Niche Market

Letter to myself. When you are grown up start a restaurant, near the sea, with old recipes on the menu.

• Appetizer (15 items), snacks (15), main course (15) and dessert (15); change every 3 months 5 items of the four categories
• Ancient Egyptian bread and stuffed shortbreads
• From Ancient Greece (source): Bean Soup, Albacore Tuna, Baklava, Cod with Coriander, Sea Bass with Feta, Easy Oranges with Honey and Roasted Leeks and Apple
• From Ancient Rome (source): Garum, Columella Salad, Lentils with Coriander, Roast Wild Boar, Ostrich Ragoût, Fried Veal Escalope with Raisins and Nut Tart
•  A couple of the Ancient Chinese 280 recipes from 'Qimin Yaoshu'
• Yucatán Papadzules
• Old English 'The Forme of Cury' (1390): Gees in hoggepot (XXXI), Chykenns in cawdel (XXXIII) and Tartes of Fysshe (XX.VIII. X)
• Check out Wikipedia's 'List of Ancient Dishes'
• In winter - seasonal product - with fresh snow and fruit make ice 
• ... - there must be more
• Check the recipes with archaeologists and chemists. Ask them to what amount of salt, pepper and sugar were used. And other herbs
• Not halal, nor kosher, nor other prohibitions - if the ingredient can be bought legally it can be served; change the law not my dishes
• Nothing vegetarian - if you don't want to eat (for whatever culturally or historically biased reason) meat, chicken, fish, cheese or ... choose another item or restaurant 
• No diets. If you are not allowed to eat something for medical reasons ... choose another item or eat in a hospital 
• Remake of ancient wines and beer
• Water for free 
• Guests can eat with their hands, with cutlery or sticks
• Burps (modest) are allowed
• Smell bar
• Book with recipes
• Music? Listen to voice of the sea?
• Blog
• Suggestion box
• Fossils on the wall

 I repeat #Change the Law not My Dishes.

Lost and Found

Soko sings 'My Dreams Dictate my Reality'. Dreams dictate reality? Really? Not what you say? Not what you think? Not how you act? I'll come back to this later.

Between the age of 17 and 23 I kept a handwritten diary. Hesitatingly at first. Looking for a format and words. What I learned fast was that I had to be honest looking in the mirror. Honest as in beyond "normal", "stupid", "unfair" and "acceptable". I learned to face reality, in the safe and sheltered corner of my diary. My reality and the reality of the Others. To accept and embrace - it sounds easier in retrospect than it was for me back then - the real world of individual 'homo sapiens'. To accept my own and others' jealousy, aggression, misbehaviour and all the other adjectives that don't belong to a "perfect" planet Earth. (We are citizens of planet Earth first and citizens of the Cosmos second.)

In retrospect, the above is one of the seeds that make me sensitive for fringe people. I accept all behaviour of other homo sapiens. All! Including the behaviour of killers, of sadists, of suicide bombers, of mafia, of society their free-riders. For me their behaviour is valid too. It belongs to the real world. It's real. Don't deny!

I accept reality of (dis)behaviour. At the same time I accept the laws of my country. These laws define what must and shall be punished. In punishment we trust. Realizing, accepting and embracing that these laws are culturally and historically biased.

What's my point? I think that the biggest pitfall of human communication is the 'Say-Think-Act-trap' (STA-trap).

In a perfect world the sets of Say, Think and Act are one and the same.

In a never-perfect world the sets of Say, Think and Act don't have any intersection at all.

In the real world there are intersections between the three sets. "Perfect communication" is the intersection between all three sets (colour 'yellow' in the Venn diagram). "Noisy communication" is the intersection between two sets (colour 'orange'). "Deaf & Blind communication" is the symmetric difference between the three sets (colour 'white').

Example one.  He says to an acquaintance that he will pay back the loan of 25,000 Euros as soon as possible. He thinks I'll not be able to pay back the money before I die. He borrows the loan - not telling his acquaintance - while knowing he will die in two months of incurable cancer.  

Examples two. An extremist Muslim (according to the Islam 'Taqiya' principle) says he accommodates himself to the laws of the country he lives in. He thinks I'll apply precautionary dissimulation for my plans to kill as many Islam-unbelievers as I can. He blows himself up as a suicide bomber.

