to my daily routine, consisting of working out, my job and my blog. And seeing friends, of course. Recently, one of my friends came back from a few months travel and so we have been hanging out to catch up. She told me about all the amazing countries she visited, the awesome people she’d met and that she actually didn’t want to come back to Paris. (As a matter of fact, she’s only staying two weeks before flying back to Australia.) She said that people here would probably still have the same jobs, still live in the same place, still have the same troubles in their relationships. Well, although things might not be as boring as that, I do see her point.

After having had a drunk night out yesterday, I went for a walk this afternoon. Looking at the remaining Christmas decoration in the streets, seeing people getting rid of their Christmas tree which finally started to shed it’s needles, I suddenly became oddly aware of how transient everything is and that at the same time, nothing changes. One year just went by and I hardly noticed it. Sure, there have been quite some changes, I realized it as soon I was writing a long letter to someone I haven’t seen since 2013. It might be the fact that I’m turning 25 this year and that I’m about to have a quarter century crisis, but today made me questioning how much I have achieved in life so far.

On Sundays, people take their kids to the park or go see the grandparents, twenty-somethings go home to have lunch with their families, students who came to Paris for their studies are spending the last day of the weekend at home in the suburbs before taking the train back to the city. On Sundays, people take a break from the usual, everyday’s rush. They take the time to go for a stroll or for visiting a museum. On Sundays, everything seems to pause.

Sundays used to make me feel restless and I’m just slowly learning to appreciate them as a day which I can absolutely dedicate to myself. But sometimes, looking at the other park visitors makes me having second thoughts about my life. I awkwardly notice that my mum had already had me when she had the same age. After finishing her studies with successfully, she had found a stable job which gave her enough security and already founded a family. By that time, she was totally independent from her parents.

As for me, I dropped out of university, I don’t have any degree. I worked in the food service industry for a couple of years before getting a better paid job in an e-commerce enterprise. But I surely couldn’t provide for an imaginary kid, I couldn’t even get a cat. The last time I asked my mum to help me out financially is not that long ago and I also still live with my flatmate, which is great, but nevertheless, I think sharing a flat is something that you should only do for a certain period of time. As always, there are also exceptions, of course. But thinking of the people in their mid-thirties I’ve met and who still shared a flat, I know that I definitely do not want to make this my lifestyle.

In the 19th century men were considered as men as soon as they were able to grow a beard or go to war. Women got married at the age of 20 to 22 and often became mothers shortly afterwards.

I remember how weird I found it when the boys I went to school with suddenly started talking about doing their military service. And the girl who was the first one of our year to get married surely surprised me. So what makes us become adults, nowadays? When is the moment that we’re able to say “Now, my life is settled”?

Taking into account how fast our society changes and that there are so many more possibilities and career choices than 200 or even 20 years ago, it’s normal that finding oneself and being able to build one’s independent future has become a much longer process.

The good thing is that I won’t be able to do crazy things like buying a sports car until I figure out my next professional and personal steps. I can save that for my midlife-crisis. Maybe I will have my driver’s licence by then.

Just blogging, Lifestyle

About my new way of blogging

Now that I’m getting back to blogging, I’m thinking a lot about how I could best promote my blog, of course. Certainly, there are many instructions to read and some researches to make – I noticed that I actually don’t know a thing about wordpress or social media. It was only recently that I’ve found out how to use Instagram, and looking at the accounts followed by thousands of people, I’m still not sure if I’ve totally figured it out. 40 followers, whoop whoop! It was quite the same for Pinterest, my flatmate needed to explain it to me, otherwise, I would definitely still be clueless. And there are still tons of apps which leave me somewhat confused. Snapchat for instance, or Dubsmash, which recently flooded Facebook like a virtual tsunami.

I don’t really mind that my social media skills give room for a lot of improvement, I can always add that to my “Things I want to do or to know or to be better at” list. And since social media can be really important for your personal or professional project, I guess I will start some reading after finishing this post.

After having published my previous post I thought about with whom I wanted to share my blog. Taking a more personal direction, I wasn’t sure if I wanted everybody to read it. Funnily, I wasn’t afraid that my mum could find out anything compromising about me, she already knows everything. I was more afraid of the possible judgement of the people I know, which means friends, friends of friends, some coworkers, some acquaintances. I’m rather introverted and so making friends usually takes quite some time, mostly because my extremely pronounced skepticism makes me dislike most people at first. So of course, I don’t want to ruin a friendship with a couple of stupid lines. But of course, I came to the conclusion that your friends like you for who you are, or in some cases, despite of who you are. So I guess that also counts for blogs. By the way, I’m sorry Linda that your guinea pig got diarrhea. It was me who had fed him all the dandelion. I didn’t know he had a dandelion intolerance. Hope we can still be friends!

