Monthly Archives: April 2022

General

Russian government spokesmen on Ukraine

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Russian spokesmen are very sharp in their comments on the events in Ukraine. As we read their statements during last few days, a chill runs down our spines. They choose very sharp words.
"Russia will respond harshly to further strikes by Ukraine against military facilities on Russian territory initiated by the West", said Russian diplomat spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. According to her, the West openly encourages Kyiv to use the supplied weapons to attack Russia. Several fuel and ammunition depots have recently caught fire in southern and western Russia, with Moscow blaming Ukraine.
"What option do you leave us, idiots? Complete destruction of the remaining Ukraine? A nuclear attack? ” Indicated the possible “ answers ”of the editor-in-chief of the state television, M. Simonjana, who, together with Zacharov, is considered a“ Putin's fury ”and the face of Russian propaganda.

The flames engulfed another strategic point of the Russians. Military warehouses near Belgorod have been burning several times this month. The question of whether Ukrainian forces, Russian sabotage, the Kremlin itself, or the interplay of coincidences are to blame remains unanswered.
 

                               This map shows fires on Russian territory recently

"Efforts to arm Ukraine, even with heavy weapons, are actions that threaten the continent's security and provoke instability," said Russian President's spokesman Dmitry Peskov in response to words from the British Foreign Secretary. Liz Truss said Russian troops must be pushed out of all of Ukraine and the Allies must "redouble" their efforts and send more military equipment to Kiev.
A spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy also accused the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of passing data on Russian forces to the intelligence services of the West and Ukraine.

More deliveries of Allied weapons are pouring into Ukraine. The United States in particular is showing faith in Ukraine's victory over Russia. At the summit in Germany, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin pledged to move "heaven and earth" for Ukraine's victory.
Germany has announced that it will send 50 anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine.

In an address to the Australian Parliament at the end of March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky explicitly requested the 11-ton multi-purpose transporter.
The Bushmaster armored vehicles from Australia are already in action. Footage of the Ukrainian army testing them in combat has appeared on social networks.
Australian Bushmaster in Ukraine

The dangerous situation is escalating.

                                                   Thanks for reading          Margaret

General

Being happy alone – the power of being alone

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Being alone is not always easy, but spending time just with yourself holds great power.
Why, and how you manage to be happy alone, I will tell you here and enjoy reading.

The most important relationship is the relationship with ourselves
We care about everything and everyone and sometimes about every trivial thing, sometimes without knowing what for. Yet the most important relationship is the relationship with ourselves. But because we are constantly on the move on the outside, our inner self atrophies. The hectic existence becomes a self-runner, spinning in circles so long and so fast that it makes us dizzy. Then we fall over and are thrown back on ourselves.
And then we lie there …

Escape from oneself – or being alone to develop personally
There are moments when you feel abandoned not only by the world, but also by yourself. After a break-up, a loss or at some other turning point in life, being alone can feel terribly lonely.
Enduring this, or rather enduring oneself, is difficult, but important for our personal development.

Being happy alone can be hard
We have a tendency to want to avoid unpleasant things immediately: Let's get away from this gloomy place that currently knows no laughter and no happiness, that no one visits and that is always rushing from one to the other, so as not to have to endure and feel one's own feelings and so as not to be plunged into the depths by one's own abysses, we think, numbing ourselves with stimuli and running faster and faster in an attempt to outrun ourselves and the challenges of life.

But this will not succeed. We cannot run away from life's trials because they are interwoven with us to the very depths. We should solve them.
If we run away from them, they will always appear before us. They force us to immerse ourselves so that we can develop in the threads of life and go our way.
Therefore, we should not want to run away from loneliness, but meet it courageously.

