Wednesday. Letter to You

Children on a Seesaw

2012-02-15T12:01:00.001+01:00

Cláudia Roquette-Pinto's poem 'Cinco líções de inglês'. This poem (poema/ gedicht) is about a woman for whom 'children on a seesaw' are her biggest joy and fear.

Portuguese (original) - Dutch (translation):

Cinco líções de inglês

That summer he missed his lover — Ele puxou do bolso, com

máximo cuidado, a última carta, a qual imediatamente rasgou-

se ao longo das dobras puídas.

The letter confused her — Mesmo depois de ler e reler a carta,

ela não conseguia impedir que suas maiores expectativas e seus

piores temores —crianças numa gangorra—

se alternassem em sua mente.

She felt very sad — Ela andava, dia e noite, como se levasse no

peito a vidraça que uma pedra acabara de acertar.

He was angry — Ele batia com insistência a ponta do sapato no

rodapé, e, repentinamente, repetia entre dentes alguma frase

incompreensível, que pontuava com um soco.

She begged him to stay — Ela agarrou-se à manga de sua camisa

sem dizer palavra.

Vijf lessen Engels

That summer he missed his lover — Uiterst voorzichtig haalde hij

de laatste brief uit zijn broekzak, die onmiddellijk scheurde

langs de halfvergane vouwen

The letter confused her — Zelfs na het lezen en nog eens lezen

van de brief kon ze niet verhinderen dat haar hoogste

verwachtingen en grootste angst — kinderen op een wip —

elkaar afwisselden in haar hoofd.

She felt very sad — Ze liep dag en nacht rond alsof ze een ruit in

haar borst droeg die net was ingegooid door een steen.

He was angry — Hij tikte halsstarrig met de punt van zijn schoen

tegen de plint en herhaalde onverhoeds tussen zijn tanden een

onverstaanbare zin, waar hij met een schop een punt achter zette.

She begged him to stay — Ze klemde zich zonder een woord vast

aan de mouw van zijn hemd.

Source: Vijfentwintig keer Brazilië; Hedendaagse poëzie uit Brazilië (2011). The poem above is translated in Dutch by Harrie Lemmens.

This poem is translated in Spanish too: 'Cinco lecciones de ingles'. In couldn't find a translation in English. Will you give it a try?

Poema Simples

2012-02-08T13:57:00.000+01:00

A litte kiss for my sweety: x
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.......................................................\.../..@@.............
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. a
n
d
.
a
.
...........................................
b
i
g
.
o
n
e

X

Happy Valentine ;)

Front Door

2012-02-08T11:39:00.002+01:00

Would you open your front door for him? Would you invite him into your life? And mind and dreams? And in the end act alike? Would you've accepted Jesus as a prophet when you would have lived 2,000 years ago? Sure?

In retrospect it's easy to "see" who the true and false prophets were in history. In retrospect! What about the todays that are not lived yet and are not frozen into history? What to do with our present-day prophets who claim they "see" the end of time? Would you open your door for him or her? And in the end act alike?

What to do with Ronald Weinland? Is he a false prophet? The end of time did not come on September 29, 2011. Less than 3 months is left to May 27, 2012. Another false prophecy? Are you sure? Do we have to worry about: Greece in/out the EURO, killing fields in Syria, democracy in Egypt, next music CD of Madonna, holiday to Spain in July or ...?

What to do during the next 3 months? If I mock Weinland and his 'Church of God, Preparing for the Kingdom of God' (COG-PKG) I'll get cursed with "terminal diseases". After May hundreds of millions will die. According to the FAQ, his church is focused on helping those who are "genuine" in their desire to "follow and obey" God. We have to repent our false beliefs and practices, obey His ways of life and keep the Sabbath holy. "Finally, all must come to understand that there is only one true baptism in life whereby one can be forgiven of all sins. There is one true baptism into God’s one true Church, just as there is only one true Almighty Eternal God. Those who want to be baptized and desire to be begotten of God’s spirit must read and follow the instruction given."

In other words, Do We Need to Get Baptized into Weinland's COG-PKG?

How to get prepared for December 20-23, 2012? NASA has since 2007 received more than 5,000 questions from the public on this subject. Some asking whether they should kill themselves, kids and pets. 400 of those questions were answered (source). Should we Build a Spaceship and Fly Away from planet Earth - trying to escape?

Collision or near-miss with a large planetary object (Nibiru)?
Alien invasion?
Being destroyed by a giant supernova or super-massive black hole?
Geomagnetic reversal?

What's my point? Of course I'm teasing you :) ... there's no scientific proof for the doomsday scenarios above. My real personal pleasure was puzzling on all those predicted end of time catastrophes. I looooooooooove puzzling. This is my point: Scientist are Prophets too. Making false and true predictions. Only in retrospect we can tell which predictions were right and wrong. Who do I have to follow? What to do next?

Little Detail

2012-02-01T11:13:00.000+01:00

Look at this picture (November 2008) from Alvaro Ybarra Zavala - @alvaroybarra - from a soldier in the civil conflict in Congo.

For me, at first it was just a random picture of a soldier in my newspaper. Until I realized what he is holding in his hand on the right: one hand from another human being (soldier?). Cut-off with the knife he is holding in his mouth? What horror :( My horror became even more evident and felt like a personal attack when I took a closer look at what he is holding in his hand on the left: Cut-Off Penis With Testicles! He deliberately cut off someone else's (external) genitalia. Why?

The soldier seems pretty normal to me. Rare kind of behavior in history? There is a historical parallel in Ancient Egypt. On the Narmer Palette, one of the oldest archaeological finds in Egypt, King Narmer (Old Kingdom) cut-off heads and genitalia from his enemies (source page 22). It's a find dating from the 31st century BC. 3100 + 2000 = 5100 years old! Rare in Ancient Egypt? No. "Mutilation of fallen enemies was commonplace in pharaonic Egypt. During the New Kingdom cut-off hands and genitals were dedicated to Amen-Re and their tally kept by scribes." (source)

Why? Body counting? Humiliation? Deprived of his vital body parts in this world he can never be reborn in the next? Lust for power? Souvenir? Or ...?

Please don't feel offended with this letter. I seek and want to face our human behavior. Even when it hurts.

P.S. @alvaroybarra added this caption (Spanish) to his picture.

Bingham's Eagle's Nest. 3 pictures

2012-01-25T21:58:00.000+01:00

4,000 pictures and not 1 picture of the farmers who lived on Machu Picchu #Peru when "Indiana Jones", Hiram Bingham III (1875-1956) "discovered" this place in 1911. No snapshots? I checked out quite a lot of websites and documents but I did not find one picture :(

For Bingham, this eagle's nest was charming and no other place (on Earth?) could compare with it. On its slopes and terraces Bingham found two "pleasant" Indian farmers, Richarte and Alvarez, who did not speak Spanish. They lived there for more than four years. Plenty of terraces. Free from undesirable visitors. Rich soil. Fine climate. "Here the Indians had finally cleared off some ruins, burned over a few terraces, and planted crops of maize, sweet and white potatoes, sugar cane, beans, peppers, tree tomatoes and gooseberries." Source: Chapter 'XVII Machu Picchu' in Bingham/ Inca Land (1922).

How I would have loved to see Richarte's and Alvarez's pictures. Their families. Their gardens. In the middle of Machu Picchu. Or is this a glimpse of one of the gardens?

I love the idea - it's one of many hypothesis - that Machu Picchu was the summer residence of King Pachacuti (1438-1471/2). A safe haven where he could enjoy the company of his friends, make poems and enjoy his flowers. He loved flowers! On his deathbed he allegedly said "I was born as a lily in the garden, and like the lily I grew, as my age advanced. I became old and had to die, and so I withered and died."

Machu Picchu in 3 pictures: (1) 1911 before removal of vegetation (2) 1912 (3) recent picture

P.S. On July 24th, 1911 when he discovered the ruins he immediately set about taking a series of 28-30 photographs. Listing and naming each shot carefully.

Mediterranean Salt

2012-01-18T15:49:00.003+01:00

A few days ago I read this tweet (in Dutch) from @saskiadekkers. It was about the increasing informal economy in Portugal. No tax is paid for 1/4 of Portugal's GNP.

A lot? Typical of the countries in the South of Europe? I don't know. I was wondering if there is a correlation/connection between the financial crisis in Europe (starting around 2008) and the amount of ‘informal economy’ in a country. I collated some online data I collected to give an answer to this question.

The picture is pretty clear. In the South the economy is more informal and there is more corruption. In the North it's less. France and USA both belong to the northern way of behavior.

Question 'Is there a correlation between the amount of informal economy and the present day interest rates for Government bonds'? Answer: YES! The more informal the economy the more a country has to pay for the 10 year notes. Mark again the difference between the South and North of Europe.

Mark that in the picture above Greece is a special case. If the correlation is 1 we would expect an interest rate between 5 and 7. The present day interest rate (34,36%) for Greece is rare.

France is (partly) a southern country - if we look at the map - but in the pictures above it's 'clair' that they belong to the northern way of behavior and are treated alike for what they have to pay for their 10 year bonds.

"Vada a bordo, cazzo!" (English 'Go on board, dick') Says who?
Sources for data: (a) informal economy; (b) corruption; (c) interest rates 2012-01-18 10:48:34; interest rates Turkey 2012-01-18.

Bike shed

2012-01-11T12:01:00.000+01:00

Look at your Twitter timeline. Take a good look! What do you see? Do you see a bike shed t:):)?

Twitterers give disproportional weight to trivial issues. Weather. Showing off. Holidays. How to ... - whatever. Taste of food, book or music. What colour, shape or touch to give to another gadget. Opinions on TV programs, politician's opinions or the government's output. More opinions.

If Twitter really reflects daily life of species 'homo sapiens' then those tweets prove - according to me - that life is not about the pursuit of happiness. It's about trivial issues!

Or! Or is this the ultimate proof that there is a private & offline 'us' and an online & public 'us'? In private we think, talk, dream and act according to happiness? And online: we're never too deep for the fear of being shown to be insufficiently intelligent or informed?

Ability to be Funny and Entertaining

2012-01-04T11:45:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening I finished reading Paula Byrne's book 'Mad World. Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead'. I started with this book on Christmas evening. Can't really tell why ... I guess I needed a kind of escapism: big houses, money, dolce far niente, nobility and those without titles (s.nob = sine nobilitate).

Lovely book. It's theme is the historical background on Evelyn Waugh's (1903-1966) book 'Brideshead Revisited' (1945). Waugh had a middle-class background. His father was a publisher. He won a scholarship for Oxford. There he met - after a couple of terms - the rich and famous, in the circle known as the Hypocrites. This circle was for Evelyn the door to the English upper-class and their country houses.

Everybody loves a Lord. Evelyn was in love with a whole family! He was in love with the Lygons. The head of the family was William Lygon (1872-1938), 7th Earl Beauchamp. He lived with his wife and 7 children in Madresfield Court in Worcestershire. Pictures of Madresfield and William Lygon's family (around 1925):

This is the family that inspired - they do not completely coincide - Evelyn Waugh's characters in Brideshead. In real life Earl Beauchamp (say: Beechamp) did not cheat his wife with a woman but with a man. He was a homosexual who was forced by his wife and his jealous brother-in-law (2nd Duke of Westminister) to go into exile and "never" to return to England. And if not ... they would make public his homosexuality and he had to go to jail.

New for me:

The Lygons did not weekend at other country houses: that was considered vulgar.
Evelyn and Hugh Lygon had a homosexual affair.
Social climber? A lot of Evelyn's best aristocratic friends emphasised that it was they who sought his company, rather than the other way around. Evelyn judged people not by their class but by their ability to be funny and entertaining.
Correspondence between Evelyn and three of the Lygon girls from 1931-1966: Sibell, Mary ('Maimie') and Dorothy ('Coote'). They considered him as a brother.
The 7th Earl ('Boom') did not mention his children Lettice nor Dickie in his will.
Apart from Lettice (who married before her father's scandal) none of the Lygon girls married into aristocracy or gentry. This shows more than anything the legacy of their father's disgrace.
What happened to the Lygons? When William, 8th Earl Beauchamp ('Elmley') died the title got extinct. Of the seven children only Richard ('Dickie') got children: two daughters. No heir to the title! And who lives in Madresfield Court now? Dickie's daughter Rosalind.

Fish

2011-12-27T16:37:00.002+01:00

For christmas I went to my church. I can't remember when I was last there - other than a few funerals. Christmas 2010? It was busy. We were forced to sit in the side aisle. Diagonally in front of me a window high with three overlapping circles.

For Christians this triquetra is the symbol for the Blessed Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Saturday I saw for the first time that two overlapping parts represent the symbol of a 'fish'. In Greek 'fish' is 'Ichthys': an acronym for 'Iesous CHristos THeou Yios Soter'. Translated in English as 'Jesus Christ God's Son and Saviour'. Do you see the 3 fish too - I coloured one of them blue?

One image. And a lot of secrets for those who have the eyes to "see":

Blessed trinity. 3 circles and 3 fish
Message of acronym 'Ichthys'. Jesus is the son of God and our saviour
Identification. Distinguish Christian friends from foes. A friend knows what the fish represents
Invitation. Jesus wants you to be a fisher of men
Plenty. Multiplication of loaves and fish to feed the multitude
Trust. Follow Jesus and he will to take care for fish (with a coin in its mouth) to pay for ...
... - there must be more

Los Reyes Magos

2011-12-21T15:33:00.000+01:00

In a few days we will celebrate Jesus' birthday. Again. [Footnote]

Remember the story? Pregnant Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem. No place to sleep. Cold night. Jesus born in a barn. Visiting shepherds. Couple of days later the arrival of three wise kings, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

In Dutch the '3 Wise Kings' are named the '3 Wijzen en/ of Koningen uit het Oosten'. Translated in English '3 Wise Men and/ or Kings from the East'. Last week I discovered something strange. Strange to me. In Spanish these 3 men are called 'Los Reyes Magos de Oriente'. Translated in English the 'Magos Kings from the East'. In Spanish these three Kings (Reyes) from the East are 'Magos': wizards, magicians or wise men. They have added a connotation of sorcery or magic. Very strange to my Dutch ears. New to me!

Back to the sources. What does the Bible say - in the New Revised Standard Version? Gospel of Matthew 2: 1-12 [bold added by JD]

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." (...) When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The quote above is the only source in the Bible giving an account of some 'wise men' paying homage to the new king of the Jews. There were three gifts but this source doesn't tell that there were three men. They could have been kings but that's not for sure. They were "wise men". The original Greek text speaks of 'magos'. These 'magos' visited Jesus.

What are 'Magos'? Who were they? They were Zoroastrian priests. As part of their religion these priests paid particular attention to the stars. They were astrologists. People who think that there's a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world. Their practice of predicting seasons, events and people's lives made them not only wise but wizards and magicians too.

Quote Wikipedia on 'Magi':
The word mágos (Greek) and its variants appears in both the Old and New Testaments. Ordinarily this word is translated "magician" in the sense of illusionist or fortune-teller, and this is how it is translated in all of its occurrences except for the Gospel of Matthew, where it is rendered "wise man".

Summarized. Who visited Jesus a couple a days later? 'Magos' from the East paying homage to Jesus and offering him three gifts. 'Magos' who themselves observed the star of Jesus. A star that they followed until it stopped over the place where Jesus was. I guess the translator in Dutch and English were afraid that we could not carry the (painful?) truth that young Jesus was visited by illusionists or fortune-tellers. The 'magos' had to be wise. 'Magos' as scientific astronomers and not vague astrologists.

