I recently watched an interview with Bernie Sanders, on a German podcast from about a year ago. He said that when he was born, african-americans didn’t have suffrage. He was 24 when they got voting rights. Had somebody asked him back then “Do you think that a black man will be president in the US in your lifetime?” he had said “No, absolutely not”. Now he tells young people about that and they’re like “what the heck are you talking about?” because to them that concept is so foreign and long ago, they can’t actually imagine what that must’ve been like anymore. I’m one of those young people, and I’m pretty thankful that people like him fought for a future they never thought to be able to see.

I think that the future will not be what we expect it to be. Could be better. Could be worse. Probably though it’s gonna be something completely wild with some good and some bad in it. I mean even today, despite all the shittiness in the world, there are some small good things happening every now and then. And I realized that I even may have influenced some of them ever so slightly. How crazy is that! So what keeps me going is trying to make that dent and make those pockets of good in the world just a tiny bit bigger. Someone will be grateful for it.

I didn’t even think about the German word, which is Bierdeckel - literally beer cover. Well the boring word for it would be Untersetzer, which is the substantive of “to place underneath”.

Additionally to what else was said, I’ve seen them used in beergardens to cover the drink to prevent bugs from drowning themselves in your drink. I guess then the coasters don’t serve to protect the table anymore.

Vampires Dawn. I haven’t checked out the second and third part yet, but I still think about the first from time to time. I had it in a magazine CD 20 years ago.

Personally, I turn to activism. I realized that regardless of how horrible the future will be, there’s good to do in this world.

The world is full of people who are as scared as you and I are. I can make their lives a tad more positive.

The environment is collapsing? Educate and organise, think about how to build mutual aid systems and how to sustain yourself small scale.

The economy will crash? Help others, people who got thrown to the curb by the social system, homeless people, orphans,…

Civil rights are ending? I’m trans and scared. And there’s so many other trans children that are counting on me to be the representation that I wish would have had when I was their age. I’m not going down without a fight.

Democracy is ending? Let’s focus on preserving what we can and try to rebuild. It won’t be over forever.

People being nice to and helping me often makes my day in an otherwise miserable time.I want to be that person for others.