The 7^th of February, 2026

<< Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord! how ashamed I should be of not being married before three-and-twenty! >>

Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice, 1813

The 7^th of February, 2026

The label of ‘laziness’ is very readily thrown (especially in cultures with Calvinist roots, where this is the worst possible cultural offence) by people who work like beasts of burden at menial jobs, at anyone who does not, regardless of how productive he or she is. It is in actuality an insult for not complying with middling norms, and it is done in order to feel superior.

The 24^th of January, 2026

The term ‘superficial’ is very eagerly thrown into the ring with respect to another’s hard work and dedication to physical betterment, by people who do not possess this mental fortitude, in order to rationalize their own lack of activity in this domain. The phenomenon is in fact so common, that all people who work diligently at physical improvement will be attacked by it at some point.

We live in an age in which people are categorized as being either physically inclined or mentally, but in which it is deemed impossible to be both. This black-and-white idea serves very conveniently to discredit any intellectual pursuits and achievements by people who also strive for physical perfection. Although it is used so much as to have become a cliché, the ancient Greco-Roman concept encapsulated in the Latin expression Mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body) has in truth become meaningless today.

The human being has developed to require both mental and physical though. To remove one results in a serious imbalance in the person. People really need both, and that is as true today as in antiquity.

Yes, there most certainly does exist shallowness, and it is in fact arguably more rife at present than at any other time in human history. So, what is then the true definition of superficiality?

The 23^rd of January, 2026

Although I always begin any piece I write on the theme of artificial intelligence by stating emphatically that I am very much a proponent of its ascendency… however… I see a lot of issues with its uncurtailed use, another of which just came to my attention.

Seeing the umpteenth post on social media* portraying an obviously too-perfect (thus, clearly AI-produced) godlike young male face, with an olive complexion and eyes as light as tropical seas… I suddenly realized something.

Beauty in general is certainly far less subjective than many are inclined to think. Everyone most definitely has very different tastes, but when it comes to physical perfection, there is almost a universal consensus. That’s because true beauty is not a mere matter of preference, but possesses a balance of an exudation of perfect health, of what is most proportional, and of striking contrasts. These differ according to race, such as, for example, icy blue eyes against a contrasting skin tone on a white person, or a pink tongue standing out against a mahogany skin on a black person… but, they invariably embody the very same principles.

And what really makes true beauty so special is that it is so rare. 
That goes for anything that is precious. Gold, for instance, is special because of its rarity. If it occurred everywhere, it would become valueless. The same principle applies to beauty.

By suddenly being bombarded with everyone and his cow’s AI-produced images of physical perfection, that very rare and special quality is quickly becoming meaningless. Not to mention the fact that it raises immeasurably the standards of beauty that people feel they need to exemplify. And with modern ‘superficial surgery’, spray tans, and coloured lenses, for example, this can certainly be approximated. The problem is that the results are becoming increasingly less natural. But then, the preferred look is as well.

The 19^th of January, 2026

I write this after seeing a post on social media* with an obviously AI-produced young man, vaunting about having transformed his seriously skinny frame into a muscular athletic build in just three months. I actually achieved almost precisely the same build as the one shown on the ‘after’ image, also started from a very skinny frame (although not as emaciated-looking as the ‘before’ picture in this post). Starting at 54 kilos, with an immense amount of dedication and work, a perfect diet and extremely hard weight training, I managed to gain a whopping thirty-one kilos of dry muscle mass, to 85 kilos, in two years (not in several months!).

A decade or so ago, in my final phase of training in public gyms, I witnessed countless absurdly muscular teen boys. Not only the fact that it is both unnatural and impossible for teenagers to be that muscular, their stretch marks and abnormal vascularity made it abundantly clear how they had achieved this. At the time it was still absolutely taboo, and the worst possible insult, to insinuate that a weight trainer was using steroids though. This was still the tail end of a time in which working to achieve goals was appreciated.
However, we have now entered a new chapter in body-sculpting, in which young men not only very openly admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs, but even boast about it. It has become the new norm. 
These results have nothing whatsoever to do with health or longevity, but, without any regard for their short and unhealthy futures, to achieve impressive results as quickly as possible, and preferably with as little work as possible required.

This same mentality extends to manifold areas. Precisely as no longer trying to hide the evidence of using steroids in weight-training, people who opt for cosmetic surgery no longer even strive for a natural look, but, for females, to cite the most extreme example, the beauty ideal has become (not intentionally) to look like Janice from the Muppets.
People who are not talented use artificial computer intelligence to feign possessing skills they don’t, producing art, and flaunting intelligence and linguistic abilities in which they have invested absolutely no effort.

Where the results actually do mimic real ability, to the discerning eye the difference is quickly detected however. The problem is (and I am certain technicians will try to fix this too), the results of, especially computer-generated, work is simply too perfect. Images look just a bit too ideal, bodies too beautiful, and, to state my favourite example, calligraphy looks too flawless, too consistent. Humanly produced writing will always have some variation between letters, will always contain tiny imperfections.
However, this is precisely what makes humanly produced works, whether in sculpting a physique or creating beautiful handwriting, so wonderful; this is the essence of the human striving for excellence: all these reflect the creator; each result is unique and has slight ‘flaws’.
The challenge of the human is to hone his or her skill to perfection, but the results will always carry subtle and distinctive ‘signatures’… and this no quick fix can reproduce.

The 19^th of January, 2026

<< Citoyen, ton bain est prêt, dit à Mirabeau son valet de chambre, au lendemain même de l’abolition des titres.>>

Translation: << ‘Citizen, your bath is ready,’ said Mirabeau’s valet, the very day after the abolition of titles. >>

The 18^th of January, 2026

I sincerely believe that no intelligent people have any problem with same-sex attraction anymore... and, if that were the only thing that was being pushed by the LGBT movement at this time in history, I think that an infinitely broader acceptance of homosexuality would have already been achieved.

But it’s not. The aforementioned movement has now extended its mission to include all of wokeist beliefs and gender-denial. What is now being promoted (or, rather, being rammed down people’s throats) is an acceptance of a complete ideology, accompanied by the insinuated insult that not to do so means that one is unintelligent and closedminded.
And the rainbow symbol of the movement has equally now turned into a banner for this ‘queerism’, not for simple pride in being true to oneself.

All bad enough if this were relegated to the LGBT movement itself, but it isn’t either. Not only is it the automatic assumption made by most gay people that to also be homosexual necessarily means that one embraces the same woke and gender-denying ideology as they, but their woke militancy has even resulted in the broader public now (and very understandably so) making the assumption that to be homosexual invariably means to embrace gender-denial and the entire woke philosophy.

The 18^th of January, 2026

Although they are almost universally (no less so among homosexuals themselves) seen as being synonymous, the terms ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ are not even remotely the same thing.
I had personally already always been uncomfortable with the word ‘gay’, because it seemed synonymous with concepts such as ‘fluffy’. Completely fine if certain people want to define themselves as adhering to ideological cotton candy, but it does not define me.
Only because it has come to be seen as being identical to ‘homosexual’, I recently ever so begrudgingly decided to accept the label ‘gay’, but, upon further reflection, it does not actually define me in the least.

Gay is a word that was appropriated and repurposed to refer to an attraction to one’s own gender, so, seemingly a synonym of ‘homosexual’. In its true sense, it is not political in the least. However, it has come to be so closely associated with the following term, that it has over time become a very political label.

Queer, however, is  by nature a truly political term, because it refers not only to an attraction to one’s own sex, but an embracing of the entire woke ideology.

The term ‘gay’ originally could be either gender-denying or gender-embracing, whilst the term ‘queer’ referred only to gender-denial. However, the two have now merged, and are both very political in nature, both only referring to gender-denial.

The only term that truly defines the part of romantic and physical attraction in me is androphilia, because that word stands completely free of gender-denying ideology and wokeism, and is in fact the polar opposite, referring uniquely to gender-embracing.

The 16^th of January, 2026

<< Il y a, de par le monde, bien des vieilles filles acariâtres et insupportables ; il y en a beaucoup aussi de sublimes, de celles qu’en Provence on appelle des tatas. Ames virginales, plus fécondes que certaines âmes maternelles, elles font naître autour d’elles, inépuisablement, la vie, l’espérance, la bonté, l’amour. Mlle Berthe était de cette race. >>

Translation: << Throughout the world, there are many cantankerous and unbearable spinsters; there are also many sublime ones, the kind they call tatas in the Provence. Virgin souls, more fertile than some maternal souls, they inexhaustibly bring forth life, hope, kindness, and love around them. Mademoiselle Berthe was of this breed. >>

The 9^th of January, 2026

I am very pleased to be able to announce the publication of my second novel in the series entitled The House on the Rue du Suquet.

In 1853, during a time in which many Italians, most especially from the Piedmont, settled in Cannes as migrant workers, two impoverished cousins from that region, one of whom is secretly in love with the other, go to that town on the French Riviera as well to avail themselves of the financial opportunities they are told are to be found there. Their adventure turns out completely different from what they had envisioned however.
At the same time they settle in the town, a malevolent young woman, who moves from community to community to destroy them, also happens to move there.
The main themes of this book are mass hysteria and unrequited love.

Information about the entire series is to be found on www.rue-du-suquet.com .

The 6^th of January, 2026

Although Southern Alberta, where I grew up, is not even remotely as snowy as most of the rest of Canada, after a youth of winters still spent trudging through high snows to school and spending the rest of the day with cold, wet trousers, I swore I never needed to see another snowflake in my life, and still don’t miss them after three decades back in Europe.

However, it snows so rarely in the Netherlands (meaning, real snow, that requires plowing the main roads; not the stuff that disappears in an hour); in fact, a proper snow had not been seen in Holland (the populous centre of the country, with cities like Amsterdam) in four years; here on the Zealandic coast it had in fact been fully eight years.

We have finally had real snow, an amount that to any Canadian would not even be worth sneezing at, but which in the Netherlands will most likely elicit hysterical warnings and news reports about multiple fatalities. Social media* is suddenly flooded with romantic winter images one associates with Dutch cities, but which are in fact exceedingly rare.

The 31^st of December, 2025

The 25^th of December, 2025

The 23^rd of December, 2025

When I was living in Cannes I met countless other Northern ‘solar refugees’, especially from Scandinavia, who, just like me, simply could not deal with the darkness in the winter in the North. Growing up in Canada this was a common concept too; not without reason that the institution of the ‘snow bird’ exists there.

However, I myself grew up in the sunniest part of Canada (and perhaps the windiest too, but that plight is what ensured the former). Even when it was twenty or thirty degrees below zero (Celsius), which was not uncommon in the winter, it was nearly always incredibly sunny. There were most certainly dark days too, but these were rare, and did not affect me in the least. So I took completely for granted the fact that winter did not alter my body or my spirit.

I moved back to Europe at the end of 1996, and settled in the Netherlands. That winter was actually an exceptionally cold and dark one, even by Dutch standards, and by the middle of December (this was really not created by my mind, because I wasn’t even conscious of the concept of Seasonal Affective Disorder at the time) I could barely even pull myself out of bed anymore. I felt insanely depressed, and my body hurt all over, like I had just been mown down by an express train.
I tried to force myself to deal with it, although I had no idea whatsoever what was happening, but by the time spring had nearly arrived, I could not take one more day of this physical and mental torture, so packed a bag and stepped on a train headed for the French Riviera… when I stepped onto the platform in the station in Nice, and the warm air wrapped itself around me (I still even remember the scent after nearly three decades), I was miraculously instantaneously cured. In the ensuing nearly two years that I lived in nearby Cannes, not once was I troubled by this demoniacal monster again.
Bureaucratic circumstances at length forced me to leave France however, although I had no desire to do so, and I was compelled to return to my natal Netherlands. Since then, absolutely every winter has been a struggle, but some worse than others. The previous one was perhaps the worst, being the darkest winter in fully thirty years!

One might think that after some three decades now in the Netherlands my body would have acclimatized, but it hasn’t.
I can tell that the people who grew up here are not affected to nearly the same degree as I am. There in fact exists a Dutch word that describes perhaps how many Dutch people themselves experience the phenomenon, namely, a winterdipje, using the diminutive form, implying a slight dip in one’s mood in winter. However, this word does not even begin to encapsulate what I myself suffer in winter in these dark climes … I think lurpgeslagenzelfmoordneigingwekkendwintergevoel would be more appropriate, meaning beat-to-a-pulp-suicidal-tendency-inducing-winter-feeling, but, not only is it not what I see other people experiencing, I admit that the word that better describes what I feel does not exactly roll off the tongue.

As soon as winter approaches now, I stock up on and fill myself with extra Vitamin D supplements, and I have to use a therapy light to artificially replicate sunshine when it gets really bad.

SADness Update

The 24^th of January, 2026

The 15^th of December, 2025

The 15^th of December, 2025

In the ‘hysteria update’ of this morning an article about how the Dutch government wants to implement mandatory hospitalization of ‘confused individuals’. Does this mean people with real psychiatric issues, or people whom ‘experts’ deem to have psychiatric issues, which is basically anyone who does not live according to average norms, or anyone who does not agree with the reigning opinions? Need I say more?

The 8^th of December, 2025

Also in the area of artificial intelligence I am not in the least bit a Luddite. It is absolutely amazing what can be achieved with it in fact. One can make extinct languages come to life again, make history come alive, etc. Along with a great many people, I have a whole list of concerns though, only one item on which I will address in this post.

The 6^th of December, 2025

The 5^th of December, 2025

Things I would just love to scream from off the rooftops some days:

1. Conservative liberalism is not antithetical, and is a thing.

2. Not all conservative people support Trump.

3. Trump is an American, and is therefore completely irrelevant outside of the United States, except as a foreign head of state.

4. Not all conservative people are against socialism.

5. European conservatism is completely different than American conservatism.
6. Not all conservative people are theists.
7. Conservative homosexuals do exist.

The 2^nd of December, 2025

Cultural habits have constantly evolved throughout all of human history, and that is a normal thing. Only I find it rather sad to witness the ever-increasing dying out of Dutch cultural identity by replacement with global cultural practices. This is not cultural evolution at all though, but a loss of national culture, replacing with what will over time become a single universal culture.

The 29^th of November, 2025

We find ourselves in a time that the adherents of the ‘acceptable’ opinions deem the most open and enlightened ever, but which is in fact becoming increasingly as intolerant of other stances as that of the distant past they celebrate having left behind them. It is the time of : You have to believe this, you have to think this, you have to say this, you have to like this, etc. And if you don’t, you are unenlightened, stupid, boorish, unsophisticated, etc.

A thought after seeing a meme on social media* mocking anti-vaccers, showing a man sat on the toilet with his pants down, accompanied by some line about this being what anti-vaccine research looks like.
We don't need to all hold the same opinions, but we do need to respect each other and allow others their dignity.

