Today is the 1st of May – a public bank holiday in Germany, which although being related to the celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis with pagan origins, had first been made a German public bank holiday in 1933 by the Third Reich.

A national bank holiday postcard from 1934. (From my philatelic collection).
This now allows me a little extra time to write another short piece on my blog. The motto of the day by the German Trade Unions on this “Tag der Arbeit” is the worthy causes relating to the “Euro crisis” and solidarity.
I don´t understand the fascination for wanting to collect brown pieces of hard paper with disturbing pictures upon them. The gentlemen on the postcard don´t even seem to be having a good time. Their faces are as long as a wet weekend. Just look at all the happiness and joy on their faces. I thought you said it was a public holiday?
The postcard is from a different period of time Mr Midnight. In those days there was not much fun and games, although by the expressions on their faces, the postcard could also have been taken from today (but obviously without the ominous flags of the past flying in the background).
Are there any postcards with gloomy looking cats printed upon them from yesteryear? I can´t imagine that my ancestors never had much fun and games.
I suspect that cats have always had fun. You avoid living complicated lifestyles and know how to look after yourselves properly.
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Mr Midnight unexpectedly felt an itch on his back and with his legs spread-eagled, he quickly started licking the irritating area with which to relieve himself. At the same time, Sir Winston crawled out from underneath the security of the sofa and noticing Mr Midnights intensive “care-program”, he too, plopped down infront of me and started washing himself behind his ears and over his head with his paw.
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It´s most important to look after oneself properly daddy. I love to keep myself nice and clean and my body actively flexible for lifes many situations.
That sounds quite reasonable Sir Winston and I must admit, unlike us humans, you cats do tend to take care of yourselves properly. You keep yourselves clean. You eat only what you need to eat (occasionally Mr Midnight does over-indulge a little although his figure still stays the same, the lucky devil). You take plenty of exercise and most importantly, you sleep enough with which to regenerate your body cells.
We humans are supposedly, the most intelligent creatures upon the planet, but we do seem to have massive problems in getting the basics right.
Sorry for having to attend to that itch. I couldn´t quite locate the little whippersnapper. Now where were we?
Basically, I was just talking about the difficulties human beings have of taking care of themselves properly. Even when we have a public holiday, most of us find it difficult to relax. We seem to always be working.
I have read that humans now seem to like contracting your new illness called burnout syndrome. It seems to be getting quite popular.
I´m sorry to have to keep asking questions but what the hell is burnout?
It´s an emotional illness that eats you up from within because of prolonged stress situations, nervousness and tiredness being just a couple characteristics being related to this illness. Put simply, one is overwhelmed by lifes persuasions that one literally “burns-up” .
Good grief, do you think Sir Winstons friend from the last posting, squirrel, has burnout. He´s nervous most of the time.
I think squirrels are allowed to have burnout because it is part of their nature.
Well I´m not sure about that Sir Winston but if you´re correct, squirrel does seem to be able to cope with his burnout.
You never hear about “burnt-out” cats. Why do you all have to take life so seriously and be obsessed about collecting those paper things with numbers printed upon them.
You should all learn to try and take care of yourselves.
Music sometimes works to calm the senses.
“Music” is the word you use for making a (pleasant or not so pleasant) noise with strange looking objects. Although I am a bit of a fan of daddies artist, Ryuichi Sakamoto, I know of another artist by the name of “The Three Degrees”. (whatever that should mean) 🙂
In 1975. they wrote a piece of music called “Take good care of yourself”. If humans like music so much, why do they not digest the wisdom of some of the lyrics they like?
Possibly because we forget things very quickly and are too wrapped up in our working environments. We have a lot of wisdom but often choose not to use it.
Well that sounds whacky to me. You think you know everything and choose not to use it. Very sensible.
Chill out and try to be as cool as us cats.
Humans need time to sort things out Mr Midnight. One day, they may get “it”.
Although having not much relevance to economics and the workplace, our “little talk” reminds me of a formula I learnt at school in physics.
I´m not even going to ask what physics means! 😉
Work = Force x Distance. In physics, the factor “Work” is expressed in Joules, Force in Newtons and Distance in Meters.
You´ve lost me already. I think Sir Winston has to take over. Maybe he can explain this “physics” stuff to me later.
Can I take over daddy? I think I know what you want to say.
Go ahead Sir Winston.
If today is the “Tag der Arbeit”, (Day of Work), then we could try and use the formula in a diferrent way. For example:-
The factor “Work” is displayed on the left hand side and has a factor of 100%.
The factors “Force ” and “Distance” are displayed on the righthand side and together, equal 100%. The equation must remain balanced.
We could define the “work” factor as being the total amount of pay we receive for our labours.
“”Force” is the amount of effort we put into our labours and “Distance” could be the length of time we work attending to our labours.
Thus: To receive our 100% wage we have to put in a certain amount of effort and time. (A 100% wage could be the figure we agreed on when having attained employment.)
If the “work” factor is increased (because of demands for more money) then would it not be logical to assume that either the “time” factor, or the effort we put in, must also be increased with which to maintain an even status-quo?
I couldn´t have put it better myself Sir Winston, although what we have just stated is rather basic and requires other factors and variables.
But at least to a certain degree, it would explain why so many humans have now contracted this burnout syndrome. Many place their dissatisfactions and burnout problems solely on the workplace and avoid the possibility that spare time and family matters are ALSO a contributing factor towards contracting burnout.
If we want more money from our employers, then as the example above may illustrate, we may have to put more effort into our labours which at some future point, may result in an overload of bodily functions and burnout.
Because our societies are based on creating money, our labouring must also be financed by somebody, somewhere. Nothing is for free in the societies we have created but perhaps we should try and not place so much importance upon always wanting more money. If being honest, it doesn´t seem to make us really happy does it.
You have totally baffled me so I think I´m going to have a light snack and then I am going to get some “shut-eye”.
Please people, take care of yourselves. Chill out, slow down, and be kind to yourselves a little more.
Thanks for your time. Until next time, bye for now.
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