I admit, when I started running some eight-or-so years ago, my first smartphone with a GPS-tracker was a strong factor in keeping the motivation up. The feeling of "living the future" was fun, and measuring exactly how far and how fast I was going made progress easily visible.

In the meantime I've "logged" most of my exercise, be it runs, hikes, cycling, or skating on Swedish winter lakes. But I never got into wearing a heart-rate-monitor, or tracking my weight more than twice a year. Plus, I rarely checked the long-term statistics of my exercises - after all I had reached a level of fitness that I am satisfied with and lack the ambition to reach any lofty goals.

So instead of going along with the "quantified-self" movement, wearing a step-counter with unobtrusive heart-rate monitor, or tracking my diet, I recently found myself not even bothering to turn on the tracker-app when I bike 20km to work, and back. Running without a GPS-watch lets you pick up some mushrooms and look around for more, without the nagging feeling that your average speed statistic will be messed up by this. I generally prefer not being in a hurry and physical effort does not need to come with feeling rushed.

Then there is the whole data privacy aspect. Do I want everybody to exercise more and be healthier? Sure. Do I want insurance companies to punish people who are not willing to prove their exercise by sending them their "quantified self" data? I think not.

Whereever data accumulates, it creates desires from companies and governments to use it for originally unintended purposes.

Late medieval church paintings can be funny sometimes, here inside Härkeberga Church.

Letzte Woche habe ich den Antrag weggeschickt, den man als Auslandsdeutscher an seinen letzten Wohnort schicken muss, damit man da ins Wählerverzeichnis kommt und die Breifwahlunterlagen geschickt bekommt.

Es wird also Zeit, sich zu fragen, was man denn wählen könnte im September. Der Wahl-o-Mat kommt erst in zwei Wochen online und ich habe noch keine endgültige Meinung, deshalb erstmal ein paar spontane Gedanken.

CDU & Merkel. Ich halte die Kanzlerin für eine kluge Frau und habe mit ihr weniger ein Problem als mit dem Rest der Partei und wofür diese steht. Die bald zehn Jahre Wirtschaftskrise mit tausenden Opfern, die nicht zuletzt Herr Schäuble Südeuropa aufgezwungen hat, sind unverzeilich aus meiner Sicht. So wie vieles andere im Weltbild der Christdemokraten mir nicht passt. Dazu kommt, dass in meinem Fall die CSU zur Wahl steht...

Die Grünen würde ich ja gern liebhaben; bei vielem kann ich ihnen zustimmen. Aber leider beherbergen sie erstens die ganzen gefährlichen Esoterik-Spinner, von Anthroposophen bis Impfgegnern, von denen ich so viel Abstand wie möglich möchte. Zweitens finde ich, dass es technische Lösungen für viele Umweltprobleme geben kann, während die Grünen lieber moralisierend Verzicht predigen, was gegen menschliche Natur und somit ineffizient ist. Mit Technikfeindlichkeit bekommt man meine Stimme nicht.

Die FDP steht schon lange nicht mehr für Bürgerrechte, sondern für neo-liberale Umverteilung von Arm nach Reich. Nein, danke.

Die rechten Arschlöcher kommen natürlich erst recht nicht in Frage.

Weiter zur SPD also, der Partei, die anstatt gegen das immer weitere Aufklaffen der Einkommensschere anzukämpfen, ebendieses seit 20 Jahren mitverantwortet. Die anstatt die linke Mehrheit im jetzigen Bundestag auszunutzen, um die Politik zu führen, für die sie nach eigener Aussage steht, sich lieber in der Koalition mit der CDU/CSU zerreibt. Bei allen Vorderungen und Versprechen, die die SPD im Wahlkampf macht, kann ich nur denken: Ihr sitzt doch in der Regierung, warum habt ihr es denn nicht schon lange so gemacht?

Bleibt, von den zahlenmäßig relevanten Parteien, die Linke. Wenn ich über meine Abneigung einiger Führungspersonen dort hinwegsehen kann, ist dies wahrscheinlich die Partei, mit deren Programm ich mich am ehesten anfreunden kann. Ich muss es allerdings noch lesen, kann also sein, dass ich dort noch Abstoßendes entdecke.

Generell finde ich, dass die "Parteien der Arbeit(er)" so langsam anfangen sollten, sich mit der Ära nach Erwerbsarbeit auseinander zu setzen, denn Automatisierung geht immer schneller und diesmal ist es anders als zu Industrialisierungszeiten. Menschen, die nicht mehr als Arbeiter gebraucht werden, müssen von maschinell erwirtschafteten Reichtümern profiteren; diese dürfen nicht in die Hände weniger abfließen.

Bronze-age petroglyphs at Boglösa, Uppland.

I recently came across this book-excerpt from Mark Manson, head-lined The Feedback Loop From Hell , and it related with me. I suggest you read it, before continuing here.

The reason I can relate to what is written there is that it builds on a simple yet profound insight:

You are not your feelings. Your brain can be wrong.

