By the Fireplace

- what else?

Source pictures. (1) Cats: anonymous; (2)  Croc from Walters Art Museum: Ancient Egyptian, Ptolemaic Period (around 380-30 BCE); (3) iLoveNature.

P.S. Did you know that Cole Porter's song 'Why Shouldn't I?' (1935) was the first dance song of George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin at their wedding?

Epigram 1 Word

An epigram of one word in German:

(D)ICH(TUNG)

or

In German one can say in one word: I ('ich'), You ('dich') and poetry ('Dichtung'). You and I poetry - what else? Smart people those German speaking people :)

Invitation to Wander

How many books of 'My History Top 10' from Heuijerjans have you read? I have read four of them: Kennedy, Davies, Hughes and Wulf. My observation #top10: mainly books from era since Western Age of Enlightenment. Why? Question: Does Heuijerjans know that his point of view on history is biased if these books are his solid ground?

Here is my more balanced (with its own biases of course) list on history:

1. Friedrich Nietzsche/ Beyond Good and Evil (1886). Antidote against Socrates (Ancient Greece 5th Century BC) and Christianity (Year 0 - Present Day).
2. Christian Meier/ Caesar. A Biography (1982). Antidote against Age of Enlightenment. Rome is never beaten in history. More
3. Frankfort, Frankfort, Wilson and Jacobsen/ Before Philosophy (1946). Antidote against Ancient Greece and Rome. Book on Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt before philosophy and ratio was born in Ancient Greece.
4. Moyers and Flowers/ The Power of Myth. Interview with Joseph Campbell (1988). Antidote against science and ratio. The influence, metaphors and power of myths.
5. Darrin McMahon/ The History of Happiness (2006). Antidote against there is only one definition of 'happiness'. More
6. Karel van der Leeuw/ Het Chinese Denken (1994). Antidote against Western thinking. Book in Dutch on Chinese thinking.
7. Angus Madison/ Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD. Essays in Macro-Economic History (2007). Antidote against the Western World has gained supremacy on planet Earth. In retrospect China has never been beaten and lives in splendid isolation. Only for a brief period of time, between 1850-2010, the West has had a higher Gross Domestic Product. More
8. Leopold/ Uit den Tuin van Epicurus (1976). Antidote against Christianity. The most personal book on this list. Book in Dutch. It's a translation of fragments and letters of Epicurus (Ancient Greece 5th Century BC). More
9. Martin van Creveld/ The Age of Airpower. Antidote against being earthbound or seabound. More
10. Wikipedia/ Sense. Antidote against written books. Antidote against the bias of the five human senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. More
11. Eriksen and Nielsen/ A History of Antropology (2001). Antidote against our group is the axis and cornerstone of the world.
12. Bruno Borchert/ Mystiek. Geschiedenis en Uitdaging (1989). Antidote against ratio. Book in Dutch on history of mysticism. The spiritual enlightenment of individuals was the founding stone of Christianity and Islam.
13. Bruce Chatwin/ The Songlines (1987). Antidote against written words. The aboriginals in Austrialia save the knowledge of their natural environment in memorized songs.
14. Ton Lemaire/ Twijfel aan Europa (1990). Antidote against Western behavior, globalisation and consumerism. Book in Dutch.
15. Ryszard Kapuscinki/ The Other (2008). Antidote against the 'I' is the axis and cornerstone of the world.
16. Aldous Huxley/ Brave New World (1931). Antidote against technology is king. What kind of society do we want? What is public? What is private?
17. Heraclitus of Ephesus/ Panta rhei (5th century BC). Antidote against books. Sometimes one sentence tells more than one book: 'everything flows' (Greek 'panta rhei').
18. Kooimans, Van den Broeke, Fokkens and Van Gijn/ Nederland in de prehistorie (2005). Antidote against history as written words. Book in Dutch on The Netherlands in the Prehistoric era.
19. Stephen Hawking/ A Brief History of Time (1988). Antidote against planet Earth. Our planet was born and will one day die too.
20. Simone de Beauvoir/ The Second Sex (1949). Antidote against male is the axis and cornerstone of the world. Woman are not naturally born as woman but they become woman as product of society, parents, religion and conformity.  More

The books above are just my pick. It's not a frozen reading list but an invitation to wander around in the fringes and biases of white European male on planet Earth. I am not a specialist on any of the above mentioned antidotes. I am just a curious human being trying to explore and wonder about his fringes. Trying not to get frozen.

Addendum November 11, 2016

  21. Charles S. Peirce/ Evolutionary Love (1893). Antidote against Charles Darwin's image
        'Survival of the Fittest'. The image is not evolutionary competion but evolutionary love.

Nothing Less II

The same for great books.

Nothing Less

I used to think that the University is packed with smart people, so smart as ... Albert Einstein or Jean-François Champollion. The one's who invent wheels, decode forgotten languages or discover new senses. That's the reason why I was very modest at first in the temple of knowledge. How could I ever match those geniuses?

And now? Now I know that the University is above all a place where knowledge is hand over from one generation to another. Nothing less. Most scientists are not geniuses. They are just good in their speciality of knowledge. The real geniuses are rare.