Wolfgang Maehr

While in the last centuries the masses of the rich countries have been busy consuming (mostly mindlessly) quite a few changes have happened under the surface of this world. Changes that have been noticed by different people, changes that have become buzz-words but changes that our leaders were not able to pre-empt because their implications are hard to predict for our puny human minds. Developments that might seem to be quite unrelated, that actually might come together in synergies that transform humanity—and as the most dominant species—our world drastically. This is not an attempt to predict, but an attempt to line up some of the thoughts in my puny mind in order to see which ones may align and affect each other. You are welcome to join this and draw your conclusions. :) — read more ›

Travelling by plane always makes me ponder. It must be the bird’s perspective of things deep down there, one sees villages, roads, mountains, rivers and all the other things from a completely different perspective. It is beautiful, amazingly beautiful not only because it’s an unusual perspective. Our Earth IS MAGNIFICENT. And yes, from a distance all looks great and spotless, or at least many things. — read more ›

This is one of the essential parts from the book on J.Krishnamurti’s thoughts I have been reading for a looong time now. The book is called Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti and is a very heavy but highly interesting read that I will revisit later in my life. — read more ›

A great piece by John Thackara on North-to-South design work. This might be more of a reminder to myself, but I hope that you also enjoy reading it. — read more ›

So I finally found a term for my condition: Global Nomadic Expatriate. I had been thinking of my nomadic life-style for a while now. Recent activities like social networks, travelling and meeting new people, the Uefa EURO 2008 in Austria/Switzerland and other things made more people than ever refer to me as “the Austrian”, asking me wether I’d be cheering for Germany, when I will go back to Austria and so on. Usually I would reply that “I don’t know when I will go back. Hopefully I don’t have to.”, “I don’t feel like an Austrian, maybe like a European, but actually more just like a human.” and “My home is where my shoes are.” along the lines of “Ubi bene, ibi patria.” — read more ›

Another good report on Telepolis (DE) about the future of our world as the USA will not be the only superpower anymore. A flatter structure with more countries with own agendas – like before WWI – that will make the world less secure unless we act now building a structure for international understanding, respect, collaboration and shared goals.

The three upcoming challenges of our world nicely summed up at Telepolis (DE). For those who do not understand German it says in essence: — read more ›

Rare uncontacted Amazon tribe photographed.

After having had so many conversations about great it is to live in Europe (or the West), here two links (unfortunately in German) pointing to our current problems: — read more ›

For anybody who feels like they want to see a bit of the disturbing issues in this world, you can visit MediaStorm a web site with amazingly good digital story telling serious issues of this world. — read more ›