Woke up at about 6.30, I think. Had breakfast with my son. My wife was rushing. I think it was her turn to open the Kindergarten, am not sure. Who has time to communicate these days? I did some push-ups. I opened the window and let the sun throw its rays directly on my face. They say it boosts your mood. Am trying to get a tan, cause I like the look of me a little better then. Am letting my hair grow partially out of laziness, partially because my Slovak hairdresser always raises his rate with some excuse (you have such think hair, it’s harder! You never come, so now I have more work with you!) and because I don’t like to sit in a chair, look at myself in a mirror and have some stranger touch me. The trouble is that my hair grows so fast I’d have to go every six weeks at least to maintain some kind of societally accepted hair-do. Here in Slovakia everyone judges a book by the cover.

It does save money and time, but as long as I can’t put my hair in a pony-tale I look like am carrying a stork’s nest on my head where a small bomb exploded.

I hug Bruno. I wish him a great day. Tell him to have fun.

My first lesson of the day starts at 7.30. A mother and her son. The lesson is online. The son is a little late, cause he has to finish something at work. Throughout the lesson I can see he has two screens in front of him. He’s trying to focus on incoming emails and on our lesson.

I try to explain the difference between the nominative case and the accusative case. The mother helps me to make sure her son gets it, but to little avail.

They are nice people, they’ve both made a lot of progress. It’s quite challenging for Slovaks to learn German. It takes thousands of hours to become fluent. They have one hour a week.

At 9.00 I have my own German class. Markus, my Austrian teacher, is currently working in Haifa, Israel.

He’s one of my closest friends and technically I can survive without paying for German lessons, but I love German and this is a way to talk to a friend every week at the same time for at least an hour. When we meet ‘in real life’ we sometimes talk German for six hours straight and just like during our lessons he corrects ever mistake I make and doesn’t charge me. I do the same with some of my students.

Topics covered: our personal life, he’s recently met an Israeli girl and they are dating. It’s going very well. I feel envy bubbling up, but I manage to acknowledge that feeling and to let it be and not spoil the joy I feel as well, for seeing a friend happy.

He of course opens the lesson by saying how very busy he is and how he is scared he won’t manage everything.

I am not scared I won’t manage everything I have to do today, because I KNOW I will not do everything I have to do.

For example, I have to cancel a non-profit organization I set up years ago and have absolutely no use for anymore, but the bureaucracy involved is so daunting that I keep postponing this.

We also talk about Israel and the Palestinians. What we talk about is useful for the book am writing on that topic. It’s one of those times that we agree on things.

There is a small aspect of the human reflex to turn everything into a pissing contest. We risk competing as to who can name more experts on the subject. Luckily we like each other too much to get fully into that toxic game. He names one I don’t know and I mention one he doesn’t know and we leave it at that.

We also talk about Slovakia and how difficult it is to connect with the locals here. He tells me how very different things are in Israel and how people are more open. He wonders if his light skin complexion is helping him there. He’s something different there.

Being a foreigner is not much of an advantage in Slovakia, because Slovaks tend to stick with whatever feels familiar to them. The world of Slovaks tends to be very small, at least in my experience. This is also what I hear from other Slovaks, so am not alone in this opinion.

We talk a little bit about what I could do to feel happier. More exercise, healthier food choices, less beer, less helper syndrome. I tell him I’ve stopped replying to a bunch of people who only write me to solve their problems. Markus and I both agree that this is pointless. It makes me lose focus and in most cases people don’t want to be helped. I tell him about one client who’s really started to bother me with the way he bombardments me with messages about every little thing going on in his life. All of it can be traced back to how hungry his ego is. It’s like listening to a drug addict describing whatever he does to score his next hit. Except that this client is not a drug user, but a sex addict. There is no sane reason in the world why I should always respond to his messages. Don’t get me wrong, he is a friend of mine, but he has an issue and I need my focus throughout the week. I tell Markus I managed to write 5,000 words, because I stopped giving my attention to so many people who like to share their problems and challenges and unfulfilled desires with me. As if I don’t have any of those. We also talk about how unreliable people are in their communication. ‘I will write you back today’. Yeah, right. Markus likes to rail against the evils of social media and the internet. So he mentions, as he often does, how annoying it is when people are late for an appointment. He blames apps like whatsapp for making it easy for people to be late.

Right after Markus I have a Dutch lesson with one of clients. He has some very clear cut hobbies and I make the lesson entirely about this hobbies. I respect the fact that he has zero interest in any of my hobbies. He has never read a book and I respect that. He’s a lot happier and more balanced than I am. Knowing what the name of the Israeli Parliament is or where you can find Hezbollah or in which which year some American Civil War general was born (Robert E. Lee, 1807) or why the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 failed, is not entirely non-essential for human happiness, I have discovered. Am being very serious now, I have trained myself to respect that some people keep life simple. Earn some money, have a hobby. In my job, when you are constantly working with people, you have to always look for a person’s best sides and as a teacher you have to see their potential.

In one exercise we pretend we travelled to Florida together and do all the activities I know he enjoys. Learning a language becomes a lot easier when you can connect new words and phrases to things you enjoy.

I don’t tell him that in Florida the first thing I would want to see is the place where the battle of Olustee took place and that all I would really be interested would be talking to Americans and getting them to bare their soul to me. I like playing dumb. People tell you more then. Also on X I like to ask questions I kinda know the answer to, but am curious what others will say. My client would in no way be helped with that piece of information.

After the Dutch class I have a small break. I watch Peirs Morgan interview Slavoj Zizek. Zizek talks a lot, but says very little. Even as a pro-Palestinian I prefer to listen to Alan Dershowitz who is at least coherent and stays on point.

After that I have a client who will talk about how many women he’s slept with in the past week and which women he wanted to have sex with, but didn’t manage to seduce. Again, I can only do that because I focus on his potential and fervently hope that this is a phase he needs to go through.

After that an English class with someone I can’t really connect with, but, you guessed it, respect and as much as possible I try to have him talk about the things he’s interested in. It’s not stuff am excited about, but my students are not there to entertain me, so I do accept that it’s like that. Am a chameleon. Which is not far from being a prostitute when you are being paid because you are a chameleon.

Of course as a psychotherapist I know how a psychotherapist would spin this. ‘A chameleon? A prostitute? One could also say that you are versatile or that you go to great lengths to provide a great service.’

You could tell a psychotherapist you shot five people the other day and they’ll ask you what your relationship with your mother was like.

I finish somewhere in the evening. If am lucky my son and my wife won’t stay out too long at the playground and I’ll play some with him.

Then I will most likely read. I may even drag my ass to the cinema to go and see a Slovak or Czech movie.

Hey, am a child of my time. Even what is supposed to be relaxing needs to pay off or teach me something. Otherwise my anxiety levels go through the roof.