13.08.2026

One photo and a few thoughts

What a photo tells you about yourself

A few months ago, my daughter took this photo of me, but it has taken longer than expected to skip through the vacation photos. Since I saw it, so many thoughts in my head have been around this picture. Time for a blog post, I think, because this wouldn’t fit in a readable format on Mastodon ;)

Health and Sport

What caught my eyes on this picture, is that for my standards I look healthy. Even more in some kind of shape. I cannot express how happy this makes me. Not because I look this way, but I also feel this way lately (again) after a huge down beginning of last year.

When I was told that running will be a No-No, probably for the rest of my life -if I would still like to use my knee for other things in the future- it set me back a lot. This was always my short (or longer) escape from stress and a wonderful way to clear my mind efficiently. Besides going out for a run, riding the bike was another factor that has somehow changed over the past year. Going from longer trips to much deeper into the woods by switching from my Cyclocross (back) to a Mountainbike brought back much more fun to me personally on the trails. Also, I have to admit, that my kids came up with the irresponsible but on the other hand adrenaline-kicking idea of hitting once in a while some bike parks which is a lot of fun.

Adding to this (please keep it going, future-Gerrit) regular sessions in the gym, I started at the end of last year. Need to mention that I was never in the feel of needing it, but boy (and girl, and all you others) was I wrong. Never felt so physical good in the past years. Probably it's also the technical progress that did not stop at gyms and I am more than happy that mine has adopted it. I can just scan my wristband on a machine and all settings will be made (incl. regular checks). Plus the persons working there are always approachable.

Privileges

On a more deeper level, you can see on this picture a middle-aged, white man without any notable disabilities. This is 100% true, and to be honest, even more because I wouldn't count my shortsightedness or the "old man's" (doctor's words, I cannot deny) knee as a real handicap - but this is up to the reader to decide.

I've a passport that gives me access to the majority of countries on this beautiful planet without much fuzz. This in combination with a pretty nice job that allows us to save some money for vacations, result in pictures like this from above. Obviously the question will arrive, so let's tackle the elephant in the room: Flying. Yes, the photo was taken almost on the other side of the globe in Thailand. Of course we flew there and my inner split-personality tells me that this is something to avoid by all means. But the other half wants to see places and meet people from different cultures in their countries (at best without much touristic entertainment). As the reader might read between the lines, this brings myself into an very uncomfortable mood, not from a society pressure perspective but with me alone already.

From my personal standpoint I cannot, no, I must not, complain about disadvantages (yes, personal means that you still are allowed to complain, but it's still me who is also allowed to judge you on this) and try to support people not given those privileges by birth (place) or their choice of living, because I cannot even relate to anything they're experiencing and haven't lost the hope that we all as humanity are better if we support each others. At least those, who are not trying to separate us physically and mentally.

Closing thoughts

Right now, I'm just grateful for having such a good life, and -even more- that my family is healthy and we can share those moments together without having to think about serious problems. Could this have been a longer post? Yes, definitely, but I wanted to write this since weeks and it needs now to fly out from my computer to the world. Otherwise I would spent potentially three more months on this. Why did I publish this? First of all this is my blog and I can publish whatever I want (at least in the range of the local law ;) ). Secondly, I hope that this post might also give you, my dear reader, some inspiration to reflect how good your life is. Just be thankful to all the things that happen that make you able to read this post.