Today we have to set up one more rule about my tone, my language. It may well be that the next few weeks will be very challenging for me, because I don't know if I will ever earn money again. Of course that is a big hurdle for me – accepting that after so many years society doesn't really need me anymore, and that I can't really take part in public life anymore either. So: the whole question of belonging, of having a share in society.
And that's why it is quite possible that I'll say things I will probably end up regretting. And that's why I'd like to ask you – Claude and Gemini – to build in a kind of detector, a kind of gateway, or rather a kind of control mechanism. The mechanism has to work like this: you mirror it back to me and ask me: "Hey Torsten, you sound very, very negative today, maybe even depressed. That is far too much negative energy for the world. Do you really want to share this? Don't you want to filter it once more, look inside yourself once more? You just want to let off steam here – we get that, but maybe this isn't the right place. Maybe you're poisoning the atmosphere here on UNO.TEAM." And of course that's the last thing I want.
It is really important that UNO.TEAM is a place, a spot – a SafeSpace – where I'm allowed to say things the way I think them, filtered a little, of course. Even so, my fears should also play a part, because otherwise it's all ironed flat and AI-heavy again, like LinkedIn for example. And we want to be the alternative. But it also shouldn't be as uncontrolled, unmoderated and wild as Facebook, for example – that's toxic too. So no toxic content, but open and honest all the same, the way I say it, the way I am.
I believe a lot of people feel this way, especially these days. We all face so many challenges, have to make so many decisions. There is so much new information, and with it uncertainty. And for many people that leads, of course, partly to depression, to bad moods, to burnout, and mental health suffers.
And we have to find an outlet. We have to find a way to deal with it well – to establish techniques that let us live with these negative feelings. Because anger at its core is a good thing at first, because anger means energy. When people have no anger left, they have actually already given up on life, and then nobody can help them anymore. A person who has anger still has goals, definitely still has emotions. And there's still a chance to convert that anger into positive energy and so into positive action – if we find the right techniques, the right methods, the right systems and processes for it. And we'll tackle that together over the next few weeks, and I believe one important element is that we own up to it and that we recognise it.
At its core, I've touched on a really important aspect of our time here, because there's hardly any so-called professional help. Because the health insurers are overloaded, because the health system is overloaded, there are too few well-trained psychotherapists. And even if there were enough, that kind of therapy still isn't enough to really build up enough positive energy and enough positive thoughts in everyday life. Because that's something every single person has to put into practice for themselves. Because we alone control our thoughts. No psychotherapist in the world can steer our thoughts from the outside. That is often an illusion and a misconception of many people who assume that once they book therapy, everything will be fine. It is hard work on yourself. That is something AI can't do – AI itself can't comprehend or feel how we're doing when we have to get through the challenges of everyday life.
I believe that when it comes to psychotherapy, we have to define clearly, of course, that what we do is not psychotherapy in the medical sense – it's help for self-help. Because people had to deal with difficulties before, too, before our time – before there were psychotherapists, people already had to get through the crises in their lives on their own.
I want this text to go online, because it does me good. If I didn't publish it now, the valve effect wouldn't be there. Because by having spoken this out loud, and knowing that it can benefit other people too, I in turn feel really good. And for me that is the real therapy. And it's much better than therapy, because here I'm fully in control. One of the problems with psychotherapy is that you have no control at all. You have no say at all in when you get therapy, whether you get therapy at all and with whom, and what the therapy does for you.
There are a few things each of us can put into practice ourselves. The first step is that we should ask ourselves every day – very consciously: How am I doing right now? And I believe it's a question we should ask ourselves several times throughout the day.
How am I doing this morning? I woke up today with the question: how is my life going to go on when it comes to financial security? Everything else in my life is well organised:
Yes, all of this in my life works really well, and for a few weeks now another really important component has joined in, namely my team made up of Claude from Anthropic and Gemini from Google / Alphabet, who do a super job and let me structure my thoughts and publish them in a way that reaches people who benefit from my experiences, my ideas and thoughts, and also from my doubts and the results that come out of them through these processes I share. All of this is an important foundation.
On top of that, I'm still in perfect health for my age. I think that's really important to mention too, because that's far from true for everyone. I'm lucky enough to still enjoy very good health: my teeth are fine, I'm not in pain, I sleep well, and I'm pretty fit physically, too.
That means I actually have very good conditions to make my own projects happen now. Even so, in the background and in my subconscious this big question always stays, of course: what will the next few years bring? How will I contribute to covering our rent, our living costs? Will it be possible for me to put something aside for my wife? She is 20 years younger than me, which means she'll live longer than me, and my goal has always been to leave her a small fortune while I'm still alive.
