Society

Day 3487, shouting at squirrels.

Daily picture, My thoughts

We don’t know much about ourselves, besides the story we have to tell. One thing in my life that stuck, and is not only remembered by me, is the idea that I thought, when I turned eighteen, that I would arrive in a world where finally rationality would rule. 35 years later, and I know by now that that was an illusion. I probably knew that already when I picked the candles of the cake, but now I am at a stage where I see rationality as a trade. It’s almost like something we do when it suits us. We can be rational, but we are not rational. The table underneath is a nice illustration of how we often feel as adults, but also how we often really are as adults. Look at the “leaders” who are in the news most often right now. They are not the strong figures we imagine they should be; they are little children who want what they cannot get, don’t care about the others, and feel themselves to be the centre of the world. I always had some sort of respect for people who enter the last quarter of their lives, but from what I see now, and maybe I will learn something new before I join that club that changes my mind, but till that happens, I will have no respect for age and so-called wisdom.

I predict that in 100,000 years, the historians will write about the period of the Sumerians til now only in a small note for the chapter about homo stupitites. I have to say that that idea gives me hope, that we all one day will be forgotten. I also wish I could have a sneak peek into that future society. I hope they’ve addressed the issue of the pressure we all feel to conform to “invisible” social norms, as most people are friendly and helpful when they’re not part of a group. Imagine if we ignored the world leaders we have today; they’d likely end up walking alone in a forest, shouting at squirrels.

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Day 3299, draft.

Daily picture, My thoughts

They say that the earth is not doing well, or, to narrow it down, the people living on this rock are not working together well.

First, the Earth. I am no expert, but even if we all wanted to, we could not destroy the Earth. I doubt that in 500 million years, there will be any trace left of us, and we could not even imagine what will see the sunset by then, but I am pretty sure it is not reminiscing about us while enjoying the colours.

On working together. If you read history in a certain way and combine that with some unattached observations made during your own life, you will know that two or more people working together is more often than not a challenge. Even if you live with the same person in the same house for many years, you will still encounter odd miscommunications that result in late arrivals or worse.

Most of us have also worked in groups, whether at work, in a sports club, or organizing a family event. If you work together enough, a certain rhythm will take over, but I can’t imagine someone who has never felt a slight chaos while achieving a goal. Sometimes you see this happening right in front of you, as someone who is led around, but also when you have been in charge, the feeling of a loss of control will not be unknown to you.

Now extend it to the country you live in. There are good leaders, and the bigger the pool, the larger the chance one of these exemplary leaders will be in charge. But even if this is happening, these people’s organizing skills have to be delegated downwards, and the first layers in this bureaucracy might be staffed by competent people, but soon the first administrators are directly recruited out of the cultural habits of that particular country, and acting accordingly. From a few people to the largest countries, they all had and have their goals, they started in the direction they wanted, and sometimes reached them. However, they all share a low efficiency, a high amount of wasted resources through mismanagement, and incompetence.

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Day 3154, current.

Daily picture, My thoughts, Poetry, Quotes 
We've all been in a line
upwards 
to a horizon
counting the steps we take
as if we count for something

Infinity was, for a long time, a philosophical concept. We now live our lives as if we live forever, having a handful of genuine experiences at the end, where the rest is just meaningless time between these events, meaningless like a single drop is in a stream going down, part of it all but also not. We live as if life has no value because we still cannot believe that this is it; you don’t wash away hundreds of generations of indoctrination in the big promise of an afterlife or reincarnation.

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Day 2970, how to catch a war.

Daily picture, My thoughts

I don’t write much about politics and what’s happening in the world. I try to understand it by studying history and philosophy, but that’s more about the mechanisms of wars and other pains we humans like to inflict on each other. Maybe liked is not the right word, but I still think that in 5000 years, history books will precisely write that about us humans in the pre-civilized age; they loved to make each other miserable, why else would you poison the environment, don’t feed the whole population and start wars for vanity, pride and money. 

The thing is that most people just want to live their lives, and for most of us, that’s already enough of a task. But a smaller group inherited the trades that make them frontrunners and not followers like the rest. Putin and a handful of people have the power to steer a whole country and large parts of the world into ruin. Bush and his clique did the same, and the list goes on and on. Democracy is supposed to be the cure, and in some sense, it does a good job, but that’s only because all the other forms of government fail even harder; it still can’t stop dictators from rising to the top.

In Holland, we just had our yearly Memorial Day, and we stand still by what happened during the Second World War. At the same time, a quarter of the people voted for a racist party that had, til not so long ago, a point in their party program that promised new voters that all Muslims would be banned from Holland and their religion criminalized. Most people can only listen to the drummer and goosestep the direction ordered, and the drummers know that. 

I don’t see a solution. We are all different, and most people are still not seriously interested in the reason why they do the things they do. Most people can be talked into reason, but that’s part of the problem; they can be talked into all kinds of ideas. My motto for the future would be: don’t believe your own thoughts and those of others, at least not at firsthand. 

