Glücklich Sein Kaum Erlaubt:

In der Gegenwart von manchen Personen hat man sich geradezu zu entschuldigen, glücklich zu sein. Ich weiß nicht genau warum.

(Es gibt tatsächlich soziale Konstellationen, in denen offenes Glück fast wie eine kleine Provokation wirkt. Nicht unbedingt, weil die andere Person einem das Glück bewusst missgönnt, sondern weil es etwas in ihr berührt: einen Mangel, eine Enttäuschung, ein ungelöstes Problem oder schlicht den Vergleich mit dem eigenen Leben.

Dann beginnt man sich unwillkürlich zurückzunehmen. Man erzählt weniger begeistert, relativiert ...

Interessant ist der Ausdruck „hat man sich geradezu zu entschuldigen“. Denn das beschreibt weniger eine explizite Forderung der anderen Person als eine Atmosphäre. Man spürt: Hier darf ich mit meiner Freude nicht zu viel Raum einnehmen. Vielleicht weil das Glück ein asymmetrisches Verhältnis sichtbar macht. Wer gerade sehr zufrieden ist, erinnert den anderen möglicherweise daran, was ihm selbst fehlt.

Das Gegenteil gibt es übrigens genauso: Menschen, bei denen man glücklicher wird, indem man ihnen vom eigenen Glück erzählt. Sie werden neugierig, freuen sich mit, machen die Freude größer statt kleiner. Das ist vermutlich eine ziemlich wichtige Qualität einer Freundschaft oder Beziehung.

Zunächst ist da einfach diese merkwürdige soziale Erfahrung: Bei manchen Menschen möchte man sein Glück beinahe verstecken.)

Die Buchhandlung / The Bookshop:

Herman Hesse:

"Drei Jahre arbeitete ich als Gehilfe in einer Buchhandlung ... Mein Ehrgeiz war, im Antiquariat vorwärtszukommen. Da man wie ein Bibliothekar in alten Büchern leben, Wiegendrucke und Holzschnitte datieren ... Sonderbare Käuze gab es unter meinen Kollgen. Oft kam es mir vor, als sei der Buchhandel ein Asyl für Entgleiste aller Art. Ungläubig gewordene Pfarrer, verkommene ewige Studenten, stellenlose Doktoren der Philosophie, unbrauchbar gewordene Redakteure und Offiziere mit schlichtem Abschied standen neben mir am Kontorpult. Manche hatten Weib und Kinder und liefen in trostlos abgestragenen Kleidern herum, andere lebten fast behaglich, die meisten aber haben es im ersten Drittel des Monats geschwollen, um die übrige Zeit sich mit Bier und Käse und prahlerischen Reden zu begnügen. Alle aber hatten aus glänzenderen Zeiten her Reste von feinen Manieren und gebildeter Redeweise bewahrt und waren überzeugt, sie seien nur durch unerhörtes Pech auf ihre bescheidenen Plätze heruntergekommen."

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“For three years I worked as an assistant in a bookshop ... My ambition was to make progress in the antiquarian book trade. There one could live among old books like a librarian, date incunabula and woodcuts ... There were some strange characters among my colleagues. It often seemed to me that the book trade was a kind of refuge for all manner of people who had gone off the rails. Clergymen who had lost their faith, ruined perpetual students, unemployed doctors of philosophy, editors who had become unemployable, and officers who had been quietly discharged stood beside me at the office desk.

Some had wives and children and went about in miserably worn-out clothes; others lived almost comfortably. Most of them, however, lived grandly during the first third of the month, only to make do for the rest of it with beer, cheese, and boastful talk. Yet all of them had preserved, from more brilliant times, remnants of refined manners and cultivated speech, and they were convinced that only extraordinary bad luck had brought them down to their modest positions.”

Directness:

I like the idea of being very direct with other people and of gaining lots of social experience. I think both tend to be paths toward success.

The Preference For High-Self-Esteem Guys:

"Healthy self-esteem changes the entire interpersonal signal a man sends. It is not simply that “confidence is attractive.” A man with solid self-esteem tends to behave as though his worth is not being decided moment by moment by the woman in front of him. That creates a different romantic atmosphere.