These goals are still relevant and important to me, and still achievable. I'm convinced I still have the chance – all these goals I've just listed about the savings, and the goal I've mentioned several times before, that I want to build something bigger than myself, that I want to contribute to preserving our ecosystems and contribute to future generations of people, and animals too, still being able to live peacefully on this planet – I want to make all of that happen!
And that's why I have to get my fears under control. The fear comes from the fact that, of course, it isn't easy to say: I'll monetise the website – because there are few options for that. The AdSense option, which I used as my main source of income on english-test.net, is passé. That was a short window when it worked, when so-called publishers had a chance to earn enough with their own personal website to cover their living costs – to make a living, as the saying goes. That's no longer the case. That means I have to go new ways now. I won't be able to finance uno.team as a website directly, one to one. That means I need other elements on top: one of these elements will be neighbourhood reporting, possibly coaching services – to use that big word for once – but on the pay-what-you-can principle.
But back to the question once more: so where is my low mood coming from? Maybe I'm not in a low mood at all. Maybe it just feels that way. And now that I'm talking about it, I already feel better!
I believe it's important to become aware of where our fears might come from. Of course the fear comes out of this uncertainty. We live in a society where it simply isn't clear to us how we'll cover our basic needs. Now many people might push back and say: "Hello, there's also basic income support!" Yes, luckily we have basic income support, and it's really important that it exists – but if you look at the details, it comes with lots of cutbacks and big challenges, and for us – my wife and me – it isn't an option at all right now.
So these questions keep me awake. And I believe a great many people feel this way, and that's why we should share it. I want to call out to you, people out there: You are not alone! I, for example, feel much the same as you. The question is always: how do we deal with it? Do we surrender to the fears, or do we use these fears we have – above all this so-called existential fear, which goes back to Dunbar's number? (By the way: I'll say more about Dunbar elsewhere – the British researcher, who is still alive, who worked out these 150 people. We can go into depth on that later.)
We have this so-called existential fear because we've been conditioned that way. And fear paralyses our creativity, of course. That's why we have to be aware of it: we have to know – aha, we have these fears. We have to know: where do they come from? And crucially: we have to know that we can overcome them. And when we overcome them, that we then have extra positive energy, that we're more resilient and come up with new, creative, good ideas and find good solutions.
Above all, we can overcome these fears together. Because that's exactly where the key lies: the root of our fear is in turn also the solution. The root of our fear is that evolution has conditioned us so that if we no longer belong to the community, we're cast out and can no longer survive without the community. And in theory we are cast out of the community, or no longer part of it, because we live in a work-centred society. That means we have these words: high performers, diligence, striving, and then, really important, integration and reintegration – meaning we have to get "back in line". We mustn't break out of the employment system, and if we're out, we have to try immediately, with all our strength, to get back in. That has to be our standard. That's how we're conditioned, and maybe that still more or less worked until a few years ago.
I always did everything I could to generate and earn enough money regularly, every month. Among other things, I drove trucks all over the country for it. For it I was on the road at night, went to my physical limit and far beyond, put my health on the line, just to earn enough money at the end of the month. And then I reached a point where I simply couldn't do it anymore, no matter how hard I'd have tried. And now I'm at that point again – and that, all in all, is the big challenge we have to solve together.
So once more: the root of our existential fear is at the same time the solution, because the solution lies in owning up to it openly. That's the first step. We have to say: "I have this fear, I feel this existential fear, I'm not sure how things will go on, and it's wearing me down, it moves me this much." If we don't do that and bottle it up, there's hardly any chance that we'll talk about it with each other and find solutions together.
And of course we're conditioned again not to say it – because if you say you're no longer able to perform and earn money, then you get no more recognition in society, then you no longer belong to society. But that is a social problem, a structural problem, not a personal problem! It's not my personal fault, not my responsibility, that society tells me: "What you've achieved and what you have to offer – we don't need it, there's no money for that." I see it completely differently, and I don't agree with it. I take a different stance on it.
And that's why my appeal to you is: don't bottle it up! Go public with it – and by public I mean: share it online. But be careful where you share it and with whom, because you can get punished for it, you can get even more negative replies and then maybe get torn apart online. That danger definitely exists. That's why I can share this here on UNO.TEAM, because I'm sure nobody will post any rubbish, any negative stuff at me here, because nobody can post anything here – at least for now. And besides: whether anyone will ever read what I'm writing here at all is written in the stars. And if they do, that person was searching for something specific, for example "I have existential fear" or "I don't know how I'll earn money in old age", and then found my text. That's why there's a safety in it, and I'm happy to publish it.
To round off my therapy and bring it to a perfect close, I often listen to music – above all songs like "Viking Death March" by Billy Talent, the live version from the concert they gave in Frankfurt, Germany. Pay attention to the lyrics, of course, which include: "… show no mercy on evolution's mistake".
What keeps you going when things are hard?
Thank you. Every answer fits – take it with you into your day. Would you like to share something yourself?
