I wrote the words in the next paragraph on the 25th of march, 1999. I rediscovered my diary today and I was quite shocked to learn that I exactly became what I said I didn't ever want to become when I was 14 years old. I was naive about some of these things but a lot of what I wrote does still ring true to me. And even more disturbing is that now, almost 21 years later, we are still destroying our planet and we don't seem to stop.
Dear Diary, 25.03.1999
Can it be that you only recognize the value of life when you think of death? And vice versa. This is what Sofie thinks from "Sofie's World". She agrees. Sometimes I feel like I'm also living in a book. It’s like someone determines my life. I feel like a prisoner between two worlds. There is school that determines the status which I will later have in material life. But is that really necessary? Do I have to have a great job and a lot of money to be happy? In Sofie's world, Alberto says: "You have to imagine the world as a white rabbit that a magician pulls out of a black cylinder, the universe. Small children and philosophers crawl up the thin hair of the rabbit and see the universe. At some point they will look the magician in the eyes. The other people have got used to the world and crawl deeper and deeper into the rabbit's fur. They no longer ask who it is that pulls the rabbit out of the top hat." Do I have to become such a person? Do I have to hide in the rabbit's fur? Secondly, there is life in freedom when I have done my homework and when I am outside. Why can't I always live the way I do on these days? Does man only have to think about money and the material value of life? Isn't it much better to live like the native people? They knew nothing about technology and yet they were happy and connected to nature. They can't do that today. They were forced to fit into the modern world. They had to act according to the will of the "white man". They may also be longing for living like they used to. Can't people all live together as one on this earth, without hatred and without war, as it was in the beginning of time? In harmony with nature, happy and satisfied? But that is no longer possible. Too many have already crawled into the rabbit's fur. They don't want to go back. They live for the moment they can once, just once in their miserable life lean back, relax and no longer have to work. Isn't that really sad? They do not live forever like the philosophers. Such people do not have names like Aristotle and Socrates, no, they disappear into nothingness. I don't want to be that kind of person. I resist. I want to be happy. Not living according to the motto: "I live to work." No, I want to break free. But isn't it too late for that? Isn't it too late for me to start a happy life? Can I still live like this anywhere in this poor, sick, destroyed world? Or is there no longer such a spot in this world? Nature is dying. It is eaten up by the modern way of life. Aren't we humans wild beasts that destroy themselves and their world? And aren't the so-called "savages" much richer in life? No, we think we're rich. But how? Are we still happy like that? I no longer am. Nature and we are of the same stuff. And yet man destroys his sister, the earth. It is eaten by our pride in dominating the world. Wouldn't many of the now extinct animal species still be here without greedy people? What will humans develop into? Will we eventually inhabit Mars or the Moon and destroy these planets as much as we did the old one? Or will the earth be a desert, populated by robots, the only potential descendants of "modern" people? Without animals because they were all exterminated by humans. Will it come to this? If so, then hopefully I will never have to see it.