New Year's Resolutions

I will continue. I won't give up. I will always fight ageism and will never accept the discrimination against older people just because it is often considered as "normal" or acceptable or easy to hide or not hashtag-worthy. I won't get tired of fighting. Human lives are precious, no matter how old human beings are. There is no expiry date. Wish you all the best for 2025, no matter what age!

photographs of New Year's Eve via

Party like there's no tomorrow ...

... but hopefully there will be many tomorrows and a future everybody can look forward to: old and young, no matter what class or financial status, no matter how able-bodied, what skin tone, gender, religion, no matter who they love... Wishing you all the best for 2024!

photograph via

Happy 2022

Dearest friends of Diversity is beautiful, it is time again to wish you all the best for the coming year... have a wonderful, interesting (but perhaps a bit less interesting than the past two years), sparkling, sunny, bright, friendly, pandemic-free, joyful, fabulous, fun, warm, relaxing, adventerous, and marvellous year. Buon anno!

photograph via

2020. Over.

"Stop pretending this nightmare will abruptly stop with the arbitrary changing of the calendar year." 

Werner Herzog



The thousand days of 2020 have flown by and we have finally reached the last day of the year: Thursday the 42nd of December, also known as the seventeenth month of the year. I wish you all the best for 2021, lots of love, health, sunshine, art brut, optimism, patience, hope, inspiration, wonderful adventures in jungles and under water, delicious food, beautiful inclusive design, happy-ends, and the most marvellous and diverse people around you. And thank you so much for following this blog.

- - - - - - -
photograph (MLM), cat and bird inspired by the great Saul Steinberg, clock by twitter

Farewell 2019

May the year to come bless us with patience, tolerance, and a sense of humour to deal with the passionately misinformed and with haters, with incorrigible racists, short-sighted ageists, ignorant ableists, inveterate sexists, narrow-minded homophobes, and islamophobes. Live long and prosper, dear subscribers, I wish you all the best for 2020!

Happy New Year! Cheers!

I wish you a most wonderful, exciting-relaxing, peaceful, sunny 2019, a year with less populism, less ageism, less sexism, less ableism, less homophobia, less islamophobia, less hate, ..., more love, more awareness, more tolerance, more empathy, more courage, more vision, more wisdom. Thank you so much for having dropped by in 2018. Happy New Year! Cheers!



photograph via

Suggestions for Collective New Year Resolutions

We will create a society with equal opportunities for everybody - no matter what age, gender, (dis)abilities, ethnicity, religion, no matter if straight or queer.
We will build cities that are accessible.
We will  not let populism use minority or disadvantaged groups to communicate simple messages ("us" versus "them") to create a polarised society.
We will remove the structural causes of homelessness.
We will create a society in which everybody has access to education and lifelong learning.



In 2018, I will...

... do anything I can do to combat ageism, to reframe ageing; I won't give up showing others the importance of valuing older people
... not lose my patience, will not lose my hope and belief in an intelligent society when hearing or reading discriminatory statements that are based on ignorance, fear or the need to construct a superior identity by creating an inferior "other"
... support projects that aim to raise awareness concerning racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia and islampophobia by writing about them and/or cooperating
... continue finding homelessness absolutely not acceptable for societies in the 21st century and - as I cannot change the system - make a modest contribution by helping at least one homeless person
... continue the project of raising awareness how to turn a/my city into a more inclusive city
... donate more often to the wonderful humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières
... focus my research on inclusion at schools, on diversity in class rooms
... continue showing people how beautiful diversity is
... be among the 8% of people who achieve their new year's resolutions.

Dear subscribers, I wish you all the best for 2018, all the best for our society. Thank you so much for passing by in 2017 and for leaving beautiful comments. Thank you for being interested in the beauty of diversity.

- - - - - -
Thanks, Paperwalker, for the photograph and the amazing drawings!

Happy New Year!

I wish you a most wonderful 2017, a happy year, a year of wise and intelligent decisions, a year in which populism has no impact on society (or a least less than in 2016), a year of progress in awareness concerning racism, ageism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, islamophobia, and other -isms and phobias, a year in which we can clean up our 2016 footprints. I wish you a year of diversity and inclusion.



Here the original advertisement from 1968:



image via

New Year Wishes Inspired by Saul Steinberg

A wonderful, beautiful, peaceful, inspirational, joyous, bright, and happy New Year! Felix sit annus novus, felice anno nuovo, ein glückliches neues Jahr, bonne année, akemashite omedetou gozaimasu, onnellista uutta vuotta, gelukkig nieuwjaar, ...



- Mask series by Saul Steinberg and Inge Morath: related posting
- photograph by Paperwalker, collage material (cat, mask design) by Saul Steinberg, the great

Year of the Horse

"This" year, Chinese New Day will arrive on 31 January and the Year of the (Wood) Horse will start. While Chinese New Year falls on different dates in the Gregorian calendar, in the lunisolar Chinese calendar, Chinese New Year usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice (via). Calendars differ, the Gregorian 2014, for instance, is the year 2964 in the Berber calendar, 4347 in the Korean calendar, 1376 in the Burmese calendar, 6764 in the Assyrian calendar, and 2558 in the Buddhist calendar (via).
Apart from the horse, 2014 is dedicated to the brain. The European Year of the Brain aims to raise awareness and educate since this most complex structure has a huge impact on both individuals and society (via).



Again, best wishes to all of you - no matter what year you celebrate and when.

- - - - - - - - - - -
Photograph by Norman Parkinson via