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A text in an hour or creative measures against exhaustion

Q.U.I.C.H.E.

A text in an hour or creative measures against exhaustion

For a good year now, the permanent and leisure-time stress that we knew before corona has returned to my environment. If you want to meet up with friends, you have to plan well in advance. Of course, everyone can never make it on the agreed date, as your own calendar is bursting at the seams - you now have jobs that involve a lot of responsibility, you have children who are the biggest responsibility of all, and/or you have many, extensive hobbies that you make your responsibility. This text should also have been written much earlier, but well, I've had a lot on my plate and I'm always exhausted. That's why I decided to collect fragments of legends and summarise them here. Fragments seem to me to be simpler, quicker to process and edit and easier to handle than well-thought-out, well-designed texts. I am curious to see what kind of life this will take on.

Speaking of exhaustion - there's a system to it. I realise this once again when I commute to Sissach (!) on a cold, snowy Thursday evening for a series of talks by Ueli Mäder. In the light-flooded restaurant, Cheesmeyer accompanied by piano music (almost a little cheesy, but still beautiful), the professor emeritus of sociology, who taught at the University of Basel until 2016, discusses how to better deal with (life) crises. He has invited Franziska Schutzbach, gender researcher and sociologist, and Cornelia Kazis, former journalist and author. One of the most important insights of the evening: In a performance- and profit-orientated society, there is a system of never feeling good enough. This is the only way for individuals to make more and more effort, to give more and more in order to achieve goals, to want to go further and further. If we felt good enough, we would hardly have the same driven individuals who constantly have to optimise themselves in all areas of life. So the question is: how can we as individuals and as a society get away from this compulsion to optimise?
There is no simple answer to this. At this point, however, I would like to refer you to Franziska Schutzbach's non-fiction book "Die Erschöpfung der Frauen" (Women's Exhaustion), which suggests some possible solutions.

And what is a queer person actually doing in the so-called "cuffing season" who has sworn off online dating for the time being, because they are exhausted? Cuffing season is a time when you tie yourself to the first person you meet so that you don't have to survive the cold winter alone. You could try to get to know someone through analogue forms, such as at LGBTQ+ parties or through your own environment. I have currently decided to browse Caroline Emcke's "Streitraum" and imagine being on a date with this impressive woman. It makes the cold, wet winter much more pleasant and the impulse to sign up to a dating app disappears for a while.

Now I'm going to read Daniel Schreiber, who writes about losses, crises and exhaustion in his new essay "The Time of Losses". So the topic of exhaustion doesn't just seem to be very present in my life. I am looking forward to Daniel's categorisation and interpretation with hopefully some helpful insights.

Q.U.I.C.H.E. are semi-monthly thoughts about cultural moments in Basel and the surrounding area. Formulated by a loosely organised collective of queer people who dance in the haze of Basel's cultural scene.

[LH]