Why being alone is important
Being alone is important. Perhaps all the more important the lonelier it feels. In a world where one is permanently accessible, one should make oneself temporarily unreachable. We don't have to sink into complete isolation and punish ourselves with solitary confinement. It is simply a matter of not constantly avoiding our own encounters with distractions in the depths – and also the heights – of life.
The truth is: even the greatest distraction cannot separate us from ourselves. We always remain true to ourselves. Even when we have not been true to ourselves and our attitudes or resolutions.
The truth is: we are never alone in the world.
It's all the worse when this feeling feels so real – happiness only shallow and yet any human closeness seems distant.
When everything is colourful but appears to us in black and white, when everything is animated but only emptiness sprouts for us, when we are burnt out because the inner fire has gone out, we should throw the focus back on ourselves. Put our life in perspective, lean back into ourselves and look at what is wrong right now.

Be happy alone? Connect with yourself
When our tank is empty and only a sticky trail of oil drips behind us, we need to refuel – fill ourselves back up with ourselves. Breathe into ourselves a spirit of life that speaks our voice, walks in our rhythm, beats our beat and gives us a warm embrace from within.

We don't have to turn the whole world upside down or travel around the globe to do this – all it takes is time with ourselves.

Inner stability when it's stormy on the outside
We can anchor our roots deep inside so that we stand firm in the storms of life. Gentle breezes will come, storms will come, but hurricanes will also sweep over us, sometimes changing our whole lives.
And then?
One thing is certain, the more firmly we stand in ourselves, the less can bring us down.

Aloneness transforms
We don't always have to be able to prance through the world with a beaming smile, bubbling over with joy or feeding on our own endorphin cocktail. We are allowed to be weak – but we have to be strong in order to gain new strength. Because true strength is to endure one's own weakness, to dive into it, to draw from the depths and to grow from it.

Aloneness is the key to ourselves
Being alone is always what we make of it. The key to change can lie in honestly and lovingly letting ourselves in, because then we can open up the many (protective) shells and recognise who we really are. What we need and where we want to go.

Having time for ourselves gives us strength and contentment
Without external influences we become calm. We connect with ourselves, process the past and recharge our batteries. We give ourselves time and attention and take care of ourselves.
And in the moment when we are content with ourselves – not needing any stimuli, events or confirmation from outside, accepting our own shadow sides and not blaming anyone else for our happiness – a powerful force full of independence, personal responsibility and genuine contentment awakens.

Being happy alone – this is how it works
Therefore: If life overruns you or is a self-runner and you no longer know whether you are running after your own life or away from it, then just stand still.
Sit back.
Do nothing or what is good for you.
Hold on, catch yourself and catch yourself again when you have run too far away. Take yourself by the hand and pick yourself up where you are – this way you become yourself again and being alone becomes not only less lonely, but your source of strength.

 

General

Elon Musk buying Twitter

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The social network Twitter was opened to the public almost 16 years ago, on July 15, 2006. It allows users to post and read posts posted by other users, known as tweets.
US billionaire Elon Musk has agreed to buy the Internet company Twitter for $ 44 billion. The company announced it 25th April 2022. Musk will gain control of the influential social network used by millions of people around the world. Following the completion of the transaction, Twitter shares will be withdrawn from the exchange they entered in 2013.

Already in early April, Musk announced that he had bought a 9 percent stake in Twitter. In mid-April, he came up with an offer to take over the entire company. The company said today (25th April) that its board of directors unanimously approved the transaction.

Now the agreement has yet to be approved by shareholders and regulator.
According to Musk, it is necessary for Twitter to be transferred to private ownership in order for it to develop and become a real platform for free expression.

"Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and twitter is a digital square where fundamental issues for the future of humanity are discussed," Musk said in a press release to Twitter today. "Twitter has huge potential. I look forward to working with this company and the user community to leverage it," he added.

The future of Twitter is uncertain,  boss Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees after announcing the deal. 
The takeover is expected to be completed within a few months, with Musk indicating for a long time that he wants to fundamentally change the way the social network works with tens of millions of users around the world.
However, the details of his plans, which apparently concern the moderation of the content and transparency of the platform, are not clear, which is also reflected in Agrawal's words. "Once the agreement is reached, we do not know which direction the platform will go," he told Reuters.
According to Musk, it is necessary for Twitter to be transferred to private ownership in order for it to develop and become a real platform for free expression.

Comments from web:

And it has recently been written that shareholders will try to dilute Musk's share and somehow prevent a "hostile" takeover. Suddenly he buys Twitter. The turnaround is really interesting.