The 22^nd of November, 2025

The 20^th of November, 2025

The 20^th of November, 2025

The 17^th of November, 2025

The 14^th of November, 2025

The 14^th of November, 2025

The 13^th of November, 2025

Just in case anyone still harbours any illusions about journalism not being even remotely impartial, consider this quote from this morning’s ‘hysteria update’, as the annual Black Peter social conflict returns: << Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) was daarom van plan opnieuw te demonstreren tegen dit racistische stereotype. >> Translation: << Kick Out Zwarte Piet [because woke Don Quixotes prefer English over their own language] (KOZP) was therefore planning to demonstrate again against this racist stereotype [italics mine]. >>

The 12^th of November, 2025

The 7^th of November, 2025

Seriously, Universe?!
The other day my camera blocked and refused to shut down, without my seeing it though, by which the batteries were drained empty. This blocking has always been signs of imminent death for my cameras, and I sincerely hope this is not the case this time!

I have taken the same walks literally thousands of times, and on rare beautiful days there are a number of things I want to digitally capture, but generally nothing aesthetically momentous takes place... so I left without concern sans camera this morning on my daily long sunrise walk.

The 6^th of November, 2025

As is typical of every time I determine to rest, I end up thinking about other things. Today’s theme was keeping cats out of my front flower bed.

I think that at some point some former occupant pulled out a row of concrete tiles in the front, in order to create a flower bed. The result is that mine has far sandier soil than any other flower bed, by which the far too many free-roaming cats absolutely adore using it as a litter box. In the back, in which bed the soil is composed of the same clay as that in any other flower bed in the environs, I don’t have this problem. Since moving here, I have had my hands in my (well, proverbial) hair with the cat problem. They rip out any bulbs I plant, rip to shreds any seedlings, I have had to scoop out their excrement every single day, sometimes multiple times, as well as sweep back into my flower bed the soil they kick out of it at night. Out of sheer desperation I have ended up covering the flower bed with chicken wire, but I desperately hate looking at wire-covered bare soil for half of every year.

The 6^th of November, 2025

The 3^rd of November, 2025

Holy crap! I was already shocked when I saw the orange sapling I had bought produce blooms, but it seems it had been pollenated as well!

The 31^st of October, 2025

Although Hallowe’en is not traditionally celebrated in the Netherlands, in the past years it has become increasingly so... and so with incredible verve in the village in which I now live. Decorative skeletons line its main street this year.

As this area was liberated at the end of the Second World War by mainly Canadian troops, every year a march Canadian soldiers undertook then, of some thirty kilometres, from here to Knokke in Belgium, is made again by mostly Dutch and Belgian civilians, as well as some visiting Canadian soldiers. For this event, Canadian flags are hung from a large number of homes along the main street of my village.

In preparation for the march again on Sunday, on this morning’s walk Canadian flags filled the main street.
As well as skeletons...

The 27^th of October, 2025

The 24^th of October, 2025

This is precisely what I was worried would happen. As a conservative liberal I have chosen, as Dutch national elections are next week, to side with a particular political party on the right. Although I agree with points on both the right and the left, in Northern European politics, I have come to realize that I agree more with the political right, as that is traditionally fundamentally different than the American right. The basic fundaments of the equality of all humans and the sanctity of the welfare state have always been unquestionable, whereas the American right is founded on a desire to return to religiously determined mores, something entirely different. I am more than aware that this enormous distinction is lost to many, even in Europe, but I desperately hoped that the party on the right I had chosen to give my support would continue to stand for traditional European conservative values. 
However, this afternoon I listened to a speaker on a video for the Dutch party I had decided to support, saying that the only answer to the [my paraphrase] ‘socialistic’ problems that have beset the Netherlands, is a sharp veering to the right (and it was obvious to me, by the anti-socialist rhetoric, typical of the American right, that this implies veering to the American concept of the right).

The 24^th of October, 2025

The 24^th of October, 2025

The 23^rd of October, 2025

This post has nothing whatsoever to do with opinions about climate change. That it is changing, for whatever reason one attributes to it, is a simple fact. That is not even open for discussion anymore. The only debate concerns what is causing it, and how, if even necessary, to deal with it. This entry concerns the hysteria-mongering tendency of the weather forecasts since the increased awareness of the aforementioned.

What would throughout all of history until just some years ago have been considered normal climatological phenomena, are now treated as the absolute end of the world. Most certainly the weather is changing, but not that drastically. It seems that when just three flakes of snow fall, a ‘code orange’ is proclaimed (the state next to that of absolute apocalypses). This most obviously is done to play into the climate hysteria. No matter the opinion on the subject, the way weather is treated is done out of absolute panic.
It is interesting to follow the forecasts though, because they now promise outright catastrophes, such as was the case for the hottest day of the year two summers ago, when the forecast was for temperatures above forty degrees Centigrade. It never reached this point however, but the reports had successfully instilled in the minds of anyone who had followed them to prepare for absolute hell on earth. What in fact followed turned out five degrees lower than predicted, meaning the day simply belonged to all the other hot summer days throughout history.

This came to mind as another ‘code orange’ was proclaimed for today, with insane winds, and, two days ago, thirty-eight millimetres of rain expected. By yesterday that had been changed to ten of course, and, after many hours now of even less wind than we had last week, the rain forecast has again been brought down, now to six and a half millimetres.
Yes, the wind is picking up, but it is not nearly of the nature that warrants proclaiming impending doom.

The 21^st of October, 2025

I was somehow infected with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis at the age of 30, after two years of perfectly normal heavy weight training. Once infected, I could no longer train without feeling very shaky, and it got progressively worse until after several decades of almost daily illness, I was, aside from a few hours a day, literally bedridden.

With the average maximum age of a person with M.E. fast approaching, and with no medical cure existing to date, in absolute desperation I tried all manner of natural ways to cure myself. Completely on a hunch, I wondered if perhaps I might be intolerant to starches and sugars, so I created an anti-inflammatory diet for myself, cutting out all starchy (such as absolute staples like bread, potatoes, rice, and pasta) and sugary foods (even natural sugars, such as honey). To my own utter amazement, within just weeks my stamina and my strength began to improve. I still had M.E. inflammation after any exertion, but I no longer had any non-exertion-induced inflammation at all, which had become a real problem in the past years as well. My self-healing has to date been a process of several years, so it is certainly not a quick fix, but, as long as I stick to this anti-inflammatory diet, my health slowly continues to improve. As an experiment, after a year and a half, I ate some starchy foods to test if my tolerance for that had increased as well, but doing so instantly set me back to where I started. It took me weeks to get back on track again, weeks of severe illness, so I will not experiment with that again. It seems I have a serious intolerance to starches and sugars that will not go away anymore. I haven’t a clue if my own problem and solution for it applies to other sufferers of M.E., but I document my own experience here just in case.

The 21^st of October, 2025

This issue has been central in my mind for literal years already, but having passed three people on my walk this morning who refused to even return my cordial greeting, I cannot contain myself any longer from penning my two bits on the subject. It certainly isn’t the first time that people simply look away when I greet them; this seems to have become the trend now. In a nation with an individualistic mentality I would still find it rude, but would understand the dynamic better. However, in one with such a familial feeling as the Netherlands, and in the countryside, I find it downright rude, as if I am some piece of canine excrement they pass.
One might ask: what does this have to do with literacy? Well, everything. It is all part and parcel of the same phenomenon, of the general lowering to absolutely abysmal depths of societal standards. And yes, every ageing generation throughout time has griped about the younger one, but I sincerely believe there is a breaking point. At the dawn of the twentieth century people complained about lowered standards too, absolutely, but their concept of lower standards does not even slightly match up to those of the present time. And I will not stop being convinced of this.

We now finally live in a time in which literacy (at least in the developed world) is nearly universal. It is an amazing feat for humanity. For centuries it was a point of pride to literate people to hone and exercise their special skill. It truly is an amazing one, one without which human civilization would be impossible. So one would expect that now people would be reading more than ever. And, although they pretend to, they don’t. In fact, with so many other distractions now, reading attentively is very lamentably actually dying.
This sad phenomenon isn’t limited to any one area, nor to any single instance or person. Across the board, people simply do not read anymore, even short messages and comments they receive or peruse, and they have become so brazen about it, that they generally now do not even pretend anymore to do so. Countless are the instances in which anything I have ever written, most notably in the form of correspondence or online comments, is either simply ignored, or responded to in such a fashion that it is more than obvious that what I have written has not been read. This sad habit is the domain of not only individuals in their free time, but equally that businesses and organizations.
Many are the times that people have claimed to me that they are good at multitasking. My response is very simple: not one single person on the globe is capable of being truly mentally invested in more than one activity at a time, and the stupid, demeaning, and unrelated responses one receives to anything one writes is testament to this.

The 20^th of October, 2025

<< —C’est à la Bastille qu’on vous enverra, et je vous y donnerai tout loisir de méditer votre défense pour confondre les calomniateurs.

—C’est un projet qui me séduit; il est seulement fâcheux que je ne puisse pas l’exécuter, répondit M. de Pomereux d’un air tout affligé. >>

Translation: << ‘You will be sent to the Bastille, which will give you plenty of time to think about your defence against the slanderers.’

‘The plan is certainly appealing to me; it’s unfortunate though that I won’t be able carry it out,’ replied M. de Pomereux, looking quite distressed. >>

Amédée Achard – Belle-Rose, 1847

The 19^th of October, 2025

In watching a video a bit ago released by a political party on the right, I was shocked to hear the woke-introduced word ‘witte’ (to replace the real Dutch word ‘blanke’) casually slipped in. Naturally this will entirely escape the notice of almost all viewers, and be seen as being insignificant by those who do notice it, but I find it emblematic of everything that is precisely the opposite of what this party claims to stand for. My criticism of the ‘acceptable’ parties on the political right is that they are actually just ‘slow leftists’, meaning that they put up some resistance, but ultimately arrive at the same spot as the left does on all issues. To me this single word represents ultimately going along with all the woke tyranny, putting up a bit of a struggle, but eventually not missing the removed statues, not minding the unfactual rewritten history, and at length completely embracing the sanitized cultural replacements.

The 19^th of October, 2025

I have for years maintained that I side ideologically with neither the right nor the left; with certain points I agree with the right, but with others I do so with the left. This has not changed in the least, and never will, but the realization I explain in this post has fundamentally changed my perspective on the dynamics though.
This subject is quite central in my mind with national elections in the Netherlands taking place in just ten days.

In more conservative countries, such as all those in the Anglosphere, especially in North America, which is a very conservative continent, rightist politics are associated with a return to traditional values (which always implies literalist religious mores). It is this political right that is held up as the example in even liberal countries. The extreme ideological polarization that has taken place in the United States aggravates this situation to no end, almost equally in nations that are not even anywhere near the North American continent. People on the left love to use the American example of the right to ridicule and silence people on the European right... but sadly, even people adhering to the latter completely play along, promoting all the values that the American right engenders and a return to an idealized past.
However, the ideological right in liberal nations in Europe, most notably the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, is completely different than the North American right. The liberal values (such as the equality of females and the rights of homosexuals) and the socialist state are not even up for discussion. The political right in a country such as the one in which I was born and now live has nothing even in the slightest to do with the prudish mores of the right in America.

The 16^th of October, 2025

... replete with magnificent celestial contrasts.

The 12^th of October, 2025

The 11^th of October, 2025

The 4^th of October, 2025

To me personally, life is all about creating a story, like writing a novel. I know this isn’t the case for most people, but I am a romantic soul (in the sense of ‘aesthetic’, not of ‘amorous’). I am not a sloppy sentimentalist in the least, but my pragmatism extends mainly to daily events, not to the overall picture. I have led an amazingly rich life to date, and have (in retrospect) absolutely no regrets, even though in the eyes of most, who treasure only bourgeois consistency for the entirety of their existences, my life looks extremely flaky. I have always done things at a slow pace, not jet-setted from place to place, but every so often have changed my approach and my location. This is simply how I tick, and I have absolutely no regrets.

Although to others it will seem like I constantly change my mind, my path remains exactly the same one. I am not constantly shifting the goal posts, even though it looks like that to any outsider. I am merely finding the best way for my circumstances at that time. My next chapter will be in my forever location, but I have been tossed up about where the best place for that is. At any rate, my life will be exactly the same as always, only my stomping ground will change.

A few days ago I was drawn into a brief oral exchange with passersby on my otherwise meditative walk. It only lasted a few minutes, but, although it will most certainly not have had that effect on my co-conversationalists, I myself spent the rest of the day treating a migraine, by which I could do nothing else. I have reached a point, which I get will sound simply like getting old and jaded and giving up on life, although in fact it is the precise opposite (it is about being happiest and functioning best according to my own nature), that I am no longer interested in engaging in any conversational exchanges or online chats with anyone. I maintain an online presence, but this is because I myself enjoy it, and because it costs me no energy. What others do with it is up to them. It is an expression of my being, which is not everyone’s (or even most peoples) cup o’ tea. I do it for myself. I find it important to showcase what I create, both visual and literary, but I have absolutely no expectations. If I attempt to ‘sell’ myself in the average way, it completely destroys my creativity. Only by remaining absolutely withdrawn can I function, but then I am both truly blissful and am extremely productive.

The 3^rd of October, 2025

<< J’ai failli être tué parce qu’il m’a semblé que certaines femmes de ce pays avaient l’impertinence d’être aussi jolies que les Françaises. >>

Translation: << I was nearly killed because it seemed to me that some women in this country had the impertinence to be as pretty as French women. >>

No profound thoughts on this; it just tickled my funny bone.

The 1^st of October, 2025

The 29^th of September, 2025

<< I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. >>

The 29^th of September, 2025

The 28^th of September, 2025

The 27^th of September, 2025

The 25^th of September, 2025

Although, due to the fact that it is located next to the Netherlands and shares the same written linguistic standard, Flanders is almost universally assumed to be culturally the most similar land to the Netherlands, it is in fact Denmark that is. Although the two countries lie quite some distance apart, the similarities between the two are simply astounding, from the architecture to the very landscape itself. This includes a very similar agricultural societal foundation and culture, as well as the cultural phenomena of knocking down a peg or two anyone who sticks out of the crowd and a general strong distaste for boasting.

I completely concur about bragging; I think it is extremely unattractive, and in fact, at least to my own mind, demonstrates the exact opposite of their claims. Namely, it makes the boaster look insecure. 

However, in both these extremely bourgeois societies, anything that does not fit within the norm (and that includes what is acceptable in alternativeness) is seen as pretending to be something that it isn’t. 
In Dutch society this concept is embodied in the popular expression, brought out anytime anyone is not acting according to the societal rules: Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je gek genoeg (rough translation: Just act normal, that’s plenty crazy already).

The problem with this cultural phenomenon is that it attempts to quash any genius or true unique expressions, and that it makes it impossible to be a polymath (as this is invariably seen as boasting, even when it isn’t).

