ewald apperle

Who am I, actually? – now? A constantly repeating question in my head, although not always equally intense and demanding and yet always present. The answer to this question arises almost daily, while my brain cells are still half asleep during the night, to find this one answer, but the question is very complex, and all existing approaches already require further questions to be answered. It is obvious that I am not the only one to deal with this question, because everyone will do this, more, or less intensively. When writing the word: I, I always have, to the question which I think and write. It is not that I am a multiple person, but I am referring to my inner state, which can be felt from the outside. Most people would probably define it as a fluctuation of mind, which is quite enough for a plausible explanation, but for me this is too easy, because sometimes I wonder if it is real what I see from within. Using a few simple examples, I would like to try to put this into words: usually, I am a very sociable person, which suits my full-time job and I really like it, but also, I love and enjoy the loneliness in that I can be completely withdrawn in my world of thoughts. I am also, in my own judgment, a mostly cheerful and approachable person, open and helpful, but sometimes I only realize afterwards that for whatever reason, I can be very angry, hurtful and unjust for a certain period of time, although Justice is extremely important to me. I appreciate and love nature, in nature, I feel the freest inside, all burdens, even the constant questions disappear in the silence or while listening to the birdsong, dissolve, so to speak, in a wonderful nothingness, plunging eyes, ears and nose one into a mystical world in which time no longer exists, deep in my imagination and my soul then I am light as a feather and free. In the middle of untouched nature, I feel like an unborn child in Mothers belly, protected and fully taken care of with everything, just safe. In cities, among many people, I also like to be, just not too many, or I cannot stand crowds. Sport, I prefer to do outdoors, on the mountain while hiking or cycling, swimming in a lake, skiing and the like, the main thing outside, that also gives me a sense of freedom that I am longing for all my life. Motorcycling comes closest to this longing for freedom, the wind that I feel and the impetuous strength of the iron horse, the high concentration when driving does not tolerate distractions, only driving itself, merging with the motorcycle, driving through curves and sweeping and the wind in your face, truly a feeling of freedom. Then there is me as the man who, with everything I have described above, always has thoughts for the passion of writing, as he is doing right now. In the broadest sense, as I write, I feel the same, like in a forest that is completely silent. I write topics, thoughts, beautiful but also critical things from my soul, so to speak, transfer joy and happiness or criticism, longing and passion from my head onto paper. It is like a kind of dialogue, between my „me“ and each of the „me“ can put their thoughts, their arguments in the form of words on paper.Perhaps All of the thoughts, poems and stories written and merged in the form of texts are me? The sum of the words and sentences on my papers are me? This is not a bad answer to my question about who am I? – now? And yet, “I” sum up here and now at this point in the text for myself that this can only be part of a possible answer. There are people, I think, who can be defined on the basis of the properties previously written, some are lifelong athletes and this property determines their whole life, others are exclusively bikers, clothing, jewelry, language lifestyle, everything is Adapted to this topic, of course, views, preferences and lifestyle often change several times in the course of a lifetime, may, but not need to be. I could also try to define myself about my origin, if I don’t think that makes sense, because as I wrote before, I am a person who, so to speak, in the course of his life, constant changes and by that I do not mean getting older of body and mind, or place of residence, spouse, profession etc., but lived through changes in myself and these change processes will certainly only end with my physical death, but a foundation stone, so to speak, is certainly present in the origin, this is, what I want and can do of course not to deny My constant question is not: who have I been, what has become of me, – no it is: Who am I, actually? – now? And so I’m not looking for mine, what I’ve created, how many cars I have, which cars, which house, how much I earn, what title I have and much more, but I’m looking for, so to speak, the „naked“ people, namely the one I am right now. Life has made me, what I am now, a true and good sentence that you know and it is true, as I admit, but I would like to differentiate in changes that are due to general, milieu-related situations, be it family, work, place of residence, friends etc. or global events, just like the Covit-19 pandemic shows me what it is like to have no longer the same freedom that was previously taken for granted and on the other hand, Changes that have occurred because of myself. The biggest thing, that changed me was probably an unexpected event for me, namely a back wall heart attack, on February 10, 2011, pretty much everything that has happened in my life, I was never really sick before, (at least not difficult), had no serious accidents and only entered a hospital as a visitor. It was scarce at the time, but it was very scarce for me once again, thanks to the best medical help and care. During my recovery and on my way back to everyday life, because I wanted to be physically fit as quickly as possible and continue to live my usual life, but a lot had changed, my thoughts and ideas had changed, I no longer wanted to be one hundred percent back to the „same life“, I questioned everyday working life, habits regarding, sports, nutrition and in general my then now and how it should go on. Many people know about this, balancing or similar events, I had many opportunities to talk about it during the four-week rehabilitation with fellow human beings who had experienced the same or similar. It has been and still is a paradox for me that many of these people, just as if nothing had happened, seemed to, or do not seem to mind, that they are playing with their lives, consciously accepting a risk. It was different for Me. I came for me to the Conclusion that changes are inevitable. My physical fitness was and still is very important to me, I worked on it every day and fought my way back and today I can say that I am in better shape than when I had a heart attack. Professionally, I was lucky that the company owner gave me the time to make a comeback, in which he did not exert any pressure and personally told me that my health was now more important. I am still employed by this very philanthropic company. So, I did not change my job, just adapted the way I work, to a healthier life in everyday life. With a healthy diet, it is more difficult, it is a nice pleasure to eat well. Back to the original topic, through this event I was looking internally for a kind of liberation from everyday life that, together with many other circumstances, led to a heart attack. I changed my appearance, in the way that I „hair styled“ in my youth, when I had more freedom than later when I was starting a family, with long hair and a beard, as well as clothing and the glasses that have now become necessary, have been adjusted. These were the outward signs of my desired change. The really big change, however, was and still is, that I started to concentrate my thoughts, to write them down, not just my own thoughts, but also conversations, chunks of conversation that I snapped up, book passages that did not let go of me, books that I read three or four times, I liked to form words, to write, especially in combination with one of my favorite hobbies, photography, which has been with me since the age of eight, when I was still taking photos with my father in our dark room developed black and white. Since then I have been trying to put the feeling or thoughts into words when I look at a picture, to „speak“ it, so to speak, and I still do it with passion. Many poems and texts always arise in my head when I am in nature, the beauty of which inspires me, but even when I stare into the darkness, the heavy, darkness comes out from within, while driving, doing manual work, when cycling, wherever, I always have words, text fragments in my head, which I store as a note in my cell phone as soon as possible so that they are not “lost”. However, the most important initial spark for the writing of poems and texts was, how could it be otherwise, love. All, together, the so-called second chance after the heart attack, the rethinking of lifestyle, the renewed feeling of love inspired me and especially love still inspires me to write, take pictures, draw and paint, just being creative, my inner being to be translated into words, texts and images on paper. It is by far the most beautiful of my changes in my life and now an indispensable part of me. A “me, my me,” or “completely me?”, I still cannot answer it, as mentioned at the beginning, the question is too complex and an infinite number of perspectives are possible to give a useful and short answer . But one thing is certain, the versatility, or as I call it, the “I’s” in me what I am as a whole and, due to changes, it could well be that another „I“ is formed or that one of the „old I“ is gone. At this moment I am the „I“ who writes these lines and tries to clarify a question, that may only be answered in the future or at the end of my path. I just noticed that I could use this text as a building block in: „about me“ on my website. © ewald apperle