Author: Christiaan van Gaal

Day 2782, old mirror.

Daily picture, Poetry 
I am looking in an old mirror forgotten 
stored in the attic
where I found it

the silver lining underneath my face 
cracked
while seeing myself in a dozen
Interrupted facets 
outlined by dirty decay

I move away
but I only get smaller
though now I can see 
that it once was all clear.

~

I like the delicate frame of this so familiar 
this frame with that little bit of dust on it
seemingly stuck.

Day 2780, nonsensical.

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

Human, All Too Human II
Mixed Opinions and Maxims

19 The picture of life. -The task of painting the picture of life, however often it may have been set by poets and philosophers, is nevertheless nonsensical: even in the hands of the greatest painter-thinkers only pictures and miniatures from a single life, that is, from their own lives, have been produced- and nothing else is even possible. Amid what is becoming, some­ thing that is itself becoming cannot reflect itself as fixed and enduring, as any specific “thing.”

45 Not taking things too hard. – Getting bedsores is unpleasant and yet no proof against the good points of the course of treat­ ment that decided upon putting us in bed. – Humans who have lived outside themselves for a long time and then finally turned to the philosophical inward, interior life know that there also exist bedsores of heart and soul. This is not there­ fore an argument against the whole of the lifestyle they have chosen, but it does make a few small exceptions and apparent relapses necessary.

 

Day 2773, to reckon.

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Gay Science
Book one

41 Against remorse.— A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions—as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. To be annoyed or feel remorse because something goes wrong—that he leaves to those who act because they have received orders and who have to reckon with a beating when his lordship is not satisfied with the result.

Day 2770, childish.

Daily picture

They are killing each other again in the Middle East. I hear people talking about how many people are killed by the other side compared to their side as a measure of who is worse. But is there really a difference between one unnecessary death or two unnecessary deaths? Doubles your grief if you see four family members die in front of you instead of two?

Maybe only a nonbeliever in any system, nation-state, or religion wonders about these questions. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everybody lived where they are without the feeling that they have a right to live there, that they own the land? I guess mankind is still in the phase of a child, one that screams if you take away the toy they grab on to. 

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