Audiostretto 59/4/24 English

Depending on the position of your teeth and the food you have eaten, you may appreciate a toothpick to remove any remaining food from between your teeth. It feels better afterwards and is also more hygienic because no or less harmful bacteria can then form. It is similar with our thinking. We process various things that we ingest during the day - and certain remain, sometimes unpleasantly. And if...

When I was a kid, we sometimes had spun sugar at the fair. I liked it very much. Not because of the taste, but because as soon as you had it in your mouth, it was gone. I found that fascinating. I think in life there are also things like that, which we like but which are without substance in the end. They taste and are delicious for a short time, but they don't last. Such moments - at least in my...

As a player on a football pitch, you want the terrain to be as flat as possible without any unevenness. Then you can play the ball optimally, you don't stumble and the passes arrive. But if the terrain is uneven, that's no longer possible, then it becomes unpredictable, which is annoying for many. In our lives today in the West, we very often take such a flat, self-evident assumption for granted:...

Surely you have had to press a key at some point - on a computer or at a cash machine or on some other electronic device. I asked myself where the term comes from, because it obviously can't be that old, because where there are buttons or keys, such devices haven't really been around for a long time. It struck me: In German a key is called a "touch". That indicates the inclusion of feeling. In Eng...

Did you know that precision and accuracy are not the same? Precision is when, for example, you always hit very close to the same place when shooting at a target. But that can be far away from the target. Accuracy is when your attempts are all around the target, but maybe scattered. So ideally you hit precisely and accurately. Sometimes we are very obsessed with precision, for example in statements...

In this time of long nights, many of us hang stars: as paper cut-outs, origami or even ones that glow. We long for light these days, especially in the darkness of the night. Stars also stand for excellence. In football, for example, in the Champions League. Or on the European flag there is a circle of 12 stars. They stand for the values of unity, solidarity and harmony between the peoples of Europ...

Today, people still call a tv a tv, but it is no longer what it originally was. TV stands for television. Translated from the Greek, it means - precisely - remote vision. Strange, because the opposite actually happens: it is a close-up view of images that come from a remote source, namely from the transmitter. The tv used to show only black and white pictures, then coloured ones, and today there a...

If you like coffee - like I do - then you know that a good coffee is one that is freshly ground and brewed. That is, the beans have been well and professionally roasted beforehand - but ideally they are ground just before brewing. Of course, you can also prepare coffee with powder from beans that have been ground for some time. But the loss of quality in taste is noticeable. On the other hand, you...

I find shadows something fascinating. They only exist where there is light. They do not exist by themselves. In other words, a shadow is an indication of light resistance. For example, if the sun shines vertically from above, a vertical tower will not have a shadow, but a canopy that is open on all sides will. It is created as a sign that the light has not reached its destination - the ground. Eve...

Change It is often said that we live in a time of rapid change and that changes and developments have taken place in recent years that used to take decades or longer. Or that behaviour is changing significantly, for example in the workplace: where someone used to spend their whole working life in one company, temporary jobs are now much more attractive for professionals because they are so sought...

Comparison I was recently in a situation where I got an offer. I was actually very happy with it and pleased when it was finalised - until I found out that someone else got a better deal for almost the same. I found it interesting what this did to me internally: suddenly a dissatisfaction arose, or perhaps envy or the feeling of being ripped off. Yet nothing at all changed in the original offer, w...

When we talk about constructing a building, we might simply put it like this: I am constructing a building. It is clear that the goal is the building and the way to get there - which is still ahead of me is the building. But we could also say "I am building a building". It is the same word twice: building. To me it sounds like I have not only reached the goal when the building is finished, but tha...

Before there was the mobile phone, telephone calls were mainly possible via cable connections. That is, there were cables stretched over land, for example, in the air from mast to mast, which made communication possible. If everything was in order from the infrastructure point of view, that was no problem. But how quickly could communication fail if the cable was damaged or cut at just one point....

A friend of mine recently told me about a conflict and how what should have been a factual dissemination of information turned into polarising parties and groups that began to accuse each other. It made me think and reminded me that when I start to see things in others that I accuse them of, that in many cases this has to do with the fact that I myself am very much in danger of doing exactly what...

When goods are transported by rail, it is usually quite robust closed wagons that are used and then filled with the goods. Sometimes there are also wagons that are closed all round but open at the top, for example for transporting potatoes or similar. And then there are even wagons that are open all round. Of course, these are then intended for special transports - the load must not be movable in...

When it rains and puddles form, water collects in places where it has a certain depth. And the deeper such an indentation is, and the deeper it is compared to its surroundings, the more water collects there. There is a force of attraction, gravity, which pulls the water there. Transferred to us humans: we too are earthbound and this is not infrequently associated with pain or questions to which we...

I see in front of me beautiful detached houses, well maintained with a little garden around the house - and a nice garden fence about waist high. The fence is continuous around the whole plot and somewhere there is a gate through which you can get to the house. The fence doesn't really protect the house from intruders. You could climb over it without any problem. But it signals a boundary. A...

Surely you have seen an organ in a church before. Especially the larger ones are enormously impressive to me. There are usually very small pipes and then, at the other end of the spectrum, enormously large ones. But they all sound through the same medium: the air that is pressed through them. And metaphorically you could say that maybe a small pipe is jealous of a big one because it is more visibl...

I don't think I know a single person who wouldn't have liked to have something different at some time in their life or their body. One with straight hair might say "oh I wish I had beautiful curls like you!" And conversely, those with curls say "oh I just can't do nice hairstyles, my hair is so wild - wish I had your straight hair!" etc. Fact is that we have not accepted things about ourselves and...

There are some similar proverbs like "no rose without thorns" or "where there is light, there is shadow". They all say roughly that where there are advantages, there are also disadvantages. So there is nothing that is simply good, but there is always a disadvantage somewhere or a price you have to pay for what is pleasant and beautiful. I wonder if that is the case. Perhaps on this earth it is. Ev...

When a man and a woman marry, rings are usually ceremonially exchanged and put on each other during the promise of fidelity as a visible sign of the mutual promise. The ring also signals to the outside world that the person has made a commitment to be faithful to another. The ring thus serves as a visible sign to the outside world, so to speak, to remind the spouses that they have promised to be f...

In the past, we sometimes had to search for the right frequency on the radio or the TV to get a good reception of a station. And sometimes it was annoying because we received nothing but noise. The noise came in the form of incomprehensible, unpleasant sounds on the radio and pixelated pictures on the television. But if we could eliminate the interference frequency and hit the good frequency, sudd...

I'm sure you've already once had a hot dog - assuming you're not vegetarian or vegan. As I understand it, a hot dog is a food consisting of a grilled or steamed sausage served in the slit of a partially sliced bun. Optionally there is ketchup and or mustard on top. Simple. Delicious. But why is it called a HotDog? Actually, it should be called HotPig, because the meat of the sausage is pork. And u...

Do you know people who smoke a pipe? Actually, I should probably ask: do you know men who smoke pipes - because I have never seen a woman do so. With pipe smoking, only certain characters come to my mind: men, intellectuals, Sherlock Holmes as a clever detective, etc. So while with cigarettes I have the impression that anyone or everyone could consume it, that's not the case with tobacco pipes. A...

An acquaintance of mine told me that he had three colon operations this year. Two were emergency, one was planned. In the meantime, he had to have an artificial anus because of this. For about half a year, the large intestine was inactive. After the third operation, however, this part of the intestine had to function again as before. My friend told me how grateful he was that his digestion was wor...