Discourse
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Eternal Life
in an Apparently Endless World
The year is over, some might think—perhaps only because it is over for them. If we look more closely at events, we quickly realise that nothing is really over. The sun is in exactly the same place as last year. So precisely that a scientific mind might begin to doubt and feel an uneasy sense of eternal mirroring. And so it quickly begins searching for evidence of change. Eternity, after all, is more constant than finitude. In any case, finitude is more constructed than eternity.
There is no such thing as nothing—only as a construct with many stage-worthy advantages. People die and are no longer present in the form they once were. If they have had children, they continue to live on through them. And the same applies to every form of their creativity. The dead body decomposes through bacteria; its atoms enter into other bonds. It is not unlikely that you carry an atom of Napoleon within you—or of a supernova, certainly—or of a Triceratops, or Hippocrates. Consciousness is said to reside in the head.
That last sentence, too, is an attempt to glorify finitude—so that we might finally be spared eternity. What is consciousness? And what is the head? Without space, there is no memory. Where is this memory stored? In space or in the head? Or is eternal mirroring at play again? Every year exactly the same—as if the sun were always rising and then setting, and in between a great stage of distraction, then rising again, then setting again. Yes, that would be a very long time to deal with the things that truly matter. We can attempt this perhaps eighty times. With that many attempts, surely something useful would emerge.
Why do we imagine death? How could consciousness be located in the head—if it exists at all? Am I the master of myself? Certainly not if I allow myself to be distracted by the great stage. But is this last attempt not the same as everything else? An attempt to break the eternal mirroring as such? As we already learned as children, a mirror image is very difficult to defeat—usually only through distraction and forgetting. But I believe we do not need to fight the frightening eternity. It gives me a sense of possible freedom. It also carries the risk of madness, and that is precisely why almost everyone remains on the great stage of distraction, while only a few dare to go beyond it. In doing so, they come closest to the ideal of eternal life—that is, a conscious, embodied life.
The possibility of considering everything, in the spirit of the Assassins’ idea—“Nothing is true, everything is permitted”—grants an incredible freedom. And do not forget the infinitely stretchable nature of time.
“Consider it!”
“What? That’s impossible!”
“Why? Just because no one has been allowed to?”
“Because no one dared?”
“Believe me—nothing is true, everything is possible!”
“But that’s madness!”
“Yes! It is madly liberating!”
In quantum physics, there exists the following proven phenomenon: a particle on Earth can, in certain verifiable and reconstructable cases, behave exactly like another particle somewhere else in the universe—and thus also on Earth. At that point, physicists, out of fear of the eternal mirroring of eternity, begin to believe in God. Because with the idea of God, the world seems more graspable, more linear, more predictable, clearer. Once we understand this, we become a little lighter. Clearer.
Perhaps that is the path?
Which path?
The path into infinity, into eternal life—becoming lighter and lighter.
Is it not simply the fear of death that keeps us alive?
Exactly—keeps us. Brighter and brighter! A bright mind close to a hollow one.
Now I, too, slip onto the stage of eternal distraction to distract myself from the eternal mirroring of eternity. The stage of eternal distraction is, in a way, a reset button on a computer—it brings it back to running normally, as it is supposed to. Even though there are infinite ways it could run differently. The proof of this lies in the reset button itself, and in the constantly new computers with constantly new, never-before-seen possibilities—or with possibilities that have always existed but that we fail to see because we allow ourselves to be dazzled by the stage of eternal distraction.
As soon as we glimpse something beyond the edge of the plate, we press the reset button to return to the centre—where the edge is no longer visible, let alone what lies beyond it. Yes, out of fear—pure fear—of losing everything. We are so deeply immersed in this fear that we find the simple reversal of the last sentence unbelievable. And yet it lies right there: if we can lose everything, we can also gain everything. Thought through a little further—can we really lose anything at all? Is not everything already there, and is it merely up to us how we see it? What we do with it?
