One advantage of getting older is that you (can) realize that age doesn’t make you smarter. I have been carrying many of my self-proclaimed best ideas with me for 30 years now, and I have fine-tuned them a little here and there, and maybe see them clearer in a wider context, but they are basically the same ideas.

I am older now, but I have learned over the years that I know very little about many things and a little more about a few things. This knowledge that we don’t get smarter or have better ideas when we get older is something I also use when I look at people that I have admired, like Richard Dawkins, for instance. When I read his books and learned about what was written in them, I was still young, naive, and impressed. Naivety is something that slowly erodes, and though I am still impressed by most of his work, I am also disappointed. Over the years, I have learned that these writers are just like you and me, and the internet gave me the tools to easily find out what lives they live behind the façade I erected in front of them. They can have their opinions, of course, but it’s just a shame that with all the effort they put into their professional work, they say utter nonsense while the answers are easily accessible from their phones. 

But now I know about his political views, which makes me sad. I long for the days that I  could naively believe that a scholar who has produced such enlightened work could never simultaneously produce so much nonsense when they speak about things they know little about. It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect in full force. It’s what they say: never meet your idols, just keep reading their good books.

It’s just disappointment, and I fear I will unknowingly do the same…and that’s my first lie, it’s not fear, I know it.

It's my dreams that make me feel
small 
and I don’t talk about the ones that I wake up from 
but the ones that feel real
while I am awake

and what’s my part 
when I dream
do I want them

I just know
that sometimes
they tower over me

The alarm bell is often clearly visible
I wonder why
it is important to know where the sound comes from
precisely 

The damage is done from the inside
with a rhythm 
one I can only feel resonating

a different note
every time

with no melody 
to listen to
for you
outside 

I don’t dare to get close to the window
it’s for what I don’t see inside 
what makes me afraid 

I keep staring 
but now just at the window
a substitute
fascinating on its own 
and I imagine 
representing you
inside

Do I even have to come closer?

It was left behind
an unfinished story
you walked away from

and now
in your hindsight 
you still don’t understand
where it was going

It gets left behind
an unfinished story
you walked away from

and now
…