Category: Philosophy and poetry

There's no way to escape it. The way we view the past depends upon the context within which we as observers try to make sense of it all.

Historical events are chaotic and completely random, but in retrospect there is always some way to define a predictable pattern that makes connecting the dots of time more than just an academic pursuit.

Projecting our own meaning on the world around us is human nature and more than likely is a result of evolution and the need to survive.

Two events seem related in retrospect while the defining moments between the first event and the second was at the time no more than a gap of silence.

To experience is one thing but to analyze and predict based on the past is another ballpark altogether.

Don't forget that the real reason Medea murdered her children was not because she was crazy or barbaric but because she was extremely distressed that her lover had left her for some less than worthy princess.

Life repeats itself in the real world as history fails to prevent us from repeating the same mistakes that the Greeks had warned us against so long ago.

Humanity is painlessly blind in that regard.

At the heart of daily existence is the never-ending confrontation with death. While it might not always be actual death, there is still the threat of death as a symbolic gesture in various forms surrounding you.

Most people do not look, nor care, nor perhaps dare to even look. The real heroes are exposed from within, and they are the ones who show us how to deal with these various forms of death.

Way back in the fourth century or thereabouts, St. Augustine had been struggling many years with the concept of time, when he wrote the following:

"What is time? If no one asks me, then I know. But if someone questions me about it and I try to explain it, then I no longer know."

Developing a sense of a separate, anonymous self is a never-ending pursuit which should never be neglected, otherwise one runs the risk of doing and thinking what one wrongly assumes are the opinions of others.

More often than not so many people unknowingly think that they want to do what others might expect of them rather than what they really want to do let alone what they really are meant to become.

Many people wondered when exactly it was that he had lost touch with reality. Not that such a syndrome had occurred gradually, nor was it possible to define an exact moment in time. When he had traversed the boundary between what is and what isn't. Wherever that is. Some people take such a transition seriously (like some kind of religious experience) while others prefer a more down to Earth approach (could have happened anywhere any time). The truth of the matter is that all in all it doesn't really matter. At least not yet.

Waiting here within this enclosed and protected environment consisting of long metal beams above and thick glass walls down the sides insulating my senses slightly, I never would have expected it to be raining outside. So tell me how did I end up knowing for sure?

Enter left: some young woman walking her bike, drenched head to toe with her hair moist and tangled and her pants soaking wet, a trail of drops following her zigzag path in front of me.

So when it comes to understanding the reality of true surroundings it means a slightly larger dimension beyond just thinking about yourself and simply waiting here.

Most people might consider standing alone on the platform late in the evening waiting who knows how long for the next train to arrive a somewhat boring experience, to say the least.

However, for someone like myself, I consider it a unique opportunity to look around and enjoy how interesting things might have turned out to be otherwise.

Not that I believe that certain events might have been different or that I might have decided to conduct a number of actions separately rather than grouped into the same temporal unit.

That is not the point.

The point is that one chooses according to how events proceed well before one really knows how these events will proceed.

Ideally it should be a balanced mixture of grouped and separated actions, if of course such a compromise were ever possible.

Every story contains within itself a reason for its own existence, whatever that may be. Just like when every day you sip thoughtfully from your cup of coffee or tea or whatever other substance, not worrying about the effects of not thinking about it, thereby not worrying at all. Things just happen and that's it. Everyone has a ready-made story to share, with oneself, with others, friends and stranger alike, whatever that may be. You can choose to be the hero or the victim or both, whatever fits best into the current situation and the person you really want to be rather than the person you think that others want you to be.

In my younger years, when I was convinced that I was on the verge of becoming some kind of future famous poet, I would spend endless hours arranging this and that trying to perfect the ideal epic poem.

When that didn't work out, I figured why not try and write an amazing novel, similar to Gone With the Wind. Lots of work and concentration, but then again things didn't work out as expected.

Too much work, work, work and too little time. Bummer.

When events prevented me from attaining such a noble goal, I decided to accept life as is and just live day by day. Not much else to do, which in itself is nonetheless still quite a noble goal no matter what.

And that is pretty much why I am currently living a simple life, forgetting the pressures of the past, and just being my self.

Whatever that may mean.