What a lovely treasure :) to unfold. Remember my image of last week: "language is for me like a handful of stones"? Don't you think so too?

Footnote. Better: In a few days "we" - people inspired by the Christian culture - will celebrate Jesus of Nazareth's birthday. Not all individuals of species 'homo sapiens' join this party. More exact, most people on planet Earth don't celebrate Jesus Christ's birthday. Nor Christmas.

Decem rain

2011-12-14T15:23:00.000+01:00

Language is for me like a handful of stones. Ordinary. Always at hand use. There's little treasures when we take a closer look.

A few weeks ago I learned my two daughters could count in Spanish to 20. Next to that we rehearsed counting to twelve in English, German, French and Italian.

I showed them something special. A little treasure hidden in the way Dutch name their months. 'September', 'October', 'November' and 'December' are derived from the Latin words for 7, 8, 9 and 10. Someone has added 2.

The 9th month 'September' - of the Julian Calender - is derived from the Latin word 'Septem' = '7'. Julius Ceasar (100-44 BC) ) added 2 in 45 BC. Why? Because his Calender starts with 'January' and not with 'March'.

Another treasure when we take a closer look at the months. Julius Caesar named the 7th month after him. So did Caesar Augustus (63 BC - 14 AD) with the 8th month. For the rest the names of the months are unchanged for more than 2,500 years.

It's raining on my part of planet Earth. December rain. Decem :) rain.

Did you find treasures lately?

Bridge

2011-12-07T16:49:00.001+01:00

The bridge the two of us cross every time is English. It's our lingua franca with which we talk and write. It's not your mother tongue. Nor it's mine.

When I started talking and writing to you years and years ago I sometimes wished your mother tongue would be Dutch too. Because we would be able to communicate deeper. With more finesse. But it's not. So let's face the facts.

Next to that English is planet Earth's lingua franca. More exact: it's species 'homo sapiens' present day lingua franca. Since the 1750s.

For me it's sometimes tough to write in English. I cannot always find the exact words for what I think and feel. (More honest: sometimes I can't in Dutch either.) But like so many activities in my life it's something I'm getting better at by just using it every day. Using it.

Another language isn't some software or app we download and install. It's a craft we learn by doing it. Doing it a lot.

Everyone's the same

2011-11-30T11:55:00.001+01:00

He is only one year senior to me. In a way I grew older with him. With his music. Every now and then, over the past 30 years, I heard his songs on the radio. Music. Just background music. Busy doing whatever one does living his life.

This week his song 'Cowboys and Angels' (1991) touched me. To be honest it is the first song of his that touched me at all.

For me 'Club Tropicana' (1983) is George Michael's (born 1963) best song. Fresh. Sexy. Tropical. New. Parody. How I loved that song when I heard it on the radio in the 1980s. Around Christmas (rest of year not) I love watching and listening to 'Last Christmas'. Snow. Holiday. Fresh. Romantic. Love: sweet and sour of it.

But 'Cowboys and Angels' touched me this week. Read the lyrics. Great lyrics!
-

When your heart's in someone else's hands
Monkey see and monkey do
Their wish is your command
You're not to blame
Everyone's the same
-
All you do is love and love is all you do
I should know by now, the way I fought for you
You're not to blame
Everyone's the same
-
I know you think that you're safe
Mister
Harmless deception
That keeps love at bay
It's the ones who resist that we most want to kiss
Wouldn't you say?
Cowboys and angels
They all have the time for you
Why should I imagine
That I'd be a find for you
Why should I imagine
That I'd have something to say
But that scar on your face
That beautiful face of yours
In your heart there's a trace
Of someone before
-
When your heart's in someone else's plans
Things you say and things you do
They don't understand
It's such a shame
Always ends the same
-
You can call it love but I don't think it's true
You should know by now
I'm not the boy for you
You're not to blame
Always ends the same
-
I know you think that you're safe
Sister
Harmless affection
That keeps things this way
It's the ones who persist for the sake of a kiss
Who will pay
Cowboys and angels
They all take a shine to you
Why should I imagine that I was designed for you
Why should I believe
That you would stay
-
But that scar on your face
That beautiful face of yours
Don't you think that I know
They've hurt you before
-
Take this man to your bed
Maybe his hands will help you to forget
Please be stronger than your past
The future may still give you a chance
-
I love these lines: "You think you are safe", "It's the ones who resist that we most want to kiss", "In your heart is a trace of someone before" and "Please be stronger (...) the future may still give you a chance".

I guess I'm sensitive for this song because it tells in a nutshell about the sweet and sour of love. The sweet - never a constraint. The sour - always a challenge.

Question: What song touched you last weeks - if any? Why?

Happiness as 'Open of Heart. All senses sharp. Stripped of Unsavory.'

2011-11-23T14:26:00.001+01:00

In a way we as species invented 'happiness'. The oldest definition on what a 'happy' life is, is the Homeric (3rd century BCE) definition of 'happiness' as 'luck'. More

We do not know how our pre-historic ancestors defined happiness. Why not? Because they did not write down what they thought.How about other groups of our ancient ancestors who used written words, sentences, letters and books for nailing down what they thought important: record inventories, raising taxes or changing information with others?Did the ancient Egyptians have a word (or words) for 'happiness'? How did they define 'happiness'? After all they invented an alphabet (the oldest?) around 2700 BCE. That's more than 2,400 years before Homer!

This year I invested time to find out what ancient Egypt's definition (or definitions?) of 'happiness'. I wrote a couple of e-mails to Egyptologists - never got a serious answer. Searching on the internet. Read three books for background information: Toby Wilkinson/ The rise and fall of ancient Egypt (2010), J. Vergote/ De godsdienst van het Oude Egypte (1987) and John Romer/ Ancient lives: the Story of the Pharaoh's Tombmakers (1991).

The 'Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae' gives only one hit on 'happiness' or 'happy': pxA-jb. I checked out the three short references. Most interesting is Wilson, A Ptolemaic Lexikon (1997), page 364:

Here 'pxA-jb' is translated as 'open of heart', a heart that is 'happy' or 'cheerful'. The earliest example of 'pxA-jb' is used by Thutmosis I (footnote). His reign dated from 1506 to 1493 BCE. He was a pharaoh - 18th dynasty - from the Ancient Egyptian's New Kingdom.

Intermediate. Ancient Egyptian's definition of 'happiness'?

Old Kingdom. No written word for 'happiness'
Middle Kingdom. No written word for 'happiness'
New Kingdom. 'pxA-jb' = Open of heart. A heart that is happy, cheerful, joyful, without sadness, all faculties sharpened. Perhaps brought by drinking wine or beer. A state where someone has all faculties sharpened, before he loses control.

Wilson's addition (better: translation or interpretation) of "without sadness" fits with the ancient Egyptian concept of paradise. For them 'paradise' were the 'eternal reed fields' (Aaru). Fields very much like those of the earthly Nile. Ideal hunting and fishing ground. A place where the deceased was entertained by beautiful and perfect women, sailing trips, music and merriment with friends. And the 'sadness'? Work was done by serfs!

Hypothesis. Ancient Egypt's definition of 'happiness' = Open of Heart. All senses sharp. Stripped of all the Unsavory Aspects.

Question: Do you have better information on ancient Egypt's definition of happiness? Or is it just another stupid question?

Footnote. 'Urk IV 267,7' = Book IV, page 267, line 7 from 'Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums'. Source

I could ...

2011-11-16T18:15:00.001+01:00

Nice and Warm. Temperature between 20-27 C. Nothing to do. Sand. Beach.

I could live here ... - not telling you.

Concrete jungle

2011-11-09T17:34:00.001+01:00

Was it the sunlight coming from the right? Was it the white colour of the bridge? To be honest, I don't know. Suddenly I saw a circus 'caravan' passing again on Emmerich Rhine Bridge.

It happened more than 30 years ago. We drove back from a holiday in Germany to The Netherlands. I guess somewhere in the fall. It had been raining for quite some time. When we were near Emmerich the rain stopped. A little sun. Cars on the highway. Suddenly ... a giraffe! An elephant! And some other animals! A circus on the move. Going in the same direction as us.

What a surprise. How weird to see "wild" animals in the world of asphalt, concrete and steel. It was so bizarre. In a way it felt like a misfit to me.

Harvesting Clouds. No kidding

2011-11-02T19:47:00.004+01:00

On Cape Verde - it's one of planet Earth's 194 countries - farmers harvest clouds. No kidding! :)

I travelled 5,000 km from The Netherlands to Cabo Verde, to find out, last week, that it's possible to harvest a cloud. How? Big nets make the fog condense into droplets of liquid water that fall into a gutter below. The water passes through a tube, arriving in a tank. Ready to be distributed.

Where? On the island of Santiago in the 'Serra Malagueta Natural Park' the mountains are being shroud in an almost year-round mist of 'stratocumulus'. The fog of these clouds are being used for fog collection.

How much does in gain? A couple of nets collect 1,000 litres of water a night.

Old technology? Depends on your definition. Since the Stone Age 'homo sapiens' invented a couple of techniques to collect dew. Since the mid-1980s we invented modern ways to collect water from fog. The nets on Santiago on Cabo Verde are a spin-off of this development.

Do you want to know or read more?

Wikipedia on Fog collection
FAQ on Fog collection
Alex Alper's blog 'Have you ever drunk a cloud?'
Eco Serra Malagueta
Nice! Youtube film on Domingos. Who is showing his drip irrigation system, fog collection nets (starting 2min20sec) and glass bottle insulation wall.

pxA-jb

2011-10-19T15:57:00.002+02:00

Did the ancient Egyptians have a special or distinct word for 'Happiness'? I still don't know. I've been searching the internet for an answer but did not find anything substantial as yet.

A couple of years ago I read with great interest Darrin McMahon's book 'Happiness. A history'. Nice and interesting :) What I missed in this book is how the ancient Egyptians perceived happiness.

The 'Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae' gives three references on 'pxA-jb':
Wb 1, 542.18 = Erman and Grapow, Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, Bd 1 (1935), seite 542

FCD 93 = Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (1962). Not accessible via the internet. Should I buy this book? It's still for sale.
Wilson, Ptol. Lexikon, 364 = Wilson, A Ptolemaic Lexikon (1997). Not accessible via the internet. Should I buy this book? It's still for sale.

Still looking for an answer on these questions:

1. Did the ancient Egyptians have a word for 'happiness'?

2. How was this word (or words) used? In which context? Did it's usage change during the long history of ancient Egypt?

Fragezeichen

2011-10-12T17:28:00.000+02:00

Is it possible to compose this sentence completely of song titles ?

Law of Trust #bank

2011-10-05T11:01:00.002+02:00

In the past I used to visit my bank in person. Physically I had to enter the bank to deposit or withdraw money. The building was strong. Classic look. Marble. Radiating calmness and confidence. I knew the bank employees by name and they knew who I was. Face-to-face contact.

And in our day and age? Since 30 years, step-by-step, the contact between me and the bank became virtual. Over the last 10 years I've rarely visited the bank physically. All employees are strangers to me. The bank disappeared behind an online banking account. It's just one name in an 'endless' list of internet addresses.

Gone is the power of a physically strong bank look (picture) and face-to-face contact. It's lost!

Country Greece and Dexia bank in Belgium are in danger. The bailout of banks by national governments since the late-2000s financial crisis. It's all about trust. The speed of trust. Trust that debts can and will be repaid on a set date.

I would not be surprised if there is a strong correlation between our decreasing trust in the bank sector as a whole and our increasing virtualization. Hypothesis of this Law: Trust in a Bank is Inversely Correlated to Virtualization.

How about you? Do you still visit a bank once in a while? Why? What do you think of all those whizz kids selling products we do not understand but that promise big money? Who is too greedy: our government, bank employees, bank customers, me, you or ...? Why?

P.S. Is this deep down a short cut too? I wrote on this before: here and here.

Letter with 'Talvez'

2011-09-28T11:06:00.000+02:00

Miscellaneous:

1. "Not in my dream". What I meant was this. I want you physically close to me during the day. Body and soul. And at night? At night I want you entering my dream. I should have said "I don't want you in my dreams only".

2. Talvez, meu amor. Talvez.

3. Question 1. Quote Gao Xiqing (NRC september 26, 2011): "Why is there no political union in Europe? Because in the south people prefer to work 5 hours a day 3 days a week; in the north people prefer to work 80 hours a week." Questions. Too much generalized? How about China: How many hours do they prefer to work; regional differences; Tiger Mothers and Daddies in every family?

4. Question 2. Observation: In The Netherlands the Dutch Ombudsman is a great success. Question: how long will it take before he and his organization succumb under the heavy workload? When goals fade and bureaucracy increases? My prediction: one day we will need an ombudsman for the ombudsman. Deep down this is a variation on Juvenal's (1-2 century AD) theme 'Who will guard the guards themselves'.

5. Shortcuts. Last week I wrote to you on desire paths as a shortcut. Observation: shortcuts are everywhere around and in us. It's a shortcut when someone steals a car. It's a shortcut when people prefer taking a benefit above working. Free-riding is a shortcut too. So is taking a train, software or music without paying for it.

Birds and bees do it. Rivers do it. Let's...

2011-09-21T08:38:00.000+02:00

Desire Paths. Do They Make You Smile Too?

Last week I've been thinking about why desire paths make me smile. Better: make me laugh a lot :)) Ever noticed the eroded shortcuts caused by footfall where constructed pathways take a circuitous route? The paths usually represent the shortest and/ or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination.

Did you know that those shortcuts had a name? I didn't. I found out only a couple of months ago.

1. The birds and bees do it. Rivers do it! (Here is the life history of a meander.) Look at the bends in rivers. The water that crawls like a snake through the landscape. The play of water and obstructions (rock, harder soil, trees, etc). And human intervention when we channelize them.

2. People do it! At school we learn - the hard way - how we have to write and speak properly. And in real life? We play with language. What we write on Twitter and via SMS is a mix of abbreviations, emoticons :) , #hashtags, wrds whre lettrs are missng, different languages, words that make sense in a context, single letters or digits replacing words or syllables, slang etc. In real life we use language most of the time in a shortcut format. Ever read a properly written shoppinglist?

3. Cain and Abel did it! Desire paths are connected to the old story of the two sons of Adam and Eve in the (Hebrew) Bible. Remember the story? Cain is a farmer and his younger brother Abel is a shepherd. Abel is murdered by Cain. The fight between constructed pathways versus desire paths is deep down - since 10,000 BC - the fight between farmers/ settled people/ Cain versus hunter-gatherers/ Abel.

Why do shortcuts make me smile? Because every-time when we're trespassing the non-constructed soil of Others we are feeding the hunter-gatherer/ Abel in us. Most (who not?) of us live in our time and age settled in houses but ... deep down we long for wandering. We have wanderlust ;)

Tag

2011-09-14T12:01:00.000+02:00

Script for a film (or book) inspired by 9/11 memorial name panel.

Picture:

Title: Tag

Subtitle: Amazing story! Courage. Treason. Purifying Love

Summary: Hero for whom the 9/11 events were a Window of Opportunity to Start a New Life
Music: Ana Carolina/ Confesso

Scene 1: Mother with an 18 year old girl at the 9/11 memorial name panel. We don't know who they are. Her hand is connected to 1 name. It's not her first visit. Routine, love and intensity. We can only see a first name: 'Vincent'. Music playing: Ana Carolina/ Confesso.