Example three. He says he wants a tree in his garden. He thinks of a 50 year old oak with leaves and roots. He plants in his garden the expensive tree he thinks of.

Dreams dictate reality? Yes, your dreams. Yes, my dreams too. Yes but also what we say, what we think and how we act. Depending on the (lack of) intersections between say, think and act we have a serious communication constraint. Better: we have communication noise. Observation: I see a lot of noisy and deaf & blind communication on planet Earth.

Both Student. Both Teacher.

Virginia Vallejo (Columbia 1949) and Pablo Escobar (Columbia 1949-1993) were lovers for four years (1983-1987). He a drug lord of the Medellin cartel with a modest background. She a journalist and TV anchor(wo)man from the upper class.

Yesterday I finished reading her book 'Amando a Pablo, odiando a Escobar' (2007) in a Dutch translation 'Ik was de vrouw van Escobar' (2017). I wanted to read about the story behind their love. Her story. Her images. What she says and what not. Her details.

For me this quote is the key to the book (page 305-306). Ana Bolena Meza: "Virginia, you were the greatest star of this country [Columbia] and the Narcos ended your career and your good name. I am just a humble actress who wants to make her living with hard work. Say to that Gaviria that I don't want, for any gold, to live your life, certainly not because I see how the media treats you. Say that woman as me despise man like them. That I prefer to die rather than being touched by the dirty hands of a Narcos." Who is who? Pablo's nephew Gustavo Gaviria was fallen in love with actress Ana Bolena Meza. Gustavo asked Virginia to arrange a meeting with Ana. Ana refused to meet.

Why did Virginia fall in love with Pablo? Pablo built 2,500 houses for the poor of Medellin. Pablo saved her life. Both were student and teacher.  Mutual attracted to their huge intelligence. Magic. Attraction and rejection. Pablo fell for Virginia's beauty. Virginia fell for Pablo's insight and predictive ability. They had an equal relationship. Virginia always refused the sugar daddy side of Pablo. She wanted his love not his money. Later she asked Pablo for money (for education and investment in a company) then he refused because Virginia was the only woman in his life that did love him for free. He wanted to maintain that dream.

They talked a lot about the "inheritance" of Pablo. He wanted the world, via the only woman who really knew him, to know who he really was. A psychological and historical accurate portrait. 

Nice read. No book for sensitive souls.

P.S. The Spanish title translated into English 'Love Pablo. Hate Escobar', covers the content of their relationship better. Better than the Dutch title translated into English 'I was the woman of Escobar'.

Out of the Blue

'It' is a moment of:

• Personal experience of healthy individual 'homo sapiens'
• Feeling one whole and united 
• Blissful
• Fulfilment
• Highest happiness
• Wonderment
• Awe
• Magical 
• Loss of judgment to time and space
• Something that can't be described completely with words
• Core of every religion
• Can change life on an individual

Triggers for 'it' can be (non limited list): love, sex, art, music, creative work, scientific knowledge, meditation, introspection, experience in nature and chemicals (e.g. psilocybin).  

What is 'it'? It is what Maslow, in his 'Religions, Values and Peak Experiences' (1964), calls a 'peak experience'.

And then, live happily forever after? Well no, most people do at first not understand and have words for what has happened. It came out of the blue. Important is that they find a buddy or authority that teach them what they felt and how to deal with it. Sometimes it takes years - if ever - to learn what has happened. And sometimes it can make people suicidal ... the world was so beautiful and now everything is lost ... how to deal with that?

What is most important of all the above: peak experiences are natural experiences of healthy people. It makes life magical, blue and whole.  :)

P.S. Info in this blog is loosely based on Wikipedia Peak Experience. Mark that the content in English and Dutch is materially deviant.
P.P.S. I wrote many times about this subject. Via label 'Enlightenment' you have all posts in one list.

Dirt

Children need a childhood with dirt, mud, trees and sticks. Nothing wrong with a few scratches and bruises.

Not only kids need dirt. Books (better: readers) need dirt too. Nothing wrong with a few feet of a ...