….
As the rich man begins to buy the media, his entry into politics approaches.

                           Thanks for reading

                                                                Margaret

 

General

Inflation in European Union

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Inflation in European Union

The annual inflation rate in the European Union (comparing same month of the year 2021 to this year) rose to a record 7.8 percent in March from 6.2 percent in February. This was announced by the European statistical office Eurostat. The Czech Republic had the third highest inflation in the EU, at 11.9 percent.
Inflation in the euro area is now well above the European Central Bank's 2% target. Upward it is pushed especially by the rising energy. In March, energy prices in the euro area increased by 44.4 percent year-on-year.

The highest inflation in the EU was recorded in Lithuania, where consumer prices increased by 15.6 percent year-on-year. Second place went to Estonia with inflation of 14.8 percent. Czechia takes third place.

In an interview with the BBC,   the president of the World Bank, David Malpass said that war in Ukraine will make food more expensive by up to 37 percent, and the looming food crisis will cause human catastrophe in many poorer countries. Hundreds of millions of people are at risk of poverty and malnutrition if the crisis is not stopped.
The head of the World Bank warned that there is enough food for everyone in the world, and according to comparisons with the situation in the past, there are also high food stocks. But there is a need to change the way food is distributed to get where it is needed.

Here some examples of prices how it is influencing Czech Republic:
prices gasoline and diesel January 2022 were at petrol stations in the Czech Republic for an average of CZK 36.20,(approx 1,68 USD/liter) . But beginning of April gasoline was approx 2,27 USD/liter which means 38 % more  – this influences of course also the prices of public transport and transport of goods  – 22% up.
Foods – flour 63% more expensive than a year ago which has of course big influence on prices of bakery products. Butter and milk very similar. Bread – some economists say that in the second half of this year 1kg of bread can be even 70 CZK/3,10 USD – that might be increse by 40-50% in comparison with the price now.

This price development is supported by the fact that Czech government is inactive and does not want to do anything against this development arguing it is against rules of Europen Union – while for instance Polish government  decreased the VAT on foods.

This graf shows average prices of electricity in capital Praha – New year 2021 compared to New year 2022 = growth 48,49 %

The complicated situation applies also on enterprises
More than half of domestic enterprises expect their energy inputs to become more expensive by 50 percent or more. At the same time, the vast majority of companies will increase the prices of other cost items, such as input materials. This follows from the survey of the Chamber of Commerce. The most acute situation is in the manufacturing industry and construction.
A few days ago was published that inflation in Czech republic now is near to 13% – and if government will not do anything against it will still grow most probably.

But not every state in Europe has the same aproach – for instance Hungary  – The Hungarian government since 1. February  reduced prices for wheat flour, sugar, sunflower oil, milk, pork  and chicken breasts.

Evidently member states of European Union have different approach to the inflation, some politicians have more courage and the development this year might be still quite wild.

                            Thank you for reading

                                                                Margaret

 

General

Constantly online – escape into the digital world

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It's crazy how technology has developed over the past ten and a half years. It offers many advantages, but precisely because we are so often online, it is important to learn a mindful and conscious approach to the ubiquitous media and to remember that life writes the stories in analogue.

I hope you enjoy reading this.

Nightmare: The analogue world is extinct
Online, I have drifted away. Penless writing has steered me the wrong way. I jumped from page to page, kept getting linked and after some fling, I lost my bearings. As if someone had spun me in circles, the world spins in circles, though I remain motionless and just stare apathetically at the screen.

The internet holds me captive.

It is everyone's home, the bread for the world, the religion that everyone believes in without knowing it. Here everyone is equal, here everything is just, and yet it takes revenge, because the internet is big. Infinite and yet finite.

Where I stop, the internet only begins: it has the thoughts that I don't have myself. It shows me the places I have not yet been. It speaks the languages I don't understand. It knows my tastes and what I'm looking for before I know what I need. It suggests friends and sites that suit me. It knows everything and I know that I know nothing, only where to find it: On the internet.