When I looked under my seat I was surprised to find a wadded piece of paper with what appeared to be someone's handwriting on it. When I unwadded the whitish ball, I realized upon closer inspection that it was a short story. This is how it went:

"He was very surprised to discover the wad of paper under his seat, and out of curiosity he decided to unwad it and have a look. Someone else's handwriting revealed a short story, and it went like this:

'For the last week or so he had been having this annoying crick in his neck which irritated him so much that he became aggressive and angry. There seemed to be no easy way to shake it off. Solidified neck vertebrae sealed together like some secret conspiracy to take over, unwilling to give in and accept the inevitable. Glued together and then what? As if the pain were not restrictive enough, it was indeed the lack of or the restricted angle of lateral motion which made things a hundred times worse than it should have been. As a distraction in order to reduce the crick he found a piece of paper and recorded his observations, on second though felt what he had written useless, thereby wadded the piece of paper up and dropped it below his seat. The slight draft along the floor when the doors opened blew the wad of paper backwards under his seat and he never saw it again.'

He decided that it wasn't worthwhile, wadded it up again, tossed it back under the seat for the next unknowing person to discover, if ever that would be."

Interesting, but not interesting enough, so I wadded up the paper again and tossed it back between my legs and underneath the seat where it belonged.

There is much too much violence in the world right now, and it does not seem to be getting any better as civilization advances through the ages. Blowing people up, putting bullets through heads, chopping off hands and tongues and whatever, where will it end?

This seems very strange considering that the main push behind evolution dictates that survival of the fittest will result in change as well as improvement as well as a natural pursuit of harmony and living together.

If we continue to kill each other off of the face of the world, then we are going against the grain of nature trying to decide things for ourselves.

Which does not make much sense, so what next?

Perception is kind of a personal way of looking at things, limited to the core of one's being, the way were always meant to be. There is no way of getting around this as if one would prefer otherwise. Fine with me, no choice otherwise.

There are normally regularly scattered moments in time when a person starts to wonder if life is truly meant to be what it should have been. This way of thinking takes place later in life when many chances have been taken or ignored for the sake of one reason or other. This is a perfectly normal stage in life, at least according to C.G. Jung who foresaw the development of the human mind reaching this so-called middle-aged stage during which such philosophical thoughts had to be overcome.

Here are the four Jungian Stages of Development:

1. Childhood : Archaic: sporadic consciousness, Monarchic: beginning of logical and abstract thinking, Ego starts to develop.
2. Youth : From Puberty until 35 - 40. Maturing Sexuality, growing consciousness, and a realization that the care free days of childhood are gone forever. People strive to gain independence, find a mate, and raise a family.
3. Middle Life : The realization that you will not live forever creates tension. If you desperately try to cling to your youth, you will fail in the process of self-realization. Introverted tendencies should now be explored and people often become religious during this period.
4. Old Age : Consciousness is reduced. Jung thought that death is the ultimate goal of life. By realizing this, people will not face death with fear, but with a hope for rebirth.

See: Stages of Life.

Alright so let's try to think things out more carefully if that is possible. Forget the panic and the extra pressures to get things done before who knows what. The most important thing now is to remain cool, calm and collected, and do our best as much as possible.

There is this misconception out there which needs to be addressed in the sense that let's face it but things are slightly different than we had expected. Dig in and deal with the problem but let's be honest about it and tackle thing accordingly. There is no use in wasting too much time with abstract philosophical variations on the subject, except that we must focus and get the job done. Together, that is.

The time has come when it is necessary to try things out ever so slightly than what is originally expected. This is certainly a difficult task but not one that we should ignore because we are afraid to take the initial steps. We can hesitate forever and wonder about the consequences or we can just roll up our sleeves and get things done. I prefer the latter.

What were the odds that that drop of water detached itself from the overhanging leaf right at the mathematically correct instant that when I cycled underneath the tree that drop of water struck me on my forehead exactly at the midpoint between my eyes?

If it had been a bullet I would have been killed instantly, but if instead it had been a speck of dust I would not have noticed it at all.

When the train starts to decelerate the natural inclination of the body is to bend backwards ever so slightly so as to compensate the force of nature which states that moving objects will continue moving in the initial direction due to the momentum as defined by the current situation.

More often than not even the most structured, logical arguments based on obvious facts which are according to you impossible to refute, are not enough.

The emotional, political and personal elements cannot be ignored. This is the other half of the discussion which is so often under-estimated or even completely ignored.

Since humans are not machines nor are they 'really' logically-thinking beings, the good old ergo sum arguments are not very effective in the long term.

Each and every decision is by definition emotional. Even if the chances are a million to one and any efforts beyond say ten minutes seem to be futile, we the human beings believe so much in ourselves and the world around us, that we might even keep on going for a long time, despite obvious impossible-looking obstacles.

