Eis in Schöneweide – 8. Juli

Wie ich schon gestern erwähnt habe, habe ich heute gemeinsam mit Herrn Baumeister (ich habe leider seinen Vornamen vergessen) das Berliner Leitsystem kennengelernt. Dieses System ist sehr logisch aufgebaut und folgt einem klaren Konzept. Alles wurde aus bestimmten Gründen so gestaltet, dass Menschen aus unterschiedlichen Regionen Deutschlands die Wegbeschreibungen eindeutig verstehen können. Ich werde das System hier nicht im Detail erklären. Aber ich habe mehr als zwei Stunden lang ein persönliches Training von Herrn Baumeister bekommen. Jetzt weiß ich zumindest, wie ich mich anhand dieser Wegbeschreibungen in Berlin orientieren kann, ohne mich ständig zu verlaufen.

Eigentlich begann der Tag schon mit einem kleinen Abenteuer. Vor unserem Treffen hatte ich mein Handy im Café liegen lassen, in dem wir gefrühstückt hatten. Natürlich bemerkte ich das erst in der U-Bahn. Ich wurde sofort nervös und gab zunächst Mindaugas die Schuld: „Warum hast du den Tisch nicht kontrolliert?“ Als wäre ich plötzlich von jeder Verantwortung befreit, nur weil eine sehende Person bei mir ist! Dann schlug ich vor, alleine bis zum Alexanderplatz weiterzufahren und Mindaugas zurück ins Café zu schicken. Ich wollte auf keinen Fall zu spät zu unserem Termin kommen. Schon allein der Name Baumeister klang für mich irgendwie verpflichtend – und in Deutschland ist Pünktlichkeit schließlich fast selbstverständlich.

Es fühlte sich zunächst etwas seltsam an, ohne Handy allein weiterzufahren. Natürlich kamen sofort die unterschiedlichsten Gedanken: Was, wenn ich an der falschen Station aussteige? Was, wenn Imke mir kurzfristig geschrieben hätte, dass wir uns doch woanders treffen? Trotzdem blieb ich erstaunlich ruhig. Wie in solchen Situationen immer erinnerte ich mich daran, dass mir eigentlich nichts Schlimmes passieren kann. Ich kenne Mindaugas' Telefonnummer auswendig, ich könnte über meinen Laptop ins Internet gehen, jemanden anrufen oder einfach eine E-Mail schreiben. Und schließlich spreche ich – wenn auch nicht besonders gut – Deutsch und könnte jederzeit jemanden um Hilfe bitten. Es ist wirklich interessant, wie das Gehirn funktioniert: Gerade in solchen Momenten produziert es automatisch die dümmsten Horrorszenarien.

Zum Glück störte das verlorene Handy unser Treffen überhaupt nicht. Herr Baumeister erklärte mir viele interessante Details über das Leitsystem und die Orientierung im öffentlichen Raum. Ein paar Erkenntnisse nehme ich besonders mit:

1. Manche Leitsysteme sind bereits älter, und ich kann sie mit meinem Langstock kaum ertasten. Vielleicht liegt das aber auch daran, dass meine Langstocktechnik inzwischen etwas schlechter geworden ist. Das muss ich unbedingt noch genauer untersuchen.

2. Es gibt verschiedene Arten von Bodenindikatoren, die ich noch nicht sicher unterscheiden kann. Das lässt sich aber bestimmt mit etwas Übung lernen.

3. Ich bin jetzt sehr motiviert, das gesamte System selbst weiter zu erforschen. Herr Baumeister hat mir freundlicherweise sogar seine Telefonnummer gegeben, falls später noch Fragen auftauchen sollten. Das finde ich unglaublich nett. Am schwierigsten wird wahrscheinlich das Umsteigen bleiben. Die Wegbeschreibungen beginnen meistens an der Endstation einer Linie. Wenn man vorher noch umsteigen muss, muss man den Weg dorthin erst einmal selbst finden. Vielleicht verstehe ich dieses System mit der Zeit noch besser.

4. Eine weitere Herausforderung besteht darin, wie man diesen Wegbeschreibungen möglichst komfortabel folgen kann. Sie enthalten sehr präzise Informationen, sind aber gleichzeitig linear aufgebaut. Zum Beispiel: „Am Leitsystem bis zum Ende des Bahnsteigs. 180 Grat Um-drehung. Rechts entlang. Wenige Schritte weiter bis Ta-ta-ta... Links entlang. 50 Meter weiter bis zum Ta-ta-ta...” Alle Informationen stehen nacheinander, während ich gleichzeitig gehen muss. Das bedeutet, dass ich auf meinem Handy oft Satz für Satz oder sogar Wort für Wort weiterlesen muss. So komme ich zwar ans Ziel, aber besonders flüssig ist diese Art der Orientierung nicht. Trotzdem wird mir das System mit jeder Übung verständlicher. Ich habe sogar schon die Idee, verschiedene Braille-Notizen auszuprobieren, um den Ablauf unterwegs einfacher verfolgen zu können.

Während wir das Leitsystem erkundeten, holte Mindaugas mein Handy aus dem Café ab. Der Mitarbeiter hatte es sorgfältig aufbewahrt und wartete schon auf ihn. Dieses Mal musste ich für meine Zerstreutheit also nichts bezahlen.

Unser Reel wird leider doch erst später veröffentlicht, weil an der Audiodeskription noch einige Korrekturen notwendig waren. Wenigstens musste ich diesmal selbst nichts mehr daran ändern. Außerdem hatten wir heute noch ein Gespräch mit den Entwicklern einer Website. Und ihre Sprache – voller Anglizismen – war heute schon deutlich verständlicher für mich.

Es stellte sich außerdem heraus, dass es in Schöneweide ein wirklich fantastisches Eismanufaktur gibt. Imke hat uns eingeladen, dort ein Eis zu probieren. Das war eine schöne kleine Belohnung vor ihrem Urlaub. Erstens gibt es dort unglaublich viele Eissorten – und viele davon tragen richtig originelle Namen. Zweitens muss man sich erst einmal in eine ziemlich lange Schlange stellen. Aber diese Schlange war erstaunlich friedlich und entspannt. Ich dachte mir, dass darin eigentlich eine sehr logische Aufgabe steckt: Während des Wartens hat man genug Zeit, sich noch einmal ernsthaft zu fragen, ob man diese ganzen Kalorien wirklich essen möchte. Meine Antwort lautete eindeutig: Ja! Vor allem nachdem ich das Eis probiert hatte. Die Waffel und das hausgemachte Eis schmecken einfach fantastisch. Ich werde Mindaugas bestimmt noch einmal dorthin einladen. Allerdings könnte das lange Warten in der Schlange für ihn etwas schwieriger werden – dafür ist er ziemlich empfindlich. Aber ich werde ihn schon überzeugen.

Zum Schluss bin ich zum ersten Mal ganz allein vom S-Bahnhof mit der Straßenbahn zurück zum Hotel gefahren. Während dieser Reise ist das eigentlich eine Seltenheit. Mindaugas sagt immer, dass er schließlich dafür bezahlt wird, mich zu begleiten, und deshalb lässt er mich nur ungern allein los.

Ich glaube allerdings gar nicht, dass er sich übermäßig Sorgen um mich macht. Er ist einfach ein sehr verantwortungsbewusster Mensch und nimmt seine Aufgabe im Rahmen des Projekts sehr ernst. Nachdem ich ihn heute wegen meines verlorenen Handys ohnehin schon genug hin- und hergeschickt hatte, ließ er mich diesmal ganz in Ruhe weiterarbeiten und sagte, ich solle einfach allein zurückfahren.