But the internet is big. Infinite and finally boundless. Finally rid of all boundaries and makes little people big.

It is everyone's diary, even if everyone thinks theirs is safely – and safely unread – in the drawer of their bedside table. Yet the most secret secrets of the big secret services and the most private spheres of the small private people online are an open book that you can't open because you have nothing in your hands and nothing in your hands.

The internet is big. So big that you lose yourself in it and yet small enough to find everything else again and again. The streams of data hold me captive like an invisible spider's web. I want to get out of here! But the internet won't go out. I am lost and I have lost myself.

Can you find me?
Can you find yourself in me?

Connected, yet a stranger to myself
Even before I am awake, I am online. My WLAN has the best connection for twenty-four hours – only not to myself. I surf here and surf there, but not on my own homepage. I want to go offline, but I can't find the link. That's how linked the internet is and how big the addiction is that haunts me for many hours every day and makes me keep searching on the many pages.

Can you find me?
Do you find yourself in the addiction?

How difficult it is to bring the soul to rest when it is always kept in motion. When its material surface clings to every worldly possibility and what is underneath must always make waves and never become quiet. Never allowed to become loud. Never allowed to breathe because hardly anyone asks for it.

How difficult it is to quiet the soul when even silence has become loud. The internet is never quiet. Always only wise, because it knows everything, even the senseless.

Fictitious outside show and lack of introspection
How hard it is to quiet the soul when you are constantly following the latest news from around the world and living the lives of others. Like a little parasite that always eats but never gets full, I stick to the pages of others, while my page does not fill up because its host does not nurse it with life.

Because the lives of others are so exciting and one's own life only excites, because the lives of others last so long and one's own life only bores, I am always so happy online.

Analogue I am always lonely, but online I am never alone. Here I have thousands of friends who share things with me, communicate with me and linger with me online. Yet our faces are distorted, just like realities: As avatars, we celebrate holidays, weddings and parties, but we hide the dark sides offline – that's why no one wants to be there anymore. We only post a positive excerpt on the net now and then.

Virtual existence shows us bundled extravagances and the special lives of others. Completely uncensored and without Photoshop, I am happy when my face, which only resembles my profile picture in profile, is not reflected in the screen. Deceptive truth. No one puts the abysses of the soul on display.

Just as advertising plays with perfect-looking characters, we design a flawless catalogue of our selves on social networks. Do we have the wrong role models? Or the wrong images in front of us? Perfect aesthetics, a hunger for experience and starving until we live up to the ideal – yet deep down, nothing can fill us up. We are hungry for life and don't notice it because apathy doesn't like to talk. The inner emptiness is filled on the outside, cluttered up and enveloped by actionism.

Dopamine addict
How difficult it is to bring the soul to rest when one constantly wonders how many unread messages are waiting in the virtual mailbox. Yet it's not the who or the how many – it's much more the meaningless whether someone has written. Whether there is something there that you can open. Like a gift whose contents you don't know, and like a donor whose name you don't give, all you need is the blood. 

Online, I therefore walk the path to the letterbox incessantly, while I only dare to look in my post box at the front door once a week. A message on the outdated letter route can't be of any importance anyway – it has time. How nice for her – I don't have it. Because there's always something going on online and so I'm rid of time without being timeless. Always on the go and yet never ready to jump off, time passes and simply doesn't stop, nor does it stop with me.

Another click on Inbox – my obsessive-compulsive disorder takes on more and more weight. I have become infected online and when I compare the time it takes to send my emails with the time it takes to answer them, an epidemic has long since broken out. If there are more than sixty minutes between sending and receiving, my anxiety neurosis is activated and I worry that the person I am writing to, the patient in the next bed, has died of his neurosis. I should have received a new message long ago, which is like administering my next tablet, so that the anxiety finally gives way.

But nothing happens.

I make an emergency call via Skype and ring for my mother to no avail. To distract myself, I go shopping online and pay the bill for my order via online banking. The internet knows no Sunday, the internet is always nice.

