Manfred’s Story

I arrived at the Swimming Club with a weather system already forming above my head.

The Mayor asked me, quite innocently, what my mood would be if it were a weather forecast. I considered the options. Calm sunshine seemed too optimistic. Sudden storms near the inbox sounded dramatic, but not entirely wrong. In the end, I chose drizzle with sunshine on the horizon.

That felt accurate. Not a catastrophe. Not yet. Just a gentle, persistent emotional rain, with the possibility that something better might appear later if nobody interfered too much.

Then he brought out the Emotional Thermometer.

This is the kind of thing The Mayor does. He takes a perfectly normal human difficulty, gives it a friendly name, and suddenly Manfred is expected to measure the invisible weather inside his own head. He asked where I usually am when I arrive at a meeting, from zero to ten, and what number I pretend to be.

I told him the truth. I normally start between zero and one, but the sky is the limit.

This is not pessimism. It is simply a realistic starting position. Some people enter a room ready to shine. I enter a room cautiously, as if the furniture may ask me a difficult question.

The Mayor then wanted to know the first physical sign that my emotional thermometer is rising. Tight shoulders, faster talking, silence, sighing, eyebrow activity, or something only trained observers can detect.

For me, it is silence.

But not peaceful silence. Dangerous silence. The silence that arrives when I am lost for words because everything is so stupid. People often misunderstand this. They think silence means calm. In my case, silence may mean that the internal committee has stopped taking minutes and is now discussing emergency procedures.

Martin, of course, would probably notice this. The Mayor might notice it too, although he would ask a follow-up question and make it worse by being interested.

At one point, The Mayor asked me to think of a recent moment when I reacted too quickly, and what the wiser, calmer version of myself would have done instead.

This was a difficult question, because I am convinced of my own practical and theoretical genius, which nobody else can see, but always wants to disprove.

That is the problem with other people. They look at my clear, elegant, perfectly reasonable inner logic and somehow decide to test it against reality. This creates tension. Not for me, obviously. For reality.

The Mayor then asked what everyday situation most often turns me from a thoughtful adult into a man negotiating privately with his own irritation.

I asked him whether he had ever listened to “The Logical Song” by Supertramp.

This, I believe, was a complete answer.

There is something in that song that understands the tragedy of becoming reasonable. You begin as a person full of imagination, and then the world teaches you forms, systems, instructions, expectations, and other small crimes against the soul. Eventually, you are standing somewhere as an adult, trying to remain calm while a printer, a person, or a sentence behaves in a way that no intelligent civilisation should allow.

Still, I do have a rebound strategy.

The Mayor offered several possibilities, including competitive deep breathing, advanced coffee preparation, and silent window staring. I chose the 15-minute walk.

This is a strong event. It should possibly be included in the Olympics. The 15-minute walk is not just walking. It is the ancient discipline of removing oneself from the scene before becoming part of the scene. It is emotional balance with shoes.

Then The Mayor asked what Martin could say to me when I am emotionally at an eight that would actually help, and what sentence would make it worse.

This was easy.

Anything that smells of unwanted advice, positive or negative, would make it worse. I do not need advice when I am at an eight. I do not need wisdom in a cheerful tone. I do not need someone explaining the bright side. The bright side can wait outside until I have finished being correct.

What helps is simpler.

John Lennon already said it: let it be.

And perhaps this is the point. Emotional balance is not always about becoming calm immediately. Sometimes it is about not adding more fuel to a fire that is already conducting its own private research. Sometimes it is about letting the drizzle pass, trusting the sunshine on the horizon, and allowing the dangerous silence to remain only silence.

In the end, I think The Mayor understood this.

Martin probably understood it too.

Neither of them said too much.

Which was wise.

Remember Bikini Atoll?

Martin’s Story

The Mayor began the meeting with emotional weather, which was already suspicious.