I am not the first to recognize this problem. For this exact reason many creative people have felt the need to leave both countries. To cite just one example, Karen Blixen, who herself had to live abroad in order to spread her wings (she herself refers to this fact many times), and who, even when she at length returned to live in Denmark, and became a celebrated author, was for the entirety of her life ridiculed by her own people for, as they saw it, having had too many airs (which she didn’t; she was just being her authentic self).

The 25^th of September, 2025

The architecture, tulip fields, windmills, and all the other stereotypes about the Dutch landscape very admittedly all look idyllic. The country is truly beautiful. And foreigners constantly express praise for it because of its tolerance and its dedication to freedom. I completely agree with all this. With a combination of an amazing infrastructure and social structure, I readily agree that it is – at present – probably the best country in the world... well, on paper.

And yet the ultimate Dutch dream is to emigrate, and some one in a hundred Dutch people do that every year. Are these just ingrates then? People who just think the grass is greener on the other side?

To understand this dynamic, one has to understand Dutch culture. This is in fact an absolute minefield of social rules and strict norms, and they are often incredibly confusing. So, for instance, Dutch people generally leave their curtains open... however, it is absolutely taboo for others to look in.

The Netherlands is very admittedly an absolute paradise for everyone who embraces and abides by the extremely long and confounding list of its bourgeois cultural rules, such as never drinking ‘to go’ coffee on the street (a mistake I myself once made until hearing several passersby express their disapproval). The country can, however, be an absolute hell for any individualist, anyone who marches to the beat of his or her own drum, something which is absolutely not accepted.

The 23^rd of September, 2025

The 19^th of September, 2025

The 16^th of September, 2025

The 15^th of September, 2025

The 14^th of September, 2025

The 11^th of September, 2025

Just as with the (unfortunately to-be-expected) murders of several Jewish people already, the assassination yesterday of a conservative voice demonstrates once again that the real violence comes from precisely the people who purport to stand for the opposite. I don’t care an ounce for Trump, but I feel I need to repeat it: there is a huge difference between monsters and bulls in china shops.  
This post I feel necessitated to write, not only because of the news of the murder, but also because of the posts I see on social media* of emaciated people in concentration camps and such. It is almost as though these people want to create a dragon where there isn’t one. However, they themselves are undermining democracy itself, and that is the scary thing. That is what should concern one!

The 9^th of September, 2025

* I wrote this post in a period in which I was present on middling social media, attempting all the while though to be true to myself. I found that it negatively affected me though, and have since removed myself, now only using my own ‘social medium’, my personal website.

The 9^th of September, 2025

The 4^th of September, 2025

Allow me to state very emphatically that I am not even slightly a Luddite. I very much embrace technological advances and devices, but … I need to find that life is improved by them. I refuse to adopt technology simply because it is forced. This, for instance, I find to be the case with smartphones.
I know this gripe will sound like it is the result of ageing, of an old grump, but it is not even slightly due to being that. The aforementioned devices are just really horrid things.

I detest smartphones because I find them to be extremely unhandy in use. I love computers and internet connectivity; would not dream of a life without them now, but I like a large screen, not have to fidget with microscopic keys and postage-stamp-sized screens, on which I cannot see an image properly at one time.

However, I find that I am increasingly being coerced into having to get one, and that, especially in Western Europe now, products are becoming increasingly impossible to use without them. I really don’t want to get a smartphone though. I truly think they are horrid things.

There are on Instagram, to cite one example, not one, but several features that are only available to smartphone users, and, to use just one other of countless examples, the weigh-scale I have has a body-fat-percentage function, but, of course, this is only available via an app on a smartphone. Naturally, the app cannot be used on a stationary computer. Increasingly one is compelled to scan QR codes for every conceivable thing, which, again, one cannot do with a regular computer. 

My issue isn’t that one needs to use apps to implement these things, but that they cannot be used on a regular computer, whereby one is forced to get a smartphone. I really, sincerely do not want one though. I will not be forced to use something I loathe. Increasingly it is just seen as being natural that everyone owns a smartphone, and I have already been looked at like I am a caveman on several occasions because I do not have one. It is high time businesses and organizations accept that not everyone has a smartphone (or, even wants one, for that matter), and begin to make all these features available via home computers.

The 4^th of September, 2025

For decades I have been too exhausted to do anything later in the day, so (forgivably) the idea never even crossed my mind. Since I cut out all starch and sugary foods though, my energy and stamina have slowly been returning and increasing, and just last week I experienced that after a day of filling my stomach with healthy foods and resting after activities, I suddenly had got the urge to perform activities in the evening, such as for instance trimming the hedge. In doing these I discovered that I felt much stronger than during the day.

And so I have started weight training in the evenings. I feel like I have to begin from scratch, but it just shocks me to detect how strong muscle memory in fact is; even with light training the fruits of my former years of dedication are beginning to reappear.

To me, weight training is an absolute foundational activity. It does not contain my ultimate goal, but it is one of the main pleasures in my life. So it is thrilling beyond words to me to have made this discovery, and to finally be able to wake up in the morning again with all my trained muscles aching (in a good way).

To be continued...

The 4^th of September, 2025

All the people whose online posts I am unfortunately witness to, concerning how awful the state of the world is claimed by them to be at the moment, I heartily invite to go back to any previous period in history, and see what truly goes on around the whole globe then. The only difference now is that we are now incessantly bombarded with news from all over the globe, making it seem as if everything is happening on our very doorsteps. There has in fact never been a more tranquil and well-faring time in all of human history as now. Of course there are injustices, and I am not even slightly defending them, but I really take exception to people saying it is worse now. 
Of course life felt more peaceful when one wasn’t constantly inundated with horrendous happenings around the globe. However, what these complainers tend to not see (either ignore, or, which is more likely, do not realize), is the insane social inequality of almost every previous age, the constant threats of death or being carted off into slavery, the horrific stream of genocides, socially-accepted cruelty to animals, the denigration of other humans, the appallingly high infant mortality rates and short life expectancies, the abject poverty of most people and the scarcity of fresh products for even the most rich... shall I go on? I could without difficulty fill a tome with examples.

The greatest universal scourge of our time is in fact the bull-in-china-shop behaviour of the people purporting to ‘fix’ things.

That journalism is really about drumming up hysteria is common to all ages of news-reporting, but a person cannot pretend to be intelligent who cannot see through their panic-mongering.

The 2^nd of September, 2025

I think I will just check every day if there is something on television I don't want to miss, like a good movie. I will mute the commercials though. For my 'fluff needs' I will watch dumb videos on the computer.

The 31^st of August, 2025

In expanding my internet presence to include a major social media* platform, I thought it best to downplay the fact that I live a strictly reclusive lifestyle. Also, because I know that the concept of ‘reclusivity’ is absolutely fraught with misconceptions and stereotypes, I deemed it most prudent to simply avoid it.
It is not that I have changed my mind about what I know is most popular with the superficial masses, but I have come to realize that I cannot simply display segments of myself. I never pretend to be anything I am not, but it feels disingenuous to me to dismiss what is in fact the very nucleus of my lifestyle.

I am a visible recluse, meaning, I am happiest when alone (well, in canine companionship), but, I do not hide from the world; I just avoid contact with it. I am only productive then, only happy then. I am more than aware that reclusivity is deemed unhealthy and problematic by average society, but the problem lies with it, not with my lifestyle. In fact, any way of life that does not conform to average norms (or has not yet been embraced by middling society) is seen as a problem, or even as, as in this particular case, mental disease!

* I wrote this post in a period in which I was present on middling social media, attempting all the while though to be true to myself. I found that it negatively affected me though, and have since removed myself, now only using my own ‘social medium’, my personal website.

The 29^th of August, 2025

The 24^th of August, 2025

The 24^th of August, 2025

Aside from the absolute piffle I watch at the end of every day in order to empty my mind, I watch quite a few real estate programmes. This, not so much due to any obsession with real estate, but because it is the best thing on offer at that particular time. This morning I realized that the middling approach to house searches is the same as they apply to searching for a romantic partner, namely, by way of a long list of demands and expectations.

The 23^rd of August, 2025

The 23^rd of August, 2025

The 23^rd of August, 2025

The 22^nd of August, 2025

<< A few years before I lived in the woods there was what was called a ‘winged cat’ in one of the farm-houses in Lincoln nearest the pond, Mr. Gilian Baker’s. When I called to see her in June, 1842, she was gone a-hunting in the woods, as was her wont, (I am not sure whether it was a male or female, and so use the more common pronoun,) but her mistress told me that she came into the neighborhood a little more than a year before, in April, and was finally taken into their house; that she was of a dark brownish-gray color, with a white spot on her throat, and white feet, and had a large bushy tail like a fox... >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 20^th of August, 2025

<< Il n’y a que les fous qui aiment, et nous sommes de ces fous-là. ... Roidis-toi contre le mal et attends; si tu en meurs, il faut mourir debout. >>

Translation: << Only fools love, and we are such fools. ... Steel yourself against evil and wait; if you die from it, you must die standing up. >>

Amédée Achard – Belle-Rose, 1847

The 19^th of August, 2025

Even when I was living in Cannes I found absolutely ridiculous the eccentric mobs that descended on it every year for its film festival, clearly not really because of any affection for the silver screen, but in order to see and be seen. The first year I lived in the city, I worked in a renowned restaurant, in which real celebrities came and went constantly. Contrary to how it will sound, I am not jaded in the least, but I am (and was even at the time) not impressed any more by famous people than I am by, say, a street sweeper. The advantage to the latter is that he or she will generally act in a friendlier fashion.

Years later I was living just across the border that ran alongside Knokke, the sort of Cannes of Belgium, where I generally associated with people from that town rather than in my own area, just at the time in which the residents of old money were relocating due to the town being overtaken by the nouveaux riches, who could be seen strutting around it like peacocks on their mismatched expensive clothing and generally making as much of a display as possible of their wealth. These people are in reality no different than the silly sycophants who overtook Cannes every spring, the only difference is that they belonged to the rare few who actually came into the material wealth they so worshipped... and their lives from then on revolved around making sure that everyone knew that.
There is a difference of night and day between these people and those of old money. The latter (and this is obviously a generalization) have no need to demonstrate that they have money, may drive in expensive cars but have no qualms about wearing their favourite worn-in trousers until these have so many patches on them that they simply have to be replaced. Its members are less inclined to act snobbishly to people serving them, will offer tea to the plumber they hired and sit down with him or her to chat, because these people have been raised to understand that their life simply cannot exist without the people who serve them, that they are not better, just more fortunate.   

I have whenever possible lived in or next to the most posh of seaside resorts, but this has never for a second, contrary to all appearances, had anything to do with being a member of the starstruck and materialistic hordes. There is in fact a very pragmatic reason for this, actually a whole list of them, and it is due to precisely these that I have set my aims on yet another one of these in my eventual intended return to France. I am a very aesthetic person, and it is crucial to me to live in a beautiful place, whether I have broad means or not. I am never interested in hobnobbing with the elites there anyway, but I love these locales because they always have beautiful architecture, a perfect infrastructure, clean streets, well-maintained public spaces and private gardens, and in shops one is cordially greeted, etc. I don’t give a hoot whether people feel kindly towards me, but in fact, in any encounter with people in such places, one is treated with kindness and respect. They most likely assume I am one of the financially endowed people they otherwise encounter, and that does not matter in the least to me, but at least they are polite.

The 19^th of August, 2025

The 18^th of August, 2025

<< Nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be overcome. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 11^th of August, 2025

<< I respect not his labors, his farm where every thing has its price; who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God, to market, if he could get any thing for him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruits, but dollars; who loves not the beauty of his fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him till they are turned to dollars. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 11^th of August, 2025

<< Mr. Eager, who suffered from an over-fluent tongue rather than a resolute will, was determined to make himself heard. He addressed the driver again. Italian in the mouth of Italians is a deep-voiced stream, with unexpected cataracts and boulders to preserve it from monotony. In Mr. Eager’s mouth it resembled nothing so much as an acid whistling fountain which played ever higher and higher, and quicker and quicker, and more and more shrilly, till abruptly it was turned off with a click. >>

E.M. Forster – A Room with a View, 1908

The 9^th of August, 2025

The 9^th of August, 2025

<< On ne saurait trop prendre de précautions dans les temps où nous vivons. >>

Translation: << We cannot take too many precautions in the times we live in. >>

Amédée Achard – Belle-Rose, 1847

This is a sentiment expressed by nearly every generation throughout history. We also live in a time in which one constantly hears about what a horrific state the world is in. Perspective is seriously needed here though. Almost throughout all of human history, everyday life was tough beyond anything we in our pampered time can even imagine. Just getting through a day was difficult: washing needed to be done by hand and often cost a whole day to perform, simply cooking constantly carried with it the very real threat of an escaped ember burning down the house, slipping into water with the heavy clothing everyone wore meant certain death, travel (which was rare anyway) was done on bumpy dirt paths, which turned into absolute bogs when it rained. One needed to be constantly wary of highway robbers who would kill one for their loot though, and simply sleeping at night at home meant even the meanest dwelling needed to be locked up and protected like a fortress. One could not express any truly dissenting opinion without being executed. Not to speak of the many civil wars that periodically took place, which also threatened one with death. I could go on like this for a very long time, but I think the point is abundantly clear. 

The thing is, that because humanity is so connected now by technology, which means any major events that take place anywhere on the globe are almost instantly reported to every connected person, it makes it feel like everything is happening right at one’s door.

The 9^th of August, 2025

<< … for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher’s desk. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 9^th of August, 2025

There are absolutely fundamental things I still very much intend to change in my life, no matter how long they take… however, I intend to enjoy every step of that journey. This does not in any way lessen my sense of need to do these things... but neither does achieving them in any way determine my sense of bliss.

The 9^th of August, 2025

The 8^th of August, 2025

<< Jacques rendait son arrêt, l’appuyait au besoin de quelques bons coups de poing, … >>

Translation: << Jacques delivered his judgment, supporting it if necessary with a few good punches, … >>

Amédée Achard – Belle-Rose, 1847

The 4^th of August, 2025

The 4^th of August, 2025

The 3^rd of August, 2025

The 3^rd of August, 2025

Although everything in nature is running about a month ahead of schedule this year, I hoped that that would not mean the cold would return a month earlier though. I seriously hope this is just an exception, but this morning it actually felt downright nippy, even in my sweater, the way it normally should feel in the early morning some three months from now.

The other day I saw the first Polish licence plate of the season, presumably belonging to a member of the annual army of pear harvesters, also nearly a month earlier than usual, but we'll see if that turns out to be the case.

The 2^nd of August, 2025

Taking a rest, I was absentmindedly zapping through the channels and landed on live footage of the Canal Pride Parade in Amsterdam. Naturally, my mind was immediately bombarded with images of effeminate men in pink thongs and on stilettos and the like, people who have every right to be who they are, but who in actuality only represent a minority of homosexual men. Naturally, in the few moments I could manage to stomach this spectacle, not once did I see the ‘normal’ specimens who represent the majority of homosexuals.