The funny thing is that quite often what at first seemed impossible becomes probable, and with a tad extra perseverance and positive thinking, happens before you realize it.

In that way life is pleasantly unpredictable and worth living, as always.

This is all kind of weird when you think about it logically.

Of course, it might be better not to think logically any more, at least much less logically than one is used to nowadays.

The only problem with that approach would be that in order to retain some sense of sanity, everyone would have to decrease their logicalities at the same moment and in the same way.

Otherwise all of us would not be running in sync anymore.

Was that ever the case anyway, e.g. what's the danger then?

When you think about it logically, it really isn't that impressive an idea at all.

As if the Greeks had come up with some earth-shattering philosophical insight which once and for all determined the course of western civilization.

Here's the idea, quite simple actually. Everything in the universe is made up of material objects called atoms which are indivisible units of matter, the smallest possible dots of what is.

I'm not impressed.

What it all boils down to is this. Every given object can be divided into smaller and smaller pieces indefinitely or not. If not then we reach a logical limit, otherwise there is no known speck of matter which cannot be further sliced in two.

It is or it is not. Flip a coin, roll the dice, or use another less random more emotional means of deciding for yourself. It's one or the other. The final decision is no less than a choice between two limits.

For all we know, some other Greek type of philosopher person could have been born a century earlier who could have just as easily decided the other way around. And then what?

There is no smallest physical object which cannot be further split into two smaller objects. And then again and then again ad infinitum.

Everything in the known universe is infinitely divisible, so there we have it.

In some future entry I will cover the non-physical aspects of reality for which a whole other set of natural laws apply.

Is ther intelligent life beyond this planet? Better yet, is there even intelligent life here on Earth? Not quite sure.

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.

- T.S. Eliot

And then when the wind starts blowing harder,
Trees and blades of grass and other things,
The beard and the mismatched leather cap,
Trotting along the path but not quite...

The C.G. Jung page has been redesigned and it looks really impressive. Just the right balance of colors and graphics that would make even Mr. Jung himself feel very pleased.

Not only is there a good slew of articles and papers, but the discussion forum is also an interesting place to visit.

Among others, you have the following forums from which to choose:

• Analytical Philosophy
Dream Analysis
• Psychology and Film

An interesting essay you might like to read is called On Life After Death by C.G. Jung.

Highly recommended, so please visit.

Movement is the expression of the soul, and silence is the means of describing this fact the best.

There was that guy again standing over there to the side. Off in the distance but close enough also. When he saw me looking his way, he walked up to me. It took him about five minutes or so. His shoes barely cleared the sand and his feet made shuffling sounds as he approached. His sandals were made of leather and he was wearing thick woolen socks.

"You know," he started to say and then stopped in the middle of his sentence as if I was supposed to give him a visual que or something so that he could start again. Permission on my part, showing we were equal in more ways than one.

I just smiled (the "visual cue" or something).

"Like I was saying," he continued, "it is periods like this that can be really trying on your relationship. Hopeless or so it seems..."

I had to agree, but how did he know what was on my mind?

"You get to the point where you know that it would not be good to stop, but at the same time it is more and more difficult to keep on going." (Cough). "Running away is a viable option."

Sure made sense. What does he know that I don't?

"You can just hang around, I don't care." He shrugged his shoulders as if it were he that was giving me the permission this time around.

Sounded alright with me. I blinked and then he was gone, back to the spot where I first saw him standing. Then he wandered further until I could not see him any more.

Now that that guy went on his way again, it got me to thinking. "The end of the year is just that: a time just to hang around is all..." was what I was thinking.

So that is what I will be doing, I suppose.

Sometimes it takes an unexpected flash of insight to realize that what you are doing might be wrong, but it takes tremendous courage to admit it and then do something about it.

Your turn.

While I stood here, in the open, lost in myself,
I must have looked a long time
Down the corn rows, beyond grass,
The small house,
White walls, animals lumbering toward the barn.
I look down now. It is all changed.
Whatever it was I lost, whatever I wept for
Was a wild, gentle thing, the small dark eyes
Loving me in secret.
It is here. At the touch of my hand,
The air fills with delicate creatures
From the other world.

-- James Wright

The way I see it there is never enough time to learn everything that you want to learn. In fact, the more you learn the more you realize that you will never get there within one lifetime. The chances are even less if there are indeed more than one lifetime to experience. Nor within two lifetimes, three lifetimes, nor more. There is simply too much catching up to do, so why even start in the first place? Starting all over again that is. Perhaps in that regard the best action to take is no action at all. So let us then assume that you decide to take no action at all. Where will that lead you then?

