Impressions of the last weeks
Wishes and imagination becoming reality is one of the gifts, life is giving us a present.
Everyday is so full and fruitful since I am studying. It was my big dream since childhood to study law (and become a bellydancer, but this is a different story haha) and after all those difficult roads, I am finally on this path. Investing in the head again, is thankfully appreciated as I had very hard times in my old profession as a painter & vanisher.
It is expectable to work hard and sweat, but in this decade of fast living, the work conditions are under my work requirements. The painting handcraft has so many wonderful techniques, but the reality is that the most costumers, just want “fast and white”.
The most handicraft businesses are following this low claim, as they mostly just want orders for any price. So, the poor handicraft workers are pushed to construction sites, that are doomed to take longer as planned, because no maintenance group was able to finish their task in the giving time and it is just one catastrophe after the other…
Also a painter is forced to work at the very end, as they are the bridge between construction side and the finished object, which is often the home of somebody
(when I worked in the fine “haute couture” handicraft business, the new-rich costumers are picky and stingy, the very rich ones have their housekeeper(s), who are caring for drinks and snacks, this was very nice, but in those households, you have to invest many many hours a week in cleaning.. Also it is normal to make every work step for weeks, as this working includes adequate and detailed focus on clean, correct and exact procedure. Weeks for preparing lidding material and masking, is obligatory for a professional finish! There are so many steps that take much patience and calmness… I will never forget how I had to polish historical windows for weeks with the grinding machine, eight hours a day, my hands constantly vibrated, I was continuously like a mush of potatoes after work…)
When I was working in “Prenzlauer Berg” in a staircase of an apartment building of owners, since the third day on my knees, cleaning the steps with brine in self-bought gloves (…) a thought came up again: This can not be my life, this can not be my future.
It will be not possible to present all those events and scenes, that made me push to accept this period of my life and all those circumstances that forced me to stay in this unfulfilling work, but I completed the necessary three years for the Gesellenbrief (journeyman’s certificate) and I also worked in this job after my Abitur, but I was not able to motivate myself enough to not become mentally battered again:
Again those long hours of committing between home and work (sometimes five hours a day), again working in the cold
(shells without sanitary facilities, vanishing in the snow-fall !!! sign of no respect for proper work structure, as the applicated vanish was like gum due to the freezing temperature…),
again low grade communication with the most colleagues, again just white and fast and faster… But working in cellars with asbestos like in the last workplace with no protection, no warning, just nothing but fast fast fast! Was all in one a symphony of demon tune, composed to expand the personal horror.
After this experience I could not imagine and believe, that in a foreseeable future, the gates of university will finally open for me.
It is a strange feeling to sit in the lecture sometimes, thinking about all the struggles…
After some impression of my “career”, I turn back to my new won situation.
As I always had the feeling to do everything wrong, in early years I tried to figure out which behaviour would be “right” and what the significant difference is between right and wrong.
(In the next days I will upload my notes to Hans Kelsen's essay "What Is Rightous?" + the definition of Platon and Aristotle)
Feeling supressed and misunderstood often, I had this ardent dream to defend what is righteous and to make the life of people in general better, than to sprinkle more evil into this world I considered as horrible, because of my experience. But my idealism strengthened my heart and my motivation, I could not give up this imagination… (sounds very childish and naive, I know, but this is my way hihi)
So some people, who cannot combine poetry and philosophy and the feeling for right (behaviour) tried to warn me by saying that this study will be dusty uninspiring, but deep in my heart I knew,
that they do not know how exciting all those topics are that lead into theories of justice and if people were never kissed by philosophy and deep thoughts it is not surprising, if they consider those as boring.
It is also a helpful talent to find fun and be motivated in several aspects. As reading and books have always been my alma mater, staying curious the essence of my motor. I finally have the feeling that what I do makes sense, that is has a future for me, that it was necessary for my gratitude to undergo all those hard paths (…)
Okay, now it is enough with those melo-dramatic super personal in-look, I kind of feel glassy and in the same time fragmented, as shared experiences lack inner-personal perspectives and environmental dynamics, which are inevitable, when wanting to share just some aspects to emphasize the own inducement and I also accept more and more, that self-identity "is something" like an illusion (ontological question: What "is" really?) So those points are representative, but not “all”, as we are not able to consider all and everything.
Some minikin-thoughts about my study:
As we are looking at laws, we also are defining and seizing words and sentences. Some laws are very precise, and legislators provide definitions (legal definitions), others are interpretable and influenced by the Zeitgeist and therefore by the measures of value.
In the course Philosophy of Rights, we started with the Ancient Greeks.
(It is very sad, that the Professor, who is also a Prof. for old philology, can not interlink the former work of Egypt, India and Sumeria into Greek culture. It is a narrative in Europe, that the Greeks have “invented” all on their own. Of course, they have systemized and written down the knowledge, but nevertheless the roots of
those thoughts ended in Anatolia and in this region all the traces of the Oriental and North African metaphysics have flouted in…
So many Greek philosopher travelled around the Mediterranean Coast and far beyond, they looked up so many architectural, cultural, medicinal ideas!)
What is also very interesting, is how the positive law emerged through out the time by agreements of treatise, contracts and bills.
In the commented version of Platon’s “Politeia” by my Prof. for philosophy, I’ve had read the original in parts, I was surprised, that the Prof. was writing that the society and the state were not separated. I asked him about the “guardians” and if this would not be a sign of separation, as they are morally controlled and therefore role-models for the society, isn’t this kind of a separation, I asked?
The Prof. laughed and said, that he never saw it that way (what is awkward, as he himself is writing about this system.. and the hierarchy of responsibility), and that he will have to correct it in the next edition :’) Informative and exciting is also the course of Criminal Law. It is also kind of philosophical and philological to define the real meaning of the law, how the principle of debt works and how debt is classified. By looking at the reasons for debt, we are also looking at the action of the individual, was it consciously or unconsciously, can we consider action under the aspect of the free will? Does the free will exist at all? We have here some psychological and nervous system physiological proximity.
By looking at former theories, there are also some names I never heard of like Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794), he was one of the first, who set up the theory of proportionality of punishment, he was against death penalty (never thought of Kant, Hegel and Fichte, who were supporters). As well I learned, that Bentham, we know by his rich works and thoughts in several areas (when it comes to the greatest-happiness-principle, the thought of animal rights, the codification of rights..) designed the panopticon.
Since I’ve read Dostoevsky all those topics around life, morals, meanings, crimes and criminals and how to deal with their law breaks… It was possible to accept all those fragments of my interest under one aspect: This is a part of my self, whatever this self is, I am aware of it and I will train my conscience, as I want to become better.
The thought of death is accompanying me, since I can think, but what really got me, I sadly do not know in which book this was written, but it is a part of Dostoevsky own experiences after getting pardoned, I saved it in my head like:
Living, just living! And if the small spot of heaven above my head is cloudy and I am standing on the edge of a cliff! Just living for five minutes or just a few seconds! Just living! Living!
So I am frequently between this euphoric live affirmation and the shame of thinking of dying…
Very sorry, that I am digressing all the time.
But coming back to death penalty, there is no sign that the crime is reduced in countries, where this inhuman procedure is allowed, it is indeed the opposite and than the realization by a very wise sentence of the Prof. for Criminal Law entered my soaking brain: The USA sets an example for taking human life, so how should civilians not also kill?
And if we look at the criminalization in the States, it is a disastro, that this unproportionally punishments are increasing more violence, more pauperism, more existences near to edge of despair, more children with no fruitful future…
In nuce: Harder punishments lead to more crime!