Peace in Ukraine? Of course! At what price? At any price—save human lives as quickly as possible! That is what it’s about, isn’t it? What else? Geopolitics? Yes—but that, too, could happen without death. How? Imagine there is a war and nobody goes. Oh, that’s nonsense. Yes, you’re probably right. Hardly anyone can imagine it. It lies beyond good and evil, and hardly anyone today understands that. Even though it should be easier to understand today. Yet it isn’t.
There is no linearity or continuity. Life, death, dying, being, not-being. Ah—ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Not at all! That would be lazy. What happens to a rotten fruit? What I find more worrying is how contagious it is. They die out. If they do not hear my warning, I must let them go, because I do not want to be infected. I want to be awake. Bright. Light. Is there anything lighter than thoughts? Perhaps light itself. Is there anything faster than light? Thoughts are probably somewhere between the speed of sound and the speed of light. Although—my grandfather would have disagreed. When I was a small boy, he asked me what the fastest thing in the world was. Light, of course! was my confident answer. No, he said—it’s thoughts. In imagination, I can be on the moon while light is still on its way. He would have made a good quantum physicist. In any case, he understood metaphysics better than his priest friends, who could barely think beyond good and evil.
In this spirit, I want to give you something very small for the eternal mirroring of eternity. Only logical, mathematical constructions and concepts can be right or wrong—and even then, only within those constructed laws and spaces. They may be useful for further material constructions, but these, too, have limits—just like our lives seem to have. Are they not, in the end, like all these letters, merely attempts to take away your fear and mine? Fear of infinite possibilities?
I believe we should not be afraid of them. Because everything finite is ultimately an attempt to understand the world.
Through metaphors, formulas, and similarly compressing constructs—logic included—we can grasp many things. But the vessel is endless—and perhaps a different one altogether. If we have no counterproof, we must assume infinity—everywhere. And this infinity opens up infinite possibilities! Yes, I am repeating myself now. A sign of temporary exhaustion. Reset button? No! Not at all!
Onward—always for life! Why? Because we can.
Bujar Berisha
Published in December 2025
WLAU I MIR
a play
Report from the future by Geri Weber, special correspondent for DANACHRICHTEN with a time machine in the Ukraine of the future.
I am standing in the slipstream of a freshly polished equestrian monument, which yesterday was still Lenin, today shows two horsemen and tomorrow will probably be a park bench. The pedestal is emblazoned with golden letters: ‘WLAU I MIR’. Next to it, in smaller letters: ‘Dear brother’. I have landed – not just in Kiev, not just in Moscow, but in a strangely folded capital that is both at the same time.
‘W-w-w… what a sign,’ I manage to say. I only stutter when I’m nervous. Today I am very nervous. Because the sign tells of the future I am supposed to verify: the two Vladimirs – Putin and Zelensky – have become a couple. It’s on postcards, on T-shirts, on canteen napkins. It’s in the looks I catch when I ask questions. It’s in the air like freshly painted paint.
Encounter in the conservatory
The official statement – I get it because I’m wearing a reporter’s badge that says ‘Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow’ – is read out in a glass conservatory. A room between the Tsar’s palace and a start-up kitchen. Behind the press wall hang sunflowers and a map of Eurasia on which the border has been loosened like a rubber band.
Selensky (whom everyone affectionately calls ‘Volodya’ again) steps up to the microphone, Putin (whom everyone formally calls ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich’ again) half a step to the side. Both are wearing the same colour tie – a dark green reminiscent of the forests of the Carpathians or the cuffs of a Duma armchair.
‘Peace,’ says Zelensky, ‘is not a contract, but a practice.’ He speaks softly. Putin begins: ‘Being brothers means disagreeing and staying together.’ Then comes a line that everyone will quote: ‘Vladimir loves Vladimir – and both love peace.’ It sounds like a haiku dressed in uniform.