Eigentlich war das auch gar nicht schwierig. Eine Kollegin fährt vom selben Bahnhof nach Hause, sodass ich nur noch allein aus der Straßenbahn aussteigen und den kurzen Weg zum Hotel zurücklegen musste. Allerdings sprach ausgerechnet diese Straßenbahn keine Haltestellen an. Deshalb musste ich die Stationen vorsichtig auf meinem Handy verfolgen. Gut, dass ich es wiederhatte! Außerdem muss man hier immer selbst den Halteknopf drücken. Die Bahn hält nicht automatisch an, wenn niemand aussteigen möchte. Ich kenne die Straßenbahnen in Berlin noch nicht besonders gut, aber den Knopf habe ich zufällig ziemlich schnell gefunden.

Wieder ein kleiner Schritt mehr, um Berlin besser kennenzulernen.

In Summary: * This Tuesday has been both a recovery day (recovering from the previous two consecutive days of yard work), and a prep day, spent preparing for the next round of yard work. This next round will be spent mostly working on the front yard between rain showers. Those showers are expected to continue off and on through Thursday, by the way. How much work gets done out there will depend on the weather and my energy level.

I've worked my night prayers early today as I hope to focus on tonight's MLB All Star Game until my brain calls it quits and sends this old body to bed.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 229.06 lbs. * bp= 146/85 (66)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups, BP breathing exercises, pilates

Diet: * 05:10 – 1 banana * 07:00 – 4 little cookies * 07:20 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 10:00 – baked fish and vegetables * 11:15 – snacking on little cookies * 12:00 – 1 bacon and egg breakfast taco * 15:00 – 1 fresh apple

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:20 – listen to local news talk radio * 04:55 – bank accounts activity monitored. * 05:00 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap * 15:45 – listening to relaxing music

Chess: * 13:55 – moved in all pending CC games

Chapter 1: When Getting Even Feels Like the Only Honest Answer

It is usually not the big public moment that gives away what is happening inside us. It is the quiet moment afterward. The phone is face down on the table. The room is still. The conversation is over, but your mind keeps replaying it. You remember what they said, how they looked at you, how easily they walked away, and how much of the weight they left behind for you to carry. In moments like that, a teaching such as “an eye for an eye” can feel less like ancient Scripture and more like permission. It can sound like God saying, “You are allowed to make this even.”

That is why what Jesus really meant by an eye for an eye matters so much. Most people do not misunderstand the phrase because they are foolish. They misunderstand it because they have been hurt. When someone has embarrassed you, betrayed you, lied about you, cheated you, or damaged something you cannot easily replace, revenge can feel like honesty. It can feel like the only response that admits the wound was real.

I have spent enough time thinking about faith, pressure, pain, and human behavior to know that people rarely call it revenge when they want it. We call it fairness. We call it standing up for ourselves. We call it making sure someone learns a lesson. That is why the difference between justice and personal revenge deserves more than a quick explanation. It reaches into the private places where we know what we want, even when we are not proud of wanting it.

The original command, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” was not given to encourage cruelty. It was given to limit it. In a world where one injury could start a family feud, and one insult could lead to bloodshed far beyond the original offense, the law created a boundary. The response could not be greater than the harm. The punishment had to be measured. It was a restraint on retaliation.

That changes the way the phrase sounds. It was not God handing human anger a weapon. It was God putting a fence around it.

Then Jesus went further. He did not pretend injustice was harmless. He did not tell wounded people that what happened to them did not matter. He did not ask anyone to call evil good. He showed that even limited revenge could not heal the human heart. A person might succeed in making the other side pay and still wake up angry the next morning. The account might look even from the outside while the soul remained trapped inside the injury.

That is the hidden problem with getting even. It promises an ending, but it often keeps the relationship with the wound alive.

You may no longer speak to the person. You may not see them. Years may have passed. Yet you still have arguments with them in your head while driving to work. You imagine the day they finally understand what they did. You picture the moment when their own life falls apart and they come back to admit that you were right. You do not necessarily want to destroy them. You just want them to feel enough pain to make your pain seem acknowledged.

I understand why that desire appears. There are injuries that leave a person feeling invisible. Someone does real damage and then continues living as though nothing happened. You are left with the cost while they appear to carry none of it. You repair your finances, rebuild your confidence, explain the situation to your family, or try to sleep through a mind that will not become quiet. Meanwhile, they post smiling pictures, make new plans, and speak as if they were the wounded one.

In that kind of situation, forgiveness can sound insulting. It can sound like one more demand placed on the person who has already paid the highest price.

Jesus does not treat the wounded person as though the wound is small. He does something harder and kinder. He separates your healing from the other person’s suffering. He refuses to tell you that you must watch them hurt before you are allowed to become free.

That is where His teaching becomes deeply personal.

The lesson is not that nothing should happen to people who do wrong. Consequences matter. Truth matters. Protection matters. If someone is dangerous, love does not require you to give them another opportunity to harm you. If someone commits a crime, forgiveness does not prevent you from reporting it. If someone repeatedly lies, mercy does not require you to keep trusting them. Boundaries are not revenge. Accountability is not hatred.

The lesson is that your heart cannot safely live on the hope that another person suffers.

That hope changes us slowly. It makes us rehearse the offense because we need to keep the anger strong. It makes every update about the other person feel important. It makes their success feel offensive and their hardship feel satisfying. Before long, our peace depends on what happens to someone else.

That is too much power to hand to the person who hurt you.

Maybe you know what this looks like in ordinary life. You see their name on your phone and your body tightens before you even read the message. Someone mentions them at dinner, and the entire mood inside you changes. You hear that they received a promotion, found a new relationship, or gained the approval of people who never heard your side, and something inside you says, “That is not fair.”

Sometimes it is not fair.

Christian faith does not require us to lie about that. There are times when people avoid consequences. There are times when human systems fail. There are times when the apology never comes, the money is never returned, the rumor is never fully corrected, and the person who caused the damage never seems to understand it.

But there is another unfairness we rarely name. It is unfair for their action to keep taking more of your life years after the event is over. It is unfair for them to occupy your thoughts while you are trying to enjoy dinner with people who love you. It is unfair for the memory of their dishonesty to make you suspicious of every honest person who comes later. It is unfair for their cruelty to train you to become cruel.

Jesus teaches a way of ending that second injustice.

He does not tell you to erase the truth. He tells you that the truth does not need hatred in order to remain true.

That distinction has helped me. I do not have to soften the facts to forgive. I do not have to say, “It was not that bad.” I do not have to pretend the person meant well when I know they did not. I do not have to reopen a door God helped me close. I can tell the truth about what happened and still refuse to make revenge my purpose.

This is not a quick emotional trick. A person does not simply decide one afternoon to stop caring and then never feel angry again. Forgiveness may begin as a quiet choice made while the feelings remain unsettled. You may place the matter in God’s hands on Monday and take it back by Wednesday. You may pray honestly, then wake up at two in the morning remembering another detail.

That does not mean you are fake. It means you are practicing freedom.

The private work often sounds less impressive than people expect. It may be a prayer whispered in the car: “God, I still want them to hurt, and I do not want that desire to own me.” It may be closing the social media page instead of checking whether life has punished them yet. It may be refusing to repeat the story to one more person merely to keep the anger warm. It may be admitting that you miss who you thought they were, even though you no longer trust who they have shown themselves to be.

There is real grief inside revenge. Sometimes what we want back is not an eye or a tooth. We want our time back. We want our innocence back. We want the version of ourselves that trusted easily. We want the family we thought we had, the marriage we thought we were building, the friendship we believed was safe, or the future we expected before one decision changed everything.

No punishment can return those things exactly as they were.

That is one reason Jesus leads us away from retaliation. He knows revenge cannot give us what we are actually mourning. It may create another wound, but it cannot restore the old life.