He is usually less approval-seeking. He can show interest without constantly checking, “Does she still like me? Did I say the right thing? Am I losing her?” That matters because romantic attraction generally benefits from some psychological independence. She can feel that he wants her, while simultaneously sensing that he does not need her approval to keep himself emotionally intact. Wanting someone and needing validation from someone feel very different from the receiving end.

High self-esteem also tends to produce clearer behavior. Such a man is more willing to say what he wants, disagree, initiate, flirt, make decisions, risk rejection, and establish boundaries. Those behaviors communicate agency: this person has a center of gravity of his own. For many women, that is attractive because a romantic partner who possesses his own direction feels more substantial than someone who continually adapts himself to obtain acceptance.

Another factor is emotional regulation. Someone with good self-esteem generally does not interpret every small disagreement, delayed reply, joke, criticism, or change of mood as evidence that he is inadequate. He therefore tends to remain comparatively calm when there is uncertainty. That calmness can make romantic interaction much more enjoyable. The woman has greater freedom to be spontaneous because she does not constantly have to manage his emotional equilibrium.

There is also an interesting paradox. High self-esteem can make a man more capable of genuine affection, not less. If he is reasonably secure in himself, he can admire a woman without placing her above himself. He can become attached without dissolving into the relationship. He can say, in effect, “I really like you” while still retaining the capacity to say “No,” “I disagree,” or even “This relationship isn't right for me.” That combination—strong attachment plus retained autonomy—is often particularly powerful romantically.

It can also make attraction feel more credible. Compliments from someone desperate for approval are difficult to interpret: perhaps he would say the same thing to anyone who accepted him. Attention from someone selective and comfortable being alone carries different information. His interest appears to arise from preference rather than scarcity. That does not mean playing hard to get; artificial indifference usually becomes obvious. It means genuinely having standards and alternatives in one's life.

High-self-esteem men also tend to expose themselves to more experiences. They initiate conversations, pursue ambitions, cultivate friendships, develop skills, travel, take social risks, and recover more readily after failure. Consequently, self-esteem indirectly creates many traits people find attractive: competence, humor, stories, decisiveness, social ease, resilience, enthusiasm, and a richer life.

But there is an important boundary. High self-esteem is not arrogance, narcissism, emotional coldness, or dominance. Inflated self-regard can initially resemble confidence but often produces entitlement, inability to tolerate criticism, lack of empathy, and status obsession. Healthy self-esteem is quieter. It says: “I have value, you have value, and neither of us needs to diminish ourselves for the other.”

And that probably gets closest to the romantic core. A psychologically secure man can make a woman feel desired without making her feel responsible for his identity. He can move toward her strongly without collapsing into her. For many women, that mixture of interest, autonomy, warmth, and strength is exceptionally attractive."

Austrians and Bavarians:

"There is a real family resemblance between Austrians and Bavarians, especially southern Bavarians, but they are not interchangeable.

Austrians are often described as somewhat more indirect, ironic, socially nuanced, and skeptical than northern Germans. Communication can be less blunt than in much of Germany. There is often more reading between the lines, more use of humor, understatement, and tone. Austrians can appear very friendly while still keeping a certain social distance, and criticism is often delivered obliquely rather than head-on.

Another fairly recognizable Austrian trait is a mixture of formality and informality. Titles, manners, institutional conventions, and proper forms of address can matter, yet everyday social life can also become very relaxed and humorous very quickly. There is often a strong sense of local belonging: people identify not only as Austrian, but very strongly with Styria, Tyrol, Salzburg, Carinthia, Vienna, Upper Austria, and so on. Dialect is part of that identity much more strongly than it is in many parts of northern Germany.

There is also the famous Austrian combination of Gemütlichkeit and Grant. People can value good food, cafés, mountains, leisure, social rituals, and a comfortable pace of life, while simultaneously complaining about nearly everything. The complaining is often not a sign that things are genuinely terrible; it can be a mode of social bonding. Austrian humor is often dry, dark, resigned, and slightly absurd. There is a cultural tendency toward “things are probably a bit ridiculous anyway.”

Bavarians are quite similar in several of these respects. Both Austrians and Bavarians tend to have strong regional identities, dialects, Catholic historical backgrounds, traditions of beer gardens or inns, folk festivals, Alpine culture, and a certain distance from the more Prussian style of German culture. A Bavarian from Munich or Rosenheim may culturally feel closer to someone from Salzburg than to someone from Hamburg.