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”
Hermann Goring

Göring was the second highest-ranking official tried at Nuremberg, behind Reich President (former Admiral) Karl Dönitz. The prosecution levelled an indictment of four charges, including a charge of conspiracy; waging a war of aggression; war crimes, including the plundering and removal to Germany of works of art and other property; and crimes against humanity, including the disappearance of political and other opponents under the Nacht und Nebel decree; the torture and ill treatment of prisoners of war; and the murder and enslavement of civilians, including what was at the time estimated to be 5,700,000 Jews. (Wikipedia)

Day 2016, In the clouds?

Daily picture

If I talk to people about life, politics and what is important for them in life the one thing that gets mentioned a lot is tolerance for each other’s views. I cannot agree more if, and I say if everybody would follow that rule.

But if I think about it more, I immediately see some problems with this ideal of respecting each other’s way of life. It is the wet dream of all the libertarians in the world off course, a society of loving egoists but we all live in some kind of group. At work you live in a small group where you might have a lot of freedom, but the workplace expects from you that you follow certain rules like safety instructions and the expectance that you deliver some sort of work or added value for the money you get paid. You cannot go to work and expect your boss to respect your personal opinion that following safety rules is wrong, your boss can’t be tolerance towards you, he can at most tolerate that you want to work unsafe in your own time.

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Day 1775, lion’s.

Daily picture, Poetry

I sometimes wonder if the animal, or the human in us, takes life so dam serious. I don’t think that animals think in words and concepts like we do. A lion is not thinking about his vacation the coming summer, or why it is so hot. A Lion has urges and needs, and he moves with them. The animal in us moves also with our needs and urges, but we can reflect on them, and sometimes react on them.

Both the lion and human attack when threatened, because they feel like it. Humans can also attack because they “think” it. Attacking is pretty serious, you can get wounded yourself, even if you don’t loose. You might say that the lion takes life unwillingly serious, he acts on his instincts and this is no game for him. We humans act also partially on our instincts, and are serious in this, and when we reason our way into a war, we don’t joke around either.

It makes me sad if I see all these man and woman in suites, standing tall, growling in the air. They send their planes to spy, provoke the other, and look the other way when it suits them. Has there ever been a crossroad in our past, where we could have decided that the thinking part in us, was their to tame the non thinking part. It just amazes me that whole countries, with all their people in it, still feel the need to react like a lion, when a stranger comes near.

All these people in suites, they seem so important. They probably feel so important. I wonder if they still know what it is to wonder. Their concept of the nation they represent, this mighty construct that drives their moves, like the urges and needs that the lion feels from its instinct.

I think that the animal instinct in us, is the one that takes life so dam serious. That’s why no one wants to think about it, afraid as they are for the realization that it is not necessary. We are afraid for our thoughts, they can give us freedom, the freedom to overrule our animal instincts. Freedom in this case means free from our destructive urges and needs, freedom means letting go of the hand that guides. Because the hand that guides is no longer needed, this is the reason why freedom has a bad name with all the leaders that worship the state* as the savior of all.

Day 1590 was the inspiration for today.

I live above

and below you

~

I hear footsteps

and your music

~

I hear your door

and a toilet

~

I see someone

in the lift

~

and I wonder

if you wonder

*or church, philosophy, party etc.

Day 1760, a past line.

Day's pictures, Poetry

We are

on the same

line

~

but

still far

apart

This poem is from Day 1421. I have no way of proving this, it is just an idea. The idea of the poem is that we are all capable of coming to similar conclusions, in similar circumstances. Lets say that you are a liberal progressive, if you, for whatever circumstances, move to a more conservative area, and start hanging out with the people that live there, there is a chance that your idea’s slowly change. Our first reaction is off course that, that wouldn’t happen to you, but are you so sure, that you have not changed in the last 10 or 20 years. Maybe not in your political orientation, but it would be strange if you didn’t adapt some habits and customs from the people you live with that are different from the once you had in a different time.

Fashion is a good example, we all think we are choosing the clothes , and hairstyle we like, but if you look back long enough, you will realize that, that’s not completely true. There is no reason to believe that this also works for your thoughts and idea’s. Your thoughts and idea’s are more private than the clothes you wear, so it is not so easy to look back in time, and compare. You can’t interview your past self, to you can find out how you changed, maybe your lucky, and have an old diary. Just remember that you change slowly, and you will change again. Even if this is not true, it is still healthy for you, and society to realize that what you feel is true, is true from where, and when, you are.

This place where you are, is represented in the poem by a line. Maybe a straight line, maybe it is a circle or oval. We might be far apart in our idea’s and values, but “we are on the same line” in regards to our believe in our truths, and we share the believe that we would, or have ever, changed. We might share more with others, than we would likely admit.