In good company

This site needs no evidence — it is a gift, not a proof. And if your head only settles once it sees that wise people have long stood here: here you are. They come from very different worlds and disagree on much. At one point they meet — that firm ground does not close the eyes, but is the first thing that dares to open them.

Attachment research

A child who knows itself securely held explores the world further — not more fearfully. Security makes us brave, not idle. (John Bowlby / Mary Ainsworth, “A Secure Base”, 1988)

Stoicism

Separate what is in your power from what is not — rest on the first, let the second go; from this comes the strength to act, not indifference. (Epictetus, “Encheiridion”, 1)

Logotherapy

When everything has been taken from you, “the last of the human freedoms” remains: to choose your own attitude. Frankl found this ground in the camp — and from it, saw further. (Viktor Frankl, “… trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen”, 1946)

Christian mysticism

“All shall be well,” Julian wrote during the plague, in the face of dying — not to deny it, but because she saw through it. (Julian of Norwich, “Revelations of Divine Love”, c. 1373)

Engaged Buddhism

Stillness is not a retreat from the world but the root of acting for it: “be peace” in order to make peace. (Thich Nhat Hanh, “Being Peace”, 1987)

Philosophy of the absurd

The “invincible summer” is no consoling plaster but a clear-sighted revolt — to see the world clearly and yet affirm it. (Albert Camus, “Retour à Tipasa”, 1952)

A testimony

Etty Hillesum wrote from the Westerbork camp that life was, in spite of everything, “good” — and it was precisely this inner ground that did not close her eyes, but held them open for the people beside her. (Etty Hillesum, diaries and letters, 1941–1943)

That is all it is — no proof, only company. Two of these voices already stand at the front under “Words,” without a word of explanation. Whoever already carries the plain sentence there has missed nothing here. Whoever only dares to believe it here is just as welcome.