The 2^nd of August, 2025

It seems I’m not the only one who appreciates dark humour. This excerpt from my French reading of the day concerns a ‘lady’ addressing the convict she had hired to kill someone, upon his reporting that he had failed in this mission.

<< Le Tas m’a dit que tu avais donné de l’arsenic à la comtesse?

—Oui, madame; ça n’a pas pris.

—Si tu lui donnais un coup de couteau, ça prendrait peut-être. >>

Translation: << Le Tas [nickname of maid] told me you gave the Countess arsenic?

—Yes, madam; it didn’t take.

—Perhaps if you stabbed her with a knife, it might take. >>

The 1^st of August, 2025

<< I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown.>>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 1^st of August, 2025

<< One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler’s, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

As I have many a time stated, truly a man after my own heart…. refusing to take part in the incessant stream of hysterias of human society, but, rather than hiding or trying to stay under the radar, being true to his principles, no matter the cost. His retreating to the woods was also, as he makes clear here, not in order to escape what he found abhorrent, but because it was in his nature to do so.

The 1^st of August, 2025

For years it has been a weekly ritual to, on Friday evenings, watch a very popular programme on television that has been running for all that time, about Americans who find love in other countries. The show follows their journey, right up to marriage. 
I have always had particular reservations about the show, such as certain recurring superficial and sensationalistic elements, but, based on new information, I am suddenly going off this whole business altogether. I only now ever watch it if there is nothing better on, but, knowing myself, I will soon get too annoyed to even still do that.

I never had illusions that I felt differently about relationships than those presented on this programme, but what has really turned me off now, is discovering that most of these marriages don’t even last as long as the average… which is already short. It just makes the whole process suddenly feel completely empty. I had a similar experience not extremely long ago with a programme in which couples were married before even having met; the people were placed together by matchmakers. However, after having discovered that these marriages are not even legally binding, it makes the entire process seem completely meaningless, and I cannot even watch it anymore since.

Although I have turned my back on my fundamentalist religious past, and that without the least bit of remorse, there are numerous aspects on which I still agree with its members. The reasoning behind them is now entirely different (always based on logical reasoning rather than divine compulsion), but I have very often still arrived at the exact same stances, such as, to name just one of many instances, feeling that casual sexual encounters are wrong. Not on a moral basis; not because a deity said so, but because I sincerely believe it does not work, that it is both harmful to the mind and potentially risky to the physical health. I don’t want to be a hypocrite; it took me years to arrive at this point myself, so it is not from any throne atop moral peaks that I state my current position.

I have long found it interesting how romantic unions in all fundamentalist religious groups work, because the dynamic is the same in all of them. What I have always found interesting as well, is that most of these marriages are for life, even though the spouses often have little in common. The reason for this is that they share a common ideological foundation. Only on exceptionally rare occasions, in which couples have truly irreconcilable problems, is divorce even an option. Aside from those rare cases, an escape is simply not an option, and all problems simply have to be solved. To me still, that is what a marriage should be.

In the religiously fundamentalist communities, there in fact only exists one single criterium for a romantic union, and that is physical attraction. If that exists, everything else is peanuts. There is no need to have shared interests or anything, as long as the potential spouses have their common philosophical basis.
Conversely, in the standard dating scene, the candidates enter the search bearing long wish lists, which are generally comprised of very superficial matters, such as income or hobbies. I know it sounds ludicrous to say that those are not important, because to most people they are in fact the most important criteria… and that is, I firmly believe, the crux of why so many of these unions fail. People are essentially looking for their twins, and when they discover after some time that what first looked like a prince or princess is in fact just a human being like themselves, they dissolve the union and head off in continuance of their search for some romantic unicorn that they obviously will never find... that does not even exist. This illusion does not even exist in orthodox religious circles; as long as there is mutual physical attraction at the onset, every other matter is just a detail. Of course these people are very different from each other, and they do not even pretend otherwise, but they simply make it work. They generally do so because they believe that some being in another dimension put them together, and I very adamantly no longer believe in that, but I still hold to the same result. Whether a divine being or simply chance thrusts people into each other’s lives romantically, to me that is (and is still) for life.

The 1^st of August, 2025

The 31^st of July, 2025

<< On donne deux sous au pauvre qui mendie en blouse, dix à celui qui mendie en veste, cent à celui qui mendie en habit noir: calculez ce qu'il convient d'offrir à ceux qui mendient en voiture à quatre chevaux. >>

Translation: << One gives two cents to the poor man who begs in a blouse, ten to one who begs in a jacket, a hundred to one who begs in a black coat: just calculate what is appropriate to offer to those who beg in a four-horse carriage. >>

The 31^st of July, 2025

Yesterday after the walk and eating his food Dio became really ill. When he needed to walk anywhere in the house, he did so with his head hanging down and breathing really heavily. Just to test, I tried to tempt him with his favourite treat, but he would not even look at it. After some deliberation I called to have a veterinarian come check on him, but before one even had come, Dio’s breathing returned to normal, so I called again and cancelled. He stayed really still the rest of the day, and after a night of rest, I could see that he was still not better. So no early morning walk today; I just took Dio to some grass to do his business.
Fortunately though, this morning he ate all his food, so this is a really good sign.

I know it is not a matter of copying me, because he has been this way from the start, but it is uncanny how similar he is physically (health-wise) to me. He has such a weak body, just constantly has something, from major digestive problems to paws that are so sensitive that he cannot walk on pavement anymore without booties, but nonetheless he is tough as nails; he just has an extremely sensitive body. For years he had such extreme diarrhoea once every week or so, that he even excreted blood once. Like for myself, I treat him as much as possible with natural remedies. When I discovered that he was developing arthritis, I took him off all grains (cutting out his dry food altogether) and put him on only canned meat, so, like me, on a diet void of starchy foods. Almost immediately his digestive issues stopped. This was not even the goal, but I was thrilled. I also give him supplements with a mussel extract, which really did wonders within a few weeks to alleviate his arthritic pain.
Only for his heart problem do I have him on regular medicine, but after a few weeks his coughing almost entirely ceased. This medication will not cure him, but it can prolong his lifespan.

Dio just wagged a bit at me for the first time since getting sick yesterday, when I went to where he was lying, so another good sign that he is clearly on the mend.

The 30^th of July, 2025

I know the resulting photos will not seem to reflect those from an increasingly failing camera, but allow me to point out that, for example, the photo of the buoy required seven shots before getting one that was not just a yellow smudge. The numerous blurry photos of a swimming seal I took I could not include.

The 30^th of July, 2025

In the Victorian era, unscrupulous bakers were known to have mixed in their bread dangerous substances such as alum (a chemical substance which made bread appear whiter) or chalk or plaster, in order to drive up sales. Mercifully these lethal practices have been stopped, but, in an era of increasingly poorer quality of products, a very similar phenomenon is however returning. Hardcore capitalists have always only been concerned about profit, and in a time in which consumers can purchase increasingly less-expensive products, the quality has also been consistently reducing, but has now reached a point, and this pertains to almost all products, of being so shoddy that their lifespans are very short. However, with increasingly strong marketing strategies, the entrepreneur can make even more money, by selling all the products he or she previously did, but compelling the consumer to rebuy them in a short amount of time.

Historically, I have always had inexpensive digital pocket cameras, about which, although the photographic results were not bad, I never even had the expectation that they would last more than a year, but at least they were not expensive. I made the mistake of placing a very laudatory review on one however, and, whether related or not, the next time I went to purchase the same camera, the price had literally quadrupled. It is also seemingly a new trick of these ruthless large companies to now send mails asking for a review immediately upon receipt of the product, but making it impossible to revise them after they have soon been broken. 
I was thrilled to pieces to discover the amazing quality of the new camera I purchased just a bit more than a week ago or so. The pictures were amazing, and the quality of the zoom lens just absolutely blew me away. However, in the past days the zoom lens has begun to work increasingly poorly, and the camera on the whole has begun to work very slowly. I can no longer zoom in on any animals I see, and by the time I am able to take a blurry picture, they have long disappeared. Naturally, the very positive review I was summoned to place immediately after purchasing this photographic lemon, I could now no longer revise as the camera was breaking down. I will only be able to continue to take pictures of the same quality as my former cameras produced, but I seriously hope this camera holds out, because I absolutely refuse to keep buying new ones! I am saving for a move, to boot, and I refuse to hand all my savings over to conscienceless businesses.

When living in Cannes, for some time I worked in a clothing boutique of one of the top names in fashion. Until that time I had always harboured the illusion that quality improved with price. This, however, turned out to be a misconception, as the quality of the expensive fabrics, and the quality of the seams that held them together, was absolutely no better than that of the least expensive clothing. Only the look was superior. But this is the point to all products now. They are all about appearances, but not about use at all. Trousers are not made for moving in, only show; my new trousers tear almost immediately when I sit on them in order to weed the flower beds. I have had shirts that very literally fall apart by themselves after just a few washes. I know these things make no difference to people who have closets full of clothing, but it is not possible to live a minimalistic life with these products. Even reproduction clothing, that looks like it is made of quality fabrics, is now generally just made of the same shoddy fabric as all modern clothing. Shoes are only made for show as well, certainly not for taking long walks. I am periodically having to replace shoes, because even the concept of the cobbler has become redundant in an age in which buying a new product is less expensive than repairing it. Allow me to point out the irony of that in an age that pretends to be so concerned about the environment…

The 29^th of July, 2025

... on a lovely summer day replete with agricultural bounty.
The pears look almost ready for plucking, again a month earlier than usual, so the customary army of Polish pear harvesters should be descending on the village soon now.

The 28^th of July, 2025

<< Many a traveller came out of his way to see me and the inside of my house, and, as an excuse for calling, asked for a glass of water. I told them that I drank at the pond, and pointed thither, offering to lend them a dipper. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 27^th of July, 2025

<< … I did not know whether he was as wise as Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as a child, whether to suspect him of a fine poetic consciousness or of stupidity. A townsman told me that when he met him sauntering through the village in his small close-fitting cap, and whistling to himself, he reminded him of a prince in disguise. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 27^th of July, 2025

<< I asked him once if he was not sometimes tired at night, after working all day; and he answered, with a sincere and serious look, “Gorrappit, I never was tired in my life.” >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 27^th of July, 2025

From time to time, when it becomes necessary, I soak my sneakers overnight in citric acid, and run them the next day in the washer on a short and cool cycle. I then set them outside or on the window-sill in the sunshine, and they are then always dry by the end of the day. Except this time. For some extremely enigmatic reason, my washed sneakers absolutely refuse to dry. I have even had to resoak and rewash them because they had already begun to smell musty. I am as confused as I am annoyed.

There are simply things in life that make absolutely no sense. It will seem completely unrelated to my sneaker predicament, but it makes me think of how one time my dog Adán, on a free run on the beach, disappeared into the dunes and came back running with a rabbit in its jaws, the victim bloodcurdlingly screaming in terror and agony. There are things that make absolutely no sense, but it is simply how nature works sometimes, and one sometimes really has to dig deep to find some meaning. 

On the one hand, there are those who feel absolutely nothing has any intrinsic meaning, and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, those who claim that everything happens for a purpose, which I am personally convinced is simply an excuse to obviate those who believe this from having to deal with the ugly reality of incomprehensible things. For this reason I am a secular humanist. I sincerely do not believe that there is a hidden purpose for everything (because in many cases this would just be cruel beyond belief); neither do I believe that everything is entirely meaningless. I believe that nothing inherently has meaning, but that we as humans can derive meaning from everything. And I will be the first to admit that this sometimes costs a great deal of effort, but it is what I truly believe is the best way to look at life… not to convince oneself of lies in order to feel good, but also not to feel jaded about everything.  

The 27^th of July, 2025

Not every morning walk is replete with unicorns and rainbows. After a long succession of idyllic summer days, I noticed last evening that the petals on my sunflower had begun to droop, so I poured a cup of water over its roots. What makes this summer so perfect, is the fact that there have also been small rain-showers from time to time, but now it is apparently necessary to have a good dousing again… I am just not thrilled to have this happen during my walks.

One needs to sometimes really search hard for silver linings, but they are generally there. It is really not a bad thing to have some rain now after so many days of mostly glorious sunshine… and it doesn’t even feel any less warm outside either. To boot, if it stays looking this somber, it is perfect weather to lie on the couch and enjoy my annual rite of watching the finish of the Tour de France on the Champs-Elysées. My body needs rest a lot today anyway. So there you have it, I have already found fully three silver linings for the dismal sky.

The 26^th of July, 2025

The 25^th of July, 2025

It seems now I have hollyhock as well… I am so happy with how my butterfly-border-flowerbed is developing.

The 25^th of July, 2025

The 25^th of July, 2025

In continuation of my musings on the matter yesterday, my mind was completely dominated by the issue of boorish behaviour towards me as I was walking through the countryside on one of the seemingly endless succession of glorious summer mornings on this particular one. What an incredible waste of natural tranquility, I am all to aware. But I felt I needed to figure this out once and for all, well, to find a way to deal with it.

As I was deeply entrenched in my thinking, a car pulled up from behind, slowed and stopped beside me. It turned out to be a really cool-looking vintage car, exactly as I myself might have got… something one does not see here though. Inside sat a handsome young man, clearly sophisticated, wearing a simple white t-shirt and sporting a good hairdo, but with absolutely no airs. He explained that he owned the farm I had just passed, but lived in Brussels, and that he had seen me walk by before (presumably on visits). I in my turn explained that I found his to be by far the most beautiful farm in the surroundings. The conversation was not long, but for once I didn’t sense any nosy prying. It was simply a respectful verbal exchange. It made no difference to me what he truly thought of me, but at least he just spoke to me in a normal manner, not with any anger, nor with any condescension. This should be normal, but this is only the second time in about five years that I have encountered people who actually do this, and… both of them happened to not live here.

Enlightened people do sprout here, can be from here, but they do not live here. The aforementioned encounter just solidified to my mind the conclusion I had reached just before that, that without exception, and I should not even hope it to be otherwise, any person who chooses to live here is not on the same page as I. This is not a judgment, simply an observation of a fact. I cannot even hope to find any understanding here, because the people here simply do not see life in the same way as I. Just like most people, they can only see life through the lenses of their own world, and so, anything that does not fit within those parameters is not acceptable. This is especially prevalent in all societies with a narrow view of life, but here it is truly taken to another level. 
Hence, anything (all true of course) I have said to anyone in passing about my passion for weight training, or photography, or the fact that I am Canadian as well, or have lived in France, does not fit within the constraints of their world view, and is thus only an extra validation to them of my purported insanity. I can therefore not even begin to express what a breath of fresh air it was to once again encounter a person with a larger scope.
So bitterly ironic. I have now arrived at a place (well, literally a location) in which my decades of hard work to perfect my skills actually work against me. So, for instance, I have worked so hard to reach a point of not having any English accent in my Dutch anymore, that now only certain people even hear the subtle English quality to my speech, so, saying things like that I am Canadian is just completely implausible to the linguistically challenged average villager here. Yoy! Good evidence of the fact that it really is not even worth the effort to say anything. Not just not care, but not say anything.  