Always hungry inside
The internet can do everything but satisfy my hunger and so I regret that fast food is only fast and not slim. I want to have it in my inbox and unpack it after downloading. An alphabet salad as a favourite dish that satisfies my inner emptiness. Not cooking, not doing the dishes, can't the internet do that? Because I can't leave here or I'll miss something.

I swallow the hunger, but it doesn't fill me up. Because there's a part of me that neither whether nor food can fill. Only I could fill it, if I knew who I was, without being logged in. If I knew who I was offline, I would still be there. But I'm not there, otherwise I'd miss something. Only once a week, when I dare to go to the mailbox, where no one meets me and nothing awaits me.

But there's always something going on online. The whole world is twittering that something is happening and trembling when something does happen. There is always unrest somewhere, because you can't report on calm. Catastrophes are always happening somewhere, because everyday life doesn't write stories.
We love the extravagant and need the rush, being normal was yesterday and so were traditions.

Crazy world
Our life has moved behind the screen. It takes place two-dimensionally, i.e. rather flat, in front of a small horizon. Depth is lost, superficiality lives. One is only on the outside, the inside is glued. Nature is the tilted window, movement the skilful finger play over the keyboard and a good conversation a virtual dialogue.

The analogue world is extinct.

My nightmare has come true and no one has noticed because everyone is behind the display and no one ever sticks their head out. Yet the internet can't dream, can't smell, can't feel, can't laugh and can't do nice things. It numbs the senses and steals our lives.

Longing for reality
When the whole world works like this
you can no longer take yourself out of it,
you can only exclude
and create boundaries
that leave room for oneself,
even if others hate you.
Be with yourself again, all alone.
Being analogue again, not always online.
What used to be quite normal
is a rarity today.
Today, rarely does anyone have time,
because everyone wants to do everything,
because everyone can do everything,
because everyone wants to be everywhere
and preferably at the same time.
Here and there, in space and above space,
and everywhere that no one has ever been.
And everyone wants to be back right away,
so as not to be left behind,
and hurry behind.
Because whoever loses the connection, loses the connection. Yet we have long been wirelessly networked and yet are entangled in something that is supposed to hold us together, but which takes away our breath and sometimes suffocates us

General

New rules for internet in Europe

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New rules for internet in Europe

Countries and EU members have agreed on new rules for internet content. Negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states have agreed on new rules under which technology giants must more closely monitor the content on their platforms and pay fees to regulators monitoring their compliance. Thus, hate speech and other illegal content on the internet should be removed more quickly in the future.

The agreement has yet to be confirmed by the European Parliament and EU states, but this is considered a formality, wrote the agency DPA.

The digital services act (DSA) is the second point of the strategy of the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, which aims to limit the power of the technology giants. The agreement was concluded after more than 16 hours of negotiations.

"We have a DSA agreement: the Digital Services Act will ensure that what is illegal offline is also perceived and addressed as illegal online – not as a slogan, as a reality," Vestager wrote on Twitter.

According to the DSA, companies face fines of up to six percent of their global turnover for violating the rules. In the event of repeated infringements, they could be prohibited from doing business in the EU.

The aim of the DSA is, among other things, to ensure that illegal content such as hate speech is removed more quickly from the network, that harmful disinformation and war propaganda are shared less, and that counterfeit products are sold less on internet marketplaces.

DSA is part of a large digital package proposed by the European Commission in December 2020. The second part is the digital markets act (DMA), for which the agreement was concluded at the end of March. The DMA aims above all to limit the market power of technology giants such as Google and Facebook with stricter rules.

One of the points at issue was, for example, the legislation under which the illegality in question would be assessed.

* * * * *

Many internet users comment on this as oppression of freedom of speech. "Still no one really knows what it is hateful content and what it is misinformation, it is not specified, so it can be anything and also it will still change, swearing at Putin is now allowed, but for exactly the same swearing at Ukrainians you can also go to prison, but the hateful content is exactly the same." Or another comment " And who will ensure that those who will carry out these "regulatory" interventions are so well versed in the law (they should actually be judges by profession, right?) to be able to evaluate the contributions immediately and to judge whether or not they comply with the law??? "

Governments are clearly eager to tighten their censorship measures. But we have this free platform – Markethive.