Scene 2: "Vincentio, will you please show our new guests their room?" asks a wife (in Spanish) to her husband. He small-talks to his guests in fluent English. Country: Venezuela. Husband: tanny, little belly, around 60 years old. Wife: classy, pretty, around 45 years old. The two of them run a little shabby chic hotel near the sea. A little child helps her mother (= Vincentio's wife).

Scene 3: 15 years later. A grandma (= mother in scene 1) with a mother (= child in scene 1) with two kids at the memorial. The two kids touch their grandpa's name. Grandma tells what happened at 9/11. "When your mum was 8 years old, remember?" Vincent (around 40 years old as a firemen) saved two people before he went for the second time into the building. He was never seen again. The only thing that was found of him was his helmet and his military dog tag. Pictures of the crashing buildings. "He was a hero who gave his life for saving others."

Scene 4: Vincentio's 75th birthday party in a restaurant (= same as in scene 2). Surrounded by his loved ones. Wandering thoughts of him. Pictures of the crashing building again. This time we can see Vincent with a man (broken leg) in the building's staircase. He lost his helmet and dog tag on his way out. Just before the building crashes they are out. Dust and debris everywhere. The two men in a little apartment nearby. Coughing. Sweating. Injured. Watching the first pictures on TV. Vincent: "Pfff that was a near escape." Man: "Sure, it was." Vincent: "I always wanted to have a hotel near the sea in Venezuela." Man: "Why didn't you?" Vincent: "My wife doesn't want to go to the criminal Latin-America. Bad environment for growing childeren."

Scene 5: Vincentio checking out Facebook and Twitter for his first family. Step by step he is getting more information: pictures, names and holiday pictures. Finding out that his first wife died 3 years ago.

Scene 6: A few months later. Wife 2 dies. Vincentio still lurking on his first family.

Scene 7: New York. Near Ground Zero. Vincentio checking out Twitter on his mobile phone for the latest tweets from his daughter (= 12 year old girl in scene 1 = mother in scene 3). (He learned via Facebook that she wanted to visit this day the 9/11 memorial.) We know that he wants to reveal the secret he carried with him for more than 25 years. Vincent is walking to his daughter. Before their eyes meet a little child drops her doll. He grabs it. While grabbing it, he suddenly realizes that he was too selfish by walking away on 9/11 from his first family. Revealing the truth is not necessarily 'love'. He is selfish for the second time. Truth is an overrated concept. He would really love her by keeping his mouth shut. Take his secret into his grave! His daughter sees Vincent in the tanned Vincentio. Instead of revealing his secret he tells (in broken English with a lot of Spanish words) that he is looking for the name of a friend on the memorial. We see Vincentio walking away. His daughter looks at him shaking her head. She tells her children that that old men reminds her of her daddy.

Scene 8: Zooming out on: Vincentio looking at the distance on a name; name of Vincent on the memorial panel; his daughter walking away with his grandchildren. Music of Ana Carolina/ Confesso again. "I confess (...) there are still surprises, but I always want more (...) I'm not the owner of the Truth (...) I will not steal your time, I have stolen too."

Still there? It's about you too

2011-09-07T22:20:00.001+02:00

"Work Expands so as to fill the Time Available for its completion." Still there? Just wait for a moment. It's about you too!

Why did you want to skip this Post? Is it boring to talk about 'to complete work'? You already know all you need to know about this subject? Really?

I'm a manager for more than 10 years. Time and again I hear "We Need More Capacity!" Sure. But having more slack resources, like more 'workforce capacity', is no guarantee that our company would finally have time for all the work that needs to be done. Why not? Because we as species 'homo sapiens' spend our time anyway. Our time for our tasks fills the time we have available. Regardless how much time there is. 8 hours, 24 hours, 40 hours or 80 hours a week.

Did you notice that this applies to:

Social media. 1 hour chatting, tweeting or listening to music a day? We can - effortlessly - spend 24 hours on the web talking to our online friends.
Lover. Just eating with the two of us. We can look into each other's eyes for weeks.
TV. Watching a movie, a soccer game and a whodunit story. Time flies.
Books. I could read for days at a row. How about you?
Glider club. I could spend every week, at least 2 days with my friends at the glider club. Talking about flying up there. And flying in the blue sky.

Why am I telling you all this? At work. At home. In our mind. It's not about having lack of time. It's about priorities and urgencies of the things we want to do. It's about making choices. And sticking to them.

One last thing. Ever noticed that the same can be said about money? Our expenditures rise to meet our income. Regardless how much we gain.

P.S. The laws above are not something I've made-up. It's the first and second law of C.N. Parkinson (1909-1993).

Ready for takeoff

2011-08-31T11:32:00.004+02:00

WOW with a big :))

Last Sunday I was - for the first time in two years - back in a glider. Just for a ride. How I loved to be back in the sky again.

The thrill of ...

Silence. Waiting in complete silence in the cockpit. Ready for take off
Tightening of the winch cable
Speed. More speed. Off the ground. "100 meter". "300 meter". "450 meter"
"Bang". Off the hook! "Bijprikken. Ontkoppelen. Kleppen. Snelheid."
Silence again. Blue sky above. Below ground in so many colours
Hand on the stick. In control of the aircraft

Friday I'll fly again. The weather forecast for thermals is good. Life is good :)

P.S. Never went for a ride in a glider? I don't know how to make you sensitive for my thrill. It's something like a roller coaster but better. So much better.

Blind Alley. Or Not?

2011-08-24T12:05:00.012+02:00

Paper-book. Last week I sorted out 500 paper books of my father-in-law. He died 7 years ago. Books on psychology and sociology. He was a teacher. I kept only 15 books. The rest will be thrown away. The sorting yielded a box of things that were hidden in the paper books: postcards, accounts, address changes, newspaper clippings, private letters, pieces of papers with notes (phone numbers, quotes, summaries, etc). In one afternoon, the life of T slipped through my hands. Forty years of reading and apparently non reading. A lot of books were - as far as I could tell - never read.

E-book. In a couple of months I collected around 1,500 e-books. Read only two of them on my iPad. I guess I'll never read most of them ever. Never.

Transition. I live in a transition period. I have a lot of paper books. Books with dog ears, newspaper clippings and notes. (No private letters stored in my books.) My kids will be able to let my - paper book - life slip through their fingers one day. Analyse which books apparently are read and which were not. Wondering why I made certain notes and stored exactly those newspaper clippings.

Blind alley. Wondering about my personal reading will only be possible of my paper books. My e-book life of reading will be hidden from them. Hardly any personal touch in an e-book.

Or not? Hardly any personal touch in an e-book? Unless someone invents 'Your Dog Ears. Digital Bookmarks with a Personal Touch: Note. Picture. Link'. Storage of 'All My Personal Digital Dog Ears' in a cloud? cDogEar? cBookmark?

This is when my buzzer goes

2011-07-27T11:14:00.006+02:00

Sometimes I dream that I'm awake. Sometimes I'm awake and dream. Sometimes I forget the source of what I think. Was it in my dreams? Was it during daytime? Or was it in the time in between? In between sleeping, dreaming and waking up in the morning ... vaguely remembering images and words.

A few days ago I thought for a few hours that in portuguese 'sonho' is the word for both 'dream' and 'cloud'. I was wondering how the connection was ever born. What a great image: a dream as a cloud! I had questions like:

When was this connection born? 12th century? Context?
Influence of Roman, Christian and Muslim worldview?
Is this image (partly) shifted since we are able to fly?

Stop! I checked out in a dictionary. The portuguese word for 'dream' is 'sonho'. And 'nuvem' for 'cloud'. I wasn't able to find (better: refind) any connection. In retrospect I must have dreamed it. Influenced by a song - which one?

Today another dream was shattered. Progress? Progress since species 'homo sapiens' went farming and settled? Progress since our Neolithic Revolution 10,000 years ago? Really? All the Hot, New, Cool and Wow Stuff of Today are Extensions. The car and airplane are an extension of legs. Phone of the ear. TV of the eye. The computer of the brain. A machine gun with dumdum bullets an extension of our ancestors sticks and stones. None of these extensions ever succeeded - to my knowledge - in changing human nature. People behave as ever (non-limited list): ambitious, in love, greedy and selfish.

This weekend a lonely New "Knight Templar" went on Crusade in Norway. Fighting against the multi-cultural society and Islam. I thought it was "real" in a bad dream. But when I woke up it was still there.

Dulce Maria Cardoso. Inventory of her Books

2011-07-22T17:49:00.008+02:00

Today I checked out portuguese writer Dulce Maria Cardoso (born 1964) on internet. Hardly anything interesting to find about or from her - accept her books. She did win in 2009 the European Union Prize for Liturature. There is a short wikipedia lemma on her in German.

She wrote 4 books:

'Campo de Sangue' (2002)

Translations: 'Coeurs arrachés' (french) and 'Campo de Sangre' (spanish). Translated in english too as 'Field of Blood'?
What's it about? It's a story about 4 woman who wait in a room together. They will testify about a man accused of murder. A man they all know personally.

'Os meus Sentimentos' (2005)

Translations: 'Les anges' (french) and 'Violeta en de engelen' (dutch)
What's it about? Car accident. Violeta is dying and thinking of her life in retrospect. Her life that changed because of Angola. The brutal quest for love by a fat girl. Review (@sharonhagenbeek's) on this book.

'Até Nós' (2008)

Translations: -
What's it about? "You, reader come with me on the side of the road. The light will reveal crimes and loves we know." Often without knowing that we know.

'O Chão dos Pardais' (2009)

Translation: -
In progress. Translation (by Harrie Lemmers) in dutch 'Keerzijde'. Book will be published around 15 September, 2011. Source
What's it about? Alfonso is a very powerful man. Unattainable. Except for getting older. Alfonso's familiy is a house in ruin. But everthing is perfect in celebration of sixty years of Alfonso.

I'm eager to read her book 'Keerzijde'. She said "I love just let time pass by". That's exactly how life feels for me. Just read a little. Write a little. Tweet a little. Look out the window a little. Watch a movie a little. Think of you a little … just let time pass by.

Two years blogging. Checkup

2011-07-20T16:18:00.012+02:00

It's All About You. Every wednesday I write a private letter to you. And when I talk about you - who else - I talk about me too.

This week I'll be blogging exactly two years. Every wednesday I write one letter - in a public blog - to you about what's puzzling me. A book. One sentence. A song. The clouds up in the sky. Saudade. Sharing a memory, good quote or poem. A picture. An image. Sometimes ancient images. Mostly in a historical context.

My blog is thoughtful and light. Above all it's sharing the love for living life. My life. Our lives. Down to Earth. With respect. Doing it my way. Against the flow of superficiality. I want you to puzzle, wonder, smile or cry. I want to walk, with the two of us, in our chinese garden. More

For today I did a checkup of my 'Live life! - wednesdayblog'. This is the score I have given myself:

Adaptations following checkup:

#2 and #3 Change title of blog to 'Wednesday. Letter to You'. It's more exact the focus or niche what I'm pointing at with my blog.
#8 Is it all about me? I'll ask you.
#18 Collaborating with other bloggers. I've to focus more on my blog community.
# 20 and #21 Skip this. I'll not focus on keyword-rich titles and search engine optimization. Not interested.

The first year was tough. My second year of blogging was easy. For me it's all about routine. Just sharing me with you for us once a week on wednesday. It's out of love :)

Question: What do You Think of the Useability of My Blog? Is it Useful, Interesting or Entertaining?

Limes

2011-07-13T17:27:00.002+02:00

Is it a coincidence that the titles of the House of Orange-Nassau fit almost perfectly to the Ancient Roman 'limes' in the Netherlands?

Read for 'title' the possessions the House of Orange-Nassau - Monarch of the Netherlands since 1815 - had hunderds of years ago. At this present day only it's titles remain. Hardly any physical possession is left for them.

Limes? It's the ancient border defense system of Ancient Rome. The Netherlands was, between 83 and 260 AD, devided in a part that was inside and outside the Limes Germanicus. Beyond the border (latin 'limes) lived the others, the enemy.

Around 400 AD the Romans left the Netherlands. And what was left? Castella! Places where civilians and soldiers protected themselves against the "enemy". Somehow the "most important" (?) castella must have come into possession of the House of Orange-Nassau. Somehow. Step by step.

Source. Picture (left): B. Colenbrander, 'Limes Atlas' (2005) p.83. Picture (right): U. Buys, 'Enz. enz. enz.', p.8-9.

From a Distance

2011-07-06T11:48:00.001+02:00

It's a mysterious song. Don't you think so too? Music: 'Brian Eno - By This River'. Play it loud!

Here we are

Stuck by this river,

You and I

Underneath a sky that's ever falling down, down, down

Ever falling down.

Through the day

As if on an ocean

Waiting here,

Always failing to remember why we came, came, came:

I wonder why we came.

You talk to me

as if from a distance

And I reply

With impressions chosen from another time, time, time,

From another time.

Is it sad music? What's it about? Why did [we] came: breakfast, see the sun going down, commit suicide or ...?

At first sight it's lyrics seem not in sync with the music. They are! According to me this song is about [Me] who becomes One with the Universe. Moment of Eternal Now. For a few seconds - that seem to last forever - Everything is Quiet and One. [You] are distant and not part of what I Feel Now. It's a moment of Enlightenment frozen, stuck or hidden in a song.

More on This from me: Aswan, Aerial, THAT, Ordinary fieldstones or Cooling down.

To skip

2011-06-29T16:57:00.000+02:00

I'll skip this blogpost. Today I don't feel like writing and posting.

More exact: I don't want to talk about it.
More honest: I don't want to talk about it in public.

Listen with me to this song: Maria Mena/ Just Hold Me. Why?

You!

2011-06-22T11:45:00.015+02:00

Yes, You! We Need You.

You probably never heard of Richard Hennig (?-1951). Or have you? I don't blame you for that. He wrote in German the four-volume book 'Terrae Incognitae' between 1930-1935. And updated it until his death in 1951. It's a very interesting, unique compilation and critical asessment of the main expeditions before Columbus' (1451-1506) using the original reports. He starts with Queen Hatschepsut's expedition to Punt around 1493 BC and ending with Cousin's expedition to the New World in 1488.

The original reports of 199 expeditions translated directly in German. WOW. Including a critical analysis of the reports and links to names, places, archeological evidence etc. Hennig's exhaustive work has - as far as I know - never been repeated by anyone. Nor in German nor in any other language.

I have a dream. We - species 'homo sapiens' on planet Earth - need someone who refreshes Hennig's work. Are you able to do the job? Do you want to spend your money to let someone else do this job? Fund?

To do:

Collecting original reports of all "main" expeditions before 1492. Did Hennig miss main expeditions?
Translation of reports in English
Asessment of reports. Including pick out relevant archeological, historical etc evidence
Summary
Publishing on internet and linked to Wikipedia

The wisdom of the crowd is OK but on this we need an editor. You?

Footnote. On internet and Wikipedia there are lists of Expeditions (English) and Entdeckungsreise (German) but these are not deep enough. They don't give access to the original texts.

Owl. Biased Greek Symbolic Use for Sure

2011-06-15T14:35:00.011+02:00

Yesterday evening I tried to translate Jane Friedman's bookcover. I noticed she used valid - all of them - hieroglyphs the ancient Egyptians used more than 2,000 years ago.

I wrote a little e-mail to Jane asking what the 'enigma' was behind her bookcover. I was not able to translate the transliterated hieroglyphs, 'b-p-w n-w f-i-rw n-rw wA-y-s' with the owl as determinative, in plain english. Within a few minutes she wrote back, explaining that I gave her far too much credit in the carefulness or accuracy of her selections of hieroglyphic symbols. And yes there is a message in the bookcover: lower the bar and decode it direct! A message that only makes sense to 1 other person on the planet.

