Signs of the Times

Today, in the highly digital 21st century, we rely on signs more than ever — and we use them obsessively. Signs spare us the long detour through words and grammar.
Although, come to think of it, written language is nothing but signs too.
A roof with a middle beam — to most people, that’s simply an A.

Human history is an endless collection of signs.
To make a sign has always been the beginning of a story.
Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream.”
The peace symbol of the hippie movement.
Greta Thunberg’s Fridays-for-Future strike.
They all moved millions — and stirred millions.
We humans do like to get stirred up.

Big signs of history often appear out of nowhere. And rarely do they look the way futurists or headline prophets imagined.
The signs of our present age — the year 2025 — are a strange mixture of hope and hostility, of humanism and hate.

Then one photo resurfaced from 1936.
A crowd salutes Hitler with raised arms. All of them — except one.
A man who folds his arms instead. His name: August Landmesser.

A quiet refusal in a sea of obedience becomes a symbol of defiance.
Maybe it really was Landmesser, maybe not.
But the story that clings to the image is true enough:
A man loved Irma Eckler, a Jewish woman — and fell victim to the gears of the Nuremberg Laws.
Börgermoor. Penal battalion. 1944.
Irma disappeared before him, into the bureaucracy of murder — Bernburg, probably, 1942.

What remains is a moment — an unspectacular second in time that still looks straight back at us.
Courage, after all, is rarely loud.
It is two arms, calmly crossed, against the current.

To go against the crowd is never easy.
We humans are social creatures. We seek belonging, not exposure. We prefer to blend in rather than be singled out for ridicule or hate.
That’s why acts of courage stand out all the more — especially when one person shakes their head while everyone else nods.

Civil courage is one of humanity’s quietest and most powerful languages.
It names injustice. It stands in its way.
Most people who act courageously aren’t heroes by profession. They just happen to do the right thing in the right moment.
Rosa Parks did exactly that — by not standing up, she stood for something greater.

In today’s toxic resurgence of fascism, in 2025, we will all be called upon to make our own signs — signs of compassion, justice, and sanity.
And they don’t have to come from solitary heroes.
Grassroots movements give us strength — and, more importantly, togetherness.

Courage grows in company.
Courage to be different.
Courage to stand up.
Courage to be kind.

And besides — standing up is excellent exercise.
For the body. And for the soul.