Finally and as you can see, I spent way too much time thinking about how I would come across. Also, I’m somehow hoping that those who read my texts will be more inspired by the texts than by my person.

As for music, people tend to recognize themselves in a song and the most successful and powerful songs usually have lyrics which are appealing to many people, so that they can connect to it. Good music provokes an emotion but also responds to the listeners emotional state. When we’re listening to music, the person who wrote and sings the song seems less important and is slightly shoved in the background, becoming a rather abstract figure.

I think it’s the same for fictional literature, and maybe even for some non-fictional books, such as (auto)biographies. Besides a great plot, readers are hooked if one of the book’s characters inspires sympathy. This is mostly the case if the reader finds any kind of common ground between himself and the character. Besides, I think that this even contributes to creating a suspense. In my opinion, as identifying with a character, we’re also looking at an abstract reflection of a part of us. This can lead to questioning our own acts and our behavior towards others. Therefore, identifying with a character also means judging ourselves through this character. And so while reading, we constantly need to be reassured. Is the story going as I expected? What if I was in the same position? Would I have done the same thing?

It has happened to me that I was disappointed by a book’s character I firstly liked. This happened either when the character did something extremely stupid (and so I got frustrated because it was so easy to see it coming), or when the character did something against the values I support. In such a situation, I’m always wondering who’s right and who’s wrong, or if there is such a thing as the right choice. And there again, the author doesn’t take much space in the reader’s mind. At the moment of reception, his role is less important than the role of the hero, except if there are obvious autobiographical traits. But even then, I think that the reader still concentrates more on how the text he’s reading affects him.

Probably, it’s not very different with a blog. The blogger mainly has the role of a mediator and also seems rather abstract to me. Of course, I may see a part of what their life is like and what experiences they make through their eyes, but the blogger as an individual person remains an enigma for me. In the end, and again, it all comes down to just sharing stuff, may it be personal or not. And I will be glad if a few people like my texts. And if they don’t, well, they don’t.

Culture, Lifestyle

New year, new beginning

Even though I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolutions – I think people should try to be the best version of themselves throughout the whole year and also make resolutions at any moment it becomes necessary – I actually do have some resolutions for this year.

The first one, which I’ve already started working on since November, are getting fitter, physically and also mentally. Having struggled with eating disorders for the past ten years, I’m becoming aware of the results of the horrible things I did to my body. I’m also noticing how my former lifestyle is affecting my health and how it might affect me in the future. Therefore, I started taking care of myself, which includes working out regularily, eating healthier, drinking less alcohol and sleeping more (and much better without the usual glas, glasses or sometimes masses of wine I used to have).

And since body and mind go hand in hand when it comes to your well-being, I also decided that I would challenge my brain more. At first, I started with the idea of simply increasing my IQ and trained myself by doing some IQ test preparation on my phone everytime I was taking public transports. In the meanwhile, I was thinking about how I could also become more creative. I have to admit that I kind of feel ashamed when people find out that I once started writing a blog, when I’m now totally lacking of inspiration and commitment. So I’m now planning on writing for at least half an hour a day – about anything, regardless of how it it could affect potential readers. (I’ve read that becoming adults, we lose the spontaneity that kids have. Kids just start drawing, writing, being creative without minding how their work will be perceived. As adults, we first of all think about the result we try to achieve, and sometimes get frustrated with our creative attempts, which of course, turn out to not be that creative in the end. So in order to escape this vicious circle, I’m trying to stop overthinking. I can still do that when it finally comes to publishing what I’ve written.) I hope in that way, I will be able to collect some ideas which are worth working with. That being said, I’ve no clue which direction this blog will take. There will certainly be less posts about fashion (there are so many talented people who are alreday doing a great job by writing about fashion). Instead, I will probably share more of my personal thoughts, concerns, opinions. Or to say it in a different way, I will use the blog for its initial purpose.

A few weeks ago, I read an article on the website of The Guardian. It was an critique on a modern artist whose name I forgot. (It also doesn’t matter in is case.) What really striked me in this article was the critivc asking if the artist had ever thought about what she actually wanted to express and in which way her art should affect the recipient. Apparently, she just went from painting to publishing, staying in the childish approach of not thinking about what kind of an impact her art could have. In any case, I thought that the question of purpose was a relevant one. And even though some people might say that art should have no purpose, I never shared this opinion. Also, I sometimes get the impression that modern artists don’t seem to care very much about how their art is received or if it’s accessible. But that’s another chapter. What I initially wanted to express with this rather huge parenthesis is, that even though I’ve given some thought to the possible reactions of potential readers and to the question if I could make an impact with my texts (probably not), I have no answer to that at all. And so I’m satisfied that a blog isn’t a piece of art.

Anyway, I hope I will succeed in sticking to my New Year’s resolutions and maybe, some interesting texts will come out.

Happy New Year!

jlouisewinter

my brain in a nutshell

Category Archives: Lifestyle