                     Thank you for reading

                                                               Margaret

 

 

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91-year-old Holocaust survivor dies in Mariupol

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As a child, Wanda survived the Nazi roundup by hiding in a cellar. Of all places, it was in a cellar that the Ukrainian woman died 81 years later.

A 91-year-old Holocaust survivor has died in the heavily contested south-eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, according to the Jewish community.

"At the age of ten, Wanda Semyonova Obyedkova survived the Germans by hiding in a basement in Mariupol. 81 years later, she died in a basement in the same city while hiding from the Russians as a result of the terrible war," the Auschwitz Museum announced on its Twitter channel. News of the woman's death went viral on social media on Wednesday.

According to the report, Obyedkova had already died on 4 April. Her daughter Larissa reported that she and her husband had subsequently had to bury the 91-year-old in a city park while the city was being bombed. The couple was then able to flee Mariupol. Much of the news from the city is delayed because there is no internet and rescued people cannot communicate with the outside world until they are in a safe place.

Obyedkova was born in Mariupol on 8 December 1930 and was ten when the SS rounded up the local Jewish population to murder them on the outskirts of the city after the Wehrmacht invaded Mariupol. It is estimated that between 9,000 and 16,000 Jews were killed, including Objedkova's mother.

Little Wanda survived the Nazi roundup by hiding in a cellar. When she was discovered later, friends of the family were able to convince the SS that the girl was of Greek descent. The child was thus saved from execution

 

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Ukrainian Mariupol fallen

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Ukrainian Mariupol fallen

The Ukrainian town Mariupol at Azov sea had fallen, The city of Mariupol is under the control of the armed forces of Russia, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, announced Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The attack on the azovstal steel works, located in the city and hiding in them the remaining Ukrainian defenders of the city, Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled, wrote the agency Tass.

"Today the whole of Mariupol is under the control of the Russian army, the people's militia of the Donetsk People's Republic. The territory of the azovstal plant with the remnants of nationalists and foreign mercenaries located there is safely blocked, " minister Shoigu said.

More than two thousand militants were blocked in the azovstal steelworks. According to Shoigu, at the time of the encirclement of Mariupol, the number of foreign troops fighting on the side of Ukraine was about 8100 people.

"As for those who did not flee from the azovstal plant, they are blocked there thoroughly and around the perimeter. We need about three to four days to complete this work, " Shoigu said.

According to the minister of defense, despite the resistance of militants in Mariupol, more than 142 thousand residents of the city were evacuated, and all hostages in the port were released.

These hot news are from Czech websites.

                        Thank you for reading     

                                                               Margaret

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Czechia and Slovakia in wild times

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Czechia and Slovakia in wild times

Since 1993 devided into this two states = Czech republic and Slovak republic, former Czechoslovakia. Our territory is in center of Europe but as we are relatively small two states you will not read a lot about us in the last months though we are in a way in the heart of events.
Slovakia has about 90kms border with Ukraine, Czechia not but in spite of it we are the target of many Ukrainians escaping from the terrible war conflict. Already before the battles in Ukrainian territory started in Czech Republic lived about 250 000 Ukrainians. Finding here language belonging to the Slav languages and relatively good opportunities in comparison with their home country a lot of them are staying for a long time. What is a bit surprising for me is that many left their children with their grandpas and grandmas in their home country. That shows how economically difficult must be the situation in Ukraine for long time already.


Since the end of February came over 300 000 Ukrainians to Czechia. That is really a lot to manage when you consider that Czech republic has about 10,7 million inhabitants. Slovakia is smaller with about 5,4 million inhabitants. 
Having in Czechia already family members or friends it is logical a lot of people coming from Ukraine want to stay in our country. But for Czechia it is really a very big number of people.

