Match Cuts 1

I wish you all the best for the New Year! 2026 starts with more questions than answers and shows us a world that less and less people like to live in. Time to step back for a moment and breathe deeply: instead of doomscrolling we could take that time to ponder about the future we strive for?

In France, people and Le Monde (archived here (Opens in a new window)) mourn the fact that the last kit against loneliness is being crumbled: the village postbox. When I emigrated to France, our facteur, the postman, was an institution on a bicycle. He still had time to talk with everybody, knew about people who needed help, and connected neighbours who had had a dispute. When he moved to Bretagne, an era finished. Nowadays you can pay La Poste, so that a carer rings the doorbell at your grandmother's house, who has Alzheimer's, to play postman and check if she is still alive.

If anyone ever wants to send letters or parcels instead of Whatsapp posts, they do so online and deposit them in their own letterbox. Postal workers, who no longer have time to get out of their cars, have to collect them, working the same hours for the same miserable wages.

One little example that complaining about change and reminiscing about the good old days, as already the ancient Romans once did, doesn’t change the world we live in: we need ideas.

We could ask ourselves: How can we create new structures so that people can meet and have a chat? What if we set up a book exchange box for every letterbox that is removed?

Let’s throw some more sticks for thoughts. Match Cuts is my new column with reading tips and finds from my social media accounts. What the hell means match cut? Read it here. (Opens in a new window)

I would like to recommend a German-language text because it impressively demonstrates what nature writing can achieve, this synthesis of humans and landscape, nature and climate. And because a prominent climate activist is thinking about new approaches to activism and politics.

“In gewisser Weise muss es beeindrucken, wie erfolgreich es gelungen ist, die Auseinandersetzung mit unserer Existenz auf dem Planeten zu etwas umzubauen, was politisch wie emotional an den Umgang mit einer unaufgeräumten Abstellkammer erinnert.” (Luisa Neubauer)

In “Was war nochmal der Klimawandel? (Opens in a new window)”, Luisa Neubauer asks how we can halt the erosion of our relationships with the natural world and how we can feel such a reconnection to nature that we see ourselves as part of the organism that is Earth and get new ideas for activism.

While global political disasters threaten to paralyse us, The Guardian’s Ashifa Kassam sees a new generation of mayors making headlines by shaking up the traditional political landscape: ‘We have a new role’: mayors across the world increasingly taking on society’s biggest challenges. (Opens in a new window) Interesting for the next elections - and good to know that we can engage locally.

Sometimes, a magnifyer glass or a good zoom can help to shift our perspective. What we discover on and in our soil, looks nearly like intelligent life of a different planet. And these tiny people we meet there have indeed fascinating ways of living. My favourite photographers are Alex Wild (website (Opens in a new window) / on Mastodon (Opens in a new window)) for ants and insects - and Frank Ashwood (website (Opens in a new window) / on Mastodon (Opens in a new window)) for soil life and soil ecology (he is preparing a book at the moment). Attention, their websites are veritable rabbit holes!

A note: I occasionally recommend articles in several languages (De, Fr - nowadays, browser or machine translations work well enough that you can follow articles.) However, the main language will continue to be English.

Match Cuts will be delivered irregularly. If you want to see all that I share on social media, you can follow me on Mastodon (Opens in a new window).

Because energy costs have risen enormously and the winter is freezing, I have a ko-fi where I am happy to receive any hot coffee or more (Opens in a new window) for my work!