I would not wish to trade lives with any city person, nor do I harbour any illusions about urban existences inherently being more enlightened. I am a country boy to the core, and I adore a simple life, but that does not mean I do not have a sense of style, that I need to act boorishly, or that I necessarily have a narrow view of the world.

All my life I have tried to please nearly everyone. This trait evolved as a survival mechanism, but is still part of me today. It is not that I ever lie (I am a dreadful liar), but because I have extremely varied interests I have always found it easy to connect with people on their own. It is also not feigned interest, but genuine, because the points of commonality are always integral to my own being, but they are not ever all of me. But now, surrounded by weed-infested streets and yards, unbathed people and white hair and walkers, pickup trucks, nosy people, condescending and screaming people, and incessant wafts of pot smoke when I walk outside, I realize more than ever that it is pointless to even try. As one adage goes, one cannot fault a bear for behaving like a bear. This village will never change; the people will never become more enlightened, and I should not even hope that they ever will. This is far more than simply small-town mentalities, which are to be found everywhere. It is, and this is the very crux of my conclusion of the morning, entirely pointless to expect that any person choosing to live here is even able to understand anything about me. To save writing a long explanation on this score, it is best expressed using another saying, that one can lead a horse to water, but one cannot make him drink.  

The 24^th of July, 2025

The 24^th of July, 2025

Farmers are notorious for complaining about the weather. Often this is justified; their livelihoods are dependent on it after all, but often it is just plain complaining. The Dutch as a people are also notorious complainers about the weather; it seems it is a national pastime. Imagine, then, a combination of the two…

In passing people the past month on my walks, I have incessantly heard complaints about how dry it has been. This was indeed very true; I have never had the wild grasses on the dikes remind me as much of Southern Alberta as they have this summer. However, enough rain has fallen in the meantime to saturate the ground again.

The 24^th of July, 2025

The 23^rd of July, 2025

When my weekly grocery order exceeds a certain amount, I receive ‘gifts’ from the supermarket that delivers, almost invariably of things that are overflowing with added sugars, or things I cannot use for other reasons, all of which I need to dispose of instead of using. In keeping with the current penchant for token environmental gestures, I recently received tape with writing on it, to label foods, in order to not have to burden the environment with prematurely throwing out food. 
I never prematurely toss food out; in fact, ‘use before’ dates are to me just indications about the freshness nearing its end. The only thing I did have to throw out and burden the environment with, was the ‘environmental’ labelling tape itself.

This polluting empty gesture sprung to mind as I heard one of my Alternative (with a capital ‘a’, denoting a specific ideology) neighbours wheeling back his garbage bin after having it emptied, something I hear each time it is picked up. I have so little garbage (I recycle nearly everything, and have for decades now) that I put it out to be picked up on average once every two months, and only so it will not start to stink, not because the container is full. My Alternative neighbours on both sides, who are scared to wash themselves, do however both drive petrol-consuming vehicles, whilst I have never owned a car. It is not just a financial question to me either; I am very serious (and always have been) about doing my share to leave behind for successive generations as clean a planet as possible.

The 23^rd of July, 2025

<< When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, went with a companion on a visit of ceremony to Massasoit on foot through the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well received by the king [presumably the chief of a First Nations American tribe], but nothing was said about eating that day. When the night arrived, to quote their own words,—“He laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only planks laid a foot from the ground, and a thin mat upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey.” >>

I really have no intention of quoting from this same book forever, things that I encounter that amuse me or that validate a point to me, but in my daily readings I am now only nearly halfway through this particular one...

The 23^rd of July, 2025

<< I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 23^rd of July, 2025

The 23^rd of July, 2025

<< I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man’s house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. >>

The 23^rd of July, 2025

Most people have always found me weird. There are plenty of young people who assume quirky characteristics in order to stand out, but I was never one of those. In fact, quite the opposite was true as a child. My ultimate dream was to not stand out, to seem as average as possible. I had no desire to change any of my private habits (like devouring books and such) however, but to the outside world I wanted to look just as average as all the popular boys. I really never aspired to look quirky. Perhaps that’s why to this day I am attracted both to unusual (such as ‘real’ Gothicky) and to average (that of the popular kids in the eighties, the era in which I grew up) styles. So, for instance, and this is purely not conscious, I like to wear traditional leather ankle boots in colder weather, and sneakers, with the laces cut and knotted behind the last hole, just like the popular kids used to wear when I was young, in the warmer periods. Perhaps though, still doing today what was so many decades the popular thing, is now become eccentric anyway.

I was olfactorily prompted to think of this this morning, as each time I opened my new messenger bag to pull out my camera, my nostrils were filled with the exact same whiff as that of my new school clothes I pulled on after every summer of my childhood. I was reminded then of how in fact, with the sole (no pun intended) exceptions of Lethbridge outings (church and shopping), the entire two months of my summer holidays I did not once wear shoes. Absolutely everything I did on bare feet, including delivering newspapers (I had the largest route in my town – perhaps this is where my walking ritual really started). The entire summer I spent in the local swimming pool (and when that was closed, the public library), and could even walk with ease across the gravel that covered the field that separated my neighbourhood from the pool. I only very begrudgingly got out of the pool every weekday afternoon to deliver my papers, but then hurried back over the gravel in my bare feet to get back as quickly as possible to my beloved swimming pool.

The point is, even then everyone thought I was a bit off. It was kind of my identity in fact, that I was the kid who was always on bare feet, who even delivered the papers on bare feet. That hasn’t changed, I mean, the thinking I’m weird. Out of necessity I have donned footwear now, but I always feel that as a sort of personal defeat (again, no pun intended). The fact that now people think I am completely bonkers is not really a new thing at all. They still completely misinterpret everything I do, or rather, interpret it to fit their preconceptions. So, for instance, just last year in spring a couple passed my flower bed, just at the time when the shoots of my new flowers were just coming up, and I could hear the woman snarkily commenting on them with disgust to her husband: Just look at all the weeds here.

The 23^rd of July, 2025

The 23^rd of July, 2025

The 23^rd of July, 2025

I move that the inventor of the zoom lens be deified.

The 22^nd of July, 2025

I am well-pleased with my new messenger bag that was just delivered. I am not materialistic in the least, but that does not mean having to surrender a sense of aesthetics. I like to own just a few things, but I prefer that all of them be pleasing to me, and of good quality.

The 22^nd of July, 2025

The 21^st of July, 2025

<< For my panacea, instead of one of those quack vials of a mixture dipped from Acheron and the Dead Sea, which come out of those long shallow black-schooner looking wagons which we sometimes see made to carry bottles, let me have a draught of undiluted morning air. >>

The 21^st of July, 2025

The 21^st of July, 2025

<< I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I pray? … I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumble-bee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 21^st of July, 2025

The 21^st of July, 2025

That not craving social interaction with humans is unhealthy; it is just simply how some people tick, and it is not up to social butterflies to decide that it is abnormal to do otherwise. I myself would argue that it is in fact unhealthy (and, not just a little emotionally weak) to need to be constantly diverted and entertained. I personally find that there is strength and health in solitude, and I am more than convinced that a simple life away from the clamour of humanity provides immeasurably more beauty and bliss.

The 21^st of July, 2025

The 21^st of July, 2025

The 21^st of July, 2025

According to the ‘hysteria update’, the Belgian king Philippe spoke out very strongly against the reprehensibly inhumane situation in the Gaza Stroke. Good on him. Now this is the sort of thing that will make people sit up and listen, not misguided loose cannons putting even more lives in peril by blocking the finish in the Tour de France. The Palestinian situation needs fixing, and immediately, but via the proper channels. This equally applies to the Ukrainian situation as well, but that particular issue has become less popular now, so one does not hear the ‘Don Quixotes’ on that score anymore, even though the war continues. I get that not everyone is head of state of a nation, but what they could do instead, if their motives were truly about the welfare of others, and not actually about attention-seeking for themselves, is to bombard their own head of state with letters and other forms of pressure to do something about this. It is great, and high time, that a head of state speaks out so firmly on this, but things like this should happen much faster, before countless lives are lost.

The 21^st of July, 2025

The 20^th of July, 2025

The 20^th of July, 2025

<< Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can “see the folks,” and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate himself for his day’s solitude… >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 20^th of July, 2025

<< I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 20^th of July, 2025

A number of days ago in one of the brief verbal exchanges along my walking route with a lady I chance upon from time to time, I referred back to the fact, which I had mentioned in the previous exchange, that I planned to move. She asked: Oh, are you still planning to do that?
My response, accompanied by a confused look, stunned that I even needed to explain that: Er, ye-eah. When I say something, I do it...
I don’t know if it’s just me, but it never ceases to boggle my mind that people don’t take seriously what I say; this is nothing new either, but something I have run into my whole life.
I cannot even believe that I have to defend statements I previously made. It makes it feel increasingly pointless to even say anything, if my words are simply disregarded anyway.

Fully some three and a half decades ago now, a friend paid me a compliment that rings as true today as it did then: You always do what you say you will. You may fall on your face a thousand times in so doing, but at least you always do what you plan.
Things often also take me longer than I had hoped, but I always do them.

I am very much invested now in my determination to move to the seacoast near here, but my dog Dio’s health is the ultimate determining factor in the time for this. I cannot even leave him alone for long enough to go to a house there, even to unlock the door and have workmen lay floors or paint or whatever for me.

Thus, at the moment I am in a constant struggle between living as frugally as possible and still living a semblance of a life. I will not invest anymore in this house, will not even invest in projects and objects I can take with me; saving money for the move comes first. I do not smoke (and haven't for a decade now), do not drink (haven't for years), do not go away (also haven't for years), do not spend any extra money on anything, except what is to me essential to my life, and, just as my lifestyle is completely different to that of most people, so are my priorities. To me, for example, a camera is simply a necessity.

I have long got by with a second-hand digital camera, and have no complaints about the quality of the pictures, but by the end I was having to take out and replace the batteries each time I took a picture, and the functions were disappearing one by one, such as the ability to take close-up shots. I finally felt I had no choice but to get a new camera. 

Historically I have always had pocket-sized digital cameras that were charged via USB ports, and only ended up with the previous battery-operated one because fate pushed it into my lap, so I had never considered as an option either a larger camera or one with batteries. The one I now found turned out larger than I had expected, and it is battery-operated, but, shockingly, it is still no more expensive than my former pocket-sized cameras.

To add to my pleasant shock, the quality of the images is absolutely amazing… and the zoom lens just opens up an entirely new world to me. So, for instance, yesterday I saw the silhouette of what looked like a cruise ship, which was passing at least a kilometre away, but it was only on examining my (amazingly clear) zoom shot later at home, that I could clearly make out all the details, right to the lifeboats suspended along the side. I cannot wait to apply my new ‘binocular’ to other views I cannot see properly, such as the seals that bask in the distance on a sandbar.

The camera is really much more bulky than I am accustomed to, and, aside from the fact that I am embarrassed to walk around with such a big camera, on a practical level I am concerned about rain getting it wet. So I have also ordered a messenger bag. I used to carry one all the time on my bicycle rides, and find them incredibly handy (but always swung over the shoulder on the opposite side, so that it does not look like a man purse). It will not be great to only keep my camera dry, but to carry any other necessities, such as water for Dio when setting out on walks on hot mornings.

The 19^th of July, 2025

I am just watching the cyclists with vests on racing through dark fog and rain at the height of summer in the Pyrenees. To each his or her own, and if everyone were like me, the mountains would be uninhabited, so, in the interest of less-overpopulated flat lands, it is perhaps best that not everyone is.

I grew up on the Southern Albertan prairies, with a row of Rocky Mountain peaks lining the horizon to the west. Nearly every holiday of my childhood was spent in these mountains, where I, already according to my rather reclusive nature, would spend my days out alone in my dinghy on glacial waters, where I felt freest, but which would have killed me in minutes if I had ever fallen in, never being able to take relaxed walks either, due to the very real threat of being mauled by grizzly bears and other predatorial animals. The days were short there, it was always cold, and I spent all these holidays laying the bricks for my current tendency towards orophobia, feeling like I was absolutely suffocating. 
I always felt like I could finally breathe again as we drove back out onto the prairies, back into the bright and gloriously warm sunshine and endless expanses. It was at these moments that my own sense of holiday began.

Even when I later moved to the Maritime Alps in France, I consciously chose to settle in Cannes, it being a somewhat smaller city, located in one of the least mountainous area along the French Riviera. I had not then yet developed my daily habit of long walks, but already made my choice based on my nascent dread of precipitous locales.

The 19^th of July, 2025

The 19^th of July, 2025

The 19^th of July, 2025

The 18^th of July, 2025

The 17^th of July, 2025

The 17^th of July, 2025

If people were not taking this seriously enough yet, I hope it will have become abundantly clear how dangerous this is when yesterday in the last seconds of the Tour de France stage in Toulouse, an anti-Israeli protestor ran onto the route in an effort to stop the cyclists. Fortunately the person was grabbed and restrained immediately. These people who do not give a rat’s tuchus about cycling, only see this major international event as the perfect platform for their own purposes.
These selfish and misguided people do not realize that cycling is one of the most dangerous sports there is. In fact, on exactly this same day a young Italian cyclist died in a race after falling on a descent and hitting his head. These actions are not innocuous in the least; they are literally putting lives at risk! 

The 16^th of July, 2025

<< There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still. >>

Third quote of the day? I cannot help continually resonating with things in this writing.

The 16^th of July, 2025

<< But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 16^th of July, 2025

<< Nay, I was frequently notified of the passage of a traveller along the highway sixty rods off by the scent of his pipe. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 16^th of July, 2025

We live in a time in which humanity around the globe sees it as some sort of birthright to know everything about famous people, even if these are not celebrities in the conventional sense, namely, being from the entertainment world. They feel they should know everything about their political leaders, that it is a sort of democratic duty in fact, equally treating elected leaders as well as aristocratic ones in the same way as they do movie stars. Especially with regard to hereditary monarchy, such has not always been the case. It is only when their positions are threatened that they feel the need to garner public support. In a time in which human society feels it has the right to know everything about any ‘celebrity’, such as these royals, they now absolutely bend over backwards to demonstrate that they are as ordinary as possible. The most shining example of this perhaps is the current Dutch king making a krumping (hip-hop) move at a member of a crowd he was passing.
This sort of behaviour is actually an overall societal trend however, by which even the swankiest people pretend to be ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ (although they are being the exact opposite then), such as when ‘posh’ Brits affect ‘Mockney’ accents to attempt to seem more working class. Oh, how times have changed in just a few decades!