Imagine spending your whole life dedicated to the pursuit of a certain belief, only to have that cherished belief dashed to the ground right in front of your eyes at the very end of your life? That is exactly what happened to poor Freud, and it is easily understandable why he felt pretty letdown about the whole matter. As if he had wasted a whole lifetime for nothing! You see, he had researched tons of patients and written piles of research papers under the preconceived notion that all neuroses could in the end be traced back to some childhood sexual trauma(s) or other. In fact, even though he could not remember it at all, he was convinced that his own personal psychological problems were rooted to the fact that he had been sexually abused by his father because he was secretly in love with his mother (also known as the Oedipus Complex). So brainwashed by his own convictions and so much energy spent with zero results. Slowly but surely, Freud realized this ominous stroke of bad luck, but he could not muster up enough courage to admit this to his colleagues. This shortcoming of his theory became more and more obvious, eating way at him, and Freud became quite desperate and depressed. What was he to do? This is where the unexpected and the miracle of life comes into play. Suddenly, he realized something, and it was this new insight that was about to save his face. What Freud figured out was that it was not the "actual" episodes of the past which were the causes of neuroses, but one's "fantasies" about these episodes! A kind of meta-awareness in which one manipulates the subconscious in such a way that fantasies are used to reform and make repressions more acceptable to the mind. The mind does not want to be burdened by things like guilt, sadness or anger, so these feelings are cloaked in the more acceptable attire fantasy. Upon closer inspection, one quickly realizes how easy it would be to confuse the actual events with fantasies about these actual events, so Freud isn't really to blame for his near failure. In fact, he has become a kind of super-hero for having discovered this very fine boundary between the real and the unreal. To the human mind fantasies seem real, very real. But actually they are not real in themselves, only in the manner in which one uses these tools in order to pry into the subconscious world. Freud was not wrong at all, and boy did he feel relieved. There is always hope no matter what.

So whatever happened to the last page of the big long thick novel? In fact, the whole last chapter is missing for some reason. There you go on reading and reading and then the whole plot drops into nowhere. Like an unexpected crevice into black nothingness. The strange part is that you just stop dead in your tracks and do not fall in there, the tips of your shoes barely hanging over the edge. So the best thing to do is put the heavy book down, lay it down to the side or behind you, but do not forget to stick the nice bookmark in place. Even if it is the (premature) end of the long and drawn out story anyway. On a hunch, flip back to the very beginning, the first chapter which seems like only yesterday. Now you can understand it more clearly, really clearly as if it almost seems to make sense again. No use trying to figure things out when you can go back to where you started.

There is a story of a religious teacher who used to talk every morning to his disciples. One morning he got on the platform and was just about to begin when a little bird came and sat on the window sill and began to sing, and sang away with full heart. Then it stopped and flew away and the teacher said, "The sermon for this morning is over".

- Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known (Chapter XI: To look and to listen).

There they were
the two of them
continuing down and up again.

Cooling water with ripples
leaves afloat
slowing down along the way.

And then the others
also wanting a place
just missing to the end.

Time to time it
until the very end
where music splits the air.

Breaking through.

"To reach the Western Lands is to achieve freedom from fear. Do you free yourself from fear by cowering in your physical body for eternity? Your body is a boat to lay aside when you reach the far shore, or sell it if you can find a fool... it's full of holes... it's full of holes."

- William Burroughs (1914 - 1997), The Western Lands.

The wind
is everywhere
the petals scatter
through a frozen web
still
yet moving the same
a fluttering of red confetti
drifting with each breeze as
the rose becomes
the wind.

Hard to believe that I wrote this so-called poem almost twenty-five years ago. Not bad for a naive kid who way back then was convinced that he would become a future-famous philosopher poet someday. The bizarre element is that the feelings which are evoked by this piece echo not only how I felt at the time but how I am feeling now as well. Not bad. Hard to believe.

No there is nothing wrong with my mind. Nothing wrong at all. Mind, mind. What mind? I am not thinking.

Unfortunately, our dear friend Descartes got it all wrong. Too bad that the so-called modern civilization has been mislead for so many centuries. Sure I realize that his intentions were good, no disagreeing with that. But one still cannot stop wondering what misfortunes history could have avoided. How much more advanced we would have been if this shackle had been let loose long ago. Of course, spiritualism in its purest form, even religions of various sorts did not help out matters either.