I raise my hand. ‘W-w-what does “Wlau i mir” mean?’ I ask, adding: ‘I’ve heard it means “dear brother” in Albanian.’ Selensky smiles. ‘Words are like neighbours. You forget their fences. Wlau, vëlla, brat – all brothers. And I am at peace. If you like, we spelled the sign wrong, but we meant it right.’ Putin says with a didactic note and a smile at the end: ‘We are the rulers of peace, brothers and sisters can do that.’
Those present laugh. So do I. Monty Python humour has its favourite discipline: the serious punchline in a clown’s costume.
The city that grew together
‘Kiowgorod’ is a strange, beautiful chimera. One boulevard is called ‘Prospect of Reconciliation’, a side street ‘Alley of Missed Opportunities’. An old man sells buttons: ‘One country, two Vladimirs, zero guns.’ A boy shows me a school assignment: ‘Describe the time before peace in exactly five words.’ He wrote: ‘Long, loud, empty and expensive.’
I note down voices:
Natasha, baker: ‘We’re baking together again. Border guards used to come to the bread counter. Now couples come.’
Ihor, welder: ‘I build bridges, finally for cars again instead of tanks.’
Artem, barista: ‘The cappuccino is now called “Wlaudoppio”. Two shots, one cup.’
In between, my time machine beeps. A sound like an overzealous kettle. I tap on it as if it were the keys of a piano that knows only one key: future major. The display shows: ‘Time jump 48h recommended: Western reactions.’ I sigh. ‘H-h-how polite.’ Then I jump.
Brussels: A smile that gets stuck in the files
The sky above Brussels is the colour of conference coffee. Draft weather prevails in the Council building: dozens of drafts fly through the air – non-papers, memos, paper tigers borrowing each other’s stripes. A diplomat says into my dictaphone: ‘That’s… um… surprising.’ I ask: ‘In a positive way?’ He smiles into his pocket, where his mobile phone is vibrating. ‘Let’s say: complicated.’
One commissioner talks about ‘regulatory compatibility’ – we need to check whether love is suitable as a security architecture. Another whispers: ‘There is no joy. Not because peace is bad. But because the world becomes more confusing when two great narratives suddenly cuddle instead of fighting.’ I note: Europe has a directive for everything except hugs between enemies.
In the foyer, stock market prices are dancing the fandango. Gas down, grain up, shares across the board. Traders wave charts around as if they were cheese skewers at a reception. Someone mutters: ‘Insurance policies hate peace that lasts longer than three weeks. It makes their premiums unromantic.’
I meet an NGO representative. ‘We are alarmed,’ she says. ‘All the human rights cases, all the proceedings – what will happen to them? Peace must not be a soft focus.’ I nod. Peace is not an eraser. Rather, it is a highlighter that makes the yellowed areas visible.
Berlin: Chancellor Merz and the duet of discipline
The lights in the chancellery have become brighter. A sign on the revolving door reads: ‘Please remain objective.’ Inside, Chancellor Merz stands in front of a pinboard. He talks about ‘love of order’ and ‘reliability’. He speaks as if every sentence were a tax return: correct, angular, cool.
Between coffee and calendar entries, I hear sentences like: ‘We must reintegrate Zelensky into the European family of values – without Russian house rules.’ Rumour has it that the Chancellor is trying to ‘woo’ Zelensky. A word that is suddenly back in fashion, like braces. He invites him to working lunches, walks, a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic, where the timpani is struck conspicuously gently.
A rumour is circulating in the city – one of those adult rumours with ironed shirts and too much perfume: Zelensky spent a night with Merz, ‘cheating’ in a political sense. The next morning, they say, there were two ties in the same washbasin. I ask about it and am met with ironic smiles that say, ‘Oh, Berlin.’ I make a note: rumours are the sprinkles on the cake of power – pretty, sweet, but not nutritious.
How did it turn out politically? Merz does not manage to ‘get Zelensky away from Putin’. There are photos with firm handshakes, there are communiqués with phrases such as ‘intensive talks in a constructive atmosphere’. But in the end, the joint statement reads: ‘Peace remains. So do we.’ Merz later says in the Bundestag: ‘We support Ukraine – with or without enamoured neighbours.’ The applause sounds like a folded paper aeroplane.