Ukrainians waiting on border

In 2018, the world-famous Czech demographer Tomáš Sobotka of the Vienna Demographic Institute participated in an international study that confirmed the "exodus" of residents from east to west of Europe. The study already four years before the war in Ukraine predicted a steady decline in the population of Ukraine and other eastern European states and the movement of their population in a westerly direction. The war is likely to intensify the exodus of eastern Europeans. So will there not eventually be a kind of " people-free zone " separating Russia from the European Union on the territory that the Ukrainians are defending? And is there any way to prevent the depopulation of Ukraine? According to Tomáš Sobotka, hardly. "I estimate that in the Czech Republic will remain 60 to 70 percent of Ukrainian refugees," he says.
Up to half a million refugees are likely to arrive directly in the Czech Republic. This is calculated by one of the scenarios of the Ministry of internal affairs at beginning of April.
That is really an extreme number especially when our national economy is weakened by the covid crisis. Minister of interior of Czech republic said that government has prepared several scenarios and the most probable is considered that about 500-600 thousands of Ukrainians will come.
Most of refugees want to stay in capital Praha and that is causing a lot of problems. Praha with 1.32  million inhabitants has just now already 70 000 Ukrainians which is 5,25%.

        Thank you for reading

                                             Margaret
 

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Philosophy of the good life – Why we need unhappiness

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Easter Sunday marks the beginning of the season of joy in Christianity, even though Jesus was crucified just two days earlier. Pretty quick. What does this turn of emotion reveal about the connection between joy and sorrow?

The government probably had it in mind: According to the Christian narrative, Easter rest is supposed to begin a time of hopeful dawn, indeed, of joy. Even as a child, however, I wondered why joy should break out so suddenly, when the Savior had just been tortured and beaten on the cross.

Unhappiness – a philosophical blank space
This childish irritation is accompanied by a basic ethical problem: What is the relationship between suffering and joy? Is unhappiness merely the absence of happiness?
For 2500 years, happiness has also been a philosophical hot potato. Its opposite, however, unhappiness, is rarely analyzed. It hangs like a sword of Damocles over the happiness-fixated study of life. There are isolated references to unhappiness factors, for example in Aristotle, who considered spoiled children and a lack of beauty to be obstacles to happiness. And yet it is symptomatic that the relevant handbook "Glück" (Happiness) published by Metzler does not contain a single entry on unhappiness, despite 84 entries.

Searching for consolation and deeper meaning
Many people probably only think about a successful life because life can still be unsuccessful. Probably, unhappiness is also one of the main motives for taking up the study of philosophy. Those who are completely happy will want to dig less deeply.

Conversely, people often only know what makes them happy as soon as they experience unhappiness and learn from it: from failure, loss, loneliness, despair, pain, illness or death. Those who are so unhappy like to imagine what it would be like to be "happy" again.

Kant's paradox: Happiness arises from pain
This results in a paradox: We may not want our own unhappiness, but we can't want it either. "So pain must precede every pleasure; pain is always first," says philosopher Immanuel Kant. "Pain is the sting of activity, and in this we feel our life for the very first time; without it lifelessness would occur."
I understand Kant here in this way: life, even the happy life, arises from pain. A life completely without the struggle against prickly unhappiness would probably also be a life without happiness.

Illusory happiness is repugnant to most people
Imagine that you could be connected to a "happiness machine". From then on, this machine would make you believe that you were in a state of complete satisfaction. Would you let yourself be hooked up? Or would you miss the contrast?
A second indication: In a famous study by Northwestern University in the USA, the quality of life of lottery winners was compared with that of paraplegic accident victims. As expected, people were very happy shortly after winning the lottery and very unhappy shortly after the accident. With a time lag, both the happiness of the former and the unhappiness of the latter diminished. And with a long interval, the accident victims actually turned out to be happier overall.

Impetus for a better life
This yields some initial answers to our initial question. First: Only those who know misfortune can appreciate happiness. Second: People can grow from individual episodes of unhappiness. Third: Many people do not simply want to receive their happiness as a gift, they want to earn it. Fourth: Unhappiness may drive us to strive or fight for a better life in each case. And fifth, overall, unhappiness thus becomes a motor of social progress, toward a better life for all.
This last thought leads back to Easter – and especially to an Easter under pandemic conditions. With all the sadness about misfortune suffered: If we learn from this misfortune, a dawn of new joy may dawn after the time of suffering.