The first second of January first is the most beautiful moment of the year. Everyone knows the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth. The first words of children are never forgotten. The first shot hits like no other. If the first sentence succeeds, the text will follow. Beginnings accelerate the ordinary. Beginnings can be terrifying. What matters in the first analysis session. Why getting up is so difficult. Why Bob Dylan laughed in the studio. The ten best songs for the heartbroken. What to ask first in an interview. Why dying begins at fifty. A diplomat explains what must happen at the first meeting. A federal councilor shares what it means to be a former federal councilor. A midwife recalls her first birth. A physicist explains his relationship with infinity. A waitress in Mississippi asks, 'And how are you today?' Jean-Martin Büttner, 1959, is a reporter for the Zurich Tages-Anzeiger.