Dear Reading Diary 6 ( GREAT FINALE)

26.01.13

Okay, I´m through now with the biography of Heinz von Foerster. I won a lot of wisdom out of this wonderful, astonishing and funny book and can recommend it to everyone who is interested in life, humans, knowledge and the world we live in.

I think this might be the last "Reading Diary" entry about this book. I could tell a lot of it, many things I took with me, little anecdotes and interesting people Heinz met, himself being a very interesting guy with a charming attitude and the abbility to explain complicated things in an understanding way. When you read this book you realize that Heinz had actually an interest to say things in a way that most can understand it.

but it never was my goal to summarize the whole book in my posts. Maybe I managed to give one or the other the motivation to take a look on the book.

Heinz decided at some point to follow an own ethical imperative.
Imperative means that you have an inner rule, a base to decide on despite special situations. No matter what situation you end in, you have that imperative as a base for making a decision.

So Heinz had this rule, to make decisions in life
which open as many opportunities as possible.

I think this principle is wonderful. it´s simple, it´s easy to understand, and it´s pretty deep if you think about it.

Everyone of us has many faces, lots of different identities.
 Although it´s tough sometimes to keep them all apart that´s not a bad thing. We have the identity as a family person, maybe as a parent, an identity amongst friends, an identity for the working space, an identity for our free time and hobbies...
We act totally different in many different situations, change our faces for the world around us many times.

I tend to think today that this circumstance is not bad. Sometimes I had trouble thinking that people know just a tiny part of me. But I as well know only a tiny part of them.
Today i can accept this circumstance better.
The diversity is good. because it opens possibilities.
If i had one passion for a certain hobby... if I´d spend all my time for that hobby and met only guys who share the same hobby... I might feel happy because I do what´s most fun for me at first sight.
But at second thought, I´d lose possible ways to live my life, doors would shut.
That´s always connected with specification:
If you become  an expert in one certain theme you lose the opportunity to get to know other themes.
That´s why I want to study something which opens as many doors as possible. I want to leave my comfort-zone, broaden my view on the world, get to know new places, cities, countries, cultures, continents and people.

If I go through the world with an open mind, with a self-understanding as a part of the world, connected with everone and everything else around me, I can talk with many people about various things and build various social connections. The man with an open mind is able to settle down anywhere.

But if I seek exile in one hobby or one specified science, or job, or whatever... I go through the world with a narrowed sight. I will ignore many opportunities, be blind for many people I see on my way through life, miss so many chances to get into talk and suffer from various fears and be unsure if I fit in there or there.

That´s a possible aspect which is inherent in that ethical principle of Heinz.
It already changed something inside me, and that´s why I like this idea and am thankful to have read it.
A change in mind is the first and most important step.
A changed mind leads to different actions. And every act i do in this world affects other people and the world- because I´m in a circular relation to the world I live in. That´s what I believe:
 I am a part of the world.