All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. Anatole France
And what better way to start than talking about change, because this is what my previous months have all been about. I have left a great team behind to join another team with wonderful people. Of course melancholy can be there, but one needs to know how to make the best of the past memories and to build even better ones with the people who are now in your life.
One of these changes in my life has brought me closer to a city I had not visited before in Germany, Stuttgart, and closer to old and new people in my life, but also to the automobile history. Even if it's not in my top 3 cities to visit, it does have a certain appeal, and once the sun is up, the city center smiles and becomes very lively. People are friendly and the streets,...the streets have seen me walking there with my friends, enjoying every free minute I could have. It is the city I learned to know someone and the city I found what I was missing for a long time in my life. Stuttgart has shown me just how good change can be in your life, even if it's just a change of attitude.
Built on the automobile history of Daimler and Mercedes, the Mercedes Benz Museum is a shrine to change. Just by taking a walk through this building you are taking a walk through 125 years of history. The automobiles are placed in a historic time-frame, so it is easy to see how the cars and their usage as well as their functionality have evolved with the constant change of needs. The ultra-modern architecture of the museum building does not for one second steal from the magic of the vehicles, au contraire, it highlights them better and makes them the stars of the show.
Once you start the tour and you take the elevator to the highest floor, you get out and see, to your surprise probably, a horse. But what is under the horse is a quotation which shows how much people can be wrong in rejecting evolution. The Emperor Wilhelm the II. said he believes in the horse, as the automobile is nothing more than a transitory phenomenon.
Change is not easy,...and it takes a lot of broken dreams and a lot of work and sweat, a lot of pain and sometimes also compromise,...but it's the natural way of life, and if we reject it, we might just turn into people who don't live in our time and who are just shadows for this world.
My life has always been a constant change, sometimes it was planned, sometimes it took me by surprise,... but I learned from every step I took and I am proud of where I stand now. And all these previous months I have learned that there are no boundaries where there is will. And that's exactly what you can see in this museum in Stuttgart....
Pictures (C) Ingrid Sabine Weber
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