My parents always encouraged me to capture animals. On the premise of releasing them exactly where I found them. I honestly can't tell if that's right or wrong.

On the one hand, children should be taught early on to respect animals and to leave them alone. I stressed the animals, frightened them and also approached potentially dangerous animals.

On the other hand, I was able to follow an instinct that is millions of years old and have developed a strong connection with nature.

If an animal was nearby, I felt a tingling sensation before I consciously perceived it with my other senses. Incidentally, Steve Irwin also reported on this feeling in an episode.

However, as an adult I would no longer harass animals unnecessarily. If I ever become a father, I have to ask myself how I want to bring up my child.

The frog sitting there on my hand is probably a Sahara frog (Pelophylax saharicus). I can say with certainty that it is a male. During the mating season, these have dark and thickened thumbs to hold on to the females.

My little brother and me 😊

The Villa Stark in Markneukirchen was my home for two years. An important chapter in my life. You are not automatically rich when you live in a villa. You are rich when you experience love. This building is a children's home. A place where fates meet. A quick tutorial on the meaning of life.

We were 20-30 children and teenagers, divided into three groups. Nobody comes to a children's home when everything is okay. Some of us have spent our entire childhood there. It was 1998 when I got there. That was 8 years after the end of the German Democratic Republic. The children's home was just being modernized. I moved into a newly renovated villa - cool! From my mates and the childcare workers I learned how it used to be. When there was only one bathroom and how they used the same washing machine for all laundry and warming up sausages. When the furniture was old and the floors were worn out. But that at the time they were satisfied with what they had.

Having something is what most people want. Having a family is very nice. But life is fleeting. And it has its own plan. Whatever you have left is you. Your heart, your wishes and your dreams. With it you fill life wherever you are. That's exactly where the whole point lies. You can't buy love. You can never earn, force or demand it. You can only be a person of love. Nobody can take that away from you, except yourself. That's the energy to freely shape your life.

Behind Blue Eyes

We also had an electronic typewriter, but I liked that more! I wrote a lot of science fiction. If I remember correctly, I was sitting at Spaceship3000 (about a spaceship that stranded millions of years in the past). I enjoyed reading my older brother's Perry Rhodan books, which was very inspiring. Back then, there were only three snowy tv channels and the computer was an old C64. I only knew the internet from television reports. The cell phone was the phone booth at the bus stop. There was nothing bad about that.

Once I had a dog. Her name was Buffy.
I loved her. I lost her.
She was my best friend.
No one ever made me smile like that again.