8/18 Heavy clouds over the vast, flat surface of the river as I waited at the train station to get back to Manhattan. The thunder rolling from within these clouds for several seconds still surprised me. Heavy rain against the train windows on the way back.

8/17 It used to be my rule to always write about what was most frightening to me.

8/16 Any violation of core democratic principles is immediately disqualifying and ends the discussion, no matter what else is being proposed. – Is this my German self, and does America simply not work that way? Is the idea of core, unshakable principles simply not as deeply rooted in the land of pragmatism? – But what reason do I have to believe it would be different in Germany? – And finally, what if the roles were reversed? If there was a left politician about to dismantle democracy in order to save the world climate?

8/15 In anything I play, I can feel the difference between musical elements I learned when I was 10 or 12 years old, and those I learned recently, half a century later. The older ones are deeply engraved into me, the newer ones are loose and accidental. The value of these early years rises the more their achievements become unattainable.

8/14 For the first time I saw someone deeply engulfed in a chat on their smartphone while running. I did not think this was possible.

8/13 I couldn’t rewrite the report, so over the last few days, I wrote it all over again. Totally exhausted today.

8/12 Morning, looking out west, when the light of day seems to come mostly from the facades out there, brightly hit by the sunlight coming from behind me. (Indeed, I am wondering what it would look like if the blue sky was replaced by a black night sky like on the moon, or the buildings replaced with how they look at night, dropped into the deepest shadow, while the sky remains daylight blue.)

8/11 Decided I’d be healthy again today. Made it until early evening.

8/10 We caught some kind of virus that is nasty because we don’t have any actual signs of sickness. A little cough, a little sneeze, and that’s it. No fever. But we can’t do anything. We are weak, sleepy, lack initiative. We must behave as if we were sick, without actually being sick.

8/9 You would think that with instant access to everything, it would be easy to surround yourself with the most delicate, deeply beloved information. Far wider reaching, and far more delicate than the connoisseur who used his lifetime to surround himself with a library of 50,000 books. And yet this is not what happens. I feel surrounded by a cacophony of mass information.