Grace begins by telling the truth about that loss. You can stop pretending that getting even will bring back what was taken. You can grieve what cannot be recovered in its original form. Then, slowly, you can allow God to build something new without making the person who harmed you the center of the rebuilding.

This is where “turn the other cheek” is also misunderstood. Jesus was not teaching people to become helpless targets. He was showing them how to refuse the role that violence assigns. When someone tries to reduce you to a victim who can only react, you do not have to become a copy of their behavior. You can remain truthful, alert, and strong without allowing their character to become yours.

That is not passivity. It is self-control with a spiritual purpose.

Anyone can hit back. Anyone can send the message designed to wound. Anyone can repeat the private information, embarrass the person publicly, damage the reputation, or wait for the perfect moment to return the pain. The ability to cause harm is not proof of strength. Sometimes the strongest thing a person can do is refuse to use the weapon that anger placed in their hand.

I am not saying this from a distance, as though forgiveness is easy when the lesson is understood. I know that some wounds stay sensitive for a long time. I know there are names that still change the temperature of a room. I know a person can love Jesus sincerely and still feel a rush of anger when an old memory rises.

The question is not whether anger appears. The question is whether anger gets to decide what happens next.

An eye for an eye placed a limit on what people were allowed to do to one another. Jesus placed a deeper limit inside the heart. He taught that another person’s sin does not get unlimited access to your future. It does not get to keep shaping your thoughts, your relationships, your faith, and your identity forever.

You may still need justice. You may still need distance. You may still need to tell the truth clearly and accept that the relationship cannot be repaired. Yet you can do those things without secretly building your life around the day the other person finally suffers.

There comes a moment when you realize that getting even would not make you whole. It would only prove that the wound had taught you how to wound.

Jesus offers a different kind of victory. He teaches you to become free enough that what happened remains part of your story without remaining in control of your character. The event may explain why certain things are hard for you, but it does not have to decide the kind of person you will be.

When you sit in the quiet room and remember what they did, you are allowed to be honest. You can say that it was wrong. You can admit that part of you still wants an apology, an explanation, or a consequence. Then you can ask God for something revenge could never give you: a heart that is no longer waiting for someone else’s pain before it permits itself to heal.

Chapter 2: The Day You Stop Holding Court Inside Your Head

The next morning often tells the truth more clearly than the night before. You wake up, reach for your phone, and before your feet touch the floor, your mind returns to the same person. Nothing new has happened. No message has arrived. No apology is waiting. Yet the argument begins again as if the courtroom inside your head never closed.

You present the evidence. You remember the exact words. You imagine what you should have said. You build the case one more time, and because you know every detail, you win every time. Still, when the trial is over, you do not feel better. You feel tired.

That private courtroom is one of the places where revenge survives after we have decided we are not going to act on it. We may never confront the person. We may never send the angry message. We may never do anything that looks cruel from the outside. But inside, we keep prosecuting them. We keep sentencing them. We keep returning to the offense because we are afraid that releasing it would mean the truth no longer matters.

I think many people stay angry because anger feels like the last witness to what happened. If I stop being furious, maybe I am admitting it was acceptable. If I stop replaying it, maybe I am letting them get away with it. If I forgive, maybe I am betraying the part of me that was hurt.

Jesus does not ask us to betray the truth. He asks us to stop confusing truth with punishment.

What happened can remain wrong even after you stop feeding your anger. The harm can remain serious even when you no longer spend every day proving it to yourself. Forgiveness does not rewrite the event. It changes who is allowed to control the next chapter.

That change is usually quieter than people expect. It may happen when you are washing dishes after dinner and realize you have gone an entire afternoon without thinking about the person. It may happen when someone mentions their name and you notice that your body no longer reacts as sharply. It may happen when you finally tell the story without needing everyone in the room to hate them on your behalf.

Those moments can feel almost disloyal at first. You may wonder whether healing means you have forgotten what mattered. It does not. Healing means the memory is becoming part of your past instead of a command directing your present.

There is a difference between remembering and rehearsing. Remembering helps us learn. Rehearsing keeps us emotionally trapped in the same scene. Remembering may say, “I ignored warning signs, and I will pay attention next time.” Rehearsing says, “I need to feel the full anger again so the wound remains alive.”

One leads to wisdom. The other keeps the injury in charge.

This matters in relationships because an unresolved desire for revenge rarely stays aimed at only one person. It spills. A man is betrayed by one business partner and begins treating every new partner as a possible thief. A woman is lied to in one relationship and starts reading dishonesty into every delay, every quiet moment, every missed call. A parent is disrespected by one adult child and becomes harder with the others. The original person may be gone, but the punishment continues through people who did not cause the wound.

That is one of the costs Jesus is trying to spare us.

When He teaches us not to repay evil with evil, He is not only protecting the person who did wrong. He is protecting everyone who might be harmed by what the wrong awakens in us. He is protecting the children who may grow up under bitterness they did not create. He is protecting the new friend who should not have to answer for the old friend’s betrayal. He is protecting the future spouse who deserves to meet you, not only the defenses someone else forced you to build.

This is where forgiveness becomes practical. It is not a vague feeling of kindness toward someone who hurt you. It is a decision about what you will carry into the next room.

You may carry wisdom. You may carry stronger boundaries. You may carry a clearer sense of what you will no longer tolerate. You may carry grief that still needs time. But you do not have to carry the mission of making someone pay.

That mission is exhausting because it has no clear finish. How much suffering would finally feel like enough? If their relationship fails, would that restore yours? If they lose money, would that repay the years you lost? If they are embarrassed publicly, would that return your dignity? Revenge keeps promising a number it can never name.

Grace names a different goal: freedom.

Freedom does not mean the person becomes safe. Some people should remain at a distance. Some relationships cannot be restored because trust was destroyed and repentance never came. Christian faith does not require us to keep handing access to people who misuse it.

Jesus forgave people who did not deserve it, but He did not entrust Himself to everyone. That distinction matters. You can release hatred without restoring access. You can pray for someone without inviting them back into your private life. You can hope they change while refusing to become the place where they test whether they have.

Forgiveness is offered from your heart. Reconciliation is built by two people.

Reconciliation requires truth. It requires responsibility. It requires change that can be seen over time. A person who demands immediate trust because you say you have forgiven them may still be avoiding accountability. Real repentance does not pressure the wounded person to pretend everything is normal. It understands that some damage takes time to repair and some consequences remain.

That is why justice still matters.

Justice protects the vulnerable. Justice tells the truth in public when silence would allow more harm. Justice may involve a supervisor, a counselor, a church leader, an attorney, a police report, or a firm boundary that disappoints people who do not know the whole story. None of those actions automatically become revenge simply because they are uncomfortable.

The question is what you are trying to accomplish.

Are you trying to stop harm, protect others, and bring truth into the light? Or are you trying to enjoy the sight of another person being crushed? The actions can sometimes look similar from the outside, but the heart knows the difference.

That is why prayer becomes so important. Not the polished kind of prayer that pretends you have already moved beyond the struggle. I mean the honest prayer that says, “God, I want justice, but part of me also wants revenge. Help me know the difference.”

God is not frightened by that honesty. He already knows what is inside us. Hiding it only keeps us from bringing it into the place where He can change it.

Sometimes the most faithful prayer is not “God, bless them” when you cannot say those words sincerely yet. It may begin with, “God, keep me from becoming bitter.” It may be, “God, deal with them rightly because I cannot trust myself to decide what they deserve.” It may be, “God, help me stop checking whether their life is falling apart.”

That kind of prayer is not weak. It is the moment you admit that your heart needs protection from what anger wants to build.

