Stell dir vor, Unternehmen wären Orte der Selbstverwirklichung, der Selbstbestimmung und der Erfüllung gesellschaftlicher Verantwortung.

Stell dir vor, Schulen wären Orte der Begeisterung, Weisheit und Neugier.

Stell dir vor, öffentliche Behörden wären Orte der menschlichen Wärme, der Verantwortung und der Effektivität.

“Can we create soulful workplaces - schools, hospitals, businesses, and nonprofits - where our talents can blossom and our callings can be honored?” — Frederic Laloux

“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
— Morpheus to Neo, "The Matrix"

This famous movie quote depicts the choice for the main character Neo of either staying in his normal life inside the faked matrix or waking up to the bitter reality where mankind is enslaved to machines. A hard choice between comfort and truth.

When I read the book "The Denial of Death", by Earnest Becker, it felt a little bit like swallowing the red pill.

After two exchange semesters, one in San Diego, USA and one in Taipei, Taiwan and travelling around Asia and Europe I made a lot of valuable experiences that I would like to share here for the prospective traveller. Many of these tips would have been very useful for me during my first journeys and I hope that some of them can be useful to others now. If you've already travelled some continents though, you've probably figured out most of the stuff by yourselve. Yet I hope that you can still take away something.

Here I would like to share my favorite websites and blogs and hope that these posts can also be an inspiration to you. I also added lists with some of my favorite articles.

“Almost always when I told someone I was writing a book about “eating animals”, they assumed, even without knowing anything about my views, that it was a case for vegetarianism. It’s a telling assumption, one that implies not only that a thorough inquiry into animal agriculture would lead one away from eating meat, but that most people already know that to be the case.” 
— Jonathan Safran Foer

If just about three years ago, you had let me choose between a schnitzel and some tofu sausage, I would have picked the schnitzel without thinking twice. The mere title of this post would have made me hungry and there were few things I would have considered more delicious than a juicy steak.

But times have changed.

I read a lot in my free time and in this section I would like to recommend the most interesting, inspiring or absorbing books I've read.

There is the common view that the truth can be found through reason and argument. That if only people get access to information and the knowledge from science and research they will adjust flawed opinions and convert to the truth no matter how they personally feel about it. This is the ideal of science, that man can leave his emotions and personal views behind on the road to objective insight. 

“A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections - a mere heart of stone.” — Charles Darwin

But then there is an opposing view, that man is a self-righteous scumbag, mostly using his mental faculties to win pointless arguments and to justify his egocentric worldview.