Washington: The handshake that carries an offer
‘I like peace. Peace likes me.’ The voice on the other end of the line is unmistakable. I am sitting in a hotel whose carpet pattern is reminiscent of G20 logos. Trump is on the line – the ex, the neo, the ever-title holder, depending on the current terminology.
He thinks it’s all ‘actually quite okay’. Nevertheless, there is something gnawing between the teeth of his sentences: envy. Not of peace as such, but of the headlines about love. ‘He won Putin’s heart,’ he says of Zelensky, ‘but I can win Ukraine’s future.’ Then comes the offer that drives like a truck with its high beams on into the geopolitical night: money and technology. Free of charge, he says, almost casually, as if he were giving away ketchup with chips: ‘Energy, AI, chips, you name it. Ukraine will be rich, sovereign, the best.’ In return – oh, there’s always a return – Ukraine should wisely ‘marry off’ its natural resources: extraction rights, shareholdings, wild marriages between lithium and Nasdaq.
I ask: ‘And Russia?’ He laughs briefly. ‘Russia can watch and learn.’ Then it clicks. The conversation is over, and the hotel carpet remains what it is: a knotted pattern that is easy to get tangled up in.
The ‘Qualition of the Willing’
The name is spelled wrong but marches right. ‘Qualition of the Willing’ – a coalition that takes its name from a typo press conference and keeps it out of defiance. Member states that emphasise their desire to protect ‘classical values’. Their papers talk a lot about ‘order, normality, stability’. And then there’s this sentence that I can’t get out of my head: ‘Homosexuality must be banned.’
I stand at a fence behind which a parade in pastel colours passes by: crosses, banners, hymns, a ‘Christian army’ carrying the Gospel like a set of rules. I feel an old coldness carrying new flags. ‘W-w-why?’ I ask a spokesperson. He smiles kindly and coldly: ‘Because peace without sin is stronger.’ I breathe. Count silently: one, two, three. Reply: ‘Peace without people is nothing.’ He looks as if I’ve taken the batteries out of his remote control. I note: Where there is the sword, there is religion.
Selensky and Putin – the Vladimirs – react together. A short speech from the balcony of a town hall that is still under construction: ‘Love is not an export commodity. It remains. And it is not negotiable.’ In the crowd, someone cheers with a flag on which two sunflowers dance. Next to me, an old soldier cries stoically, as if someone had taken off a helmet that had been on his head for too long.
Workshops of peace
In a factory that yesterday manufactured drone propellers, wind turbine blades are rolled today. The master craftsman explains to me how to turn ‘war lines into power lines’. He gives a lecture on torque, which ends with: ‘And people can sleep through the night again.’ I love sentences like that. Unromantic and full of love.
A school introduces a new subject: ‘Contradiction Studies’. Children learn to argue without shouting. A pupil shows me her notebook: ‘Today: How to lose without disappearing.’ I think of all the negotiations I have seen – how to win in conference rooms and lose in the streets. Here, the tables seem to be turning.
There is also the business side. Banks are discovering ‘peace bonds’ – securities whose interest rates are linked to reconciliation projects that have been implemented: bridges, rehabilitation centres, joint museums. One calls them ‘love-linked bonds’. I advise him never to say that again.
Setbacks and counterevidence
I press the time machine like an emergency stop button for thoughts. Jump: minus 72 hours. In Moscow, a presenter described the future as a ‘bad sitcom’. Jump: plus 10 days. In Kiev, an activist says that peace is ‘not a Netflix finale, but a series with a season that is far too long’. Jump: plus 3 weeks. At the border, which is now a tourist attraction, souvenir border stamps are sold. I have one stamped in my passport. It shows two heads in profile, with a loaf of bread between them – half Borodinsky, half Pampushka. A unity of taste.