I have learned that resentment often presents itself as strength because it gives us something to hold. When everything else feels uncertain, anger feels clear. It tells us who was wrong. It tells us who is guilty. It tells us why we are hurting. But anger is a poor home. It may shelter us for a night, but we cannot build a life there.

Sooner or later, the rooms become too small.

You notice it when joy feels irresponsible. You feel guilty for laughing because part of you believes the wound should still be honored. You notice it when a good day is interrupted by a memory you almost went looking for. You notice it when peace feels unfamiliar because your body has grown used to being prepared for another fight.

Jesus does not call you away from revenge because He wants to minimize the offense. He calls you away because He wants to return your life to you.

He wants you to sit at the dinner table without another person occupying the empty chair in your thoughts. He wants you to answer a new friendship without making it pass every test the old friendship failed. He wants you to sleep without giving the same argument another hearing. He wants your faith to become larger than the worst thing someone did.

This does not happen by pretending. It happens through repeated choices that may feel small at first.

You stop telling the story to people who only make you angrier. You tell it instead to someone wise enough to help you heal. You stop checking the other person’s life for signs of punishment. You remove the number you keep wanting to call. You write the unsent message and then admit what you were hoping it would accomplish. You let yourself grieve the apology you may never receive.

You also begin paying attention to what is still good.

That can be difficult because pain trains the eye to watch for danger. Yet your life is more than what was taken. There may still be a friend who answers when you call, a child who wants to sit beside you, a quiet morning, useful work, a church community, a dog waiting at the door, or enough strength to begin again. These things do not erase the wound. They remind you the wound did not erase everything.

That is where gratitude becomes more than a pleasant idea. It becomes resistance against the belief that the person who hurt you now owns the whole story.

An eye for an eye says the response must not exceed the offense. Jesus invites us even further, into a life where the offense no longer defines the response at all. He does not deny justice. He frees justice from hatred. He does not excuse wrong. He refuses to let wrong become the pattern we repeat.

The distinct lesson is simple, but it is not easy: the person who wounded you does not get to decide who you become next.

They do not get to choose whether you become suspicious of everyone. They do not get to decide whether you remain gentle. They do not get to write the rules for your future relationships. They do not get to turn your faith into a record of grievances. They may have caused a wound, but they do not own the healing.

God meets you there.

He meets you before the apology. He meets you before the court decision, before the family understands, before the truth is publicly known, and before your feelings have caught up with your decision to forgive. He meets you in the unfinished place.

You may still need time. You may still need help. You may still have mornings when the courtroom opens again. When it does, you can close it one more time. You can say, “God, You know the truth. You judge more clearly than I do. I will not spend today trying this case again.”

Then you can put your feet on the floor and return to the life in front of you.

That is not letting them win.

That is refusing to lose any more of yourself.

Your friend,

Douglas Vandergraph

Explore the complete Douglas Vandergraph Master Index: https://douglasvandergraph.com/douglas-vandergraph-master-index/

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Nach der schlaflosen Nacht – 7. Juli

Nach langer Zeit habe ich wieder eine fast schlaflose Nacht erlebt. Das hing zum Teil auch mit der Sammlung von Informationen zusammen. Einige Ticket-Systeme waren etwas komplizierter zu testen, und ich wollte diese Aufgabe endlich abschließen. Deshalb haben Mindaugas und ich die ganze Nacht damit verbracht, verschiedene Websites zu durchforsten.

Ich freue mich darüber, dass die meisten Theater-Websites in Deutschland sehr barrierefrei sind. Nur bei einem Theater konnte ich kein Ticket selbstständig kaufen. Und eigentlich wäre sogar der Kauf selbst noch möglich gewesen. Das Schwierigste ist meistens, das richtige Stück zu finden, anschließend die passenden Plätze auszuwählen oder die notwendigen Ermäßigungen zu erhalten. Außerdem sind Vorstellungen mit Audiodeskription nicht immer eindeutig gekennzeichnet oder lassen sich nicht filtern. Trotzdem kann man fast überall telefonisch beraten werden. Insgesamt schätze ich die Situation deshalb als sehr positiv ein.

Andererseits kann es auch sein, dass ich insgesamt zu geringe Erwartungen an Theater-Websites habe. Ich verbringe meine Zeit schließlich nur sehr selten mit dem Gedanken: „Welches Theater könnte ich heute besuchen?“ oder: „Mal sehen, welches Stück morgen gespielt wird.“ Diese Gewohnheit hängt wahrscheinlich damit zusammen, dass ich seit meiner Kindheit Kultur fast immer nur mit Hilfe anderer oder gemeinsam mit einer Gruppe erleben konnte. Ich war nur selten eine einzelne Besucherin eines Theaters oder Museums, weil Kunst für mich damals einfach nicht so zugänglich war. Heute weiß ich meistens schon vorher, welches Stück mit Audiodeskription angeboten wird, und kaufe gezielt dafür Karten. In Litauen werden solche Vorstellungen oft separat organisiert, und die Tickets werden häufig sogar direkt vom Blindenverband verkauft. Für diese Aufgabe musste ich mir also vorstellen, dass ich einfach spontan einen schönen Abend verbringen möchte und dafür selbst ein barrierefreies Theaterstück suche. Allein diese Vorstellung fühlte sich irgendwie unrealistisch und fremd an. Vielleicht habe ich diese Aufgabe deshalb so lange vor mir hergeschoben. Oder vielleicht musste ich, wenn wir im Winter wieder über Berlin nach Spanien fahren, für Januar tatsächlich einmal einen solchen Theaterabend organisieren.

Mit meiner Schwester haben wir außerdem ein kleines Reel über das Sportfest produziert. Da das Video Audiodeskription enthalten soll, dauert die Produktion allerdings deutlich länger. Ich musste zunächst die Untertitel aufnehmen, und meine Kollegin hat anschließend die Audiodeskription eingesprochen. Die Fertigstellung wird also noch etwas Zeit in Anspruch nehmen. Es war jedenfalls lustig zu zeigen, dass ich ungefähr genauso geschossen habe wie unsere Nationalmannschaft! Ich wollte das Video unbedingt hochladen, aber hier läuft eben alles in einem anderen Tempo. Barrierefreiheit ist insgesamt eine langsame Dame. Aber sie macht Inklusion überhaupt erst möglich. Ich frage mich manchmal, wie solche Fragen wohl in hundert Jahren gelöst sein werden. Oder wird es dann vielleicht gar keine Menschen mehr geben, für die sie heute noch relevant sind?

Ich kann inzwischen einfach nicht mehr die ganze Nacht durcharbeiten und am nächsten Tag trotzdem produktiv sein. Diese schlaflose Nacht habe ich deutlich gespürt. Und wie war das früher? Damals konnte ich die ganze Nacht auf Partys verbringen und am nächsten Tag trotzdem arbeiten oder studieren. Und heute? Heute tauchen nur noch seltsame Gedanken in meinem Kopf auf, und alles verlangsamt sich. Trotzdem wollte ich nach der Arbeit nicht schlafen, damit mein Körper in der Nacht wenigstens etwas zusammenhängende Erholung bekommt.

Morgen treffe ich Herrn Baumeister, den Entwickler des Leitsystems in Berlin – und wahrscheinlich sogar eines der bedeutendsten Leitsysteme Deutschlands. Wenn mein Kopf morgen genauso funktioniert wie heute, werde ich mich bestimmt schrecklich blamieren und überhaupt nichts verstehen.

Die letzte Wahrnehmung meines müden Kopfes: Die U-Bahn-Station riecht nach verschwitzten Zügen!