Although the masses sincerely believe they want to know everything about their celebrities, I would personally argue that what people really want is a sense of mystery in certain areas. In our age of demystification, one sees increasingly more things that, although they certainly fit the principle of being open about everything, I myself think are not necessary, in fact, are harmful. They are not ahead of their time either; I think some things one doesn’t need on public display. The glaring illustration to me is the fact that in advertising the blue liquid poured onto feminine hygiene pads has suddenly become almost universally red, and I see ads about females complaining that their privates smell like wet dogs and such. I am a naturist, and not prudish in the least, but I truly think there is a limit to what is decent, and I think that line has well been crossed now.

Many years ago a person remarked to me about the fact that seemingly all celebrities wore sunglasses, not only in sunny places. I still feel the same about my response on the matter at the time, namely, that it seems to me this goes far beyond trying to reduce light or look cool; I think it gives people who are constantly in the public eye a slight sense of anonymity. Obviously it does not hide them, but it gives them a feeling of having a touch of privacy.
This may seem entirely unrelated, but it pertains to precisely the same point. I will also never forget when once the lady who is the current mayor of Amsterdam, if I remember the details correctly, upon being addressed with the informal pronoun, answered, U mag ook gewoon u zeggen (You [formal pronoun] may just say you [formal pronoun]). In an age of lowering standards as much as possible, especially in such an egalitarian society as the Dutch one, this would seem downright snooty to most people.
I think that, just like celebrities wearing shades in unsunny places though, asking to be addressed with the formal pronoun is a way of creating polite distance. It is a courteous way of maintaining one’s bubble.

The 16^th of July, 2025

It always fascinated me in the past, even then lying at a distance to the masses, which allowed me to observe them as a whole, how when everyone on the nude beach lay fully unclothed, there were no social distinctions whatsoever, but as they were pulling back on their garments before leaving, it was like they were putting back on their hierarchical markers. To anyone else, as most people are not aware of the social code at play, it would seem like there is no social hierarchy whatsoever.

The 15^th of July, 2025

<< La comtesse était fière de sa laideur, comme les autres femmes de leur beauté. La coquetterie se fourre partout. >>

Translation: << The Countess was proud of her ugliness, as other women were of their beauty. Coquetry is everywhere. >>

The 15^th of July, 2025

<< Dans ce paradis aride, les indigènes ne disent pas: Ennuyeux comme la pluie; mais: Ennuyeux comme le beau temps. >>

Translation: << In this arid paradise, the natives do not say: Annoying as rain; but: Annoying as beautiful weather. >>

Edmond About – Germaine, 1903

The 15^th of July, 2025

This post is absolutely teetering on the edge of griping, but I feel I need to write it, as this subject is such a prominent one in my life.

In all my very brief contacts with other people, by which I mean exchanging a few words in passing, I am constantly struck by how few people actually even listen, how few actually take seriously anything I say, and how rare it is that they even remember the next time what I have said. I myself have an incredibly sharp long-term memory, even if my short-term one is beyond abysmal at this time, and, even though I have a dreadful habit of interrupting people, I am truly engaged in what they say, I take at face value anything they tell me (even when I shouldn’t), and I remember anything they say. When I run into anyone again, I therefore just continue where we ended previously, even if that was months ago, but I have found that in every case I need to start from the beginning again. I guess that just as their approach to me is based in spreading themselves thin and having superficial conversations, I also base my impressions on my own, of not spreading myself thin and engaging in superficial gregariousness.

The 15^th of July, 2025

The 14^th of July, 2025

I am not a physician, not a medical expert, and I am absolutely not dispensing medical advice here! I am simply sharing what my own observation on the subject of cancer is, and what I apply to my own life to avoid it.

I have heard many theories by people using all sorts of medical terms in order to validate their arguments, but the short of it is simply that no-one knows what causes cancerous growths. I have my own theory though, and my entire lifestyle supports it. I don’t live my life around a fear of contracting cancer, just as I refuse to live in fear of anything, but I live a lifestyle that I believe will best maintain health. I do this based on other motivations entirely, but I am convinced it will also reduce the risk of contracting cancer. Only time will tell if I was right.

From what I observe, it seems to me that there isn’t a single factor that causes cancer. I know many people try to attribute it to one cause, such as acids, sunshine, or smoked foods. It seems to me that cancer is caused by an excess of basically any substance in the body, a build-up of any toxin, be that from too much sun, too much acid, too much smoked food, or too much of anything else. People constantly act as though the body is almost trying to self-destruct, but in fact the body has an amazing ability to process abuse. The body is by nature built to survive, and it is constantly working to do so. This is why I find it so important to constantly be flushing the body with water and fresh fruits and vegetables. The body can process a great deal of abuse, but it needs a healthy foundation in order to do so. If a body is incessantly assaulted by negative factors, but there is no clean foundation to support its elimination, the body cannot do otherwise than eventually break down.

The 14^th of July, 2025

In an age in which absolute terror is instilled in people about getting sun on their skin, allow me to state something in the defence of tanning. I am not talking about burning, which is indeed unhealthy, nor about being so dark brown that one’s skin looks like wrinkled leather, but that has always been this way. I simply mean a nice colour (which differs in people, according to their ability to tan). Pasty skin has never been my thing, but I can understand the appeal, under one condition, namely, if the pasty-skinned person has flawless skin. For a person like me, who, like many ethnic Europeans, has very moley skin, a pasty look is not flattering in the least.

The point that brought up this thought, is noticing once again how a dormant varicose vein I have on the back of one leg seems to almost disappear as I get darker. Unable to handle much sun at the moment, I use a spray tan. It does not give me the health benefits of sunshine, but it does give me some colour when I don’t want to display pasty skin, especially when I wear shorts. I infinitely prefer a real tan though, as I am not a fan of things like stained towels and having to be careful to not leave streaks or discolour my nails.

I perform the natural ritual of rubbing lemon juice on dark spots in order to lighten them, such as on dark bags under my eyes or the aforementioned varicose vein. But what I have maintained almost all my life is a good tan, because, aside from looking both pleasing and more healthy than pasty skin, it diminishes the dark bits I don’t like. It doesn’t remove them, it doesn’t even hide them, but it makes them less dominant.

The 14^th of July, 2025

Allow me to begin this post by stating very emphatically that I am not criticizing France as a nation in it in the least; I absolutely adore that country, and it is not without reason that I have lived there and intend to do so again as soon as I am able.
I am glad to have grown up in Canada; I think it is a good place to develop one’s wings, and I am glad to have been able to do so in the far more innocent eighties as well. And I am thankful to be currently taken care of by the Netherlands when my health has failed me. However, just as some 90 000 of my Canadian compatriots and some 37 000 of my Dutch ones who now live in France, it is the country, all logic aside, in which I myself also feel most at home.
I think France is the most beautiful country by leaps and bounds in the world (especially when one considers not just European France, but all its overseas departments); I think it has the most stunning architecture, the most beautiful language, the best and most diverse cuisine, the most physically beautiful and diverse populace, the most cultural diversity, and the most natural diversity.

However, in an age in which (Western) governments are handing out apologies and reparations left and right, for injustices committed by former generations to the descendants of (generally foreign) people who often perpetrated crimes on other groups themselves, it is sad that the French government has never seen fit to express regret for the bloodbath of the Reign of Terror, which still divides its people. Even though the name ‘Bastille Day’ is not used in France itself, it is both sad and divisive that the national holiday after the French Revolution should have been chosen to be on the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. Even whilst living in France, I myself, and my opinion has not changed on this matter over time, could not in good conscience celebrate the national holiday, or even enjoy it as a foreign cultural phenomenon. I am not alone in this: there are countless French nationals themselves, most notably monarchists and ardent Catholics, who also cannot celebrate the anniversary of what was basically a boorish bloodletting.
I find it interesting that in both France and Russia, the peasant masses slaughtered as many members of the aristocracy as possible, as well as their respective monarchs, who were incidentally both engaged at that exact moment in implementing reform, and that both nations now celebrate their national holidays with a display of military might. I am not defending absolute monarchy in the least; the system seriously needed change, and it was in the process of changing, but I take serious issue, just as do many French people themselves, with, to this day, celebrating what was nothing more than a national bloodletting.

It is also interesting that whilst people (justifiably) have got there knickers in a bunch over lyrics in national anthems such as ‘Germany above everything’, it engenders absolutely no problems that one of the ‘good guys’ in the most recent major European wars has in its national anthem lyrics about letting the 'impure blood' of their enemies stream through their furrows. Obviously history cannot be rewritten, and these words are from a battle that will be part of French history forever, but one still can create new history, and France has done this numerous times in fact. I am not alone in this either; even as notable a figure as former French first lady Madame Chirac expressed a wish to see changed the national anthem.

I have nothing against the Marseillaise as a military march and as part of France's national history. It is, however, the sort of song that should be sung from time to time along with all other historic marches by choirs such as that of the military academy of Saint-Cyr. But it is not appropriate as a national anthem. There is nothing wrong either with having national anthems that are based in history; the Dutch one, for example, also used as a military march, one which just happens in fact to be set to the melody of a French song, which tells the story in the first person of the founder of the nation, who led it during the gruelling war for independence. However, it does not call for butchering people.
It is ironic that in a time in which it is (and rightly so!) an absolute taboo to summon violence against any others, a time in which international organizations purport to do everything to prevent bloodshed, a time in which politically sensitive lyrics in national anthems (such as the English version of the Canadian one) are (I think unnecessarily) altered, that one of the leading nations has a national hymn that openly rallies its people to commit bloodletting.  

The 14^th of July, 2025

A good start to the day again today.

Mercifully, again today the tourists were apparently too snug under their duvets to get up early.

The 14^th of July, 2025

Just to share what I am enjoying at the moment.

The 13^th of July, 2025

I write about and display photographs of ‘small’ things, but, such is the nature of my life, and I can only be authentically myself (short of lying and pretending to be someone else). I do not show duck-faced selfies balancing atop a skyscraper in Dubai; I do not post pictures of the coffee I am drinking on a terrace in Saint-Tropez; I do not write posts about the amazing house festival I attended yesterday. Not that I do any of those things anyway, but I cannot pretend to be other than I am.

My life is a mix of both intense beauty and of unpleasant experiences, and both these I document. Of course beauty is entirely subjective anyway, and my frankness is not de rigueur in a culture that embraces creating and sharing untrue images about the lives of its people.
Everything I post is true, but it is certainly not to most people’s tastes. I just hope that it will strike a chord with the few people who are receptive to what I share.

On that note, to return to the very mundane, as I have mentioned before, my house still, even after three and a half years of living here, carries the body odours of the purportedly five Poles who lived here together before me. I have an insanely acute sense of smell, but I am certain that anyone could smell this. For several years I kept getting wafts of body odour from around my washroom sink, and no amount of scrubbing would remove it. When I finally had the pipes flushed it suddenly disappeared however, which revealed that the scent must have been coming from some sort of blockage in the drains. Anyway, now it has reappeared in the corner under my work table. I guess that there must be a pipe running under the floor here, and that the plumber just moved the odorous blockage. The smell is far stronger when the humidity increases, but it is now always present, even in a subtle form in more arid times.  

The 13^th of July, 2025

The 12^th of July, 2025

The mental theme of the day is Intrusive People. Having been raised in an individualistic culture in Canada, and later in France having lived in the same, I simply could not conceive of the collectivistic mentality that dominates human society in the Netherlands. This is not unique to this country though, and it is the ultimate source of the constant misunderstandings between the Belgians, who have an individualistic culture, and the Dutch. This is not a complaint; it is simply a question of needing to be aware of and working with it. Living a reclusive lifestyle though, and even living as rurally as is possible in my current situation, it never ceases to surprise me though. There are nosy people everywhere of course, but it is a whole different thing when it takes place in a society that considers it the birthright of every person to know absolutely everything about the others.

When I returned to the Netherlands after having lived in France, I suffered such intense migraines that I could not even stand to have on the lights in the evening. Obviously I was aware that this was not standard behaviour, but I had always lived in cultures in which one was left alone. So imagine my shock one Sunday morning to have several police officers at my door, after having been tipped off by a neighbour that there was apparently a squatter housed in the apartment in which it was that I lived.

One village later, I was stunned beyond belief to see one day an old woman looking at me through her window with... binoculars.

Forward another two villages to where I live now: an old couple lives a few houses down from me, and watches absolutely everything I do. I cannot do anything without the man walking over and asking what I'm doing. Even if I received any company, I wouldn’t dare here; anytime anyone comes to the door I am asked who it was. The aforementioned neighbours have developed their nosiness to such an art that it is satisfied before I am even onto it. So, for instance, upon moving here, the lady approached me with the ruse of a conversation, whilst her husband very unabashedly stood at my window carefully studying the interior of my house. I only saw him once he was nearly satiated. I have since got sheer curtains to prevent this sort of thing.

The 12^th of July, 2025

I know I give people infinitely more credit than they are worth. I have been doing this all my life. My problem hasn’t ever been that I don’t have a good radar though; it is actually extremely fine-tuned… the problem is that I don’t listen to it. I am always giving people the benefit of the doubt, even when I know full-well that they have a character not deserving of the invested energy.

This issue arose just now again as I was deadheading the front flower bed. I could hear the clip-clop of an insanely nosy neighbour’s clogs coming in my direction, fervently hoping that he would walk past. I know that, bearing the visible signs of the brain haemorrhage now, all the villagers here think I am mentally challenged, and they confirm this suspicion by speaking to me accordingly. It is especially the least intelligent amongst them who treat me like a slow infant though. I do not write this thought in order to gripe, but because it constantly raises a question in me.

There is, for example, an elderly lady living nearby, who, each time she sees me with Dio, pulls her own dog to the nearest place she can hide. I ask myself each time though: does she do this with everyone, or is she so afraid that I specifically will one day let Dio attack her dog?

In the village near here in which I formerly lived, there was a young man who, each time I talked to him, would just look away at something more interesting, or take out his phone and start reading on it. I always attributed this behaviour specifically to him, thought perhaps it was due to an attention deficit disorder or something, but the nosy clip-clopping neighbour does precisely the same thing. He just uses me as a decoy in order to gratify his nosiness with respect to things that interest him more. Today this happened to be the fact that people in the street are setting up for the street barbeque they will be holding this evening. So, as I was engrossed in removing wilted flowers, he asked, ‘So, how are your bulbs doing?’, whilst, before I could even explain that the bulbs I plant only come up in the spring, he, not even pretending to be interested, turned to survey what really interested him. After having made my excuse to leave, I asked myself: is this man really this rude with everyone, or does he truly think I am so stupid that I am not onto his obvious disinterest?

The 12^th of July, 2025

Living on the North Sea coast for nearly two decades, it was just par for the course that the arrival of summer heralded a veritable tsunami of tourists, which also withdrew exactly on the last day of August. The transition from that month to September was always like a shift from night to day. However, in the years that I have been living in this particular village, located on an arm of the sea, about ten kilometres from the sea coast proper, aside from a few additional vehicles in the holiday park a stone’s throw away from my house, I have seen very few tourists in peak holiday periods, so have been able to take me early morning walks in complete peace.

