Day’s pictures

Day 2051, economy?

Day's pictures
Slide film, 1996, Olst – the Netherlands

For the last few weeks, I’ve been studying the different economic systems, reading some general books, and learning about the various big names in the western economy. There were a few things that caught my attention and one thing in particular.

The books I read and browsed through are primarily written in America and are for the most focussed on that country. But the other two large economic powers (Europe and China) are not ignored.

Europe as a whole has a lot of economic power, but every country has there own economic system, though they mix socialistic and more capitalistic ideas. Europe seems to have learned from their long history that there is not such a thing as one direction; there needs to be a compromise between all the different ideologies; Europe is a little wiser than Young America and China.

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Day 2050, grandfather.

Day's pictures, Poetry
Slide film, 199?, the Netherlands

I only know my grandfather

through myself

he himself

never understood

his own

demons

only his silence

~

this silence was draped in front of me

on the table where I grew up

~

I only know my daemons

looking through this draped

veil

~

I see his silent shadow

behind it

it never left

it is where he lived

he is still there  

sometimes looking

at me

like me

~

he never spoke

he never will

he never lived

his silence killed

before he died

Day 2049, my river.

Day's pictures
Slide film, 1996, Olst – the Netherlands

What has happened to me, my animals? said Zarathustra. Have I not changed? Has not bliss come to me as a storm? My happiness is foolish and will say foolish things: it is still young, so be patient with it. I am wounded by my happiness: let all who suffer be my physicians. I may go down again to my friends, and to my enemies too. Zarathustra may speak again and give and do what is dearest to those dear to him. My impatient love overflows in rivers, downward, toward sunrise and sunset. From silent mountains and thunderstorms of suffering my soul rushes into the valleys. Too long have I longed and looked into the distance. Too long have I belonged to loneliness; thus I have forgotten how to be silent. Mouth have I become through and through, and the roaring of a stream from towering cliffs: I want to plunge my speech down into the valleys. Let the river of my love plunge where there is no wayl How could a river fail to find its way to the sea? Indeed, a lake is within me, solitary and self-sufficient; but the river of my love carries it along, down to the sea.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra:The child with the mirror

Day 2048, our inner.

Day's pictures, Poetry

Slide film, 1996, Burgers’ zoo – Arnhem – the Netherlands

When I look at you

through all these past layers

I sometimes wonder

if I am still there

I had a girlfriend in 1996 who studied biology, and she often had to go to Burgers zoo to study the different apes there. I tried to tag along as often as possible. I am not sure if I ever met Frans de Waal, but he has written several well-known books, and I have read some of them. I met his mentor Jan Van Hoof who was a professor in Utrecht, where my girlfriend studied, and we also lived. It was fun to follow some of the lectures, but I am glad it was just for fun; she had to learn a lot.

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Day 2042, phosphorus.

Day's pictures

Film, 1992, Netherlands.

I joined the Marines in 1992; the draft ended that year, so I was one of the last that had to go into military service. If I had stayed at school, I would have gotten an exemption, but I wanted to leave, but I also didn’t want to join the regular army. I had never really thought about joining the military, not because of some special reasons; it just didn’t seem so excited. Until then, most men in Holland had been drafted into the army for 12 months, and I had only heard stories about boredom and that it was a waste of time. Only if you got lucky could you get some kind of education out of it that is useful later in life, like medical training or getting your truck driver’s license. I don’t know how I got the idea to join the Marines, but probably because I still went to school in Rotterdam, and Rotterdam is the Marines’ spiritual home, so I guess that’s how I came in contact with it.

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Day 2041, two memories.

Day's pictures
Slide film, 1992, Rotterdam

I moved to Rotterdam in 1991 when I was 19. My younger sister had just moved there the year before, and because we always were close together, I decided to also go to school in Rotterdam, this seemed a good idea, and it was. I grew up in a small place with 5000 people where not much happened besides all the things we could do in the forests everywhere. I remember little about that time, even when I look at the few pictures of the places we lived. I just remember that I was a good time living there; remembering a feeling is maybe easier than remembering facts. I do remember the little supermarket just outside the door that was open 24 hours a day; back then, most stores still closed at six, so this was special. I also remember the bike ride I took every day to the other side of the city, timing myself to go faster and faster.

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Day 2037, Thinking.

Day's pictures

My little bird is looking in the mirror right now. I don’t know what she is talking about, but it is a whole conversation with herself. It looks and sounds quite ridiculous from where I am sitting.

If I started talking to every person I see in the mirror, as the bird did (it stopped), I would probably be taken away slowly to a nice padded room. But then again, millions of people pep themselves up in the morning by talking to themselves, speaking loud, in front of the mirror.

But we also think. Sometimes we think, and forget from moment to moment that we are thinking; maybe that’s meandering through wordles words.

Other times we feel emotions, often strong ones intermixed with words, words that immediately get swallowed up by a new wave of feelings, feelings from forgotten corners of our mind.

You can also think in pictures like people do that never heard a spoken word. Pictures can represent words or just replace them, and I often see pictures in my memories or when I think about where it is.

And sometimes we just talk to ourselves, making plans on what to do or how to express our feelings to another in words.  Sometimes it is really clear what we say, and we regret we can’t write it down standing in the shower, when water is running all over you.

The bird might think it is talking to a stranger, but we know that we talk to ourselves, and the pictures I see are mine and my emotions, well, those too.

So this is what I think, and therefore I am…really?

Day 2029, Education.

Day's pictures, Poetry

Democracy and Education (Read it her: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm)

by John Dewey

Chapter One: Education as a Necessity of Life

Education and Communication. So obvious, indeed, is the necessity of teaching and learning for the continued existence of a society that we may seem to be dwelling unduly on a truism. But justification is found in the fact that such emphasis is a means of getting us away from an unduly scholastic and formal notion of education. Schools are, indeed, one important method of the transmission which forms the dispositions of the immature; but it is only one means, and, compared with other agencies, a relatively superficial means. Only as we have grasped the necessity of more fundamental and persistent modes of tuition can we make sure of placing the scholastic methods in their true context. Society not only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication. There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication. Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; and

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