Simply put, it means that you can disagree with what (some part of) your brain feels, or thinks is right. This kind of outside view on oneself takes some practice to aqcuire, but it can be learned and practised. Once able to take this point of view on your feelings and desires, vicious cycles like the ones Manson descibes become visible and can more easily be broken. I would go so far to call it empowering, that is gaining a new way to take control over yourself.

I beleive this attitude has been a singificant factor in my own happiness and satisfaction in recent years. For example, blaming my brain (instead of myself) for all kinds of mistakes and mishaps makes it so much easier to laugh at myself, I mean it, instead of getting embarrassed or sad.

As a side note I want to mention that considering myself somewhat separate from my brain does not imply that I believe that there are any magical, religious or other non-materialistic things going on. It's all neurons, in this case just some part of the brain that reflects on what some other parts are up to.

So while I agree with Manson's general gist, I am not so sure about his advice to care less. His book is even called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. (His choice to not write "Fuck" properly, not mine.)

The objection that I have is that, yes, happiness might be achieved by giving up desires, being content with what you have and trying less hard. But I think persuing and fully realizing this goal easily leads to a worsening of actual living conditions. After all society rewards people with "drive", people that want to "achieve something", more than those who lack these traits. It is therefore less likely for happy people, who have transcended their desires, to end up in positions of influence, which in turn means that the rules of the world are not made in their favour.

Manson might not mean care less in that way, but for me this is connected. In addition, while caring less about your fears and pains, distancing yourself somewhat from them, is certainly positive for you, as argued above, I am left to wonder what happens with positive thoughts. When we learn to care less about negative feelings, can we prevent this mechanism to also make us care less about pleasure and love?

We did it; the house finally got a new layer of paint. Falu red again, of course, but a ligher variant that was popular in the 1800s, they say.

Isn't it a beauty? The picture does not fully convey its size, but this 3 liter Erlenmeyer flask is an impressive piece of glass. Yes, as you can see I've taken another step deeper into the homebrewing pit and have been making yeast starters for the last three batches of beer. This is to multiply the number of yeast cells in advance, in order to achieve the optimal "pitching rate" for good fermentation.

Shown in the picture is the starter for our #13 Weißbier which turned out fantastic, exactly to my taste. A light and fruity summer beer, topping our previous wheat beer, and many of the ones you can buy, if I may say so myself. Naturally, it is all gone by now.

Following up on the last brewing post, I have to correct something I wrote there. The #11 Bockbier was a disappointment after all. It had a very strong buttery taste, coming from diacetyl which in turn resuls from poor fermentation. The strong wort got far too few yeast cells, so they did not manage to clean up this unwanted byproduct. Now I know better.

Then there was a technical mishap. I had the brilliant idea to get some cool air from my beer fridge into the fermentation box beside it, to regulate the temperature better. So I drilled a large hole into the fridge wall to place a ventilation fan there. But I did not know that modern fridges' cooling lines run within the side walls as well, so I accidentally cut one off, effectively destroying the fridge. Luckily, used fridges are cheap and I have gotten another one meanwhile. Another lesson learned.

On to more joyous things; while I write these lines, I am having a glass of our #14 Stout which I think is quite a success. Subtle roast and chocolate aromas, not overdone; black as night, fittingly low carbonation, and tasting mature already two weeks after tapping to bottles.

Still in the fermentor is the #15 Dunkles, a dark lager in typical Munich style. I will bottle it this week-end and brew the next batch at the same time, #16 YAPA. The Erlenmeyer's airlock is bubbling away already.

Bonus picture: When cooking the Stout, I maxed out the 30 liter pot, filling it to the brim.

Two pygmy owls that we say the other day in a nearby nature preserve. They looked confused and were watched by a third, slightly larger and more shy one, so we guessed that these two were young who just left the nest.

Let's ignore the direct effects of the transatlantic buffoon-in-chief for a moment; these are discussed quite enough already. I think there are two competing secondary effects that he has on the attitudes of people elsewhere, one good one bad.

First the positive: A clear enemy helps unification. Very visible right now is the common outcry of otherwise not united groups and individuals about the USA leaving the Paris climate treaty. There are plenty more examples and making fun of the Orange one is a favourite pastime for many.

But. It is all too easy to feel good about ourselves doing this. We are lucky to live elsewhere and not be affected. Our politicians seem competent in comparison and it suddenly looks like we don't have it that bad after all. Is it then a surprise that Merkel will win the German elections later this year? Or that recently unloved Swedish prime-minister Löfvén has turned around the polls for his social democrats?

It is perfectly understandable to become complacent when others have it worse. How content we humans are always depends on whom we compare ourselves to. Observing the quagmire "over there" means we relax the pressure on our own polticians to fix the problems in our countries, which have not magically gone away. Just to name one, do we have a plan to do something about the constantly rising wealth gap that is expected to only get worse with further increases in work automation?

Which way the net balance between stonger unity behind good causes and lowered expectations tips, I do not know.