So what is the answer then, you may be asking? Don't know. Don't know even we even should know. No. The legacy of the mind/body duality.

The Pineal Gland? Now really. Hard to imagine that one could even consider this as remotely feasible. What is this so-called Pineal Gland anyway?

The third eye. The bridge between reality and spirituality. That mirror in the brain through which the pinpoint of light called our soul resides. Chemicals in the brain. Chemicals allowing and/or disallowing access to the mind's window.

Is perception the leading edge of memory? Find out the answer by clicking here.

we are the hollow men
we are the stuffed men
leaning together
headpiece filled with straw. alas!
our dried voices, when
we whisper together
are quiet and meaningless
as win in dry grass
or rats' feet over broken glass
in our dry cellar.

t.s. eliot
the hollow men
1925
mistah kurtz - he dead

Rumor has it that we are all manifestations of the very same primordial form. Each person should be respected for his and her unique traits and talents, that little bit of extra cytosplasm that makes this world an even better place. A bit more crowded but better nonetheless. Love thy neighbor and respect your fellow workers. This is extremely difficult to uphold during trying times as these now that the economic situation is quickly deteriorating. Even your closest acquaintances are acting selfishly. The ME culture, it is coming back. I also grew up in the ME culture back in the decade of the nuclear family. Coming back to haunt us. Thanks alot Dr. Spock for the creative freedom you allowed our parents to give us. Making us much better little people. All these little people have now grown up. As long as the times are flowing along okay then we can flow with it, right? The ME culture. ME ad infinitum. Come a dip followed by major bumps in the road, then it becomes another story. My fellow human beings, even if they consist of the very same clay from which I am also made, they can become very annoying and irritating. Selfish and uncaring. Survival of the fittest. Just keep on respecting them. Try to understand. Laugh and smile. Smile and irradiate. Goodness.

Another week has passed by. The onward march of time keeps us occupied with the future, future riches yet to be grasped. Forget about the past, they tell us. The future is where it is at. Strive now for never. Never, never. The weekend was originally meant as a period of rest, and for good reason. However, modern civilization has compressed this period of rest, so much so in fact that it has all but disappeared completely. All of us are active most of the time and most of us are active all of the time. In the meantime, the seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks flow past us without reserve, that dauntless clicking away. Clicking away of time. Time spent.

Well it is finally about time that I do something useful with my life. Hey, wait a minute. That is exactly what I am doing at the moment. So what is the deal anyway? Take two. Well it is about time that I do something different with my life. Yes, I have heard that earlier, almost that is, something very similar but not quite. This time around instead of useful it has become different. If you know what I mean. Today I was on my way to the local SHOPPING MALL which here in Gouda they refer to as the WINKELCENTRUM, when there to my left the little white house had, it had, I cannot believe it, but but it was gone! How is that possible? Such a quaint little abode just perfect for your average everyday gnome or midget or other brand of small Dutch person. Yesterday a house and today just thin air. I am in a nonsense type of mood in case you have not noticed. Must be the cold air going to my brains. Now tell me then, where did that little house go? My brains. I do not believe that it was a figment of my imagination now or was it? Suppose that on the way back home I stop to gaze at the empty lot and someone notices. He or she asks me what I am looking at, and I answer with "the house that used to be over there", pointing with my finger. Hmmm, the person will probably remain polite and not say anything even though he and/or she is also aware of the fact that the house has disappeared. What house do you mean sir? Oh the one over there, I mean the one that used to be over there. Sorry, but I was wrong because the little white house was not on the left but on the right. Over there next to the water. Have a good day. Do you like my hat. I certainly do not, well have a nice day anyway, good-bye, good-bye. Do you like my hat? Go, dog. Go!

Eye in the sky.

Everyone has experienced one or more events that have completely changed ones attitude about life. For myself there are a number of happenings, some major and some quite trivial, that have effected my way of thinking as well as my approach to the way I live. A slight jolt, an insight, or just plainly some loving words. Actually as I am such a sentimental person always drawing truth from past experiences, I can recount a myriad of such events. But for the sake of avoiding endless rambling and due to the natural limitations of space and time, I will only jot down the most important. Just so I will not bore away the last remaining fans that wait anxiously for my next entry in the ever-growing diary of mine. Okay, here they are in no particular order:

