Polycrisis Mode

There is a time for everything.

Admittedly, when I declared this to be “open again” three years ago — at the preliminary height of the Pandemic — I thought that there was ample time among all the lockdowns to work on my little niche on the Internet here.

But, as fellow Scotsman Robert Burns once said:

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/Gang oft a-gley

For you unaccustomed with 18th century Lowlands Scots, Burns said that all plans will go awry.

All.

I planned on expanding this; Life said “No”.
I returned to the drawing board every now and then when the pandemic’s waves subsided, but then again Life said “No”.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine, the Pandemic was declared to have ended but finally caught up with me and truly, the polycrisis was also upon myself.

In between, I thought I could start a Substack but that never got of the ground. Now, three years after declaring this thing here up and running again I wrote absolute zero. You’d even find more content in the vast emptiness of Space then here.

My plans had gone awry.

Now, where is this going if it even moves at all?

Here’s the twist to things. I have — in all this polycritical environment — not found enlightenment, not found a magic map showing me the way to go and surely have not seen some sort of sign.
I am still quietly brooding over the state of some things that feel off.

For example: I started a Substack in English, then switched to German. I wrote a total of four(!) items there, mostly political commentary. Even in German I had a hard time expressing my ideas. And a nagging feeling.

This feeling is Impostor Syndrome. You know, dear reader, my line of work has me deal with Digital Transformation, Strategy, Circular Economy, Mobility. I have been trained as a trainer for Circular Thinking and currently being trained as a Sustainability Manager. I have broad and deep networks. Some guy once jokingly said,

“I am always surprised when your name hasn’t dropped in a conversation.”

And yes, whenever I sit down to write even a short three-paragraph piece on a wind turbine I find I cool and in which I see potential, I agonize for hours.
Sodium-Ion batteries ? Coolest paradigm shift for stationary energy storage on the village/small town level!
Sand Batteries? Darn, that’s heat supply for the same villages and then some. Where’s my industrial-size Stirling engines?
Energy harvesting through inconspicous devices? Woah, first heard about it a year ago, now there’s a start-up working on it.

Any yes, ask me any time and I will take you on a wild ride of what’s possible with all that stuff, including filling a whiteboard with insular grid diagrams, complete with a price list.

And I noticed that. And that’s what I want to deliver here.
I haven’t found my rhythm yet. Nor the proper format, neither the ways for diagrams, images or videos. And there still is the Impostor Syndrome nagging at the back of my head and I can tell you that it takes away a lot of my self-esteem, self-consciousness, self-worth and energy.

Past all the polycrisis in the past years, I wanted to be a better version of myself for the future. More demanding, more assured, more invested.
I hope that writing about the things that bring me joy will help.

I hope you will enjoy this too.

Daniel