One ton of steel, plastic and electronics. Bumper to bumper. I see them every day, hundreds of them, each one containing one angry driver, going to work, running errands. We redesigned our cities because of cars, slashed highways through neighborhoods. Not owning a car makes you weird. Spending 100,000 Euros on a highly combustible and error-prone Tesla makes you cool.

I am trying to avoid being in a large group of people where ever I can. Before Christmas is the worst. Droves of shoppers are clogging the streets, while early drunks are hugging their Glühwein cups. It is the same with the holiday season. July and August I rather work in my tiny garden than immersing myself in masses of tourists. I long for the open vastness of the country side far out West across the ocean.

I live in a city that fills every empty lot with enormous cubes of massive cement, called apartments. I live in a country that has too many citizens living in concentrated bee hives, it feels sometimes like a cage. Whereever I go, I see a house. Even when I hike in the Alps, there are farms in the deepest valleys and cottages on the tallest peaks. I once drove through a desert and stopped at night to see the stars. And stars I saw, all else was dark. No sound was to be heard, but for the silent glitter of the Milky Way high above.

The noise maker. The interruptor. The therapeutic device against our decade-old pandemic `Fear of Missing Out´. More important than our wifes and husbands is our cell phone. It is always in our hand. When it can´t connect, we get nervous. When I watch people on their way home, or observe folk on their break at McDonalds I see them staring into their cell phones. Their fellow students or colleagues next to them, also waiting for their lunch, do the same. Our love for cell phones has indeed fallen off a cliff.

Long, long time ago life began in the deep depths of our oceans. Surrounded by inpenetrable water far below the surface we bothered with mere existence, the art of survival. Still so many various forms of life evolved. And after eons of time our oceans boasted Humpback whales, schools of Northern Pikes, starfish and octopus. As different as we were, we were all floating through water. Seemingly we must have got a bit bored by all of it, so we decided to grow feet and take a stroll on the beaches. After which we made the woods our home.

In a sense a thick forest can feel like an ocean. It comforts me with shelter, a special calm soothes my thoughts. After walking in a forest for a while I forget most of what troubles me while being in a city. These trees, moss, and leaves feel like home, and I seem to intuitively remember how my ancestors grew up in the woods thousands of years ago. This is the place where we heal, recharge. Still humanity, just like our fellow cats, always must know whats behind the next corner. And so it looked up the sky one day, and invented mechanical wings.

Our planet is full of people now. Even Greenland ambitious folk are moving to these days. Our drive to reach the stars, settle Mars, or walk on the moon only partly stems from an urge to look around the next corner. The sky fascinates us, for we imagine it to be filled with stars from far away and planets settled by beings just like us. However we haven´t met them yet. And deep in our souls we are afraid to find out if we are indeed alone in this universe.