But there are differences. Bavarian culture often feels somewhat more direct, robust, and self-confidently regional, while Austrian culture can be more layered, ironic, and socially coded. Bavarian identity often carries a strong “we are Bavarian and we know what we are” quality. Austrian identity historically developed in a more ambiguous environment: empire, collapse, Vienna, multiple ethnic groups, separation from Germany. That history produced a somewhat different cultural tone.

Vienna especially makes Austria different from Bavaria. Vienna contributed a strong tradition of bureaucracy, cafés, intellectual life, psychoanalysis, music, satire, cynicism, and metropolitan irony. Munich is also a major cultural city, but culturally Bavaria remains more strongly associated with regional tradition and rural identity than Austria does as a whole.

So I would put it like this: Austrians and Bavarians are close cultural cousins. They share a South German/Alpine cultural base, but Austrians tend to come across as a bit more indirect, ironic, melancholic, and socially subtle, while Bavarians often appear somewhat more direct, hearty, assertive, and regionally self-assured.

And within Austria the differences can be substantial. A Styrian, Viennese, Tyrolean, and Burgenländer can have noticeably different social styles, so “the Austrian character” is really a cluster of tendencies rather than one personality type."

Austrian Heritage:

“Austrian heritage” is more than having ancestors from Austria or growing up within today’s borders. It is a historical and cultural inheritance formed in a country that has repeatedly changed its size, political form, and idea of itself. Austria today is a small German-speaking republic, but much of its cultural memory comes from having once been the centre of a large, multilingual Habsburg realm. That tension between small country and imperial inheritance is one of the deepest layers of Austrian identity.

There is therefore no single ethnic Austrian tradition in the simple sense. The historical Austria of Vienna, Graz, Salzburg, Innsbruck or Linz was shaped by Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, Slovenes, Croats, Italians, Jews and many others. Vienna in particular became a meeting place of Central and Eastern Europe. Austrian food, music, surnames, architecture and even everyday vocabulary contain traces of that mixture.

It also contains a striking mixture of high culture and provincial intimacy. Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Mahler, Klimt, Freud, Wittgenstein and the Viennese coffeehouse belong to the inheritance, but so do village festivals, alpine farming, regional dialects, Catholic feast days, skiing, local inns and an unusually strong attachment to landscape and place. Austria can feel extremely cosmopolitan in Vienna and intensely local only a short distance away. Both are genuinely Austrian.

Then there is a characteristic historical psychology. The collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918 left behind a much smaller state that initially struggled even to imagine itself as a viable nation. The experiences of Austrofascism, Anschluss, National Socialism, war and the post-1945 republic further complicated the question of what Austria was. Modern Austrian identity was therefore not simply inherited intact; it was partly reconstructed during the twentieth century. Neutrality, the social partnership, prosperity after the war, the Alps, culture and a deliberate distinction from Germany became important parts of that newer national self-image.

There are also softer cultural habits that people often recognise as Austrian: a certain formality combined with irony; a liking for understatement and indirectness; titles and institutional rituals; dark humour; gemütlichkeit alongside complaining; considerable respect for quality of life; and the ability to be simultaneously sceptical of authority and rather fond of established institutions. Obviously these are tendencies and stereotypes rather than properties of every Austrian, but they help explain why Austrian culture can feel subtly different from neighbouring German-speaking societies despite the shared language.

And perhaps the most interesting meaning of heritage is that it is not an instruction to imitate the past. Heritage is the stock of stories, habits, landscapes, language, institutions, art and historical experiences from which a person starts. You can cherish some of it, criticize some of it and consciously leave some of it behind. An Austrian heritage can therefore include Mozart and the mountains, but also the uncomfortable parts of Austrian history. Taking heritage seriously means being able to hold both without turning either into mythology.

So, compressed into one sentence: Austrian heritage is the inheritance of a small modern Alpine republic carrying the cultural memory of a much larger, multilingual Central European world."

Best Guesses:

Ermutige Personen, denen Du begegnest, ihren Best Guess zu einer Sache, einer Angelegenheit, einem Thema zu formulieren.