I go swimming. I enjoy it and go regularly. At best every day in the morning. The indoor swimming pool in Oerlikon opens at 6am. Probably that’s only possible in Switzerland. If one arrives at six minutes to six, the first impatient swimmers are already waiting at the entrance. Everybody knows each other by sight. One minute to six the pool attendant arrives and exactly at six o’clock the door opens. After all, we are in Switzerland. As soon as the door opens, the waiting swimmers impatiently swarm to the changing rooms and only minutes later the first swimmers jump into the water.

Swimming is wonderful: During the 30 minutes while I am swimming my laps, my head is pleasantly empty and very receptive for all kinds of ideas. But swimming is also sensational because it is not possible to talk while doing that sport, neither is it possible to listen (as for instance when jogging), nobody can call and really nothing disturbs. These are probably the 30 minutes of the day when I’m most focussed, when I’m able to think without being interrupted. I have great ideas. Swimming does not feel exhausting, I do it almost mechanically, but what happens in my mind while swimming affects my decisions for the entire day. 

Basically I am addicted to swimming. The combination of exercising and developing ideas or rather thinking problems through without hurry is unique. If I don’t go swimming during the week, I feel it. For me it is similar as for a piano virtuoso who does not practice for several days. Swimming grounds me, it helps to advance my ideas.

Even though I love swimming, I always fight my biggest dilemma especially in indoor swimming pools. Imagine the following situation: After swimming you go to the shower, to the changing rooms or to the hairdryer. And there you see it. It may be a man or a woman. Their bathing suits are already advanced in age. If one sees it from behind, one realises that the fabric of the bathing suit is already very thin. The fabric is transparent. The person concerned hardly realises because in dry condition the bathing suit looks completely normal. However in wet condition the fabric around the bottom is as good as useless. And now? How do you react if you are standing there and someone passes in such a bathing suit? What should you say? Personally, every time again I fight with myself. Should I say: “Do you know that your bathing suit is transparent from behind?”

It does not happen often. Thank god! If it is a woman, I pull myself together and say it. Eventually I would like that someone is brave enough to tell me – if that should ever happen to me. However with men I never manage.

Last week I saw again such a gentleman. We were standing next to each other at the hairdryers. However I was not brave enough. Imagine, I work up all my courage and tell him that his bathing suit is transparent from behind and he replies: “I know. That’s on purpose!” THAT would be really embarrassing!