Übrigens bilde ich mir das nicht nur ein. Mindaugas hat diesen Geruch ganz genauso beschrieben. Jedes Mal, wenn wir an der U-Bahn-Station in der Nähe unseres Hotels vorbeikommen, riechen wir beide diesen seltsamen Geruch. Natürlich wissen wir, dass Züge logischerweise nicht schwitzen können. Aber dieses Metall, der Geruch der Räder und Schienen, vermischt mit dem feuchten Beton unter der Erde – all das hat tatsächlich etwas von Schweiß. Die Bahnhöfe in Litauen riechen ganz anders. Vielleicht schwitzen unsere Züge einfach nicht?

I’m been acting like a flower lately, in the absence of a moon, I’ve gotten energised by the bright shining sun.

I’ve not felt bad, but I did eat halloumi burger with cheddar on it, and I can recommend.

I can recommend

Not only am I a sunflower, bright and yellow. But also in a washed out, wrung out rag, having this distinct old rag sliminess aspect.

I’m a winner in the lottery of life, so why is it so hard even so? And am I even allowed to complain?

I think that it’s meant to be like this

• inhale confidence, • exhale humility.

The Lo-Fi Way I Broke My Addiction to the Algorithm by Mehar Ahmad in the NYTimes (gift link). I can’t say Ahmad’s ideas would work for me, but they’re good ideas and they work for them and that’s what matters. This is another affirmation about something a lot of people are struggling with. That it isn’t just me and people are talking about it.

Why Mamdani Won’t Take off that Damn Suit by Fariha Rahman in City & State New York I enjoyed this, it’s a fun deep dive of shoe-leather reporting. I always thought to dress appropriately for the occasion whatever the occasion is. Mamdani sets an example of how to be a good person and how to present and carry yourself so you are taken seriously. It demonstrates respect and that is a thing that should be universally appreciated. And if you think this image stuff doesn’t matter, go be an idiot away from me.

German Court Says Google Is Liable For False Claims In Its AI Overviews Because They Are Its Own Words by Glyn Moody in Techdirt

The Triceratops – Candy on the Subway Crank this!

That’s all for now.

-Ira

pond

The cellophane wrapper, of a deepest blue, made the grey-green pond water seem positively sickly. It bobbed about upon the ripples, tide in and tide out, moving not a bit further from the muddy bank. Not the slightest crinkle, it shone whole and undiminished under the midday sun. Which, by contrast, did so little to revive the murk in the pond water. It was as if a terrible administrative error had been made. This little piece of affinity with the celestial let to perpetually mill about upon the primordial ooze of mud and larvae and urine and rotting reeds and listless tadpoles. So grotesque, so mindless. No wonder she dare not put her life back together, Leonara mused. Her chin pressing into the soft of the worn railing. Whereas the glint of the cellophane had merely caught passersby’s eyes, it had totally blinded Leonara. So much so that she had dropped the bag of crusts for the ducks. Her fingers usually so assured, when detailing a canvas, making the lower strings of her cello resonate, tickling the soft behind of her lover’s ear, or writing in neat cursive the labels in her flower shop, were given to tremors in public. The cellophane, a tremor. The ducks, nowhere to be seen. Leonara pushed herself back from the railing. All of a shudder, dripping wet, still rubbing out the glint in her eye, and clutching the cellophane in her other fist. She climbed the nearby eucalypt to think some more in the crook of its branches. Well, it’s crinkled now. This, spoiling a languorous summer's afternoon.

There came a point when, ever more conscious of the extent of the terra incognita between the jazz recordings I loved from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and the smaller number of 21st century ones I had taken a shine to, I decided to make an effort to get to grips with some jazz from the intervening decades. This has been a fitful undertaking, and by no means always a successful one. Even so, there has been some tentative progress, and my ignorance has been very slightly reduced.

From the ‘90s, I’ve acquired a small handful of albums by the likes of Brad Mehldau, Tom Harrell & Charlie Haden’s Quartet West; to which I’ve now added Songbook by Kenny Garrett. Last month, Garrett’s composition ‘Sing a Song of Song’ surfaced from the depths of YouTube, and caught my fancy. A CD copy of the album arrived on Friday. It’s a nicely varied affair: ‘Sing a Song of Song’ is smoothly melodic up until a more raucous climax; the opening ‘2 Down & 1 Across’ has a looser & busier feel; ‘Ms Baja’ is laid-back & Latin-influenced, with what sounds like an allusion to ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ near the end. Let by Garrett’s alto sax, his band steer a purposeful course, without veering into the outré on one side, or the kitsch on the other.

---

The other new (to me) recording that arrived this week was Gadabout Season by the American harpist and composer Brandee Younger. I’d considered buying the album when it came out last year, but then forgot about it until reminded by Younger’s recent appearance on Norah Jones’ Playing Along podcast/videocast. I already owned her album Brand New Life on CD, and likewise the one (Force Majeure) she recorded with bassist Dezron Douglas during the Covid lockdown. I would have bought this one on CD too, but, looking on ebay I found a listing for a second-hand LP copy that was the cheapest option by nearly a fiver, so I got that instead. It’s another lovely record, on which Younger is accompanied by regular bandmates Rashaan Carter (bass) and Allan Mednard (drums) plus an assortment of guests including Shabaka Hutchings and Makaya McCraven.

On the record, Younger plays a harp that had formerly belonged to Alice Coltrane. While Younger acknowledges Coltrane as an important influence, I was seldom reminded of the latter as I listened. The closing track ‘Discernment’ seemed to slightly resemble the work of the one other contemporary jazz harpist I know — Nala Sinephro. After my first couple of listens, my favourite numbers are the playful title track, and the similarly buoyant ‘New Pinnacle’.

---

On Monday I finished reading Rachel Ingalls’ 1982 novella Mrs. Caliban. I only became aware of the book relatively recently – it was one of those things where once I’d first noticed a mention of it, I kept seeing other references to it in all manner of places. Per Wikipedia: “The plot concerns a lonely housewife who finds companionship with an amphibious sea monster named Larry.” It’s an intriguing blend of domestic drama, satirical humour and ‘creature feature’, with a depth of sadness underlying it all. Its several virtues notwithstanding, the book landed slightly wide of the mark for me: well worth the read, just not an ideal fit for my tastes.

Before that I read Days of Grace: Selected Poems by Doris Kareva, as translated from the original Estonian by the splendidly-surnamed Miriam McIlfatrick-Ksenofontov. It brings together poems published over a broad span of Kareva’s career: between 1978 and 2015. As is often the case, only a proportion of the poems connected with significant force, but the hit rate was pretty good. Most of them are short & spare, cool & concise. All but one of them are untitled, and delimited by section signs (‘§’). Here's an example:

A paw extends in the dark
to probe the flow.
There’s no
knowing what will cling to longing.

Raw rough-edged words, terse
and true, translation-proof, from table
to rafters.

Lie there, wordless,
swallow the blood-spit of the dark.

---

After short sharp heatwaves in late May and late June, a third one, less intense but more prolonged, is now in tedious effect.

July 12, 2026 — Die Architektur der Trägheit / The Architecture of Inertia

Deutsch –> (/https://write.as/germany-a-winter-s-tale/die-architektur-der-tragheit/)

English –> (/https://write.as/germany-a-winter-s-tale/the-architecture-of-institutional-inertia/)

July 6, 2026 — Vom streitbaren zum verantwortungsvoll betreuenden Liberalismus / From Combatant to “Caregiver” Liberalism

Deutsch –> (/https://write.as/germany-a-winter-s-tale/vom-streitbaren-zum-verantwortungsvoll-betreuenden-liberalismus/)

English –> (/https://write.as/germany-a-winter-s-tale/from-combatant-to-caregiver-liberalism/)

June 25, 2026 — Die-vertändelte Erneuerung / The Dawdling Renewal

Deutsch –> ( /https://write.as/germany-a-winter-s-tale/die-vertandelte-erneuerung/ )

English –> ( /https://write.as/germany-a-winter-s-tale/the-dawdling-renewal/ )

I began documenting my experiences early on as those inner events unfolded in my life. Privately, of course, in my own personal journal. My reasons for this were: 1.) to keep a record of my experiences, 2.) to process them as they unfold, and 3.) to process them again later, after they settle in mind and memory. In all of that, however, I never thought of sharing it publicly. And I still don’t. My personal journal is a very private thing and therefore not to be shared. And there are many reasons for me not to share any of it.

