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The next day I went back to my normal routine. I was left thoughtful for some considerable time. My life was determined by work, consumption and luxury, and that was increasingly taking on the character of a tedious habit. And so one day it stroke me that I really had seen everything that London had to offer in that I am a client of the insurance Market. But what else had life to offer; I thought for myself: had I become a boring „workaholic“? Where was the private pleasure - the excitement to be a hunter in pursuit of happiness - if such thing existed, which was doubtful, except perhaps for the few capricious workings of fate, the moments we live for, as the Philosopher Heidegger once said.
There was no question: I would have to do something about it. I was in need of balance. My sleep was disturbed by nightmares and the feeling of emotional loneliness became overwhelming. At first I signed up in a fitness club, then Yoga classes, all this was to no avail. I had recently moved in with Chris, a colleague from University, who likewise was from an Insurance Family but from Lübeck - 70 km north of Hamburg on the Baltic Seaside.
There was a subtle competition between us, as who would do better in life, with women, career and the rest of it, although we never spoke about it - it was simply there. Later he would work for my father, which was sort of a betrayal and I must say I hold grudges about it to the present day.
From time to time we went out together, but the routine was boring and neither of us had a girl friend, for whatever reason - as we considered us both as sufficiently attractive if not good looking, but it simply did not happen. My emotional life was barren, like a broad grassy plain with no life on it, not even a roaming lioness. I kept thinking about changes in my living habits to flee from disquiet and to fill up the emotional emptiness, or perhaps even to try to enter into a lasting relationship, so as to anchor myself somewhere and not to sleep alone – though I was doubtful that I was capable of this. Let’s see! That was my thought at the time and I was determined to make an effort. But there was another disquiets, that I would run into a bad experience. How right I would be, I should later think with regret. It was at the time that one night I had a bad dream:
It was somewhere in Germany - in the Black Forest - or nearby, I was alone in the woods, walking through the underwood in the deep forest. It was evening - it was creepy. No noise could be heard, than the slightest whisper of wind in the Treetops. Suddenly I felt ugly hands with long claws grabbing my trousers - I shook them off, kicked them, but they came back and back.
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