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

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

Suddenly everything is lost

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?

My Chinese Garden

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

this door

Life in progress. List 28th June 2010 12.27h

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

• Check out writer Dulce Maria Cardoso. I want to read one of her books because she said “I love just let time pass by”. I blogged about her before.
• Re-read Tom Holland's  book 'Rubicon'. Find out why Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. Was it survival? Vanity? Or ...? It's a spin-off on this blog.
• Read poems of one of my friends.
• Listen to music of one of my friends.
• Decide if I'll write a bookreview on Robin Olds book 'Fighter Pilot'. I finished it last week.
• Write a non-read-review on book ''THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life'. A book I'll never read.
• Check out website of cloud lovers:  www.cloudappreciationsociety.org. They really exist!
• Find out why Winston Churchill refused twice his Duke title after winning World War II. He was such a proud men and jealous on his nephew's title. Why did he refuse the title he earned himselves? Vanity?
• Re-reading Gerald Brenan's book 'South of Granada'. It's input for a #dream #travel post for @kirsty_wilson
• Pick out the 7 books I'll read in this years summerholiday. I love puzzling on this. Pick up books. Browse a little. Smell at the book - I really do. 

Question: What's your list?

Hungry as well

There once was a little mouse walking around for something to eat. No guts no glory.

There was an owl - hungry as well - and that's the end of this little mouse' story.

Tyranny of positive thinking. Why deny our SOUR parts in life?

What's my point? There is too much positive thinking these days with the wrong motivation. We are trapped in it and are hardly able to see anymore that we deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune and blame only ourselves for our fate. We deny our sour parts.

From my point of view 'homo sapiens' life consists (non-limited list): tears, fears, love, jealousy, anger, aggression, hunger for power, horror, happiness, satisfaction, peace, outrage and bad luck. Our life is sweet AND sour. These days it seems we don't want to see our sour emotions anymore. We deny them.

Strategies to overcome our sour parts:

• Grow up! It seems we are kids when we have sour emotions.
• Change point of view. It's not sour it's sweet too. "When life hands out lemons, squeeze out a smile."
• Use another metaphor. Smile! You've got cancer. Cancer is not a problem or an illness. It's a gift.
• Transition. You will become a better, bigger and real being out of it. It's a makeover opportunity.
• Think positively. See the glass half full even when it lies shattered on the floor.

Intermezzo. Today no historical flashback from me. If you want to puzzle yourselves: the influence of manichaeism in  Christianity (look at the images) and reason as primary source since Age of Enlightenment.

What's next? I'm pleading for being a real human being, with his good and bad days, with his happy and unhappy days, with his fortune and misfortune. I'm pleading for the right to be unhappy. Huxley in his 'Brave New World': "But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."

Embrace the sweet AND sour parts in life. Don't deny! If you need an image or metaphor. Handle your emotions like 'After rain there will be sunshine AND after sunshine there will be rain'. Don't deny the rain!

Does this ring any bell for you? Or do you think I need a therapist or that I'm the next fool on the hill?

P.S. Ehrenreich tells in 'Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America And The World' (2010) that there is no scientific proof for healing from cancer by positive thinking.

Another inconvenient truth: Yes, what we all are ...

Strange how ones mind works. In my blog 'On the fat word 'vegetarianism'. Living means killing, harming and eating' I wrote about facing the painfull truth that living means killing and eating. Thinking and puzzling about this, the next quote came into  my mind:  “Now he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the movies. Don’t even mention them to me.” (J.D Salinger/ Catcher in the Rye). I allways translate this as "we're all prostitutes one way or another".

We are what? We all sell our mind, body, labor, creativity, intimacy, sex, power to understand, power to synergize or ... (?; there must be more) in exchange for money, power or whatever. Money we use for paying our bills. Money we need for our survival. You may not like it. You may not want to. You may dream of some paradise hidden in  history or in the future. Face! Face the painfull truth that we all sell our body and soul in exchange for our material comfort. Face it, don't be a phony.

On the fat word 'vegetarianism'. Living means killing, harming and eating.

We live in a world of fat words. Words that are pregnant of meanings, theoretical and historical backgrounds and thousands of scientists who are specialist on any given fat word. Freedom, democray, health care, love, religion, ethics and vegetarianism are all fat words. Every day all of us make thousands of big and small decisions on fat words. Mostly not realizing it's a fat word. I guess most of us remain unconscious our whole life it's a fat word at all.  

I've 4 kids: 2 boys and 2 girls. My eldest son doesn't eat 'risotto'. My eldest daughter doesn't eat 'boerenkool'. My youngest daughter doesn't eat 'witlof'. And my 4th kid? My youngest son eats everything.  As parents  we oblige our kids to eat their diner every evening. If they don't eat they will get no dessert - it's  a reward not punishment. If that doesn't help they will go to bed without having had their meal. There's only 1 exception to this rule: everyone may choose 1 non-favourite meal. If we're having ones non-favourite meal he or she may eat a sandwich instead.

On not eating animals. On vegetarianism. On not eating parts of cows, chickens and fish.  On not using animal products. Just  be you  - and not some idealized, perfect version of you. If you don't like eating and abusing animals  then don't. May be one day the fat word 'vegetarianism' will enter into my family. What will I decide? My answer will be something like this. Choose your non-favourite meal! It's all up to you. On the other hand I'll use all the tricks I can think up if one of my kids will not eat animals out of religion. I'm personally convinced that living our lives means killing other animals. Species 'homo sapiens' can't live and survive if we don't kill, eat and use other animals. We can't! You may not like it. You may not want to. You may dream of some paradise hidden in  history or in the future. Face! Face the painfull truth that living means killing and eating. We kill, harm and eat animals because we want to survive. Figuratively my kids eat me and my wife for their survival. Don't fly. Don't hide. Wake up and embrace life.

P.s. Even veganist kill for their survival. They kill animals that are hardly perceptible to the eye while moving in their sleep or using a broom. They eat food that can't be eaten by others. On planet Earth there are still millions of other human beings that die because of lack of food. Why don't you give them your meal?

Interested in Dulce M Cardoso. Just because of 1 sentence

Sometimes I read a book just because of 1 sentence. Sometimes I’m interested in a writer because of just 1 line he/ she wrote. Right now I’m fascinated on Dulce Maria Cardoso. I read last week a review about her new book ‘Os meus Sentimentos’ (dutch ‘Violeta en de engelen’). The strange thing is I don't want to read this book. It’s about a very fat lady who looks back on her life while dying after a car accident. It’s about the dishonesty and cruelty in which “we” treat other human beings who are “ugly” & how they feel themselves. Well … ‘e isso ai’. For me no reason to read this book. I’m not interested in the subject.

I’m fascinated in the writer Cardoso because she said “I love just let time pass by” (dutch “ze houdt ervan haar tijd zo’n beetje te verdoen”). That is 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. Not because I’m bored or not interested but because that’s what I like best. I don’t have to climb the mount Everest. I’m not interested to become next years gliderchampion. I just love to breath in and breath out. Listen to my own thoughts. Let the flow of my life float.

People don't realize everything disappears. Including feelings

Original quote from Orhan Pamuk in dutch: "Wij mensen willen niet vergeten worden. We willen niet beseffen dat het leven tijdelijk is, dat alles verdwijnt, ook gevoelens." NRC, 4/9/2009 bookreview 'Het museum van de onschuld' by Margot Dijkgraaf.

Translation quote from dutch into english (by JeanD99): "People don't want to be forgotten. We don't realize that life is temporary, everything disappears, including feelings."