When intimacy enters public view, for example, it becomes subject to interpretation and manipulation. Strangers often do not witness with care; they consume with reckless ease or predatory hunger. Every comment, every share, every algorithmic amplification adds noise to a signal that was once pristine and meant for quiet meditation. The sacred flattens into triviality when rendered consumable.

Then there’s the ineffable nature of the uncanny. The human tongue is incapable of speaking of reality without also betraying it. Writing to bridge that gap only somehow widens the schism. Each word narrows what should expand. Each line traps what should roam free. Each question answered only multiplies tenfold. How does one overcome this paradox?

Another reason not to share is that what I’m trying to convey may not survive the medium's noise. The open web invites all comers, but it also amplifies every static burst into something that distracts and garbles rather than clarifies. I have no way of controlling what the message becomes once it leaves my hands—how it gets parsed, clipped, or twisted in someone else’s memory. A truth given to the internet may become a burden or a weapon, neither of which serves my original purpose, however altruistic.

There’s also the fact that digital permanence outlasts all good intentions. What feels necessary today may feel dangerous tomorrow, especially when deletion is impossible. The web remembers in ways humans do not. I must weigh my future peace with present catharsis.

Though not everything real must be rendered in public. Silence can also be a kind of testimony. And what I share here is only partial disclosure, for there are things that cannot and should not be shared, or shared very sparingly.

There is wisdom in withholding.

⁂

But this blog is not my private journal. And though I’m careful about what I share and how I share it, I fully understand there are risks in doing so. And for all of the reasons not to share it, there are reasons that still compel me to do so.

Certain truths, like people, require crossing thresholds to become more fully themselves by participating in the fabric of reality rather than proving their existence. That the telling is only truly complete when it’s shared with the world—not as a proof—but as testimony.

Yet, despite the necessity of closing the loop of telling, the ineffable strains and evades ordinary language. It isn’t simply the inner lived experience that is a challenge; it is also the investigation into that experience that has lasting, often difficult implications for both author and reader, which may never be fully resolved.

For in the investigation and the documenting, there’s always the friction of doubt. And beyond that doubt lies the writing itself, as it comes to exist in some form, shaped by the frameworks the author has applied and the cultural perspective accumulated. Cobbled together using words and phrasing that may not, in part or in whole, reflect the truth of the subject at hand. Thus, the telling, any telling, is subjective and, to some degree, flawed.

But is that any reason to dismiss said experiences, either as participant or witness, and ultimately refuse their telling?

No.

The inner lived experience—the awe, the wonder—only becomes legible when externalized, even when very few, if any, understand it. Because in the careful sharing of it, there is a kind of alchemy that transforms not the experience itself or its memory, but our perception and grasp of it.

I do not have a name for this desire to document my testimony. Perhaps it doesn’t need a name. Or, maybe the name will come later through the act of writing itself. Concepts precede the meaning of words, and words form only after one has circled the subject enough times to know something of its true nature and character.

Maybe this compulsion—to drag the invisible into the light, to press spirit into ink—is what happens when creatures made of dust choose to dream in light. The body stays restless until it leaves its mark upon the world.

So I leave this here, a partial disclosure. A faint signal amid the growing noise.

We were here, once, and our love lives on.

#Liminality #Spirituality #Mysticism

∞

I saw Supergirl during the last heat wave. (So like, 2 weeks ago?). I knew it didn’t do well with critics and that the box office had been underwhelming by blockbuster movie standards, but I liked it a lot.

I think that after last summer’s bright and cheery Superman, folks were expecting more of the same. But that’s not what the filmmakers were aiming at. The idea here, which I think is cool and actually justifies having 2 identically-powered heroes, is that Clark is open hearted and optimistic because he was raised from infancy by loving parents, whereas Kara grew to adolescence with loving parents and had to essentially watch them die. So she’s angry. And she drinks too much—this is a gag in Superman, where she stumbles in at the end, a party girl who goes off-planet to get wasted, but in this movie its clear that she’s burying her grief under alcohol.

So, yeah, this is a darker movie than Superman, but not the grimdark of some earlier DC movies. It’s also a science fiction movie that takes place entirely on other planets and in space, so that’s a very different vibe from the Metropolis of Superman.

I have rarely seen a movie that tells the truth that grief makes you angry. You see it in revenge movies, but what’s touching about Kara’s story is that there’s no revenge to be had. Her parents weren’t killed by some evildoer—she’s angry, but she’s got nowhere to put this anger, so she channels it into self destruction, which is tough when you’re invulnerable, at least under the light of a yellow sun.

Also? Yes, the costume is kind of dumb with the high boots and the short skirt but at no point in this movie does the camera ogle Milly Alcock the way, for example, the camera ogled Scarlett Johansen in the Avengers movies, especially the first one where her character is introduced with some soft bondage porn.

I suspect this may be driving some of the negative responses to the movie—some people—fine, fine, men—think women probably shouldn’t be superheroes, but if they are, they need to be filmed as objects of desire rather than people.

Eve Ridley also gives a brilliant performance, and Jason Momoa is delightful, although it was never fully clear to me exactly why Lobo was in this movie at all.

I did not like the fact that Krypto being in mortal peril is the plot driver because a)Krypto was so fun in Superman and I was looking forward to more of him and b) DON’T HURT THE DOG, DAMMIT!

So, yeah. It’s probably gone from theaters by now, but when it pops up on HBO Max or whatever, I recommend giving it a watch, unless you’ve got dead parent or injured pet trauma, in which case it might be a tough watch. (Mileage may vary of course—I have dead parent

There is only one.

Choosing which MLB game to follow today is very easy because there is only one: the 2026 MLB All Star Game. The game has a scheduled start time of 7:00 PM CDT and it will be televised nationally on FOX. But I don't like watching sports on TV. So, as I usually do, I'll follow the game's score and stats in real time via MLB's Gameday Service where we can also find links to the radio-call of the game provided by announcers of either league we choose. Coming as a surprise to no one, I'll be cheering for the American League and I'll follow the radio call of their announcers.

And the adventure continues.

that define a life well lived

1. Invest more in experiences than in material things.

2. Spend more money on experiences. Try more foods.

3. Get in shape just once in your life and see how ditterently people treat you.

4. You don't find your purpose-you create it.

5. It's better to live a life full of ‘Oh wells’ than ‘what ifs’

6. Surround yourself with good people.

7. If you hear something often enough, you'll start to believe it.

8. Take it easy on your parents. It's their first time living lite, too.

9. Go and see things for yourself instead of relying on what others say.

10. Speak it. Believe it. It will happen.

11. Get into a room where you feel like you're the dumbest person.

12. Everything you want has already been achieved by someone just like you.

13. You won't miss what's meant for you.

14. You'll never know unless you try.

15. You are the sum of your thoughts.

16. Make great memories with great people.

17. Take the chance. Live the life you want to live, not the life everyone else expects you to live.

18. Life isn't that deep.

19. Progress is built on ordinary days, not perfect ones.

20. Find an amazing partner, and life will become better.

21. Falling in love isn’t a sin.

Two boats docked behind a berm.

