zaterdag 28 augustus 2010

Berlijn

As you well know, I have an opinion about everything. Even - or especially - about the things I know hardly anything about.

Thus, despite never having visited Berlin, I could participate in conversation on this German Capital. Berlin, I used to say, was more like Brussels. The Tale of Four Cities. You had Paris and London on the one hand, glamourous & rich, decadent & gorgeous, and Berlin and Brussels on the other, hodge-podge eclecticism, an assembly of a convoluted history and a bustling present.

Like they say, even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
So guess what, turns out I had an actual point.

Berlin Is like Brussels. Be it a lot bigger.

You have ugly buildings wedged in between temples of the past. You have gargantuan squares surrounded by fake reconstructions. You have a troubled past.
You have, in short, a city to fall in love with.



And I think I did. Like so many before me, I have grown to really like Berlin, despite the shortness of my visit.

This liking grew gradually. The overcast skies did not prevent us from seeing some (for it would be preposterous to think we saw even a glimmer of the wealth of Berlin) of the highlights.


The click however, came in a moment of unplanned queasiness. I passed on a museum visit my entourage was to engage in, and instead elected to wander around a bit. I sat listening to some street artists (violin & guitar playing, amongst others, the schlinder's list theme), I walked around, I wandered. I roamed. I was at peace.


I will be back.

zondag 22 augustus 2010

Festivals

De Morgen (Flemish News Paper) claims that Pukkelpop has gotten a lot stricter in its policy on drugs... hehe.
'nough said.

Sun. Dust. Sunburns. Sweat pouring down, slowly taking on the colour of the surroundings. Free hat, head is grateful. Music. Atmosphere. Rhythm. Bouncing beats crashing our sense of self & direction.

It seems we have gone back to the most tribal (most human?) form of dance. Rhythmic swaying back and forth. Head bouncing, shaking. Arms flaying wildly.
The only thing missing is fire & body paint.

Music.

Rhythm.

Sounds.

Sun.

vrijdag 13 augustus 2010

Happiness

What is happiness?

Happiness is not something commonly experienced in the "active" sense. More often it will be a vague realisation, more often than that a sense of loss. Happy is usually something that you were, the lack of which is felt more clearly than the presence ever did.

On those few occasions, however, that the happiness is realised, it is to be seen as a sense of contentment.
It is acceptance.
You look at the world around you - your world - and feel at peace with it.

True happiness isn't anything world shattering - to the contrary, in fact -, it is a sense of inner peace.

Inner Peace is the - very personal, intuitive - idea that you have not committed any sins that you have been insufficiently punished for.

Sins are not to be seen as a Christian, Muslim, Jewish or any other religious concept. The sins in our mind are those mistakes we have made in the past that we are sorry for. Things that we feel we shouldn't have done. These may, and often will, be dictated by the society we live in, but are first and foremost a product of our own values and worth. Killing a man to obtain bread may not be a sin, whereas looking at your wife's sister may. Not being able to buy the special addition Barbie (c) for your baby girl may be a torment.
The important thing is that You, individually, feel that you have done wrong.

The same logic works for the Punishment. This does not have to be - and usually isn't - a physical form of punishment. It may come in the form of self-abasement, of self-denial, of fast, of donating vast amounts of money to people who will never know who their benefactor was. The ways of punishment are as vast as there are humans. For every human being, there are sins, for every sin, there's a punishment.

Inner peace is achieved when the sins and the punishment are in balance. You do not owe a debt to anyone, anything, and least of all to yourself.

Happiness is that easy. And that Difficult.

---

Truly happy people will not be remembered. For they will not be the ones doing great deeds. Great deeds are a clear example of punishment. People pushing themselves to the brink of life, striving for the greatest, are seeking Inner Peace. The moment they have achieved it - though, don't worry, they rarely will - their momentum is stopped. The Perpetuum Mobile that is Sin & Punishment will have come to a standstill.
It isn't surprising that the most active, reactive, creative, productive people are teenagers. Who else could be less at peace?

A society where everyone is happy - the society mankind has officially strived for for ages - is doomed. Luckily - how ironic a word - this will probably never come to pass.

The Favourite Feeling

Though perhaps it would be better to call it the absence of feeling, more than the presence of one.

Sitting in a bar
coffee and tobacco
close at hand
book in

There's no future
There's no past

And most importantly
perhaps
No present


http://hotguysreadingbooks.tumblr.com/

zondag 1 augustus 2010

On Fate

When facing questions, who do you turn to?

Do you turn to your parents, your brothers, your family?

Do you turn to your friends or lovers?

Do you turn to yourself?

Who of those should you trust the most? If any?

Your family, for they can not but love you and will support you in all your endeavours, however grudgingly? Or are they to be mistrusted, because they may attempt to live through you, realize their half forgotten dreams of splendour through their offspring; or even begrudge you your shot at those dreams, where they blew it? Are they not human?

Your friends, for they love you because they can; and they stick to you because they want to? Will they be willing to let you go when they realize they should? Who’s to prevent them from subconsciously attributing their own reasons to you? Are they not human?

Yourself? That treacherous wretch that has to turn to others, even imaginary meta-others, for salvation, for solutions? That weakling who is incapable or unwilling – which one is worse? – to make the choices posed upon him as a member of society, as a participant of the eternal rat race? Are you not human?

When things go wrong, when they go right, who will you blame or thank? Why blame or thank someone who did not consciously do wrong? Why those who are only human? Do they or you control the tempestuous whims of life? We did not, could not, do not, will not affect the events that occurred, occur and will keep occurring.

Why turn to the helpless?



Is it not much better to let the fates decide? To let them spin the yarn of time, measure it, and cut it at will? Is it not much better to float the tides, being thrown hither and dither like the flotsam we truly are?

We are but actors, playing out the roles set out for us. The most the atheist can hope for, is that he won’t forget his lines. The most the believer can hope for, is that the prompter does remember them.


The Dancer by Otto Dix