The Wheel

Day two hundred and fifty-three, Georgia. A friend said this to me on the phone a few days ago:

„I feel like I'm in a hamster wheel.“ — „The mood in Germany is crushing.“ — „Most people are only looking after themselves now.“

He is afraid of being poor.

He is a student and thoroughly disillusioned. „The last three years broke a lot of things.“ People have got more aggressive. There is more loneliness. Most of them only see themselves, which he thinks is understandable, and poverty is spreading.

The pandemic, the war, the inflation. Society came out of it different. He had to stretch his studies out and solve problems that did not exist before. „You have to see where you end up.“ Volunteering is collapsing. Nobody has anything spare.

Hold on. Is it really that bad at home?

I believe him. He looks at what is around him without dressing it up, and that is why I value him.

It is a strange thing to hear from four thousand kilometres away, in a country where I have less money than he does and considerably less fear.