Personal matters


What makes the operator of “netcolumnist.org”
suitable to run such a columnist blog?

Well, it is his journey through life.

It already started in the early school days, at first arising from the desire to express my opinion if something did not seem right — no matter if it was at school or in the behaviour of people towards each other. Then, with increasing awareness, during the time at secondary school (advanced technical college certificate) especially the discussions contributed to articulation the own perspective: The only thing that counted was the better argument. This development continued during the vocational (qualified window dresser, physiotherapist) and in the (primarily at the Open University) years of study (at first 4 terms at the Open University of Hagen [among other things social sciences], then in the 1980ies 2 terms of art history with the focus on Iconography, at the University of Santiago de Compostela and, again years later, that means in the 1990ies 4 terms of Etudes germaniques [including Histoire contemporaine allemande] within the studies at the Open University at the „Mirail“ in Toulouse, that is at the time since 1994 when I often spent several months a year in my house in the French Pyrenees – that in the end I sold in 2011.

During all this time I did translations (primarily in French and English, in the beginning for practice purposes as well in Spanish and Italian, especially because I needed these languages when I worked in Switzerland for 2 and a half years in the 1980ies) with my intensified understanding of ranges of topics and their more or less well-done lighting up in the respective written outlines. For, as we all know. History is one thing, historiography is another. That means history and historiography are two different pairs of shoes.

The main reason, however, that makes me suitable to operate this blog (as outlined in some remarks) is, as far as I am concerned, based on the fact that climbing up the career goal has never been an objective of mine but I have always focused on getting a better understanding of other people and myself as well: Gnothi sauton („Know thyself“) once was to be read — and for a good reason — at the Apollon-temple in Delphi . . . therefore travelling to such places, although not essential for self-knowledge, in order to finally get to what Anthropos can mean: Which also involves knowledge about the conditions that are part of the prerequisites so that the potential inherent in any human being can actually develop.

I personally do regret that my translations (from English into German, covering about 800 pages including my personal annotations in the separate appendix, and that still need to be proofread), which, from my point of view, are anything but uninteresting, cannot be published by myself as the authors, quite understandably, would exclusively agree to a publication by a well-established publisher. Therefore the note that there is this translation of mine is deposited with the renowned literary agency Paul & Peter Fritz AG in Zurich, representing the authors‘ rights.

The subject is, by the way, essential for understanding the cultural development of the so-called „western world“, that means it lights up the origins of Christianity. The working title of the German translation is therefore Die grosse Haeresie (“Haeresie” is the German word for heresy) and the valued reader can decide who is attributed with the heresie: the so-called or the established Christian doctrine.

But, of course, there is an everyday life  _ e v e n   f o r   me_.  In the past I made a living by taking people from A to B — in my own taxi regardless if the passengers were in a wheelchair or not. The most important thing was and has always been to maintain my relative independence. However, now it is time for my real concern to come to the fore (as outlined in „some remarks“). For this purpose I sold my taxi business at the end of 2015 and am now a registered publisher, so that my own writings can now be published by myself, for, to my mind, being a writer requires independent free decisions, yet always being aware of the practicalities of everyday life.

Where do I live? Well, of course in the Ruhr area, that is in Muelheim on the Ruhr, together with my partner Kirsten Grunau (also known as Meredith Maud Huckingshire of Chislehurst). _ And I feel reassured that my two adult children live elsewhere in the world at ease. _

Yours faithfully
Joachim Endemann