Introduction

Many years ago (over a decade) I wrote an article about RSS Feed reader alternatives after Google announced they were killing Reader in March 2013. That article attracted a fair amount of attention, including a request from RedHat to republish the article on their blog. On the ten-year anniversary of the death of Google Reader, the Verge published the article: Who killed Google Reader? (pay-walled article), indicating (to me) that even a decade on there was still interest in these products. Today, with the rising profile of the FediVerse and the IndieWeb, it seems RSS readers and feed aggregation are seeing a bit of a renaissance with the likes of Bubbles. I've also noted several feed reader sites showing up as referrers on my sites.

And, just to make things more interesting, as I was working on the first draft of this piece, Rishabh P. Sharma posted an article on his site called: FreshRSS vs My Own Feed Reader: A fierce competition. I took this as yet another indicator that there is still quite a bit of interest in RSS/Atom Feed Readers.

This started me wondering what is the status of RSS feed readers and other news aggregators these? Are they the technology of a bygone era as once predicted by Google? Or are they still around and thriving as I'm starting to believe from seeing several readers in my websites referrers? Are there any new ones that might be worth looking at? And, most importantly, have they changed?

This Isn't a Roundup Article

The original article I wrote back in 2013 was focused on a simple, and single question: what to do now that Google Reader is going away? Back then, everything was an opportunity for open source alternatives to shine. So, that's how I wrote the article (and why RedHat was interested in it). I provided a roundup of what were the best alternatives that I could find at the time.

Obviously we aren't in 2013 anymore, so it doesn't seem like a roundup article is what is needed. Instead, what I would like to do is examine a few questions:

• Are Feed Readers bygone tech?
• What is RSS, and why is it so heavily used?
• Why would you want to use a feed reader today?
• What are your options for setting up some type of feed reader?
• Are there any interesting, and lesser known options?
• Are there any significant changes since 2013?

These might be more of interest to you today if you don't use, or don't understand why RSS/Atom feed readers are useful.

Tech of a Bygone Era?

From looking around for a bit, I was able to answer Google's prediction: no, RSS/Atom readers and aggregators are definitely not the technology of a bygone era. First, not only do many websites still have RSS/Atom feeds available, but I was able to identify a number of different ways in which they are being used now:

• Websites like Memeorandom, Mediagazer, Techmeme and WeSmirch actually use RSS/Atom feeds in several ways: First, they use feeds from other media outlets to gather current stories. The stories are then aggregated to produce their single-page quick view website. Second, they make RSS feeds available for viewing in a feed reader. Third, they use RSS/Atom feeds to export their content to social media, like the Fediverse. (Aside: they almost make a list of all the feeds they scrape available on the leaderboards, which are part of each site. This is a great way to find a list of feeds if you need one.) Basically, that's a lot of RSS/Atom based tech to produce what is, essentially, a single page website.

• Of course, we have the recent site Bubbles. Bubbles is a website that presents a ranked list of posts from IndieSites that sign up for the service. The use RSS/Atom feeds to populate their lists of articles to Pretty cool stuff, reaching back to the old days of the internet.

• As hinted above, there is a lot of RSS feeds being bridged to the Fediverse. Possibly the biggest / most common are the weather and weather camera feeds. Of course, there is also the ever popular Elon Musk Jet tracker. Fedi Directory has an extensive list of bots on the Fediverse, including many RSS bridging bots.

• Platforms like Mastodon and GotoSocial make public user posts available via RSS. For example, my feed is: Unattributed's GTS Feed. Of course, this can be disabled by users if they don't want their posts published use RSS/Atom. But why use it? It's a good way to archive your posts, especially if you want to implement automatic post deletion application, but might want to keep some of those bangers around to reuse later.

• The most unusual use of RSS/Atom feeds goes to Calibre, which uses them to scan websites and build e-Books for reading offline.

• And, let's not forget podcasts. Lots of podcasting platforms serve RSS/Atom feeds for retrieving shows, and many podcast players use RSS/Atom feeds to retrieve the podcast(s).

Hopefully it's obvious that RSS feeds are not tech from a bygone era. I would say, in fact, that RSS/Atom is literally the protocol that is literally powering a substantial portion of the internet as we know it today.

What Is RSS?

The name RSS has multiple definitions, but for our purposes here, the best is Really Simple Syndication. Its purpose is to provide of stream of updated information from a website. This information can take many forms, and can include different types of media, such as photos, audio files, or video files.

The idea is that a website produces a stream (file) when another application or website sends a query to the site. The stream contains the information that has been updated since the last query. In some cases, the site (or client) may limit the number of items in an update. This is mostly true when the site has a lot of information that is changing very quickly.

The idea that only updated information is sent is what makes RSS flexible and light-weight. Since only a limited amount of information is sent during each query the overhead in processing each request is low.

Applications that receive these updates read them, and then take actions based on the updates. For example, if an update says there is a new article, the application can download that article. This processing includes items like images, video, and audio files.

Why Use an RSS Reader?

RSS readers are convenient. They allow you to keep track of the changes on as many sites as you desire. In most cases, the RSS reader will automatically check for updates on the sites you have specified, at an interval you specify. Most readers also allow you to set an expiry period for the information it gathers.

In addition to these features, many readers include additional features to allow you to tag items, mark items as favorites, or mark them for some other processing. Many times you can also export items to other formats or programs (say a note-taking application like Obsidian or Joplin).

And even more advanced readers will allow you to set up rules to tell the program how to treat items that match a one or more sets of criteria. For example, automatically download podcasts, or tag an item if the title contains a keyword.

This flexibility can allow the user to deal with massive amounts of information in a quick and efficient manner. You can think of a reader like a berm: it provides a barrier between you and the wide ocean of information that is out there on the internet. Inside the berm's perimeter you have your docks organized into bays where each of your boats (ie, website feeds) are docked.

RSS Feed Reader Options

So, time to look at some RSS reader options that you might be interested in. This is not going to be an exhaustive list by any means. I checked out the Wikipedia Comparison of Feed Aggregators list earlier. It's a large list, with a lot of applications that are both maintained and unmaintained, and some applications that probably really shouldn't be on the list.

Instead, I want to focus on different classes of reader applications you might want to consider. We'll talk about the reason(s) why you might want to use each, and These include extensions you can add to your web browser, desktop applications, cloud based applications, and hosting your own RSS aggregation server.

Browser Extensions

If you use a desktop computer or a laptop as your primary computing device, this is the most obvious place to start. Adding an extension to your browser can make your feeds available in a way that smoothly integrates with your current environment. The ones that I would look at are FeedBro, LiveMarks, SlickReader and The RSS Aggregator.

Of all of these readers, LiveMarks is available as both a Firefox and Chrome extension, and is rather unique when it comes to how it works. When you add a site to LiveMarks it creates a folder in your bookmarks with links to all the articles that are in the feed. You open the bookmarks to read the article, which actually literally opens the website web page. This can be nice if there are things about the actual web page that you want to or should see. However, this can also open you up to being tracked by the website, so I would only go this route if you have strong ad block and privacy measures in place.

The (unfortunately named) FeedBro for Firefox, and SlickReader for Chrome are the most traditional RSS feed readers, looking like an email application in your browser. As you add new sites, a folder is created in the application's database. You open an email like view and can scan through and read the entries.

The RSS Aggregator for Chrome differentiates itself a bit by allowing you to interact with your feeds through your choice of a drop-down menu, or an email-like interface. When installed a button is added to your shortcuts which will indicate how many updates there. Clicking the button will show you the feeds you've added, and selecting a feed will show you the updates. From there you can go directly to the article, or mark it off. The one downside to this reader is if you want the Filters, Rules, and Collections features you have to purchase their Plus or Professional version.