I look for the catch. Reporters are catch finders. I come across court files that have not been closed. Families who cannot forgive. Police officers who have been wearing the same belt for too long. I note: peace is a spoon – it does not automatically scoop out what is burning underneath. And yet: the kitchen no longer smells of explosives, but of dill.
An evening at the ‘Wlaudimir’
There is now a bar with that name. There you drink ‘brother vodka’ – two glasses, one straw. I sit at the bar next to a man who used to be an analyst and is now a poet. «I used to count rockets. Today I count syllables.‘ He gives me a poem:
Two Vladimirs
a mirror
and behind it
finally no wall.
I tap on the bar. The barmaid giggles when I order a ’W-w-wlaudoppio‘. ’With milk foam?‘ – ’With hope.»
Side note: The night in Berlin
Because the question remains, and because I heard it, and because Monty Python teaches us that you can milk sacred cows as long as you don’t hurt them: this night that Berlin loves to talk about is a rumour in my notes. Maybe two men sat in a room and talked until dawn. Maybe there was a washbowl next to them. Perhaps it was just a puddle from the rain. What matters is what happened in the morning: no one ran away. In politics, that is already a tender scandal.
The small area of the great powers
The USA makes offers, the EU makes procedures, the ‘Qualition’ makes threatening letters in Gothic script. And Russia and Ukraine? They make mistakes – mistakes they were not allowed to make for so long. The kind of mistakes that don’t turn into gravestones, but workshop reports.
There is friction at the edges. Minority rights, language issues, old guilt. A lawyer says: ‘The most difficult thing is that justice does not move at the same speed as love.’ I write this down in capital letters: SPEED GAP. There is often a gap between emotion and the law, large enough for cynicism. I see activists with clipboards building bridges over this gap. Provisional, but passable.
A question for the future
I strangely enjoy asking questions whose answers I fear. So I ask them at the last press conference before my time machine gives me another ultimatum: ‘What if this love ends?’
Putin looks at his tie, Zelensky at the crowd. Then Zelensky says: ‘Then we will still have what we have built.’ Putin nods. ‘And that is more than a memory.’ I hear someone whisper behind me: ‘Perhaps peace is like a tent: it works even when the campers argue, as long as the pegs hold.’
Outside, it is drizzling, pleasantly. A rain that is more of a hint than a weather condition.
Epilogue in the engine room
I am sitting in front of my time machine again. An inconspicuous box with a patinated crank, a display that only knows three colours, and a button that says ‘Maybe’. I put my hand on it and hesitate. You shouldn’t breathe in the future for too long – it makes you tipsy and you start to badmouth the present.
‘W-w-will it stay that way?’ I ask the machine. It answers as it always does: not at all. So I answer myself:
Perhaps.
Perhaps this couple is a prelude, not a finale.
Perhaps they will fall out of love again and still not shoot themselves.
Perhaps those who shout ‘prohibitions’ will realise that you cannot confiscate love without losing your language.
Perhaps those who make offers will finally listen instead of judging.
Perhaps Europe will learn that joy does not fit into checklists.
Perhaps Germany will realise that seriousness is not enough.
Perhaps America will discover that sovereignty cannot be bought, only nurtured.
Perhaps Wlau i mir is misspelled but correctly thought.
Perhaps a little more love would do the whole world good.
I close the lid. The box hums as if it were smiling. The souvenir border stamp is in my jacket pocket. Two profiles, one loaf of bread. I stroke it as if it were a talisman.
On the way back to the present, I walk past a wall. Someone has painted on it: two children holding hands, and underneath it says: ‘Not all peace is romantic. But all peace is useful.’ I stop. I laugh – that short laugh that makes more air than noise. Then I walk on.
Postscript for the editors:
The future I describe is not a prediction, but a visit. I have brought no certainties with me, only images and sentences that linger. Whether Vladimir’s love lasts is less important than learning peace – like riding a bike: with bruised knees, crooked handlebars, triumphant 30 metres. If we are unlucky, they fall. If we are lucky, they get back up. And we all hold our breath for a moment, stammer a little perhaps – and then move on.