The 12^th of July, 2025

The 10^th of July, 2025

I am saving as much as possible for a move to the seaside (as opposed to where I currently live, along an arm of the sea, surrounded by industrial complexes, which rarely figure in any photo I take), it is just that with Dio’s health everything is up in the air at the moment, plus, naturally, spending a significant portion of my monthly savings on canine heart medication and arthritis supplements makes it rather difficult to save.

Aside from the fact that I fa-a-ar prefer the village on the seaside I have in mind, and that it is always important to me to be able to take my morning walks in beautiful surroundings, there is a very pragmatic reason for this move. I absolutely adore the size and design of my current house, love my little flower beds, love the path running in front of my house, love the distance between mine and the houses on the other side of the street, and the huge tree across from my living-room window, but the quality of the house is absolutely abysmal. Never in my life have I had to call so often for repair people. However, this is not the practical reason to which I refer. Neither is it about the fact that two towns with shops are far closer there than they are here. If I could just take this house and about ten metres surrounding it, and plunk it down in that place by the sea, I would be thrilled to bits. My chief motivation is that in periods such as this one, in which I have such bad dizzy spells that I cannot even cycle, literal months (even two times already a full year) fly by without me ever leaving this village. If my health dictates that I remain in the same spot, then let that be a place I truly love. The other village is only ten kilometres away from where I now live, but with my current limitations, it feels like it is on the other side of the globe.

Anyhoo, having no idea when I will be able to take this step now, I am still determined to set aside as much money as possible, and not invest in new household projects. That being said, I simply could not resist the temptation to order a young orange tree for myself though.

The 10^th of July, 2025

My house is very small compared to most, and yet, it feels roomy. I have done a number of things in order to achieve this, whilst at the same time making the space perfectly functional for all my needs, but without any clutter or complicated storing.

In order to make the small space feel larger, I have painted the walls white, have sand-coloured seats and curtains, and have pastel throws. I have yet (a project for later) to paint the storage unit slash table a mat coral. Also my floors are a light colour. What really opened the space up though, is that I took out the doors between the hall/living-room/kitchen.

The space meets all my needs, but I have no clutter (exceedingly important in such a small space). When I am not watching television, I stick it between the outside wall and the couch, out of view. I have a large Persian carpet covering a space that occupies half of the living-room. It is on this rug that I perform my daily stretch routine, and when I want to perform any of my weight exercises, I do this with loose weights on the same rug. If I need to use a weight bench (such as for the bench press), I place the bench on the same rug; otherwise it serves as a bench in my bedroom, on which I place clothing or pull on my shoes. The storage unit, which contains a lot of things I don’t need on display, also serves as coffee table.

The 10^th of July, 2025

I personally detest televisions dominating the aesthetics of a room. No matter where they are placed in plain sight, my own eye automatically gravitates straight towards them. Maybe it is just me; maybe it is due to my televisionless upbringing, maybe because I grew up in a community that demonized them, I really haven’t a clue; at any rate, I cannot suffer the sight of a television housed permanently in the centre of a room. Even worse though, is when other furniture is arranged around it. Obviously this is for practical reasons, but it almost makes it look like it is a sort of family altar (which, in many cases, is not far from the truth). The placement of a television to me reflects personal values. I don’t want my life to centre around television, so I also don’t want it to permanently occupy a central place in my living-room.

The 10^th of July, 2025

The 10^th of July, 2025

By now in my posts on here I will seem to have insulted nearly everyone.

Contrary to most of humanity, there are a few people who simply go about their lives and do things for others out of genuine kindness and unselfishness. It is these rare people to whom I want to tip my literary hat now.

Nearly three decades ago in Cannes, I visited a gym for the first time in my life. The owner of the small establishment, who will obviously have seen scads of undedicated people come and go, nevertheless personally guided me through a long routine, and with clear passion instructed and motivated me the whole time. He instilled in me a passion that lives on to this day.

When I had to return to the Netherlands, every day for years I passed the house of an elderly couple, and it became a daily ritual to wave to each other. Not one time did they assault me with nosy questions though, as is the custom for nearly anyone else I have encountered. When my dog, the first I had as an independent person, tragically was killed, I did not know what else to do than to simply continue on my daily walks alone. One day after about a week of this, the lady came outside and walked over to me as I passed, said that it was as though a piece of me was gone, and stood silently and cried with me. Not a single word or action by others in that period meant more to me than that. On the day I moved, I rang their bell and announced that I was relocating. No empty token promises or nosy inquiries were made, just a respectful good-bye was said.

When I lay in coma seven years ago in a hospital in Rotterdam after a severe brain haemorrhage, doctors performed very delicate brain surgery on me, which saved my life. I will forever be grateful to these unsung heroes.

When still in hospital, I, against all expectations of the medical staff, began to teach myself to walk again, a physical therapist put me on a treadmill and patiently stood by and guided me in walking without allowing me to hold onto anything, slowly increasing the pace until I was jogging.

These people will never receive credit for their selflessness. They simply care about others and act accordingly. If it is their job, they simply perform it well and in a respectful way to the people in their care, never asking for praise. Although they are a very rare breed, I have encountered others like this in my life, but they remain a rarity. Surrounded constantly by incompetency and indifference, it is really important to stop and focus on the enormous contribution people such as these have made in my life.

The 10^th of July, 2025

The 9^th of July, 2025

Most people achieve their physical peak in their twenties, as well as the high point of their physical attractiveness. After about the age of thirty they generally begin to slowly age and, not just lose their looks, but throw in the towel on any effort to slow or arrest their corporeal demise. Looks and bodily vigour come naturally in youth, and most people make no effort to work on their upkeep when it might demand any exertion of them.

I have always been a late bloomer. Historically, most people have guessed me to be about fifteen years younger than I am. I do not boast, because I am proud of my age, and have never made any effort to hide it. I simply state a fact. For the reason of running behind in everything some fifteen years, I had also always socialized and generally felt more at home with people far younger than I. Not only have I always in the past been assumed to be far younger than my actual age, whereas most people see their twenties as the apex of their physical beauty, I naturally only came into mine fifteen years later than most, namely, in my mid-thirties.
I really felt hideous in my twenties. I was so skinny that shirts hung on me like they did on wire hangers, and my face looked like the mummified remains of Ramses II.

I have read and heard to tedium weight trainers tell about how they were so skinny before beginning to lift weights. There is a huge distinction though between healthy skinny and unhealthy skinny. All tweens by the dictates of nature look skinny, and this is not a bad thing at all, as long as this is a healthy svelteness. Young men especially can certainly train, but must not try to achieve a bodybuilder physique; it is not appropriate to the age, no matter what the somatotype. The proof of physical wellbeing in the case of healthy svelteness is gleaming eyes and a healthy complexion. These I did not have. Severe trauma had left me emaciated and looking like a walking skeleton.

In my late twenties I determined I would change this. I took up weight training, and very zealously lifted in order to alter my physique completely. And I did succeed at that. I have placed a picture below of me at 26, pre-training, and one of me at 30, several years into training, as proof of how weight training can completely change one’s appearance, even one’s face. Incidentally, the dark lines under my eyes are the visible result of the heavy migraines I had at the time, so bad that day (I had to go to the Canadian embassy to get a citizenship certificate) that I still remember it.

After several years of intensely dedicated weight training and religiously maintaining a perfect diet, I gained a whopping thirty-one kilos of (dry) muscle mass. The point of this post is not to brag about my achievements on that score, but about the fact that it took years.

We live in a time in which most people want only results, but without having to put in any of the work required. This is not different to the case in the past, but what is completely different is that, whereas in the past the undedicated person who wanted a perfect body would quit training after a week or two, today there are instant solutions readily available for almost any action that might require effort. This is not just in weight training, but across the board. There is a pill for almost any physical issue or desire, and, if these create bodily problems, other pills to counter those. Computer technology ensures that untalented people can (seemingly) create the same results as people who work hard at their skills. And, instead of working hard to change one’s physique, pills are easily accessible now to ensure that one can (seemingly) achieve the same results as a dedicated natural weight trainer, but by exerting half the energy.

It is a common criticism of undedicated people with respect to people with perfect physiques that this is obviously the result of steroid use. This excuse makes the critic feel morally superior, even when this is not the case at all, and justify at the same time his or her own inaction. In weight training circles themselves it is in fact even taboo to make this criticism about others, as almost every weightlifter has had it 'up to here' with hearing this accusation. However, to any dedicated weight trainer, it is obvious from a mile away whether someone is actually on steroids, and this is, for instance, nearly always the case with teenage boys who have massive arms. The telltale signs of the use of this performance drug are being unnaturally developed at a young age, stretch marks from abnormally fast muscle growth, and an unnaturally dry look. People are free to do as they please, but I take exceptional issue with this drug use because of two reasons: 1. it is based on a completely unnatural bodily ideal, which affects males just as much as females, for instance making boys feel they need to look like bodybuilders at an age in which this is even unnatural and thus unhealthy for them, and, 2. it is not concerned with health and longevity at all, but with instant results, which last but a few years, but that set one up for a short life of disease.

In the eyes of most people, based on average norms, I passed my physical peak decades ago, so it is natural to them that I just accept decay, all the pharmaceutical drugs pushed at me, and the ‘inevitability’ of whatever comes then. The system is set up in such a way that it plies people with unhealthy drugs, and then throws up its hands and attributes it to nature or to its deities when its actions result in destroying people’s health. To not comply or state the fact that 'the emperor is not wearing clothes' is seen as a denial of the inevitable.

I am not the first and only weight trainer to be, as average society sees it, 'stubborn'. It is a common trait of dedicated weight trainers to dismiss standard medical advice. Their entire lives are indeed nonstandard, from diet to sleeping patterns, so it is natural that they also disregard what is told them by the ‘experts’ of a middling existence. I am just like them on that score. However, and there are absolutely exceptions to this, these people are not invested in building for the future, but just to achieve physical perfection in as short a time as possible, and then throw in the towel.

It takes multiple years of intense work for a person to alter his or her body, just as it takes a long time to excel at any discipline. For real and lasting results there are no shortcuts or quick fixes; it truly has to be a complete lifestyle, at any age.
I have met numerous people in my day who admit to training only for the results. In this I am completely different. To me it is something I love to do, it is one of my greatest passions in fact.

I have spent years now working to fix the destruction of my body by medical incompetence and indifference. I returned from hospital after a severe brain haemorrhage in my late forties looking exceptionally worse for wear, but at least still looking like myself. I was working as hard as possible to get myself back to looking like normal me, when my GP began pushing cholesterol medication on me. Since I already had been left with a handful of pills by medical staff in hospital, which I was assured would kill me to stop (although I have now weaned myself off all of them), I finally caved. Within weeks though, my entire body was completely decimated: I suddenly developed large lumps of fat under my chin, in my armpits, behind my knees, and in my groin, my otherwise extremely sharp memory (still intact after the haemorrhagic stroke) suddenly disappeared, and I literally had to gasp for breath. I suddenly looked fat, although I in fact weighed even less than before the brain bleed. 

I have been desperately trying to work the effects of this statin (which I obviously quit first of all the medicinal drugs) out of my system since, have tried absolutely everything, but it had apparently completely altered my physical makeup... [Frack] I regret not having just been ‘stubborn’ as always. It has become clear now that nothing I have done to date will change back my bodily makeup. However, these years have not been wasted. I have now gathered all the skills and tools to change this as much as possible, and for this reason it is specifically this year that I need to apply absolutely all these measures to fix my body, while there is still time. I still have difficulty breathing, still have unnatural fatty deposits everywhere, and everything hurts constantly, from aching arteries in my legs to stabbing pains in my heart.

I have no need to look thirty again, but I know for a fact that it is not necessary to look and feel like an unhealthy octogenarian whilst in my fifties either.

In the very best case scenario, if my applied skills and knowledge afford me enough strength and stamina, and if my muscle memory performs as surprisingly as it did recently, even with exceedingly light weight, I can hope to rebuild the muscular athletic physique I had before… at very worst, I can still achieve a wiry athletic build, with what reserves of muscle that remain. Even in the worst possible case, I should still be able to achieve infinitely better than the unhealthy octogenarian body which medical ‘help’ bequeathed me.

The 9^th of July, 2025

I was stunned this morning to see that a number of farmer’s fields had already been mown for harvesting. This is fully a month earlier than other years.

The 8^th of July, 2025

<< I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. >>

The 8^th of July, 2025

It has not escaped me in the least that a massive number of people these days are very set against the possession of multiple citizenships. I completely understand their arguments, which are all based on the premise of loyalty. I have heard and read countless times over the years that if one chooses to live in a particular country, and possesses its nationality, one should renounce any others.
The heated arguments on this score are generally geared at the possession of second nationalities of countries with conflicting cultures and values. I don’t think this is the case with Canada and the Netherlands though, and I don’t think the anti-dual-citizenship zeal even really arises from the possession of nationalities of similar cultures anyway. So, on that score I don’t even heed the arguments.

I think it is quite fitting that I should have dual citizenship in fact, as in so many areas of my life I have a dualistic character (which incessantly confuses and infuriates black-and-white thinkers, just as possession of dual citizenship does in black-and-white minds as well).

I really don’t feel a stronger affinity with one nationality than with the other. My life is in the Netherlands now, but nearly my entire youth and all my educational years were spent in Canada. To me, it is not a question of loyalty at all, but of identity. I am one hundred percent Canadian, and I am one hundred percent Dutch. However, I am not solely Dutch, nor am I solely Canadian; I truly possess both identities. I also very deliberately live in a very neutral-feeling rural area, in which I feel I can equally be both.

I ponder this point once again, as I have so many times over the years, as I have lately been more than usual engaged in exploring points related to Canada and my life there. This does not mean however, that I am backing out of any former plans, especially those concerning an eventual return to France and everything attached to that. These have become absolutely integral to my personal makeup, and it is impossible for me to change or abandon them. It also has nothing in the least to do with a rejection of Canada or the Netherlands. Nor am I suddenly homesick for Canada. I made the choice as a child already to return to Europe, and I have never regretted my decision. I am very content to live my dual identity at present… but this is also simply a step on my journey, a long chapter perhaps, but nonetheless not of a permanent nature.

The 8^th of July, 2025

Well, that’s two days in a row that I have come home drenched from my sunrise(less) constitutional. Being a rather extreme minimalist, I deliberately opt to own only a few articles of each item of clothing, and naïvely assuming that yesterday’s soaking could not happen two days in a row, I had thrown everything into which I had changed yesterday into the laundry. It is on such occasions that I think I will expand my minimalism a bit after I have made the planned relocation to the seacoast relatively nearby.