Today I don't want to blog about her secret message to her Other One - her love? Today I want to share with you the hidden history behind the (ab)use of the 'owl' as symbol.

In our time and age, in our Greek biased culture, the owl is the symbol of wisdom. For the ancient Romans the owl was connected to funerals. And for the ancient Egyptians? We don't know for sure what the story is behind hieroglyph Gardiner G17. For them the owl was perhaps an ill omen, which it was desirable to behead when caught. It is remarkable that when mummified owls have been examined all have been beheaded. (Sources: 1, 2 and 3)

I didn't ask Jane but I know for sure the symbolic 'owl' she used on her bookcover was a symbol for 'wisdom'. Biased Greek Symbolic Use for Sure.

Empty Mind in Early Morning

2011-06-08T20:37:00.003+02:00

Poem 'Een merel' (dutch) from Rutger Kopland (born 1934):

"Er is iets in de zang van een merel

het is voorjaar, je wordt wakker

je ligt te denken in de nacht

het raam staat open - er is iets

waarvan de vogel zingt

en je denkt aan wat je moet opgeven

er is iets in je dat leeg is en het stroomt vol

met het zingen van die merel"

The poem above in 1 tweet "The mind is empty in the early morning. The singing of a blackbird fills everything in and around me up."

You can't read dutch - to check out the details? Work! It's one of my chinese gardens ;)

Next Big Thing

2011-06-01T16:48:00.002+02:00

Skip the mobile phone. Remember the days that the phone was stuck by a thread? Forget the iPad. Take a huge step over tablets. Tablets in cars or airplanes. So 2014!

The Next Big Thing isn't something mobile we carry externally. The Next Big Thing will not be displayed on glasses or on the window of our car. The Next Big Thing is close. Real close on/ in us species 'homo sapiens'. The Next Big Thing is a head-up display on our corneal. Beware this is an image!

Our iCorneal is a scanning laser that displays images, video, translated media and lots of extra information on our personal clear transparent medium. On our corneal.

Composition

2011-06-01T12:24:00.005+02:00

Summer is coming. Time to think and dream about 'Where To Go To' this year's summer.

I loved to stroll in the streets of Obidos (Portugal). The walk on Offa's Dyke in Wales (United Kingdom) was satisfying more. I met God in the church of Czestochowa (Poland) more. My favorite place for skiing is Voralberg in Austria more. The view from the mont Ventoux (France) was breathtaking. I long for the colours and smell I saw on the coast of Alicante (Spain). One day I'd love to have a little hotel somewhere along the mediterranean sea in Egypt. I could live in Germany. I'm very content with my old house and little village (The Netherlands) I live in. But ... - take a breath!

there is only one place on this Earth I immediatly felt at home: Lake Annecy (France). To be more exact: it was home. It felt natural and familiar. The views. The course of the streets. The composition of the mountains and water everywhere. I know it sounds stupid and crazy but I must have been there before.

We travelled via Verdun and the Jura to Menthon-Saint-Bernard on the edge of Lac D'Annecy (english 'Lake Annecy'). It was a bit windy. The air was full of rain - but it wasn't raining. When I drove into the valley I knew where to drive to. I knew what the next view would be. I just knew ...

Question: Ever been to a place you must have been to - somehow - before? How?

Food for thought

2011-05-25T11:38:00.003+02:00

Mafia and food. What is their fascination with food? I have seen so many pictures of mafia bosses and soldiers eating their food with so much concentration and purity. Coincidence?

Questions:

They just love food - like everyone else?
Moment they are not at work?
Russian roulette? Risky - the food could be poisoned?
Childhood memories? Remembers them of the days - before they entered the mafia - they were at home not being afraid they could be murdered any moment?
Something to do with 'blut und boden'? They do their business always on a certain territory (italian 'mandamento'). They love home made products, more than Others, just because they fight with their lives - day in and day out - for the territory/ ground/ 'boden'/ homeground they feel entiteled to?
... or?

Will You Go?

2011-05-18T11:42:00.011+02:00

13 days left! Only 13 days left for visiting @VonderandBloom's 'Around the World in 80 Days Tour' at Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam). I would love to go and see those two girls playing their lovely music: Brilliance of You and Little Dreamer.

Would love to but I think I never will. For me there's no need to visit Schiphol this year. Next to that there is no urgency for me right now.

'What to do next?' must be one of the most puzzling questions of our time and age. Work. Kids. Partner. Book. Film. Concert. Meditation. Hobbies. So much to do. So much distraction. And still only 24 hours in a day.

Question: 'Visit VonderandBloom at Schiphol somewhere in the next 2 weeks?' What to do according to Epicurus (341-270 BC) and Stephen Covey (1932-)?

Epicurus: Satisfy Your Natural Needs

According to Epicurus we should strive for natural needs. When these needs are satisfied we should stop striving. Is visiting VonderandBloom a natural need? Is friendship, listening to music a natural need? I can't tell. Can you?

Covey: Put First Things First

Our tasks should be based on importance rather than urgency according to Covey. Evaluate whether your efforts exemplify your desired character values, propel you towards goals and enrich the various roles and relationships of you. Prioritization is the key to the success of any business or in any walk of life. Is visiting VonderandBloom important? If I visit them recreational with my wife or a friend I would build on a relation (Q2). Or is it just trivia or pleasure (Q4)? It's all up to me. It's all up to you. Isn't it? Isn't it always?

Sources. Epicurus: natural needs. Covey: first things first and time matrix.

He was an outsider

2011-05-11T14:47:00.012+02:00

A couple of weeks after I wrote my blog 'River crossing' I wrote an e-mail to professor Fik Meijer (University of Amsterdam). I asked him "Why did Julius Caesar cross the Rubicon and wanted to stay at the top in old Rome and was not satisfied that his consulship finally ended?" He wrote that there is not an easy (in dutch "niet zo maar") answer on this question. He pointed me at the biographies on Caesar of Luciano Canfora and Christian Meier.

Best biography on Caesar (100-44 BC)

Last week I finished reading Christian Meier's 'Ceasar. A biography' (1982). Bookjacket "Of the maybe half a dozen books on Ceasar that are worth reading, Meier's is the best."

Points of interest in Meier's biography on Julius Caesar:

Caesar's world was dominated by two principles: care (latin 'cura') and competition. This accorded with his thinking in term of honour (latin 'dignitas') and fame. (p. 449)
In Caesar's eyes no one existed but himself and his opponents. It was all an interpersonal game. He classified people as supporters, opponents or neutrals. (p. 359)
Compared to his aristocratic senatorial peers Caesar was an outsider and alien. (p. 358)
In Caesar's time the old institutions, designed for a city state, had been "overstretched", as Rome now ruled over a world-wide empire. In a way the Senate didn't recognise that their institutions were out of date and had to be transformed. The ancient thinking about social structures was static. (p. 12, 50, 195, 357, 361, 479, 483 and 491)
For Caesar the senators were mainly Sullans: the heirs of the winning party of the civil war. Not representatives of the whole commonwealth. He could only see them as selfish instruments of the interplay of forces. Caesar had no feeling for the power of institutions to guarantee law and security. (p. 358-9, 449)
Civil war, by crossing the Rubicon:

Caesar was not in principle opposed to the Roman order. He acted against it because he put his own interests above the rules of Rome. (p. 219)
He wanted to free the Roman people, Senate from the small clique of Sullans. (p. 358-360 and 364)
Must be an "expression of the greatness" of Caesar's personality. Throughout his career he displayed an extraordinary ability and strength of mind, staying power and steadfastness. (p. 362 and 483)
Plea for his personal right, for the honour he was owed on the basis on his achievements. It was Caesar's claim for honour against the defence of the Republic.

After he won the civil war Caesar was not able to remove from the scene because he had not eliminated his opponents. He had to defend himself and consolidate his position. (p. 431)

Crossing Rubicon? Personal honour more important than Republic

The career of Caesar can't be understood without Sulla (138 BC - 78 BC). Sulla was the first Roman general who crossed the Rubicon for a march (91 and 87 BC) on Rome with his army. After his victory Sulla eliminated his opponents. Caesar belonged to the circle of Sulla's victims but relatives obtained a pardon for him. It made him an outsider.

Caesar crossed on his turn the Rubicon (49 BC) after the Senate refused him the honours he owed after he conquered Gaul. For him the Senate was a biased set or clique of opponents who refused to him the honours he felt entitled to. His personal honour (latin 'dignitas) was more important than the Republic. The Republic was low on his list of priorities.

Old Rome's static social structures

I read this biography because I want(ed) to understand why Caesar was so selfish. In a way I want to understand why our democracy is or should be worth fighting for.

The ancient roman world is strange to us. It's a world of Others. For Rome the social structures were static. And they didn't notice that themselves. And for us? We know that we have to adapt. We know that we have to fit social structures and conditions if it's urgent. We know - don't we?

You and I

2011-05-09T08:36:00.000+02:00

It's the nothing special, routine things that string the days. And build relations. Small and ordinary things, words, looks, smells and touches. Sharing a thought. Silence. Tell why you are frustrated. Sing a song. Walking hand in hands. Exchange a few little kisses. Look via the shopwindow at you. Buy something sweet. Give a compliment. Sipping coffee from the same cup as you.

So what

2011-04-27T10:43:00.002+02:00

Romantic? You too?

I know I'm too romantic on this but I would have loved to live in the stone-age. Yesterday I visited with my kids this museum: http://www.historisch-openluchtmuseum-eindhoven.nl/. The kids loved the milling of grain. I was impressed by the smell of woodfire and ingenuity of timber joints.

It must have been a though time. Simple. Though! Minimal energy consumption and a modest attitude to nature. Our species not in the center of creation. A difference but no gap between our species and the other animals.

Virgil (70-19 BC) 'The Eclogues' (Eclogues 1):

"Yet here, this night, you might repose with me,

On green leaves pillowed: apples ripe have I,

Soft chestnuts, and of curdled milk enow.

And, see, the farm-roof chimneys smoke afar,

And from the hills the shadows lengthening fall!"

I know I'm a dreamer. So what?

P.S. Picture is an impression of the Vlaardingencultuur 3500-2500 BC

Blip Nation Interview. Meet JeanD99

2011-04-20T16:52:00.008+02:00

Me being interviewed by Pete Dulin for Blip Nation.

http://blip.fm/JeanD99

Blipper since: August 11, 2009

Pete Dulin: What part of the world do you live in?
JeanD99: The Netherlands

Dulin: What artist or band would you most like to have dinner with? What's the first thing you'd ask?

JeanD99; Kate Bush. I would love to have dinner with Kate Bush. Look at her the way she drinks, talks and laughs. Look in her eyes. My first serious question would be "Is Your CD 'Aerial' an Invitation to be Nondualistic? Are You a Mystic?" More: http://jeand99.blogspot.com/2009/07/kate-bush-mystic-on-aerial-inventation.html

Dulin: Do you remember the first music you ever purchased? What was it? Format (record, tape, CD, mp3)? Why did you buy it?

JeanD99: Record by Creedence Clearwater Revival/ Creedence Gold. I guess because I heard them on the radio back then.

Dulin: What music knowledge would you like to pass on to your children?

JeanD99: Just follow your heart. Open your ears. Keep your wonderment. Try every now and then to listen to music you're not attracted to directly. In others words: stay away from the button [Next] or [ New].

Dulin: What song reminds you of being in love? Of being heartbroken?

JeanD99:

The Style Council/ You're The Best Thing

Kate Bush/ Feel It

Maria Mena/ Just Hold Me

Ana Carolina/ Mais Que Isso

Cristina Branco/ A Uma Princesa Distante

Adele/ Chasing Pavements

Dulin: Tell us about something you lost that was important to you. What would you give to have it back?

JeanD99: What I lost is something that can't be given back to me. For a long time music was just music for me. Nothing to do with politics and history. At the end of the '80 I realized in Jeruzalem that music is always connected to history. Music is never 'Just music'. More: http://jeand99.blogspot.com/2010/07/music-and-burden-of-history.html

Dulin: If you could blip one song that could reach everyone on the planet, what would you choose?

JeanD99: Ana Carolina/ Confesso. This song is so painfully honest and true. It remembers us that we all have our doubts and insecurities, tears and fears. It's about gaining love or may be losing it.

Dulin: If you could direct a video for an artist, who would it be? For what song? What style/type of video would it be conceptually?
JeanD99: Direct a video for Bruna Caram/ Cuide-se Bem. Bruna as a Teenager traveling around the world and every time (nearly) escaping from the dangers of life. Movie in black. Only Bruna in colour.

Dulin: If you lived apart from your family for a year in another country with no visits allowed, then what would you like to receive from them in a care package each month?

JeanD99: Books. A couple of books.

Dulin: If you were on a world tour as a Blip.FM DJ and ambassador, what three countries or cities would you visit first? What DJs would you like to meet?

JeanD99: @sedefic and @34SEB in Turkey

@accdias @abarbosa @danniaranda @Caco and @anjim in Brasil

@adelou in Guatemala

Dulin: Imagine you are on a reality show where you must sing karaoke to an audience of friends and family. The prize is $1 million (US) that you can keep or donate to charity. What song would you sing?
JeanD99: Beatles/ Norwegian Wood

Dulin: If you could blip a song now, as if it were from the future, and it would be sent to yourself when you were a kid, then what song would you blip?

JeanD99: Sade/ Nothing Can Come Between Us. I discovered Sade last year. I knew a couple of her songs but in a way I missed her as a person and musician in the past. She is fantastic!

Dulin: Pick one song that encapsulates your personality, and explain why.

JeanD99: Kate Bush/ Symphony in Blue. It connects me as individual 'homo sapiens' with the rest of our species.
Lyrics (quote)

"I see myself suddenly
On the piano, as a melody.
My terrible fear of dying
No longer plays with me,
for now I know that I'm needed
For the symphony."

Dulin: What artists/releases are you excited about for 2011?
JeanD99: I'm excited about the Director's Cut of old Kate Bush songs. Release in 2011?

Dulin: Think of another Blip.FM DJ. You don’t have to reveal who it is. What question would you most like to ask him or her?
JeanD99: Strange. I always ask to other BlipFM DJ what I want to ask. I've no secrets or hidden questions.

Dulin: What artists and/or songs would you want to hear on the soundtrack of your life?
JeanD99: 20 years ago I made a tape for my future funeral. Last year I had it in my hands again. It was so outdated. What I am trying to say is this: ask me again a couple of weeks before I die. It's a list that keeps on changing. Right now I want to "hear" only one song:

Spinvis/ Voor ik Vergeet. It's a song in Dutch about things "he" doesn't want to forget right now. Before it's definitively forgotten.

Dulin: What influences your blip picks? Mood, nostalgia, new artist/song, social interaction, or other factors?
JeanD99: Biggest influence is Mood. Things I hear on radio while driving to and from work. Things I read in tweets, books and papers. Music I hear on BlipFM, YouTube and Aweditorium. I don't care if the music is old or new, or hot or not.
I love to listen to music my friends like. Stick to maximum 40-60 'Favorite DJs'. I like a quiet timeline and check their music out every now and then. I would not be able to listen and talk to them if I have more favorite DJs.

Dulin: What prompted you to join Blip.fm?
JeanD99: Via Twitter I joined BlipFM. I wanted to hear music I would not listen to otherwise. I wanted to meet people from other countries. Via BlipFM I discovered 'Música Popular Brasileira' (MPB). It opened a new world for me. So many beautiful artists and songs. I like easy listening music. Mellow. Lounge. A good voice with a piano or a guitar is enough for me. Keep it simple.

