The Art of Existential Reflection

Rain or no rain it's time for coffee. Wake up latte the big gun. Butter croissant the soother. Take the dog, spill my coffee only a bit, not bad for the 28kg beast who likes to pull. Or not bad for the 92kg beast who has the morning wobbliness.

Chitchat about politics, while I'm optimistic, the country is still going to hell apparently. Good that I have a bunker in my basement in Switzerland. Just need to stack it up with some cans of beans, wait maybe not beans, sweetcorn, carrots and of course apricots. Let's not forget the tuna and sardines. And of course many bottles of wine, prosecco and Aperol. Salami and cheese!

The guy next to me reading something interesting but I no longer remember what it is. Sharing with the barista his experience about some other coffee shop which I thought was criticism but it might have been a recommendation. I know that other coffee shop and secretly I hope for criticism, even though I do like that other coffee shop. Human nature to look for reasons why some place or person is not as great as we hope. Perhaps fear that one day that truth will come out and we would have been suckered in for too long.

The postman with the long hair and fluffy beard walks in delivering boxes of cake and refuses a coffee on the house on his way out. I guess that's not how he gets paid. Although one of the main motivations to work is to buy coffee so if I got free coffee I'd likely lose some of my motivation. Learning last night that coffee is the only beverage that we have hundreds of years of data on and is apparently indeed conclusively healthy. Then again, many things are best in moderation. My dentist even recommended Coca-Cola in moderation. Moderation is a tricky concept for how many people reached greatness and terribleness by doing things in moderation?

I guess Bill Gates worked 10 hours a week. And Hitler was an evil dictator two days a week. And Elon Musk sleeps in. But it's already documented that Elon Musk definitely doesn't sleep in. The guy hardly even works out, which is quite clear to the eye but he doesn't deny it. Not a man of moderation. Are Olympians people of moderation? Can't be. Isn't this life-work balance another way of saying I'm lazy as fuck?

Then again make me work more than 20 hours a week and I'll find myself looking in the mirror with existential angst. But those 20 hours can be without moderation. And then working out every day for a few hours is that moderation or no moderation? Perhaps moderation is relevant. Drinking alcohol daily in Austria is moderation and in the US likely an alcoholic. But someone who works 80 hours a week is not working in moderation anywhere. Perhaps in ancient Egypt that was a lazy slave. Or even in colonial times.

Well one thing's for sure is that if I have this much time to think and write about this I definitely have a lot of moderation in my life. But perhaps if you don't have time to write and think you're not living a life of moderation. And you cannot judge slavery of the past for your mind is much enslaved. Your time is not yours and your dreams are not yours.