Morning Stories

So simple as this short word seems — its impact is extreme. Anyone who wants to say goodbye to someone — or has to — is closer to tears than to laughter. A person dear to your heart is setting off on a journey. That's a real cut into the comfortable routine of everyday life.

Wanderlust or Homesick? Anyone who has always lived behind the moon or under a rock won't be surprised by the state of the world today. Because they don't catch any of it. The news? A Canadian was behind the moon. But only briefly.

Götterdämmerung? (Which is Twilight of the Gods) Which gods are currently facing their twilight? And if any of these ladies or gentlemen are available for comment: what exactly does this twilight contain right now? I mean, at many corners of the globe - wait, why corners? - this very world is no longer in order. Not even at seven in the morning. Yet the bearers of hope in all countries - or at least most of them - refuse to stop carrying.

First, there was doubt. The critical looking, the questioning of conditions. The condition of the world. The condition of the soul. Or the condition of the situation.

Well, another word has nestled itself into the conversation — one that carries this particular, wake-you-up quality: Hopeium. A blend of hope and some metallic-sounding suffix, -ium. Hope is metallic? No. Hope is magnetic.

"The whole thing is going down the drain. Because the thing is the prognosis." — Unknown

This year is at its end — and honestly, it looks exhausted. 2025 is limping across the finish line, battered and breathless. Time itself seems to have been grinding its crooked teeth all year long.

Was that a battle cry back in the flower-power seventies? Make Love, Not War — the slogan that blossomed under the shadow of Vietnam — wasn’t just an invitation to a freer love life, but a bold protest against the madness of war.

Once upon a time, there was that one story — the one where a camel was told to pass through the eye of a needle. Clear as mud, right?

Words don’t always like being taken apart. They claim it’s an invasion of privacy — at least, that’s what a few words from the Ministry of Justice have been whispering.