Dulin: Any other thoughts to share?
JeanD99: I still buy CD's. I know I shouldn't have to but I like albums of artists as a total concept. An album is more than collection of 10-15 songs. I like to check out the lyrics, pictures and drawings of CD-booklets. Puzzling and wondering. And listening. Checking out what the music does to me.

List 'How To Treat Sour?' First draft

2011-04-15T11:05:00.000+02:00

Lists. All of us are surrounded by lists. Or is it me? Public lists. Lists in our mind. List of dreams. List of fears. List of items that are important today. Other peoples lists. Lists of lists. A list where I wrote down "check out the name of the science that has 'lists' a it's subject".

The sweet in life is never a constraint. Or is it? Ever read Goldratt's 'Theory of constraints'? This morning I was thinking about the 'ways' (remember it's an image) we can treat the sour parts in our life. My list - first draft:

Deny it

Grow up! Treat it like stuff of kids
Change point of view. It's not sour, it's sweet too
Pick another image. It's not a constraint, it's a gift/ love/ challenge/ transition

Face it

After rain there will be sunshine. After sunshine rain
Everything passes

Ignore it

Don't talk about it
Get distracted when it pops up

Share it. Communicate about it with others

Online in a public blog
Face-to-face with other(s)

Talk about it with yourselves in a private diary
Chew and ruminate/ puzzle on it
... - to be continued

Wikipedia I Love You

2011-04-13T16:46:00.007+02:00

Or not? Wikipedia is the real revolution in our time and age. What do you think?

A few days ago I finished reading @JaneFriedman' 'The Future Of Publishing: Enigma Variations'. It's an ebook that made me smile. Lovely to read. I became quickly aware that I'm very, very fond of Wikipedia. According to me it's the real revolution of our digital era.

Revolutions connected to books:

3,000 BC species 'homo sapiens' learned writing [source]
800 BC Homer wrote down the stories of an oral tradition in a book [source]
15th century more efficient book printing [source]
present time digital revolution [source]

I learned nothing new in Jane's book. (Although she gave me views on things I hadn't thought of before.) Not because I know everything ;) but because it seems a natural thing to me that the publishing business is changing. The power of writers, readers, publishers and critics is being shaken up. Remember this. Jobs come and go. When we look back in history we find out that jobs are like a river. The exact definition on what to do (and don't) is never the same. Never! Water floats and floats. The #farmer of today is not the same as the farmer 50, 100, 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 years ago.

Books made it possible for us to transcend our oral tradition. It was a prerequisite for science. It made us smarter. Much smarter. It gave us doctors who can cure patients. It gave us TV and social media. It connected everyone of us on planet Earth 24/7. It made it possible that you can read these lines now.

What will the digital revolution bring us? Are we able to "see" that now?

What I see now is this: books made it possible to remember what was said in the oral tradition. It made it possible to chew and ruminate on ideas and assumptions. It made us smarter. To be more exact: it made some of us smarter. Those who had access to books.

The digital revolution will bring all our books online. It will bring all our information and knowledge online. Condensed in Wikipedia. The scholar of today is not a male who ruminated everything on a given subject. Today all of us are scholars. Partly scholars. Most of the time taking information. Only sometimes adding information on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia makes all of us smarter. Much smarter. To be more exact: it makes all of us smarter who have access to Wikipedia. I don't trust in GAAd. I trust on Wikipedia.

P.S. Real book reviews on Jane's book: eCapris and Christina Katz

Lost world: land as fuel and it's house as engine

2011-04-07T08:31:00.002+02:00

Land. Country houses. Land as fuel and it's house as engine. This world is gone. Better: this world is gone in Western Europe.

I'm fascinated by country houses. I love to look at them. Just like I love to look at an old woman. The grey hair. Mysterious eyes. Wrinkles. Guess how she looked like in her twenties. Curious for her tears, fears, good and bad days, her personal history and her memories. Wondering what secrets she has and never will share with anyone. more

Quote - Mark Girouard, Life in the English country house (1978) p. 2-3:

"For many centuries the ownership of land was not just the main but the only sure basis of power. (...) From the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century anyone who had made money by any means, and was ambitious for himself and his family, automatically invested in a country estate.

Land, however, was little use without one or more houses on it. Land provided the fuel, a country house was the engine which made it effective. It archived this in a number of ways. It was the headquarters from which land was administered and power organized. It was a show-case, in which to exhibit and entertain supporters and good connections. In early days it contained a potential fighting force. It was an image-maker, which provided an aura of glamour, mystery or success around it's owner. It was visible evidence of his wealth. It showed his credentials - even if the credentials were sometimes faked. Trophies in the hall, coats of arms over the chimney-pieces, books in the library and temples in the park could suggest that he was discriminating, intelligent, bred to rule and brave."

These days country houses are the private seats of rich and famous people. No longer an engine. A place where families live their private life behind walls. Not open to the world and radiating it's power but show the world it's back.

P.s. My blog 'History of castles. Development in 4 pictures'.
P.s.s. Picture is from Belton House.

Dutch Street Art. Pics

2011-03-30T10:03:00.003+02:00

Do you enjoy life as much as I do - life in all it's tiny little details? Messy. Coincidence. Freeriders. Dreaming. Sweet & Sour. Sun.

Dutch street art. My 4 favorites:

Lawrence of Arabia on Wikileaks

2011-03-23T19:37:00.010+01:00

Ned - for friends - is dead but what would his opinion have been of the #arabspring that started in Tunisia a few months ago? Did you check out "Lawrence of Arabia" or "T.E. Lawrence" on Secret US Embassy Wikileaks cables? I did. Output: no hits. No surprise of course because Lawrence died in 1935 after an accident with his motorcycle.

Historical flashback 1916-1922
Lawrence fought (1916-1918) with Arab irregular troops, in extended guerrilla operations, against the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire. The United Kingdom had agreed with Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca that if the Arabs revolted successfully against the Ottomans, the United Kingdom would support claims for an independent Arab state. A few weeks later, however, the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, between the United Kingdom and France, determined that parts of the Arabian Peninsula would be divided between them. When the Ottoman Empire surrendered in 1918, the United Kingdom refused to keep to the letter of it's agreements with Hussein.

This was Lawrence's dream of an independent Arabia:

During the closing years of the war Lawrence sought, with mixed success, to convince his superiors in the British government that Arab independence was in their interests. The secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between France and Britain contradicted the promises of independence he had made to the Arabs and frustrated his work. That was the realpolitik of those days.

Lawrence on Arab Spring

The revolutions that have broken out in the #arabspring in 2010-2011 suggest a resurgence of Pan-Arabism in the region, one not based on anti-colonialism and the suppression of political dissent, but galvanized by a common thirst for democratic freedoms. What would Lawrence have thought of the #arabspring? My interpretation - 1st draft:

Arab state. Lawrence was disappointed when Hussein did not get his promised independent Arabia. He must have been happy when, more than 40 years later, their dream came true in a couple of independent Arab states. Finally self-determination. The borders must have worried him because they were drawn along the Sykes-Picot lines and not along tribal patterns and commercial routes. (1 and 2)
Self-determination tribes. Democracy for Arabs? It must have been a contradicion to him. Their nation would always be the tribe, the tribe and the tribe. First tribe. Fourth democracy. (3)
Noble Arab. He saw the Arabs through the romantic images he had learned as a youth: Bedu, Ashraf and the self-sufficient peasants of the Euphrates were the 'noble' Arabs. He disliked the Arabs who lived in cities. At the same time he knew the rules Bedu lived by were only an ideal. (4)
Noble democrat. At the end of his life he wrote this: "I am human. There ain't no such supercreatures as you would fain see. Or if there are I haven't met one [yet]." (5) He accepted finally - something he fought with his entire life - that he was not perfect. Nor did he expect this of his Arab tribesman. In fact his Arabs were chauvinistic, xenophobic and fanatically anti-Christian. (6)
King. For him it must have been a natural state that stronger men rule over others. He accepted the bad sides of Kings, Sherifs, Emirs etc in regard to their fatherhood over their tribes. Lawrence regarded the Arabs not as his equals but with an autocratic paternal benevolence. (7)
Dictator. Would he have liked Ben Ali (Tunisia), Mubarak (Egypt), Kaddafi (Libya), al-Assad (Syria) or King Abdullah (Saudi Arabia)? He would have accepted them as long as they were fair to their people. (8) In the Arabs - young and old - of today, who fight for their own share of a respectable life, he would have recognised the noble Arab of 1916. Partly romantic. Partly realpolitik. Arab democracy ... he would have loved to see how these buttons would flourish.

Lawrence on Wikileaks? No way. He was the right men on the right place: Middle-East 1916-1918. A day fly. The way Lawrence manipulated between the British and Arabs, for what he saw as the Right Cause, would not be possible today. Cable. Telephone. Social media. He would have been 1 voice in a cacophony of information.

Notes. (1) "He was among the first influential Englishmen to reject imperialism: a rejection that finally achieved its objective when the "wind of change" blew through British policy in the 1960s." source. (2) "Lawrence percieved the East through a set of highly romanticized - and therefore ethnocentric - ideas. His idea of 'self-determination' was in reality determination by certain traditional and reactionary elements who represented his own romantic idea of what the East should be like: not the 'wil of the people', but the superimposition of a romantic structure of his own." M. Asher/ Lawrence (1998), p 204-1. (3) Asher, p. 207. (4) Asher, p. 176 and 349. (5) Asher, p. 378. (6) Asher, p. 187. (7) Asher, p. 85. (8) Lawrence 1920: "How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of a form of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?"

Not purification. It's cooling down, stupid ;)

2011-03-16T15:49:00.012+01:00

Earthquakes. Tsunamis. War. Where do they come from? What caused them? It must be one of the most ancient questions. Punishment of God? A stitch of the Devil? Allah's sign to those who are not servile to his laws? Notice End of Time? Or ...? What do you think?

Last week @The_LoveGoddess tweeted this:

"The heart is the core of the earth. When the earth is shaken everything is pulled back to this core. This is gravity.... This is LOVE."
"My first attempt to do a video message. In Light of March 10, 2011 World Events YouTube #TSUNAMI #EARTHQUAKE Love and light - J"

Juno (The_LoveGoddess) claims in her youtube-message that #earthquake and #tsunami in #japan are part of God's divine plan. It's the "purification" of mother Earth/ Nature. We don't have to worry or cry. It's Love.

The image of "purification" puzzles me. Next to that it puzzles me that a mystic like Juno shares with great passion her claim. Absolutely convinced that her truth is True.

First some facts. The world according to me:

God or gods are psychological projection of species 'homo sapiens'. Names of JWH, God and Allah are not given to humanity by Him via a holy book but are given by human messengers to Him. Given to Him. Not the other way around. more
Religion has been invented by species ‘homo sapiens’. In a way human beings need some external “being” to give their lives direction and meaning. more
Our life is sweet and sour. These days it seems we don't want to see our sour emotions anymore. We deny them. Translating 'sour' by purification is a denial. more
Enlightenment. It happened to me three times. What? THAT what Plotinus calls: lifted out of the body into myself and beholding marvellous beauty, becoming One with the Universe. more

Keep the details above in mind when you read my letter to Juno.

Dear Juno,

Nuts? I don't think you are nuts by claiming that the earthquakes and the tsunami in Japan (March 2011) are "purification". At the same time I think you are wrong. The metaphor or image is wrong. Any idea how influential images are? more
When I read in between your tweets I know that you had your moment(s) of enlightenment. You feel the need to share your message or connection with "God" to the world. You are a mystic! You want to share your love.
According to me there is no such thing as God. Nor Devil. Nobody is testing, punishing or rewarding planet Earth with everyone and everything on it. No one is pulling strings. Nothing is cleaning or purifying planet Earth.

Species 'homo sapiens' lives on planet Earth. A planet with a crust that occupies less than 1% of Earth's volume. Do we live on solid ground? Hardly! Earthquakes come and go. Planet Earth is cooling down. Image 'cooling down'.
People built houses on steady ground. Mostly rocks. For generations it's a save spot. Everyone in Japan knows they are living on a fault line. It's dangerous. The risks are acceptable. If not they would have moved to another place a long time ago. It's sour when relatives drown in a tsunami and your house and the rest of the village is wiped out.

Why am I writing this letter to you? It's a letter from a friend. (Always beware of your friends!) The presentday sour in Japan is not God's, Planet Earth's or Mother Nature's purification. It's the cooling down of planet Earth. Don't deny the sour. Don't confound love with bad luck or misfortune. It's cooling down, stupid ;)

Best regards,
@JeanD99

Another night at a hotelroom

2011-03-14T15:54:00.001+01:00

Quietness. Clarity. That's what I like about hotelrooms. Everything you really need in one place: bed, TV, WC, bathroom, table and chair. Back to basics.

It reminds me of our 'ungeheure Warensamlung'. My house is filled with so many things I do not really need. But I bought them anyway. Why?

Next to that it reminds my of you. In life we don't need so many things. Only a handful.

Feestje?

2011-03-09T16:54:00.000+01:00

Herkent u dit?

"Mijn baas heeft ook dit niet geregeld."
"De processen kloppen niet."
"Als de bodem van deze appeltaart net wat harder was geweest zou i perfect zijn."
"Als de politici gewoon eens naar het volk zouden luisteren zou het veel beter gaan."

Indien u dit herkent - en kunt lezen - bent u naar alle waarschijnlijkheid een azijnzeiker uit De Lage Landen (letterlijke vertaling van 'The Netherlands'). Wat? Wij nederlanders schijnen een "culturele afwijking" te hebben dat wij het "altijd" hebben over de dingen die niet geregeld zijn. Wij hebben het altijd over de laatste 5%. En nooit over de 95% van dingen of zaken die wel geregeld zijn. Geen feestjes over onze 95%. Wel zeiken over de ander zijn 5%. Geen feestjes wel zeuren.

Waar komt deze typische nederlandse eigenschap vandaan? Zou het mogelijk zijn dat dit onze tweede natuur geworden is sinds wij vanaf jaar 1000 begonnen zijn met het bouwen van dijken? Jaar in jaar uit. Samen bescherming zoeken achter zelfopgeworpen dijken. Bij dijken gaat het over 100% veilige dijken. Een dijk die voor 95% goed is levert geen droge voeten op. Die breken door. Het water komt er overheen.

Het rare is dat Nederland bij 'Hoe gelukkig zijn wij'-testen steevast bovenin eindigt. Wij voelen ons "goed" gelukkig. Maar bij ons commentaar op de dagelijkse gang van zaken is daar weinig over terug te vinden. Gescheiden werelden? Zijn we schichofreen?

Wat denk jij? Is het geen tijd voor een #feestje om ons te ontworstelen aan onze dijktik? Wat zou volgens jou de slogan moeten zijn van dit feestje?

Moments Like These

2011-03-02T14:02:00.002+01:00

It's not the moment that a subject pops up. It's not the comments. It's not the RT's. It's not the compliments. It's the writing of these sentences in a blog that makes me happy.

To be more exact. The very moment that I realize that I wrote down another memory, dream or opinion makes me happiest. Most of the time this happiness glows in me for a few seconds. Sometimes for a few hours.

Today and tomorrow this blog feels like mine. In a few weeks from now I'll recognize the words I wrote before. But in a way it's no longer mine. It could have been written by anyone.

Question: Does this ring a bell?

How to Satisfy a Man Every Time?