• Division in math. Discovering for the first time what division was. In 2nd grade, I had this really nice teacher whose name was Miss Bell. She motivated me greatly and was a fine coach for a curious boy. I had enthusiastically skipped through the math workbook and came to the final chapter. There I came in contact with a new and bizarre symbol, which looked like this: (÷). Yikes, what could that possibly be?! Miss Bell just smiled and explained that it was the division symbol. It could be used to chop up numbers into an equal amount of other smaller numbers. Hmmm, fascinating.
• Metaphor. In high school we had to read the book "The Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens. Boring for most people, but of course I was a real geek and found it a challenge discovering new literature. We had this really strict teacher whose name was Mrs. Lukavich. She got angry alot, but she taught quite effectively. I will never forget the day she asked us all if anyone knew what a "metaphor" was. Of course, no one had the slightest idea, not even I. Then she explained it: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another; making an implicit comparison, as in "All the world’s a stage" by Shakespeare; one thing conceived as representing another; a symbol. I became engrossed with such a concept, how the human mind could be so creative in processing thoughts in such an abstract and wonderful way. That is when I got hooked on reading books. From that day onward I I have remained an avid reader of books, all kinds of books, piles and piles of books.
• President Kennedy has been shot. For those of you alive at the time, who can ever forget where they were when they first heard about this awful news. I was six years old on the day sitting in the classroom. It was a gloomy day. All of a sudden, the principal came on the PR-system and said, "Our president has been shot." We were all excused from school and everything seemed dark and sad. The black-and-white scenes on the television set of the burial procession with the US flag draped over a wooden casket with wheels pulled by a horse are about the clearest memories of my youth.
• Meeting Thea. Seeing this attractive blond-haired Dutch gal for the first time in Balestrand, Norway. What can I say, except that this random rendezvous changed my life forever. Starting all over again in Holland, building up my life from scratch all over again. And all for the sake of love. Despite the many impossible obstacles, it has turned out to be a relationship that has lasted. I hope it stays that way. Dearest Thea, thank you so very much for having entered my life. Was it a coincidence, a quirk of fate, or something deeper? For more details, please click here.
• First man on the moon. Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon's surface as the first man on the moon. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. I was sitting in the back seat with my sisters, my parents driving back home from a visit at Jeanine's I think. We were at the fly-overs right before San Jose when this was announced on the radio. I felt like mankind had pulled off a miraculous achievement, and when I grew up I would like to be a part of it. Wow. Now every evening I could gaze up at the moon and think that someone had actually been there.
• Accepted into Stanford. Getting into Stanford University, hurrah! The rest of my life was taken care of, or at least that is what I thought. Boy, was I ecstatic at the time, with the whole wide world open to me. I would become a future-famous brain surgeon some day. So much to learn, so much to experience within those four short years. I still often dream about this time in my life, which goes to show you how much this phase has influenced me, subconsciously. For more details, please click here.
• Reality an illusion? Does reality really exist or is it all an illusion? In reality there is no way to prove or disprove this. The mind might be creating reality or just dreaming or observing a bunch of mechanical robots. That tree over there? This person I am talking to about whether or not reality is an illusion, a book. Actually, it was my mother who brought up this tantalizing concept one evening. Probably a casual sentence to trigger me into thinking. It worked. I am still thinking about it. Hopefully in a couple years I will come up with the answer.
• Lennart born. The birth of my first child, listening to Mahler's 2nd Symphony in the car on the way to register his birth at the town hall in Amsterdam with tears in my eyes. I had become a father for the first time in my life. Time to become responsible.

There is much more, but it is nearing midnight, time to go to bed. I will come back and continue this off another time, I hope. Perhaps this could be an interesting theme for yet another web page? We will see.

Note: since this entry was written, a new page has been added to my homepage at Life changers.

The following dilemma keeps following me around. There is an "infinite" amount of new knowledge to pursue out there in the so-called real world, and the more I learn the more I want to learn, it never ends. There is something inside of me that gets exciting whenever something new and challenging pokes its way in front of me, or even if I just happen to see it from the corner of my eyes. Putting on the breaks is difficult, and sometimes I need a break. Right now I have my new working surroundings, a millions books I want to read, my Internet Homepage which keeps needing to be improved. Hard to know where and when to stop. Is knowledge really the truth or is it an easy, comfortable object I am used to chasing around? As one gets older one should stop being interested in technical complicated stuff, at least that is what I hear all the time:

"you cannot become a manager without distancing yourself from the technology."

I still disagree, because whatever is technical elates me and excites me. Afterall, is this really a dilemma? Or is it a natural part of me, my essence, which while needing to be expressed also deserves appreciation and the proper restraint?