My parents raised me with a strong sense of duty, discipline, and obedience. The duty to work for the good of the family was paramount. I grew up in the GDR, whose ideology was primarily focused on the well-being of the community, to which one had to subordinate oneself. I can't even remember the word "self-realization" ever being used in our language. Anyone who thought only of themselves was considered an egotist and was condemned. I had no room for my creativity; I encountered incomprehension and was ridiculed. So I gave up. It was only after a serious illness at the age of 50 that I gained the courage to gradually express my thoughts in paintings and music. Over the years, I have completely freed myself from the constraints of my upbringing and am constantly seeking new challenges in which I want to discover myself, for example, in sculpture or music. The opportunity to discover and realize myself is of great value to me because I have experienced that self-realization is not something to be taken for granted.