2011-03-02T11:02:00.002+01:00

How to Satisfy a Woman Every Time?
Caress her, give her compliments, hug her, charm her, let her enjoy, massaging her, fix things, empathize, sing for her, give her support and food, calm her, raise expectations, allow her to have her way, flatter her, encourage, cheer her up, hug, ignore fat pads, excite, give her rest, be protective, call her up, anticipate, be forgiving, give her jewels, entertain her, carry things for her, be polite, fascinate her, give attention, confidence, defence, clothing, brag about her, treat her as a princess, agree with her, pamper her, embrace her, die for her, dream of her, flirt, agree with her, squeeze her gently, please her, make her your idol, adore her.

How to Satisfy a Man Every Time? Do you really want to know? Yes!

Life in progress. List 23th February 2011 10.58h

2011-02-23T11:00:00.003+01:00

My to do list. My public to do list concerning Twitter and Blogging (disordered):

What would T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) have thought of Mubarak and Egypt of today? What's my opinion on @dirkdot answer?
Check out writer Dulce Maria Cardoso. I want to read one of her books because she said “I love just let time pass by”.
Read poems of one of my friends.
Read e-book 'THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life'.
Finish reading C. Meier's 'Ceasar. A biography' (1982). Bookjacket "Of the maybe half a dozen books on Ceasar that are worth reading, Meier's is the best."
Update @Brunacaram page on Wikipedia. I found out that she never reached the Brazilian charts.
Write a blog on "lists".
Read my first book in Spanish.

Question: What's your list?

Focus

2011-02-23T10:17:00.002+01:00

It feels strange. Yesterday I ran into my first Facebook-suicide. He - I'm not telling you - shut down his account because he spend "too much time on social media". He had to "focus" on other "more profitable" activities.

So be it.

What's my opinion on all this? Don't really know. I guess something like the real-world suicide: it's your life and your choice. Live your life or step out! At the same time I feel so well balanced. Social media for me is so much easier when I stick to my concept 'maximum of 40-60 friends' on Twitter, Facebook and BlipFM. It keeps my timelines at ease. We can't be in control of all the tweets, newsitems and music on planet Earth. I'm in control because I'm out of control. Let it float.

P.s. I wrote a couple of times on this subject before. Read this: 'Virtual friends. The distance is so much bigger but the format is the same'.

My wrist bracelet. The old one.

2011-02-16T15:02:00.002+01:00

Brown eyes. Her eyes were brown.

One day long I had been puzzling and wondering who wrote the little note that the waitress gave to me the night before. "Come! Take bus 35 to A. at 01.27 at the bus stop (end of the alley)." Jerusalem, end of June 1987. X and I had been drinking the whole evening long tequila sunrise. "Salt. Lemon. Tequila. Ad fundum." We were jolly. It was holiday time. The weather was smooth. We laughed a lot. Shared good memories. Telling jokes. Making fun. Talk about the things we wanted to see on the days to come in Israel.

We were a little drunk when we received the little note. Read it. Looked around us. Smiled and laughed. Ordered another drink. The waitress didn't want to tell us who wrote the letter. We decided not to go. We hadn't been flirting or talked to anyone special this evening. It could be a trap. Just take a bus to "nowhere" to do what? Get a life! It could be a trap!

Next evening. I looked at her eyes. Looked at her body. WOW! "So this is the girl who wrote with a girlfriend to us the little note last night?" Why? Why didn't she talk to us before? Why didn't she asked, in person with her girlfriend, the night before what they wanted? Of course I would have liked to get a drink with her. Her girlfriend told me that in Jerusalem it is not "proper" to talk and flirt with strangers or tourist. So be it.

Windows of opportunities. This time there was condensation on the window. The evening before she and her girlfriend had a day off. This evening she and her girlfriend had to work. I never really talked to her. I didn't wait till she finished her shift as I planned. I was too drunk. Next to that we had to move on. In a few hours we would have to catch an early bus. I smiled at her and gave her my golden wrist bracelet I bought some months before in Cairo. (Remember in those days we didn't exchange e-mailadresses, facebook- or twitternames.)

Those brown eyes. I never saw her again. Can't even remember her name. Esther?

Lillies of the field. Coincidence?

2011-02-09T11:27:00.007+01:00

Look! Look at the lillies of the field! They don't work. They are not worried about what to wear, eat and think. They don't puzzle about the "revolution" in Egypt. They are not distracted by the ups and downs of love. They are not worried about their kids.

Aristotle asserts that plants - a lily is a plant - possess a vegetative soul, responsible for reproduction and growth. Plants don't move and are not sensitive like animals. Plants don't think and reflect like 'homo sapiens'.

I'm fascinated by the fact that vegetative organisms seem very similar to happy people. They coincide. They are identical. It's something that pops up in my mind every now and then. That puzzles me for more than 25 years.

Last week I was strolling a little. Killing time because my two daughters had their weekly gymnastics. I passed a house. In it, two people (man and wife?) sitting in their livingroom watching TV. They seemed to me perfectly happy. They had everything they need(ed): food, drinks, love and shelter. All they did was breathing in and out. In and out. In and out. Just like a plant. Without the need to #move or #dream.

Questions:

Are happy people/ couples identical to plants?
What is the definition of happy/ happiness?
What is my blind spot on this?

What's your opinion?

There is always this

2011-02-02T17:01:00.002+01:00

Around Christmas (2010) I bought a new CD: Sade/ Best of. I keep on playing her music in my car. Again and again.

I'm fascinated by her. Melodies. Lyrics. Her face and body. I love her eyes and lips. Great body.

What more to say? I "knew" her name and was familiar with a few of her songs before but ... in the past I was never interested in her. Can't tell why.

I love these 2 songs best:

Sade/ Is it a crime

This may come.

This may come as some surprise but I miss you

(...)

Is it a crime
Is it a crime
that I still want you
and I want you to want me too

Sade/ Nothing can come between us

I always hope that you remember
What we have is strong and tender
In the middle of the madness
Hold on
(...)
So it truly is a good thing
And I always wanted you to know
There is always this
And this is everlasting
Hold on

Right as Drinking a cup of Tea

2011-01-20T10:14:00.008+01:00

Peter Bregman wrote a nice post on 'The Value of Ritual in Your Workday' (December 2010). In this post he points at the power of 'Pause' and 'Focus'.

He starts his post with a scene from the movie 'The Last Samurai'. Peter was most moved by the scene of a Samurai drinking tea: "Sitting at a low table, he moved deliberately, singularly focused on his tea. He contemplated it. Then poured it. Then sipped it, tasted it, and, finally, swallowed it. This, I realized, was the source of the samurai's strength. His acrobatics were impressive, but they were merely a oblique demonstration of his strength. The source was this tea ritual and many other rituals like it. His power as a warrior came from his patience, precision, attention to subtlety, concentration, and his reverence for the moment."

This is my comment on Peter's post:

The most striking scene for me on this movie: Samurai with their sources ;) fighting against machineguns. Lack of fit/ adapt/ learn. Technology changed - and still does - the way battles were fought. Frontal mass attacks of Samurai against working machineguns. It's suicide! Samurai should fight with guerrilla tactics. It would so much better fit to their strengths/ sources.

Frontal attack of Samurai on machineguns is like sweeping the deck of the Titanic. You will die! Adapt or die. The Samurai of today are the commando's. With patience and concentration they hit precise at the Right moment. "Right" as drinking a cup of tea.

Suddenly everything is lost

2011-01-19T10:44:00.003+01:00

A few days ago I checked out a few paper books looking for a quote. I found :) what I was looking for.

During this browsing exercise I found also something else. A little quote I lost in some way. Not really lost but out of my daily consiousness. I lost it for more than 10 years. It's a quote I'm very fond of. Andreas Burnier, 'De litteraire salon' (1983):

"Nu ik oud ben, heb ik vele vrienden, geliefden, vluchtige partners gekend. Ik weet nu dat het meeste menselijke contact niets betekent, absoluut niets. Mensen komen en gaan, praten honderuit, vertellen hun laatste zorgen en intimiteiten, verklaren hun liefde en eeuwige trouw, zweren met bloed beklonken vriendschap, storten zich vol passie in elkaars armen en dan, ineens, is het over, de woorden verloochend, het feest tot as vergaan."

I don't want to translate the quote in Dutch literally. If you really want to know it's details ... work! perspire! It's one of my Chinese gardens.

This is my translation in 1 tweet: "Life: people come and go. Friends. Lovers. Eternal love. Suddenly everything is lost. The party is over."

How about you: Do you find things too, by accident, while looking for something else?

Listening to Crystal Gayle

2011-01-12T10:04:00.004+01:00

King Offa was one of the kings who lived in the 8th century in Great Britain. To protect his kingdom Mercia against the various kingdoms of Wales he built a great dyke between his and theirs. Offa's dyke is a great earthen barrier of circa 283 km that runs between England and Wales.

In 1989 I walked with friend X the long distance path that roughly follows Offa's Dyke. Clouds. Lot's of clouds. Most of the days heavy with rain. Rain. We had a lot of it. Sun. We had more of that.

After a few days we got more and more tired. Rucksack of 20 kg. Walking 30 kilometers each day. Sleeping in a little tent in the middle of "nowhere".

One evening we arrived at the top of another hill. Beauty is subject to inflation if you see it after every corner of the road. Tired. Looking for a place to sleep. I walked back to the house we just passed some minutes ago. Another night at a Bed-Breakfast? Wow, yes please. That would be nice. Warm hot bath. Comfortable bed. Something to eat?

Setback! No beds left. We discussed about what to next. The landlord of the Bed-Breakfast walked to us. "There is another Bed-Breakfast down the road. I just called. If you want to, you can stay there. Do you want a ride in my Landrover?" Yes please!

1 hour later. Shaved. Took a bath. Sitting in a warm and cozy room of a Manor. Music of Crystal Gayle - her music was new to me. Soup. Bread. Stew (cawl?). Wine. It was the best meal I ate in my life.

What Food, Glorious food! story do you want to share?

Tell me, is it a crime?

2011-01-05T09:25:00.001+01:00

This may come as some surprise but

is it a crime

that

I still ...?

Top2000. Liedjes naar taal. Veeeeeeeel Engels

2010-12-30T22:49:00.006+01:00

Heerlijk al die liedjes die de afgelopen dagen langsgekomen zijn. Eigenlijk ken ik ze allemaal wel. Meeste vorig jaar bij #top2000 #jaar2009 voor het laatst gehoord.

Vorig jaar heb ik de nodige uurtjes gestopt om uit te vinden wie er informatie heeft over de taal van de songteksten. Niemand kon of wilde me helpen. Dit jaar #jaar2010 zelf de puzzel gelegd. Wij Nederlanders houden veeeeeeeel van Engelse muziek. Om precies te zijn 1.693 liedjes van de 2.000 hebben een Engelse songtekst. Dit is 85%.

Hoe zit het met het Nederlands? Als je zo naar de radio luistert, lijkt er veel dialect gezongen te worden. Als we de tijd nemen om te tellen en naar de details te kijken valt het best mee. 93% van de liedjes in het Nederlands zijn Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands. Inclusief Andre Hazes. De rest, dat zijn 16 liedjes, zijn in een van 's lands dialecten. (Ja ik weet dat Fries een taal is.) Mij verraste het. En jou?

Wat me ook opviel - ben ik de enige - niet 1 Surinaams, Turks, Marrokaans of Indisch liedje. Zijn we zo gelijk in muzieksmaak? Of is deze verklaring beter: gescheiden werelden, eigen zenders, eigen "zuilen"?

Details of the list above. Details of my complete 2000 list (source)
(c) @JeandD99

1st, 2nd and 3rd blog on this subject.

History of Religion (Maps-of-War). Footnote The Netherlands 1990-2010

2010-12-30T10:50:00.001+01:00

What do you think of this? Five thousand Years Religion on Planet Earth in 90 seconds: Brief history of most well-known religions 3000 BC-2000

I loved the brief or big picture. The religions that are born, grow up, get older, much older. And die? At the same time I realized it's only focused on the "mainstream" religion of people and countries. Always there must have been people who believed something else. Not mainstream but smallstream.What happened to them in all those centuries?

In The Netherlands the picture above is since 20 years no longer valid. In #nl the mainstream religion is "no religion". 44% of the Dutch say in 2009 that they no longer belief in God. Better: they are not registered in a "formal" religion.

Index. 'Geen kerkelijke gezindte' = no religion; 'Katholiek' = Catholic; 'Hervormd' = Dutch reformed church; 'Gereformeerd' = reformed churches; 'PKN' = Protestant church in The Netherlands; 'Overige gezindten' = other religions.

Source: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek 'Terugblikken: een eeuw in statistieken' (December 2010)

Top 2000 #music #nl #2010 Non English & Non Dutch Languages. Artist & Song

2010-12-24T12:01:00.001+01:00

What artists and songs are on the playlist if we skip English and Dutch in #top2000 #music #netherlands #year2010 #lyrics? This is the list of year 2010.

Details of the list above. Details of my complete 2000 list (source)
(c) @JeandD99

First blog and second blog on this subject.

Top 2000 #music #nl #2010 Peak Position Languages

2010-12-23T22:52:00.002+01:00

If we skip English and Dutch how does the world look like? World? The world of languages Dutch like best for their #top2000 #music #netherlands #year2010. Look at this wordle:

Peak position for each language used in lyrics:

Want to check out the details of my list yourselves? Click here (source)
(c) @JeandD99

First blog on this.

Top 2000 Year 2010. Music in The Netherlands

2010-12-23T13:57:00.002+01:00

On 25th of December the 12th edition of Top 2000 starts. 2.000 songs "Dutch" like best. Any idea what song "we" like best? Check out here.

Any idea what language "we" love best to listen at? Answer: English. In year 2010, 85% of our lyrics are written in English. Dutch lyrics are 2nd.

And all the other languages? Hardly interesting for "us" Dutch. Sorry, English is our lingua franca in music.

Want to check out the details of my list yourselves? Click here (source)
(c) @JeandD99

Second blog on this.

We exchanged campfire for TV and other social media. In 5 pics

2010-12-16T09:26:00.000+01:00

What do You Think. Why do We Watch TV?

2010-12-15T15:30:00.003+01:00

Look at talkshow host Oprah Winfrey. Look at U2 rockband singer Bono. Look at Paris Hilton. Take 30 seconds … what do you see? Differences? Resemblances?

I see a big campfire. Only 3 ‘homo sapiens’ generations ago we all sat, with our own 40-60 group, around campfires. Looking at the fire. Eating and drinking. Dream a little. Chat a lot. Making plans for tomorrow. In our time and age we exchanged campfire for TV and other social media.

In the past our group consisted family, neighbors, friends etc. People who all lived nearby. People we all knew face to face. These days our 40-60 group is spread throughout planet Earth and consists: family, popstars, celebrities, Twitter and Facebook friends, writers etc. Most of them we don’t know personally. We get informed about them via TV, glossies, newspapers, tweets etc. We know much more about them then about the neighbor 5 houses down the street.

The setting changed. Our 40-60 group changed. But what remains is the amount of people we follow. Still 40-60. What remains is our need for people who change ideas with us: what's next? what happened? what to do tomorrow? who can we trust and who not?

Look at the fire. What do you see?

I went into a room

2010-12-08T15:53:00.004+01:00

I went into a room on the day that Jesus was born. Outside snow. Lots of snow in Austria. On a 10-day ski holiday with my mum, brother, a friend of my brother and my girlfriend (now wife).

