Audiostretto 59/4/24 English

The word "lovable" has it all and clearly states what it means: is something or someone worthy of love. This implies that there is a standard by which a judgement is made pro or con. But who determines the value for admitted love? And where is the threshold? Obviously there is a pass or fail. When I think about it, I ask myself whether this concept is permissible at all: is this still love at all,...

What is art? A difficult question. For many of us - I count myself among them - something that requires a special talent. For example, painting or designing. Then one is quick to say the art of doing something. In other words, something that is given to some but is difficult or impossible for others. So there are those who love and admire art, especially creative art, and revere its creators accor...

Surely you have been in a hectic situation. Maybe you just got into it and people or circumstances around you were hectic or even you yourself. How did you perceive it? Just very chaotic and confusing or maybe even painful? Today, the term usually means excessive busyness, excitement, haste. But actually the term comes from the health sector. So there was the term febris hectica, which meant consu...

A quarter is a proportion. This means that a part of a whole is shown - the fourth part, a quarter. Depending on how large the whole is, the fourth part can be large or small. But it is and remains a quarter. The rest is three quarters. So three times more. Now, you can always look at the fact that you only get one quarter and three quarters don't. Or you can look at what this quarter is, how big,...

We know that teeth have spaces between them. We don't just have two teeth: one continuous at the top and bottom. That would be possible. But we have several teeth - and spaces between them. We have to take good care of them and the sides of the teeth that form these spaces. Interspaces are perceptible - although interestingly enough, at first glance they are just places without anything. At second...

Our everyday life is usually full of decisions and things we have to take care of. This starts with decisions about when to get up and set the alarm, what to wear and eat, etc. Then there are bigger things, like maybe a trip to organise or arrangements to make for a decision or investment. If we have help and support with these things, it helps us. And if we have people in whom we can fully trust...

When I was a boy, a royal palace for me was only one that was a fortress or stronghold. A castle like Versailles I felt was just a big house. But a stronghold usually has - compared to the a palace or castle - less space, is more inaccessible and sometimes you are locked inside. A palace on the other hand is spacious, has many and large rooms. When you grow up like that, it also influences the way...

Reversi is a board game with 2 opponents, each with one colour of stones, white and black. The board is a regular grid of squares on which you may place your pieces. You may only place stones on squares that have a neighbouring square that is already occupied. If white places a piece in such a way that one or more black pieces are adjacent to it in a line and at the end of the line there is anothe...

The familiar question - which was first? The chicken or the egg? In faith it is similar. John tells us in his account of Jesus that Jesus once said "If you do not see miracles and signs, you do not believe". So: first miracles and signs and then faith? Or first faith and then miracles and signs? If the former, my faith is always dependent on whether I experience supernatural things - if not, my fa...

In German, we have two proverbs about hands: having your hands full and standing empty-handed. The first means you have no more capacity for anything else and the latter you have lost everything or have nothing. Both are not necessarily meant in a positive way. But it is precisely the latter that is deceptive in its message: it is actually good to have empty hands - because then we are free to rec...

When a road is newly built or generally overhauled, it is given a new fine surface. It may not be very thick, but it has a fine structure so that you can drive over it beautifully. Because the surface is so smooth, there is hardly any friction and you can make very good progress. It is different where a road is damaged, has potholes or grooves and cracks. If you know these obstacles, you drive aro...

Listening to the impulse for today, nothing came for a long time... I was a bit frustrated and disappointed with myself. But then I thought: I won't give up because I know that something will always come. And so I stuck to perseverance. So I have the impression that today it's your turn to encourage yourself in something that you would like to do with joy and passion but maybe you can't do it at t...

I loved playing with the Yoyo as a child. It fascinated me that the thing could spin so fast and then after it went down it would automatically come up again without my doing and then with a new impulse of mine it would be sent down again and then come up again. I think we all know moments when we have the impression that things are going downhill and sometimes it is not even our own fault - a bro...

When I see a Swiss flag, it always touches me. No matter where, abroad even more so. It moves something in me emotionally and even more so. It touches me, it affects my identity. When the Swiss flag is used for mischief, it hurts me, and when it is mistreated in any way or not treated with respect, it touches me and stirs feelings of justice in me. But this also shows me that we human beings are d...

In summer, people like to drink an iced drink with a straw. This actually requires more effort than if you were to just drink the drink like that. You have to consciously suck in the liquid with compressed lips and pull it into your mouth. Why do you make this extra effort? Because it's a sensory experience, I think. So the straw doesn't help make things easier, on the contrary, but it gives you a...

Products or companies often have a logo. This can be an image or a text or a font or a combination of these. The idea behind it is, of course, the law of association. That is, when I see this logo, I am immediately reminded of the product or company - and then perhaps even of certain characteristics or experiences. So the logo serves as a memory aid and emotion trigger. Perhaps you have made new y...

As a teenager, I was an enthusiastic photographer - and so I witnessed the whole development of the digitalisation of photography very closely. Would you have thought 30 years ago that you would take photos with a telephone? That sounds absurd... or make phone calls with a camera? Probably a question of perspective. In any case, in the past you had to invest more time in taking photos. From buying...

Locked doors sometimes have a certain fascination. Especially when there is a keyhole. As children, we liked to look through it. That way we were officially excluded or something was hidden from us, but we could still see a few details of what was happening behind the door through the small hole. And suddenly the feeling of being excluded was no longer there. On the contrary. There was something m...

Only recently I talked about the fact that, due to changes, there are always new terms that did not exist before. But there is also the opposite - terms that will probably become more and more obsolete or no longer in use. For me, the keyhole is one of them. I imagine that in the future, doors that need a locking device will only have them electronically or digitally, and they will be closed and o...

Did you know that from Earth we only ever see the same side of the Moon? That is, the Moon also rotates on its axis but at a speed that does not allow us to see its far side. Thanks to the efforts of the last century, mankind has been able to use technology to send space ships into space and take pictures of the far side of the moon, and so we can now know what the moon looks like in its entirety....

Probably most of us grew up with a flush toilet. Yet as children, we went on certain holidays to what was then East Germany, and where we lived there was only one hole, a pit latrine. That means you simply defecated into a hole without flushing afterwards. The smell was extremely bad. A water flush, on the other hand, really carries away the excrement and after a short time the air is pleasant aga...

One of the ways a bicycle is propelled is by a chain. This means that when you pedal, the power applied is transferred from the pedals to the rear wheel by means of a chain, and this is how you move forward. Such a chain can become worn out over time and in the worst case it can break. With the help of a small tool, the distance between the links can be measured to determine whether the links are...

I recently ordered something online. I've done it many times before and this time I thought "I'll do it quickly". So far so good. Then I got the message that the order would be delivered - to my horror to an old address where I can't be reached at all and it wasn't exactly nearby either.... I was annoyed with myself. I needn't have been - if I'd been a bit more concentrated and on focused and hadn...

The famous glass of water... is it half full or half empty? What does that mean? Our language is actually fuzzy and strongly dependent on the context. A glass of water in Switzerland is probably a glass with a volume of about 1.5dl. In the US, a glass of water is probably three times that size! Does that matter? Maybe not. Maybe it does. If I'm in a very hot place in the summer and maybe haven't h...

At the end of the 19th century, people were probably traveling mainly by horse and other animals. The railroad and cars were only in development, I imagine. And then in the following decades these travel services developed and today we take them for granted. Today we call the roads where the cars can drive at high speed highways. I do not know what relation there is to altitude but at some point a...