In his mid-fifties, Stefan Schwarz gets cancer. Or rather, cancer gets him. Because Schwarz is experienced in dealing with existential rejections: “If fate strikes, I strike back!” Like a “Marie Kondo of the soul” he starts tidying up his life and makes some surprising discoveries in the process. He also abandons the haste that we all know from our daily lives, the constant pressure of having to finish something. And he focuses on the slowness, on the moment.
Stefan Schwarz writes about all this with great clarity – and with his unique humour that contains an entire life philosophy. He examines his own existence in a calm, profound and refreshingly self-deprecating manner; at peace with himself but fighting for his future, he writes about the possible end and the awakening that comes with it: “That is the whole point of cancer. That you stop trying to delude yourself and others, that you pause, wake up and rub your eyes.” And he writes about what has happened and what is happening: life in its fullness, which Stefan Schwarz examines as if it were under a burning lens.