Just finished my 5 hour walk under a warm sun. I walked alone. Everyone else went skiing. Nothing happened. I made no spectacular climb. Didn't risk my life. Enjoyed the views, houses (german 'Maisäße'), clouds and sun. Life in Austria is always so much more vivid.

Back in our apartment I took for something to eat. Made hot chocolate. Lurked in a book. The room was warm. I felt tired and satisfied. Nothing happened. Everything was quiet and cosy. In a few hours we would eat together and get a few drinks. But that was a few hours away. Far away. First more monky-me: nap, read a little and write a little. Just me and the ticking clock.

The right stuff

2010-12-01T11:23:00.001+01:00

Runway. Empty landscape. Military jetnoise. A crashed jet with the pilot in it. Couple of pilots hanging at the bar. Pictures on the wall. A lot of pictures: pilots and their aircrafts. Two well dressed men entering the bar. Silence. We can hear the clock ticking. More jetnoise.

Two men: "We are looking for Chuck Yeager."

One of the pilots: "Who is asking?"

Two men: "We're from Washington and looking for pilots for the NASA space program."

Yeager: "Not interested. Don't want to get rocketed into space like a hooked monkey. That's not flying."

The scene above in 'The Right Stuff' (film 1983) is one my favorites. It tells it all in a nutshell: bravery, machismo and doing exactly what fighter pilots want to do: flying. Flying as a way of life. Danger - 53 procent change of dying as a test pilot during a 20-year career. Fast jets. A man's world. For Yeager being an astronaut was the wrong track. It had nothing to do with flying. Wrong track. Wrong stuff.

The book I finished reading last week reminded me of the scene above. Writer Dave "Bio" Baranek wrote in his book 'Topgun days' (2010) about his career as a radar intercept officer (RIO) in the Navy. He was not a pilot (front seat). He sat in the backseat. Flying was all Bio wanted to do. Live a fighter pilots life: flying in fast jets, outsmarting others in dogfights, learning and adapting. For 30 months Bio was an instructor at the US Navy Fighter Weapons School. It's the school we all know now by the name 'Topgun'.

Lovely book. No real surprises for me. What struck me most was the fact that 'Topgun'-the-movie was a ripple in the day to day job of Bio. For him the movie was decoration. He was busy flying, doing his classes and being an instructor. Just a ripple.

P.s. Here a real book review on book 'Topgun days'.

P.s.s. The scene above is my interpretation of 'The Right Stuff'. I saw the film >10 years ago. Can't remember the exact lines.

P.s.s.s. My blogs on flying: bookreview 'Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds'; history gliders in 3 pics; 3 pics fighter pilots how things changed in 100 years.

On an oil lamp

2010-11-24T13:43:00.003+01:00

Today a poem from Marcus Argentarius who lived around year 0 in Rome (AP 5.128):

"Her breast against my breast,

Her skin on mine,

Her lips against my lips,

with nothing in between Antigone and me, we lay.

I say no more.

The rest the lamp was witness of."

Does the postman always rings twice? #job

2010-11-17T13:32:00.010+01:00

My favorite extinct job is a #palingpeurer (english #eelbob). Question: What is your favorite(s)?

Postman always rings twice! Always? In The Netherlands #postman are this and next week on strike. It's a profession threatened with extinction. Why? All of us hardly send snailmail anymore. No handwritten letters. No postcards from abroad. No packages with food, cloths or ... - there must be more. The delivery of items is reducing quickly.

Are you frozen on your job? Do you hate the way your boss organises your company? Does no one ever listen to your "free" advices to get the work better - much better - organised? Looking around again for another job, boss or Way things Finally get Properly organised?

Remember this. There is not 1 way of organising. There are many. How to organise depends on the organisational configurations, the life cycle of the organisation and the environment it lives in.

Remember this. Jobs come and go. When we look back in history we find out that jobs are like a river. The exact definition on what to do (and don't) is never the same. Never! Water floats and floats. The #postman of today is not the same as the postman 50, 100 or 200 years ago. The #farmer of today is not the same as the farmer 50, 100, 500,1.000 or 10.000 years ago.

I love to puzzle and wonder on jobs that got extinct. A little list of extinct jobs in The Netherlands:

#peddler (dutch #marskramer)
#eelbob (dutch #palingpeurer)
#lamplighter
#lighthouse keeper (dutch #vuurtorenwachter)
#train crossing guard (dutch #overwegwachter)
#bell-ringer (dutch #klokkenluider)
#flintknapper (dutch #steenklopper of #vuursteensmid)
#whaling (dutch #walvisvaarder)
#copymonk (dutch #monnik die boeken kopieert)

This is a list of not extinct jobs. It's a list of romantic remnants: #shepherd #clog (dutch klompenmaker) #windmiller #king. Yes a #king.

Odd?

2010-11-10T09:53:00.002+01:00

What do you see when you look in the mirror? Only the fresh you of today that needs his teeth brushed? You at the age of 19? An ape? The imperfections? What you could be if ...? Do you ever look at your own eyes? Or only from the side? What do you see when you look at you?

This is what I "see":

You know?

2010-11-03T09:55:00.003+01:00

Only 200-300 years old! Did you know that all our present day focus on I, Me and Self is a highly biased perspective? It's a Western Enlightenment view on life of species 'Homo Sapiens'. It's only a couple of 100 years old. 200 - 300 years old! Surprised?

Twenty years ago I planned to write "someday" a book on the history of happiness. Four years ago I realised I don't have to write it anymore. It's already written by Darrin M. MacMahon in his book 'Happiness: A history'. I read it 4 years ago. Back than I needed a mirror. I needed something that dried my tears and cleared my head. Reading Darrin's book worked perfect for me.

In a way we as species invented (better: have been inventing) "happiness". The definition on what a happy life is changed a few times during history (source):

Homeric. Happiness = Luck
Classical. Happiness = Virtue
Medieval. Happiness = Heaven
Enlightenment. Happiness = Pleasure
Contemporary. Happiness = A Warm Puppy

It's my birthday today and I cry if I want to.

So why bother?

2010-10-27T11:55:00.004+02:00

I know that I'm authentic and original. Someone who makes up his own mind regardless of authorities, titles, holy books, fat words or todays trending topics in my country or on planet Earth. Hot news of today is always old news tomorrow. So why bother?

How did I became the man I'm today? Someone who is always working on at least 3 projects. Bizzy with reading. Checking out thoughts, presuppositions and allegations. Always on the road. Never steady ground. Never afraid to enter a completely unknown subject.

The truth is I don't really know. Since I left primary school I was always on my own. My parents were not able to help me with my homework. I had to figure it out on my own way. At the university I was never impressed by all the professors I met. Just human beings too. With their strong points, flaws, jealousy etc. Most of them specialist's specialist.

I guess above all because I like to read books. Books make me feel alive.

I know that I'm authentic and original. How about you. Are you too?

Invoice

2010-10-20T16:52:00.007+02:00

Five years before the Iron Curtain fell down I visited Auschwitz concentration camp (polski 'Oświęcim') in Poland. It was a strange place to visit. Rain. Green grass. Dust. Lots of rust iron. How bizarre to enter the old gas chambers. Pretty small.

What shocked me most was an invoice of Zyklon B. Couple of thousand kilo's. Price? Can't remember. One invoice of probably many. Apparently someone did the bookkeeping. I realised that the killing of the Jews in World War II wasn't done in a whirl. It must have been a gigantic logistical operation. Gather people (raids), transportation over thousands of km, selection (to the right meant labor, to the left meant to the gas chambers), killing (Zyklon B), burning of the death and get rid of the ashes. Bills that had to be paid. There must have been a bookkeeper who knew the answer to the question 'Avarage cost of Zyklon B for 1 Jew?'.

Question: did he (or she?) calculate too the costs of razzia's, transportation, crematorium, food for gards and workforce? Were costs for environment e.g. Carbon dioxide (CO2) an externality?

P.s. I'll try to find a better and readable copy of this invoice.

Newspeak

2010-10-13T12:00:00.006+02:00

Laat me de namen van des lands Ministeries zien en ik zal je zeggen wat voor een land je bent. Of positiever geformuleerd: kernachtig wordt in de namen van Ministeries de speerpunten van landen getoond.

Met veel genot kijk ik naar de namen van de Ministeries in Nederland van 1850, 1900, 1950 en 2000.

Ik heb vooral veel vragen:

Waarom was er in 1850 een apart Ministerie voor Rooms-Katholieken (RK)? De meeste Nederlanders waren destijds toch Protestant? Het had mij meer logisch geleken als er een Ministerie voor Protestanten geweest was en een Ministerie voor RK en andere Erediensten. Kennelijk destijds een gevoelig puntje.
Grappig dat ergens na 1950 het Ministerie van Oorlog omgedoopt wordt tot Defensie. Zegt dat ook iets over onze strategie en hoe we erin zitten?
Grappig de verschuiving van Koloniën naar Gebiedsdelen en daarna naar "Zaken".
Vreemd dat ergens na 1900 Landbouw en Visserij losgeweekt zijn van Economische zaken. Het zijn toch ook economische activiteiten?
Na 1950 zijn Milieu, Kunst, Cultuur en Ontwikkelingssamenwerking kennelijk 'hot' geworden. Maar ook weer niet zo 'hot' dat ze ieder een heel apart Ministerie gekregen hebben voor dat ene speerpunt.
Waarom hebben ze Verkeer bij Waterstaat gedaan? Volgens mij gaat de fileproblematiek sneller opgelost worden - als het opgelost moet worden - als ze het onderbrengen bij Economische zaken.

Heel benieuwd hoe morgen de speerpunten van kabinet Rutten-Verhagen I gaan luiden. Wedden dat we iets krijgen met "Immigratie"? Deze namen zullen het wel niet halen: "Alle buitenlanders eruit. Nederlanders eerst. Nederland schoon. Alleen buitenlanders van voldoende toegevoegde waarde." Waarmee maar weer eens aangetoond wordt dat ook 's lands speerpunten newspeak zijn.

Not on Tanja Nijmeijer (FARC). Or is it too?

2010-10-06T11:08:00.025+02:00

Some time ago I read this quote: "We spend money we do not have, to buy stuff we don't need, to impress people we don't like". A lot of people despise this kind of behavior. I don't.

This quote poped up yesterday when I re-read a bookreview on David Hazony's book 'The Ten Commandments'. The 2nd commandment reads 'You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol.' David's interpretation of this commandment: smash the narcissistic idols of wealth and fashion. Mark that David tries to (re)find the wisdom of the 10 commandments beneath, above or beyond all the religious controversies. His set of 10 commandments is a complete blueprint for individuals and society as a whole. It's a guideline to improve or change the world. To make a better world. To make all of us more caring. Regardless of our religion.

Look at Fidel Castro (Washington 1959) wearing his militairy green. Always in "casual" green in order not not get distracted what to wear next and to be equal to his compañeros. Question: Did (better: does) Fidel smash his idols of wealth and fashion?

What's my opinion on all this? A dream of a fashionless, equal world for all people is an illusion. It's a dream. I believe above all that we are apes. Selfish apes fighting for our personal survival and the group(s) we live in. Showing wealth, good health and good taste is something that individual apes need to gain a partner to get procreated. Show off and impress other apes is relevant for the peck order and our survival to be fit. It's competition. Sharing is no big deal in a world of plenty but when there is not enough ...

we will crush or stampedes others in moments of panic at religious pilgrimages, professional sporting or music events
we will eat other human beings (taste like chicken) when our plane is crashed on a remote spot
we will be selfish like Ingrid Betancourt on her "trip" with the FARC

This blog is not on Tanja Nijmeijer (FARC). Or is it too?

Fall is in the air. Guust is exuberant

2010-09-29T09:26:00.002+02:00

On my little spark on Planet Earth it's fall. My favourite season of the year. Leaves are falling from the trees. Apples. Grapes. Walnuts. Tamme kastanjes (chestnuts). Cut corn. Empty fields. I like this time of the year with all the colours and the sensation that everything passes. The seasons that pass by: being born, grow up and die. For me it's the metaphor of human life. Better: my life.

I'm very fond on this years 35 The Big Picture' pics 'Fall is in the air'. Lovely colours. But noone can describe my joy of fall better than Guust Flater. In the next episode of Guust (sorry it's in Dutch) he is send home early by his boss Pruimpit to make sure he can't blow up the signing of a big contract. Guust is enjoying the sun and the play of leaves and wind in the park. His exuberancy is the bottomline for the businessman who is just passing by accidently to finally sign the contracts. No contracts will be signed today.

NON-READ REVIEW BOOK 'THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

2010-09-24T09:31:00.004+02:00

Dear David,

Let me first say this. I do understand the reason why you wrote this book. I do appreciate your project. I do understand your 'win'. But ... I don't comprehend my 'win' and why this book is urgent for me to read (and re-think etc) now.

1. You wrote "Ten ideas constitute a worldview that has not been articulated before". Title of your book is 'THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life'. Your claim of "most ancient moral text" is false. The oldest Hebrew bible dates from 600 BCE (source). 2.000 year earlier (ca 2770-2250 BCE) the ancient Egyptian concept of Maat was written down. Maat was the concept of truth, balance, order, law/ justice and morality. In the Book of Death, chapter 125 ('The negative confession') we can find most of the 10 commandments. I'm not a specialist on ancient moral texts but I guess we can find in China and Mesopotamia even older texts on this subject.

2. You wrote "The message is that [Ten Commandments] really have to offer us is of deep and immediate importance to our lives - regardless of faith." I do not disagree with your claim but the same could be said of every other (past or recent) culture on planet Earth. Every culture has it's own given set on proper/ good/ right behavior for individuals and groups.

3. Why should I read a book about something all individual 'Homo Sapiens' know by nature, by our innate morality? An inborn morality that we all know and understand regardless of faith or God/ gods we are focused on. Not religion is the rock of our human behaviour our inborn morality is. Check out Marc Hauser's The Moral Sense Test. Hauser: atheists have the same moral scores as deep believers. Even psychopaths have the same scores in the Moralitytest.

4. "Each commandment helps us become more caring, world-changing individuals." Sure! But why should I read your book on this? Why can't you write a 2 A4 blog on this? I'm interested in your message. I'm interested in your comments and interpretation of the 10 commandments. But I don't want to read your book.

Once again I do understand your 'win' of the book you wrote - it must have been a great journey - but I don't understand my or our species Homo Sapiens' 'win'. What's the urgency for me? Why not summurarize your message in a blog on what it really means according to you to be a human being (love, life, wisdom, the self, property and insecurity)? Is your presupposition that by sharing your message in a book the mirror works better?

Best regards,

Jean

My Chinese Garden

2010-09-22T09:35:00.002+02:00

Do you want to take a look at my Chinese garden? If yes, open

this door

Haying time

2010-09-15T11:53:00.002+02:00

My father's sister N and her husband J are the last farmers in my family. Two generations ago all of them worked on their farms. Some years ago my nephew B inherited his parents farm. He will be probably the last one. He is not married. No girlfriend. No kids. Being a farmer in The Netherlands is for most citygirls in my country not compelling. Why? Too much work, hardly time for holidays, hard living, lack of ability to communicate of farmers and non-sustainability. It's a generalisation. Too many false presuppositions but that's the general picture on farming in my country.

I guess I was around 10 years old. Some day in May or June. Haying time. My father asked me if I wanted to join him to harvest hay on uncle J' farm. OK for me. Together with my fathers new moped we drove.

We worked for some hours. Uncle J, my dad, another man (can't remember a name or face) and me. The smell of hay and diesel. Transpiration. Hot sun. When our work was finished uncle J and my daddy told me both that they were proud on my hard work. We drank something.