Geri Weber
(Bujar Berisha)
Published in November 2025
The Limits of Nationalism
Essay in Contexta
It surprises me quite a lot—actually, I am very surprised—that this topic has gripped me so strongly and that I simply cannot leave it alone. Obviously, it has to do with my own similar fate as a migrant in Switzerland. I contribute many things to society, yet somehow I still often do not quite fit in, because as a migrant I am assumed to have additional motives for my actions. In reality, that is not the case, because every person has all possibilities open to them—or at least the same amount.
Specifically, this is about the booing of Granit Xhaka during the match between Kosovo and Switzerland in Pristina. The exact reason behind it doesn’t really matter; the issue lies in the system of nationalism. While researching, I quickly discovered that the German Mesut Özil—one of the best players in the world—was massively booed at every ball contact during his first match against Turkey, his country of origin. Or that the Brazilian Diego Costa, who played for Spain, suffered the same fate when facing Brazil. Zinedine Zidane never played against Algeria and therefore probably escaped such scenes altogether.
Essentially, Messi or Ronaldo could have been born in Switzerland—or anywhere else—and would then play for that country, provided they had still become as talented, and so on. These are fictional considerations, but they can still be valid—just like any line of thought. Following this logic, in a match between Switzerland and Argentina, we could boo Messi simply because he does not play for Switzerland. Now you may laugh or question reality. But fundamentally, it is the same mechanism as booing a migrant who plays against their country of origin.
Let’s leave these thought experiments for a moment and return to the ground: nationalist events like the Euros, the World Cup, the Olympics, etc., celebrate, reinforce and glorify nationalism and fuel patriotic and racist emotions. FIFA does not fight racism or hooliganism by accident; these are the unwanted side-effects—as opposed to the desired ones, such as the emotional charge toward patriotism and nationalism. Nationalism itself, however, is an invented construct, just like the idea that Messi could be “at fault” for not having been born in Switzerland. These events are not only bread and circuses for the masses, but also instruments for stabilising and preserving certain ideologies.
Athletes become figures of identification—like Superman for the free Western world or Jesus for Christianity. The difference is that these athletes live among us and alongside us. We witness what goes on inside them. Xhaka no longer understands the world, and many others do not either. It is a game—and as in almost every game, the goal is to win by any possible means. Some Kosovar fans hoped that booing would give their team an advantage. And it worked: Xhaka left the field early, visibly irritated. Xhaka himself does not seem to have understood the situation objectively. This is understandable, because such situations are rare and there is no trained way of dealing with them. Team staff should probably prepare better for this, especially since many national teams include migrants.
We can therefore say that such paradoxical phenomena are ultimately exploited for one’s own advantage. And we, as part of this game, end up as either winners or losers. A rather sober and emotionless conclusion.
But why did it affect me so strongly that I had to write about it? Because this paradoxical situation suddenly reveals, in the midst of the usual routine, how constructed our world actually is. For example, a nationalist patriot cannot have two nations in their heart. Children, however, can. That’s simply how it is. Two passports are still possible, but more than that—not really. Nationalism may be one of our more recent inventions, but we must overcome it. Not by merging into one overarching unity, but through a refined fragmentation, even a dissolution—or better: transformation—of the nationalist idea into fluid borders that eventually make the borders in our minds, as well as tariffs on various levels, unnecessary.
This will likely only be possible when our world becomes even faster, smaller, and so close-knit that everyone eventually speaks the same language. Only then will many things become easier. And this will happen faster than we can imagine.
As long as something has a border that must be protected in order to exist, it is not yet mature, and certainly not good enough to stand on its own. As long as something must be protected during its development—like a small newborn child—we must ensure that it grows well in order to survive. And how many generations did it take for humans to become what we are now? In comparison, nationalism is not even in its infancy.
Bujar Berisha
Published in November 2025
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