He asked Manfred about drizzle and sunshine, which suited him rather well. Then he turned the whole thing toward me and asked what tiny thing can instantly change my inner weather from “pleasantly stable” to “why is this happening to me?”

This was not a difficult question.

Almost every tiny thing can do this to me. Unfortunately.

Horrible coffee. Idiot drivers. Any technology older than teletext, and by that I mean post-1980. Politics. Humanity in general. And, of course, English spelling.

English spelling deserves its own emotional support group. It is not a language system. It is a historical accident wearing a dictionary.

The Mayor seemed pleased with this answer, which is always dangerous, because it encourages him.

He then asked about my redline moment, when the emotional gauge goes dangerously high. Technology? Traffic? Unclear instructions? People being cheerful too early?

For me, it is unclear instruction manuals. Especially those worse than IKEA assembly instructions. IKEA, at least, has a certain Nordic sadness to it. You know what you are suffering for. But some manuals are written as if the author had only heard rumours about the product.

And then there are software error messages.

Idiotic software error messages, which I did not write.

This is important. If I wrote the error message, then at least the stupidity would be mine, and I could defend it professionally. But when some mysterious system produces a message that explains nothing, solves nothing, and somehow suggests that I am the problem, then emotional balance becomes a theoretical subject.

The Mayor later asked who would notice first when I am at a seven or eight: me, Manfred, The Mayor, or an innocent bystander.

I answered: Remember Bikini Atoll?

That was enough.

Some emotional events do not require detailed explanation. They are simply measured afterwards by geography, fallout, and the disappearance of nearby optimism.

The Mayor also asked what sentence I should never send when my emotional thermometer is above eight.

I said: Sorry, too late.

This was not a joke. Or perhaps it was a joke that had already happened. There are sentences that leave the building before the calmer version of Martin has had time to put on his shoes. By the time reason arrives, the message has been delivered, the damage has been admired, and someone is probably typing a reply beginning with “Just to clarify.”

Nothing good begins with “Just to clarify.”

Still, I am not without methods. When The Mayor asked what my most reliable rebound strategy is after an emotional hit — disappointment, stress, bad news, or a strange message — I gave the sensible answer.

Stop. Breathe deeply.

This sounds almost too healthy, which makes me suspicious of it. But it works. Not always beautifully. Not with music and soft lighting. But it creates a small gap between the event and the explosion, and sometimes that gap is enough to avoid becoming local news.

Then The Mayor asked whether humour helps me rebound, or whether it sometimes arrives too early and makes everything more suspicious.

I asked whether anyone offers a course in advanced cynicism or sarcasm for emotional explosions.

I would attend that course. Possibly teach it. Module One: How to Say Nothing While Saying Everything. Module Two: The Eyebrow as a Warning System. Module Three: Turning Disaster into a Comment Nobody Asked For.

Manfred would probably sit in the back, pretending not to enjoy it.

The Mayor would take notes and call it “a useful learning moment,” which would immediately require Module Four: Surviving Helpful People.

Finally, The Mayor asked what Manfred could say to me when I am redlining that would bring me back to a five, without sounding like a motivational poster.

The answer was simple.

Just change the subject.

This is underrated wisdom. When a man is emotionally overheating, he does not need a poster. He does not need a sentence involving growth, resilience, or journey. He needs a new topic. Preferably something unrelated, harmless, and far away from whatever caused the internal reactor to start humming.

Ask about bicycles. Ask about weather. Ask about whether coffee has declined as a civilisation. Anything.

Just do not give advice.

In the end, I think the Swimming Club discovered something useful. Emotional balance is not the absence of irritation. That would be unrealistic, and possibly bad for humour. Emotional balance is the art of noticing the explosion before it becomes historical.

Manfred has his 15-minute walk.

I have breathing, sarcasm, and the ability to change the subject before the island disappears.

The Mayor, as usual, stood in the middle of it all, asking questions as if this were safe.

It was not safe.

But it was useful.