We drove home in 20 minutes while the sun was going down. The weather was warm. Me alone with my dad. My arms around his belly. Wind in my hair. I felt tired, proud and loved. I felt like a real man fostered in a man's world. Happy! I can't remember but I must have slept quickly in my own bed. Satisfied and with a big smile.

Of mice and men

2010-09-08T12:12:00.005+02:00

Is it a coincidence that Michel de Montaigne and Dulce Maria Cardoso favorite pastime is just let time pass by and do nothing? Just like me. Why do we like this so much? Is it your favorite pastime too? Why?

This weekend I returned from my summerholiday. For 3 weeks I was with my family at the Mediterranean near Martigue (France). What can I say? It was a good and lovely holiday. The weather was warm (>25C) and sunny. In my country it rained for more than 2 weeks. I read 6 books. Kids swam a lot at the swimmingpool and in the sea. We made a trip to Marseille twice. I loved the "wild" Calanques between Marseille and Casis. Strolled on the streets of Vincent van Gogh' Arles. Visited Cezanne's old atelier on a hill (Lauves) in Aix-en-Provence. After 100 years Mont Sainte-Victoire is no longer visible from his/ this spot. Big trees everywhere. My kids were impressed by the castle of Tarascon. I missed the medieval smell. I looked for mouses (didn't see any). I made 2 coastwalks of more than 5 hours alone. I love to walk alone.

I could give you many more details. I could show you all the pictures that were made. You could interview me, my wife and our 4 kids. We could ... - there must be more - but in the end we will end with "empty" hands. The truth is that we can't freeze or grab the days that pass by one by one. In a way I enjoy my life most when I don't freeze it. When I'm out of control. When I have no real target other than just let time pass by. Read a little. Dream a litte. Talk, eat, make love and hug a little. Write a little.

Since 10.000 BC species 'homo sapiens' settled down. No more walking around looking for something to eat. They settled down in farms and cities. Enough food nearby. Cooked food. More and more of us hardly need to invest time in getting and digest something to eat. So much much spare time compared to the other 'homo' species. It made us the species of today.

What's my point? We as species 'homo sapiens' lost something since the agricultural and city revolution. Before this revolution - in my opinion the only two real ones - we had only one target: food, shelter, safety and reproduction. What did we lost? We lost track of our species dedication. We gained distraction. We gained so much distraction that most of us are most of the time lost. Lost! Got lost in distraction.

Since our species settled down we live together with mouses. Just realize every now and then that most of our species 9.000 generations of ancestors were not familiar with mouses. Nor with houses. Nor with cities. They walked around looking for ...

Question: are those whose favorite pastime is 'Just let time pass by and do nothing' those who are NOT lost in distraction?

Ordinary field stones. A poem

2010-08-11T10:27:00.006+02:00

It's a lost world. Which world? The world of Catholic Church priests. Really? Yes, I think so ... rapidly losing it's battle to win the hearts and minds of their flock in the Western World.

At the same time I always realize I could have been a priest or monk too. If I would be one - I know I never will - I would try to be someone like Jan Twardowski (1915 – 2006). I like his poems, his images and the way he treats the world around him. This is one of his poems I like best. See how pure.

FAITHLESS TREES

One by one all the trees non-believers,
birds refuse to study religion
the dogs rarely goes to church
they really don't know anything
and see how odedient

insects under the tree bark know nothing of the gospels
even the white caraway so meek in the pasture
ordinary field stones
tears plowing the skin
have never heard of Saint Francis
and see how poor

the stars refuse to hear my sermons
so does the humble lily of the valley, all too familiar, alone
the peaceful mountains that, like faith, keep on
love with a heart condition
and see how pure

Poem 'Faithless Trees' (polish 'Drzewa Niewierzace') is written by Jan Twardowski. Translation by A. Mioduchowska and M. Garanis

Fighter pilot Robin Olds. Bookreview

2010-08-05T13:49:00.007+02:00

I love to fly. I love the sensation of high up in the sky, hand on the stick and be in control of the aircraft. Clouds up. Mixture of green and brown colours down. And in between? Empty sky!

For 1 year I joined a glider club. Just the kind of family, group, nerds I like to share my life with. Unfortunately I had to stop because it was too time consuming next to my kids and old house but ... one day I'll join them again.

I love reading about flying. Books. Magazines. Or whatever. When I was around 18 years old (before Top Gun) I wanted to become a fighter pilot myself. Dogfights - the real thing.

Flying is not a job it's a way of life. Next to that it's something you do and not read about. You can't capture flying in a picture - ever noticed that you always see the same kind of pictures? Nothing beats the real thing. I realised it once again when I read Robin Olds' book 'Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds'. If you want to read a good review on Olds' life check out wikipedia on this. It tells it all.

Olds memoirs are interesting and fun. Read them. He has flown aircrafts between 1942 and 1967. He shot down a couple of Germans in England and France during World War II and 4 MiGs in Vietnam. He was one of the leading officers who ensured that the Americans gained air superiority in Vietnam. By gaining that the American bombers were able to drop their bombs undisturbingly. Only novelty I've read was that the Allied convoys during D-Day were covered from the air by aircraft. Olds was one of them. Nor Olds nor one of his fellow pilots saw one single German fighter during those days.

Olds for managers (3th section):

P.s. My blog '3 pics of fighter pilots that show how things changed in 100 years'

River crossing

2010-08-04T13:32:00.002+02:00

Yesterday I finished reading for the second time Tom Holland's book 'Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic'. I wanted to find out why Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC) crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. The river Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north and Italy proper to the south. Any Roman general was by law of the Roman Republic (509 - 44 BC) obliged to disband his army before crossing the Rubicon. Otherwise both he and his men were guilty of high treason and automatically condemned to death. This law was set to protect the Roman Republic from internal military threat. In 50 BC the Senate ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as proconsul had finished. He did not disband his army. Instead he used the power of his succesful army to stay in power. In retrospect we know that he defeated Pompey the Great and became Rome's (perpetual) dictator. It was generally accepted that the dictatorship ("one who dictates") was limited to 6 months. Julius Ceasar used (some say 'abused') this office to stay in power year after year. Unprecedented!

The precise event which signalled the end of the Roman Republic and the transition into the Roman Empire is a matter of interpretation. Some say Sulla's (138 – 78 BC) route to power paved the way for Julius Ceasar. Some say it's Julius Ceasar's crossing of the Rubicon or his appointment as perpetual dictator in 44 BC. Others point at the defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC or the grant of extraordinary powers to Augustus in 27 BC.

According to me Julius Ceasar holds the key by crossing the Rubicon. Sulla misused his army too for staying in power but in the end he resigned for the office of dictator, retiring to private life. Julius Ceasar gave the deathblow to the Roman Republic by crossing the Rubicon, defeat his "enemies" and stay in power through the office as dictator for year after year and finally as perpetual dictator.

Why did Julius Caesar cross the Rubicon?

Tom Holland's book does not give a direct answer to my question. In a bookreview Holland says "Caesar of course had the option and the moral duty as a citizen not to cross the river. But for the ambitious Roman who he was his own honour (dignitas) weighed heavier than the ancestral tradition (dignitas maiorum)."

Wikipedia's answer: "In 50 BC, the Senate, led by Pompey, ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome because his term as Proconsul had finished. Caesar thought he would be prosecuted and politically marginalised if he entered Rome without the immunity enjoyed by a Consul or without the power of his army."

Suetonius (69/75 – 130 AD) attributes the crossing to a supernatural ghost (source english and latin): "As he stood in doubt, this sign was given him. On a sudden there appeared hard by a being of wondrous stature and beauty, who sat and played upon a reed; and when not only the shepherds flocked to hear him, but many of the soldiers left their posts, and among them some of the trumpeters, the apparition snatched a trumpet from one of them, rushed to the river, and sounding the war-note with mighty blast, strode to the opposite bank."

To be honest I still don't know why Julius Ceasar crossed the Rubicon. I guess we will never really know. For me it feels like a mix of personal and group survival and being afraid of losing his personal honour. Above all I think he was an ape fighting for his personal survival and clinged to his power as general. It's vanity if you think about his whole project/ life in retrospect. Everything blown away with the wind of time. The kid of Julius & Cleopatra was murdered. He never became a grandpa.

Why is all this so important to me? What's my point? It's important because in all of us there is a part of Julius Ceasar too. We as species 'Homo sapiens' are apes fighting for our own personal survival. Fighting for the survival of our family and the groups we live in. We all are citizens and we all are dictators. We all are Roman Republicans and at the same time Perpetual Dictators. We all are a mixture of vanity, honesty, dishonesty, cruelty, forgiveness, lust for power, need of affirmation, law abiding and law infidel. All of us are very able to kill and murder. And if you don't recognise all this is yourselves ... look better. Look!

#miscellanies

2010-07-29T11:19:00.003+02:00

I cried for you. To be honest: I cried more for Me than You.

Katie Melua - I Cried For You

Frozen?

2010-07-28T10:09:00.001+02:00

Are you frozen on love, life or what to say/ think/ dream/ do next? Why?

Is your "constraint" as steady and unmovable as a mountain? Really? Why don't you treat your constraint the way Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) did? The way he painted Mont Sainte-Victoire again and again. Year in. Year out. He painted his mountain 60 times. His mountain was never the same. Different mood. Different angle. Different colour. Different season. Different style. Different ... - there must be more. His mountain was never the same. Never! So why should you be frozen on your constraint?

1 year blogging. My own favourite blogs. Which one is yours?

2010-07-21T15:25:00.004+02:00

Happy anniversary! It's my 1st year of blogging. I wrote a little on this before. For me my blog is a mirror. My mirror. My public mirror. Next to that it's the archive of my dreams, puzzles and thoughts. For me. For my kids one day.

On the one hand it's an easy job: I write as I think with a lot of questions and wonder. On the other hand it's transpiration: I'm not allways in the mood to write another blog. Week in week out on Wednesday. Sometimes a blog takes me 10 minutes. Sometimes 1 day. Most of the time it takes 1 to 2 hours.Will I grow up and ever celebrate my 2nd birthday? I don't know. May be I will. May be not.

In retrospect it was fun to blog. I wrote the kind of things - and in the same format - I usually write in private to a friend. These are my own favourite blogs:

Most successful 'Any idea how influential images are?'
Deep drawing 'Stones 99 names of. Stones boring? 99 + 1 ways of looking at them'
Most instructive 'History gliders (or sailplanes) in 3 pictures. Most distinctive evolution: launching method'
Largest survey 'Looking for a Prince (m/f) on a white horse? You are looking for Jesus!'
Most made with love 'Book review. Pamuk' Museum Innocence. Aren't we all surrounded by thousands of tiny little things of the ones we love(d)?'
Without blogging I would have not written this 'Kate Bush. Mystic on 'Aerial'. Invitation to be nondualistic'

Question: What's is your favourite blog of 'Live Life! - wednesdayblog'?

P.s. To my readers. Please give back feedback once in a while. In a public comment or in a private e-mail. Don't forget that I need affirmation every now and then.

Enlightenment ? in Poland. Original in Dutch

2010-07-18T09:10:00.002+02:00

Lifted out of the body into myself

2010-07-15T14:20:00.006+02:00

It happened to me three times. What? THAT what Plotinus calls: lifted out of the body into myself and beholding marvellous beauty. And afterwards the wonder what happened. The moment of descending.

Plotinus (around 204/5–270) in his Enneads (IV,8,1): "Many times it has happened: Lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things and self-encentered; beholding a marvellous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine; stationing within It by having attained that activity; poised above whatsoever within the Intellectual is less than the Supreme: yet, there comes the moment of descent from intellection to reasoning, and after that sojourn in the divine, I ask myself how it happens that I can now be descending (...)."

In this blog I'll share with you my first moment of becoming One with the Universe. I wrote on my second moment of enlightenment in my blog 'Aswan. April 3th 1987'. Someday I'll share with you my third moment too. My observation on my 3 moments. They all happened abroad, in hills and near other people. The days before I always felt that another moment was coming soon. In a way I felt pregnant with Love and Light.

Here is the report of the first. I originally wrote it in Dutch. For me my own translation in English feels terrible but it's the only way to share it with you.

Enlightenment ? in Poland

A frail wind blows in April. In the year of the Lord 1984. The farming landscape is hilly and green. Here and there capricious rocks. We are riding in a bus. On both sides of the road little houses which seem to me “out-of-date”. These houses seem to me little farmhouses. They look to me going to ruin, grey and dirty. These ruins are surrounded by dried up mudpools in which chicken freely walk around.

The bus in which I sit has just set itself free from the air which is so characteristic of the mining-area of Katowiche in Poland. The air appears to be dangerous and unhealthy but to me it just smells very well.

I undergo the change of colour and the change of smell. The change of a landscape full of soot-blackened flats to a green farming hilly landscape. And the change of the smell of pit-coal to “no-smell-at-all”. I get the feeling that I’m going back in time. Poland with it’s houses and people look to The Netherlands - as I am acquainted with photographs – in the ’50 of the 20th century.

The bus stops in Czestochowa. A little village in the country. I leave the bus together with my travelling mates. Through a street, which is surrouned by high stone walls, we mount to the church we travelled for. The church, the domain in the ring of stones, is the sanctuary of the black madonna. The black madonna is a Maria with a black face who is worshiped for her legendary tears – and the power which is derived from those tears I presume? She is worshipped by the desperate people from Poland in order to make life in ‘hic et nunc’ (english ‘here en now’) more bearable.

I’m a bit surprised by the huge amount of people who attend mass. The church is crowded, Very crowded. Outside still people gathering, trying to see a glimpse of the archbishop Glemmp. I’m watching it all. All those people sitting on lot of stairs. It’s as if the church cracks down by the amount of people inside it. I’m still able to walk and look at the interior of the church. I’m astonished by the calmness and resignation of the crowd of people. No one in a hurry. No one pushing. So much resignation. It’s so different than the intrusive, meddlesome and careless people of The Netherlands.

Surprised by all that I sat down on a stair, between human beings. I closed the sleaves of my long trenchcoat. Put my hands deep in the pockets of my coat. I’m getting warmer already. The scraf of wool pricks pleasantly. The scarf smells well. Suddenly, at once, I feel …! (I would better say no more.) A feeling of peace. Tolerance of me against the rest of humanity. At once I feel accepted and one with all human beings. I feel as a human being like everybody else. I feel made up out of humanity … A couple of minutes I feel un-explainable quiet and happy with a deepness I never experienced before … A couple of days the feeling burnt deep in me. I wanted to become a priest or a monk in order to propagate my enlightenment. But – as allways – time heeled the urge as if it were a wound.

I. I don’t believe in God. At least not in the God of the bible: a sort of Santa Claus who will dry up all earthly-tears, after-the-dead, in paradise. Often. Very often I’ve asked: who, what and where is God? No one wanted or better no one could give an answer to my questions. You had to believe. And I, Dutch product of anti-fasicism, could not accept the Truth without exception. I always believed with some reserve. Those reservations caused that I rejected the believe in a God of the bible. Now the believe of the God of the bible or the believe of a fascist state (which will last 1.000 years) or whatever is placed in the ‘collection of believes’. God (mono-theism) or gods (poly-theism) are a creation of groups of people. The God of the bible is no longer unique to me. As the singer Chris Rea says: “They teach us to swim but they don’t talk about the danger. They tell you the truth but they never say why.”

The Truth and The God do not exist. What exist are: truths and gods. Both only exist in plural.

P.s. You can find the original text in Dutch here.