Self Hosted

Personally, I think this is where the best options are for aggregating content using RSS feeds. However, the downside is that you need to have some technical skill, and the desire to set up a self-hosting system. This is likely most appealing to people that are already into setting up home labs. However, if you run a Jellyfin server, or other media server, maybe this approach will appeal to you.

There are three options for self-hosting that I am aware of: TTRSS (Tiny Tiny RSS), FreshRSS, and Nextcloud News App. Personally, I ran TTRSS on a server many years ago and absolutely loved it. This was right after the Google announcement that they were discontinuing their reader application. I haven't used FreshRSS, but it looks to be comparable to TTRSS. The Nextcloud News App has the advantage of being available in the Nextcloud App store. If you already have a Nextcloud server set up then this is an obvious choice.

The reason I feel the self-hosted option is the best is that they offer the most flexibility. You can access them through their web based interfaces, or you can use them with standalone applications as clients. In this way no matter what device you are reading on, your clients will always know what you have / haven't read.

Cloud Readers

Right behind the self-hosted options are cloud based feed aggregator / readers. The biggest advantage that these applications have is they often have the work to build large databases of feeds to make available to you. You get to select the feeds that you want to read without having to find and add them to your reader. Often during the account creation process you will be presented with a list choose from.

Some of the most notable cloud based aggregator / readers are: Inoreader, Newsblur, Feedly, FeedMe, FeedLand, and The Old Reader. The (to me at least) downside to many of these sites is that they want a subscription for “advanced” features. The prices and features vary between applications. The plus side of cloud based applications is they often have companion web browser plugins, and standalone cellphone apps.

The most interesting of the cloud based options is FeedLand. This is a platform created by Dave Winer – one of the originators of RSS. His idea is to make a site that is “social” based around newsfeeds. You can share posts from your feed to your own social feed, which others on the site can follow. The site also provides exporting lists of your feeds, which you can use with other feed reader applications. And, best of all, there is no charge for the system.

Another one that is a completely free cloud based platform is FeedMe. I was unaware of it until it showed up in the referrers list in my analytics. It is self-described as a minimalist feed reader, and it is. You add your feeds manually, or using an OPML file if you have one. You can make categories for your feeds, and read them. There is no tagging feature, only a favorite option, and you have to manually mark each item as read (or mark the whole feed as read). There's no option to limit the number of items in a feed, or the age of the items. And there is no option for third party application integration.

Inoreader, Newsblur, and Feedly are all sites that seem to be fairly popular as they are ones that are showing up in my referrers, along with FeedMe.

Desktop Applications

There are a fair number of desktop applications, with a couple of them standing out as being available on many operating systems: RSS Guard is available on Windows, Linux, OS/2, and macOS. Fluent Reader is available on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Communique and NewsFlash are Linux native applications, while Fiery Feeds is available on iOS and macOS. The reason for singling out these applications is they all integrate with the Nextcloud News application.

Notably, RSS Guard also integrates with Tiny Tiny RSS and Feedly.

As I mentioned in the Tech of a Bygone Era section, Calibre can take your RSS feeds and produce e-Books from them, which turns them into a magazine-like reading experience. There are also a couple of desktop email applications that include support for reading RSS feeds: Thunderbird and Claws Mail. While Claws Mail is a Linux based application, Thunderbird is available on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

All of these applications should be able to import OPML files, if you decide to move from one reader to a desktop application.

iOS and Android Applications

While I am not very familiar with iOS applications since I've never used an iPhone, the aforementioned Fiery Feeds is an option that provides Nextcloud News integration. A couple more options with Nextcloud News integration are: CloudNews and Nextnews. Additionally, I believe (although I could be wrong) there is a news application that comes with the iPhone?

On the Android side there are plenty of options: Nextcloud News Reader, OCReader, Newsout, and Readrops are all notable for their Nextcloud News integration. A couple of other notable apps include Feedly, Flipboard. On the open source side there are quite a few more applications: RSS Reader, Feeder, Capy Reader, and FeedFlow to name a few (available in the F-Droid store).

And there are the applications designed to work with specific cloud platforms like Inoreader, Feedly, and NewsBlur.

(NOTE: while I did mention Flipboard, I am not mentioning apps like GroundNews, SmartNews, Google News, Yahoo! News as those apps are more specifically focused on gathering news from a predefined list of news outlets, and typically don't allow adding your own feeds.)

Conclusion

What I find interesting about this is an image of seeing all the information that is available on the internet as a stream. Much of that information is available for the taking, consuming, researching, etc. However, it's what we do with this information that matters. Feed Readers are like docks. You use a reader to set up the bays for all the information to flow into. How the docks and bays are organized is up to you.

So, what would I do given the whole sea of available options?

I've already mentioned several times that I use Calibre's RSS scanning feature. I like the idea of having e-Books that I can just put on my e-Reader and read at me leisure. But, there is another feature of Calibre I haven't mentioned: the Content Server. This feature starts a web server application that I can use on any of my devices within my house. So, if I wanted to read anything from my library, including all the news sites I download, on my tablet or phone, I can use the content server with my web browser.

But, if I weren't using this solution, I would self-host Tiny Tiny RSS, and use RSS Guard on my desktop, and the open source Tiny Tiny RSS android app on my phone and tablet. The other option I would explore would be setting up Nextcloud, using the Nextcloud News App and using the Android version of the Nextcloud News App.

However, I wouldn't take my advice in this area, as my needs and desires are likely far different from yours. Explore what's out there, see which options give you what you want. Personally, I am happy reading the IndieWeb on my desktop using my web browser, and don't see a need to do anything else with it.

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Categories: #Features Tags: #rss, #feeds, #readers, #windows, #macos, #linux, #android, #ios, #cloud License: Copyright Unattributed. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

D’abord la colère.

Parce qu’il est encore possible de lutter. De chercher un responsable. De croire qu’en serrant les poings assez fort, le passé changera d’avis.

Puis vient la tristesse.

Quand la colère n’a plus rien à brûler, il ne reste que les cendres. On regarde ce qui s’est effondré. Les rêves deviennent des souvenirs. Les souvenirs deviennent de la poussière. On comprend enfin l’étendue de ce qui est perdu.

Puis vient le désespoir.

Non pas celui qui crie, mais celui qui ne demande plus rien. Le moment où l’on cesse d’imaginer une autre fin. Où l’on accepte que certaines histoires ne reviendront jamais.

Puis vient le vide.

Étrangement, il n’est plus douloureux. Il est simplement immense. Comme un champ après la moisson. Plus rien ne pousse encore, mais plus rien ne se bat non plus.

Puis vient le calme.

Le premier rayon de soleil ne réchauffe pas encore. Il rappelle seulement que le soleil existe toujours.

Alors naît une curiosité.

On relève un peu les yeux. On remarque un arbre, une odeur, un rire au loin. Le monde recommence à entrer sans demander la permission.

Puis revient le plaisir.

Celui d’un café chaud. D’une conversation. D’un livre. D’une promenade. Rien d’extraordinaire. Juste le goût discret d’être vivant.

Puis revient la confiance.

On cesse de regarder derrière soi à chaque pas. L’avenir redevient un territoire plutôt qu’une menace.

Puis revient l’amour.

Pas celui qui remplit un manque. Celui qui déborde d’un cœur redevenu paisible. Un amour qui ne cherche plus à sauver, à posséder ou à retenir. Un amour qui peut enfin laisser l’autre libre.

Et enfin revient la joie.

Pas l’euphorie.

La joie tranquille de celui qui a traversé la nuit et qui ne craint plus le lever du soleil. La joie de savoir que les montagnes russes continueront leurs montées et leurs descentes, mais qu’au fond de soi, il existe désormais un endroit qui ne quitte plus jamais la lumière.