As I was walking along the water with my sunglasses on to shield me from the sun (which was still shining then), I saw across the water (some four kilometres away) a mass of black clouds with black streaks of rain coming out of it. Standing still, I could see that the clouds were (ever so slowly) moving in my direction. I quickened my pace, but thought I would most likely be okay. Walking on the other side of the dike back, which obstructed my view across the water, with three blind hares running franticly to and fro on the road in front of me and Dio pulling for all he was worth, I could see grey clouds coming my way. Eventually, a measly few drops of rain fell, so I felt safe, and slowed down my pace.

Just as I began to near my home, the heavens opened up over me though, completely drenching me… and stopped just as I reached my house. Now I am changed into the only other set of dry clothing I own, the musty ones I have pulled out of the laundry...

The 7^th of July, 2025

I cannot contain myself from sharing my opinion on the matter, after having seen, not one, but numerous Québecois flags along the Tour de France route of the day.

As with most social issues about which I write posts, I am not choosing sides, except perhaps that of national unity. This is not because I am tiptoeing through a minefield, which it is, but because, especially after having lived in France, I sympathize with both parties.

Growing up in Anglophone Canada, my experience is that the English-speaking population where I grew up is almost completely indifferent to Francophone Canada, with the exception of the annoyance I heard expressed several times upon Québec holding referenda about secession. Otherwise, except for appearing on labels next to an English name, the French language was completely irrelevant to fellow Western Canadians in my youth. In fact, where I grew up, there were actually infinitely more first-language German speakers than there were French ones.
As to the Francophone position, about which veritable tomes can be written, and have been, what I personally find interesting is what the (European) French have to say on the matter. The Canadian linguistic issue is an exceedingly volatile one, and already in the sixties the visiting French president Charles de Gaulle created a diplomatic incident by shouting Vive Québec Libre! from a balcony of the city hall of Montreal. Although condemned by many of his compatriots, I think it reflects an image that (still) lives in the minds of many, if not most, French citizens. In France, especially being Canadian myself, I incessantly heard the phrase nos cousins, which is how French people really view the Québecois. And herein lies the issue. The idealization of the French about Francophone Canada is based on several illusions. The first is, that all Francophones in Canada live in Québec, and, that all Québecois are Francophone (there are in fact 1 300 000 non-Francophones living in Québec). Another major illusion is that this Québec is basically France, but on another continent. This isn’t a judgment, but it isn’t the case at all. The culture in Francophone Canada is basically the same as in all North America (same infrastructure, same architecture, same clothing, etc.); the only difference is that the people speak French. And so, the (non-Canadian) French people I have encountered constantly express support for Québecois sovereignty.

We cannot rewrite history, even though many misguided people try to do that in our time, but new history can be written. In an ideal and fair history (ignoring for the sake of this post the plight of First Nations Canadians), if Canada indeed needs to have the British monarch as the head of state, it should really have a situation similar to that of Andorra, of a joint presidency, with both the British monarch and the French president as co-regents. Or, better yet, have a Canadian head of state, one who speaks fluently both official languages.
A good step in the right direction was changing the national flag from a British ensign to one that truly represents all Canadians. One can never change the fact that the British took possession of New France, but one can continue to move Canada in the direction of true equality for all, and representation of all in its symbols. 

The problem with the recurring desire for Québecois sovereignty, is that it is rooted in misunderstandings by idealists who do not truly understand the issue or the consequences. Naturally, as with any issue, most people prefer to think in black-and-white terms, but it is impossible to approach this issue this way. It simply isn’t black and white. If Québec were to leave Canada, it would not only spell economic suicide and political isolation for itself, it would isolate other Francophone communities throughout Canada, would isolate the more than a million Anglophones in Québec, and it would completely tear apart all of Canada.

There are not only 7 200 000 Québecois Francophones in Québec and 317 825 Acadian Francophones in New Brunswick, there are still 369 305 Francophones living in other regions of Canada. They are (all) an integral part of Canada. In fact, the first Europeans to enter ‘my own’ province of Alberta were French-speaking coureurs de bois in the eighteenth century. Even the original version of the national anthem is in fact the French one. Canada is not even conceivable without the Francophone identity. It should not be seen as a problem, it should be the nation's main point of pride in fact.

The 7^th of July, 2025

<< … in this respect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between the illiterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all, and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects*. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

Mental cotton candy is completely fine, as long as it is balanced with some more intellectually challenging material. It is like with food: a diet of just sweets will result in obesity and diabetes and the like, but, in combination with other, healthy, foods, and in moderation, they are completely fine (for those who are not intolerant to them).

The 7^th of July, 2025

The Netherlands is split into three regions for vacations, each beginning its holidays at different times. This summer it is apparently the turn of the South to start first, so the peak season has officially begun now. Only towards the middle of this month do all regions and surrounding countries merge in taking theirs, so the height of the tourist season is still to come. At any rate, the trickle of first vacationers is displaying its usual eccentricity…

Allow me to note that people like these are those whom are deemed examples of mental health by middling human society. Give me their label of 'insane' any day over this. It is really a relative concept anyway. They would undoubtedly deem me crazy, but I deem them equally insane. I will leave it up to the reader of this post to decide for him- or herself who is right.

The 7^th of July, 2025

I feel a bit guilty from time to time ‘bragging’ about the natural beauty that surrounds me. I can almost hear the obvious excuse that would be levelled at me by people who embrace an average existence; it is incidentally the exact same one they use to justify not working on their bodies, and which they in fact in the past on multiple occasions have actually expressed to me, so I am not imagining this, namely: Well, I have to work hard, so I have no time for this. If I had as much time as you [they add, to get in a quick jab], I would do these things too.

But the point is, they wouldn’t even then. It is not a priority to them, and having more time would not make it one to them. In fact, they are not even able to see what is available to them right on their own doorsteps. The excuses they make are done to achieve a dual purpose: to relieve them of any guilt they have associated with not lifting a finger, and, in the same token, to make them feel superior to the person who actually makes an effort.

The person to whom the aforementioned are important will make time for them. It might require not finishing a movie, or not sitting up until two in the morning gabbing, but one can always find a way to do what is truly important to one.

The 7^th of July, 2025

The 6^th of July, 2025

I read aloud a bit in English and French every day in order to meet in a single action several needs and desires: in order to maintain my English and improve my French, to enrich my vocabulary for writing, to expand my knowledge, to mentally stimulate me, and, as sheer amusement. I generally prefer books written in the nineteenth and the turn of the twentieth centuries. I do not keep up with contemporary writings, nor pretend to do so. I absolutely abhor literary snobbishness. I detest when people drop the names of books and authors in order to demonstrate how intelligent they are (which actually only serves to prove the exact opposite to me). I quote from books in my online journal quips that especially amuse me or that I find particularly relevant, but never in order to participate in intellectual one-upping.

The 6^th of July, 2025

<< That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

The 6^th of July, 2025

<< A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. >>

The 6^th of July, 2025

The 6^th of July, 2025

Side mirrors on cars now mandatorily in many countries bear inscriptions like Objects in Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are. The distortion created by rear-view mirrors is very similar to what applies to much of life. A great many things are often completely different, or even opposite, to how they appear.

I got to pondering this point as I was deleting a few letters I had written in advance (whilst the material was still fresh in my mind). Let me explain what these were.
When I moved here three and a half years ago, which I did (and this is the important point here) in order to work on my physical recovery in peace, I figured that was simply no-one’s business but my own. Unfortunately, once again my mentality that was formed in an individualistic culture clashed with now living in a culture with a collectivistic mentality, in which people, especially in a rural village such as this one, think it is their divine right to know everything about everyone else living in their community. If I had had the possibility, I would have moved to the countryside, but my physical and financial situation made this luxury impossible.
After a half year of nearly everybody I encountered in the village speaking to me like I was a mentally-challenged infant, and at length even, after having had to restrain Dio from attacking other animals (and him as per usual displaying his immense talent of pretending I am torturing him when I discipline him), and being very literally followed every morning for several weeks by a self-styled animal welfare Don Quixote, I felt I was left with no choice but to introduce myself in the village quarterly magazine. In it I mentioned basic facts about myself, such as that I am a dual Dutch and Canadian citizen, why I had come to live here, and that I respectfully asked to be left alone to do my thing.

Only by the reactions of the villagers since then have I come to see that, although it at least quieted the worst of the insanity, it had actually only served to validate their suspicions that I was weak-minded and insane. Mentioning that I am also Canadian in a village whose population absolutely worship an image of Canada that does not even exist only can have made this worse. No-one has ever said anything to me on the subject, but I am certain they all think that in my purported insanity I think I am actually Canadian, which claim is to them on par with that of being an Olympian divinity.

Anyway, to make an increasingly long story as short as possible, in my eternal naïveté, I had thought it best to have printed a polite message upon leaving here, as I intend to do as soon as I have achieved my purpose of having come to live here (move, not have printed an article), and to have printed an introduction in the village quarterly of the village to which I intend to then move. All my intentions were absolutely golden; I have no question about that, but precisely that has always been my Achille’s heel. Lying in bed this morning upon awakening, I realized that this move will likely create exactly the opposite of my intended purpose, namely, that it will be akin to figuratively pulling down my pants and sticking my buttocks in the air to save them some time.

The 5^th of July, 2025

A few short thoughts during a brief Tour break:

Ever notice that basically any uncustomary meat is claimed to taste like chicken?

The 5^th of July, 2025

The tulip tree across from me is every day now beginning to have more of its leaves turn yellow. Apparently I was not amiss about the ground being too dry, even though it has rained occasionally, although seemingly not enough to saturate the ground.

The 5th of July, 2025

The high holy days of cycling have come round again, so I can assure you in advance how I will be spending twenty-one of the next twenty-three afternoons. I am not one for watching television during the day, and certainly not in summer, but this particular rite I never skip.

The 4^th of July, 2025

<< On m'a parlé d'un autre qui achetait des terrains dans tous les pays où il passait, pour n'être pas pris au dépourvu. Malheureusement, il est mort dans la traversée de Liverpool à New-York, et le capitaine l'a fait jeter à l'eau. >>

Translation: << I was told of another who bought land [burial plots] in every country he passed through, so as not to be caught unawares. Unfortunately, he died on the crossing from Liverpool to New York, and the captain had him thrown into the water. >>

The 4^th of July, 2025

This is one of a number of posts in which I refer to the Corona Crisis. Just as with the others, this post does not contain an opinion about the validity of the disease; that is in fact not the point of this writing. What I write about, and why this period will remain vivid in my memory for as long as I live, is because it caused governments and individuals to display their true colours… and the results absolutely made my hair stand on end. I even by then no longer harboured any illusions about how thin the veneer of civilization is, about the nature of humanity, its potential to achieve both excellence and absolute debasement, and how exceptionally easily it is manipulated, but even I could not imagine just how thin the veneer of civilization in fact was.

In that period I was after the brain haemorrhage still walking very poorly, and on several occasions had people (very literally) run away when they saw me walking in their direction. On two occasions I was even asked if I did not in fact have Corona, one of them by a doctor’s assistant when I went to pick up my medication (in the time before I weened myself off it). Daily I saw the doctor speed by alone in her vehicle, wearing a medical mask. I am certain this period was the absolute highlight of her life, when everyone worshipped the very ground on which she walked, and in which time every word she said was accepted as gospel truth. In that period I had several people scream at me (from a distance) on the street for not being properly masked, and my neighbour, whom I did not trust as far as I could have thrown, but who had acted friendly to me for years, slam the door on me after daring to voice another opinion than the accepted one, after which he never spoke to me again. 
I was shocked beyond belief to hear after just a few weeks after having shut its borders, my own province of Zealand come out with precisely the same slogan as was used by Dutch National Socialist party eighty years prior, namely, Eigen volk eerst (Priority to own people). It is things like this that made it so interesting to observe human society during this period. I think people who ask themselves how it was possible that certain peoples allow themselves to be manipulated by dictators could learn a lot from this time. It was like the ultimate experiment in bringing out people’s true natures.

I have absolutely no illusions that all members of society see me as occupying the absolute bottom rung on their hierarchical ladder, but when I see a grave societal evil rear its head, I am unable to keep silent. It is not my favourite pastime to stick my head out of the trenches, but there is the odd occasion in which I feel I simply have no choice. I may by choice reside in the sidelines, but I cannot stand by and watch human society go to hell in a handbag.
Towards the end of the Corona period, it stunned me to ascertain that not only had the Dutch government brazenly violated six fundamental articles of the national constitution, but, and this is what shocked me even more, I heard not a single voice of protest. Had there been even one, I might simply have let the matter go, but I could not remain silent, and so I sat down and penned a letter to the king of the Netherlands.

In my letter I explained that fully six fundamental articles of the Dutch constitution had been violated in the Corona period, seven if its members had got their way. In my writing I named them individually:

1. The first article, concerning equal treatment and a prohibition on all forms of discrimination [a huge segment of the population was openly discriminated against],
2. The sixth article, concerning freedom of religion and opinion [only one opinion was tolerated, all other voices were actively silenced],
3. The seventh article, concerning freedom of expression and a prohibition on censorship [all other opinions were shamelessly removed from public discourse, such as all videos or articles online that voiced other opinions being simply taken down],
4. The eighth article, concerning freedom of association [it was made impossible for people who had other opinions to even find each other, let alone connect],
5. The ninth article, concerning the freedom of assembly [in a time in which that freedom was completely removed, even from people who did not believe there was any threat] and to demonstrate [that freedom was also completely removed],
6. The tenth article, concerning the freedom of privacy [in a time in which this was completely disregarded in countless ways, by various levels of society], and, if the government had got its way (and it really tried),

7. The eleventh article, concerning the inviolability of the body [and the right of the individual to decide what happens with it, in a time when the government was trying to make vaccination mandatory].

I went on to respectfully remind the king, that, as head of state, it was his duty to ensure that the constitution was being respected by the government.

I did not expect any reply, but felt I had no choice but to state this. I knew that at very best it would simply be disregarded. To my shock however, some time later an envelope was pushed through my mail slot bearing as return address that of the office of the king.
The letter inside, which was written and signed by a secretary, stated that the letter had been read with great interest (a standard response to any letter of course, few of which are likely even read), and that it had been forwarded to the Ministry of Health. I knew that they would really disregard my writing, and, as expected, I never heard from them. If my letter even made it to the aforementioned ministry, it will undoubtedly have ended up in a wastepaper basket anyway, regardless of whether it was a royal or a governmental one.

I am saddened that we have arrived at a place in which the exact things that European governments purport to stand against, tacitly slip in without anyone’s notice, and that when an individual rings the warning bell, it is simply ignored.

The 4^th of July, 2025

The 4^th of July, 2025

No, this is not a statement of allegiance to any side; it is merely an observation:

There is so much talk these days about the ‘extreme right’, ‘far right’, and other terms to denote a collection of purportedly monstrous fascistic ideologies. I am no way minimizing the fact that these do exist, but these ideas are the domain of a few very fringe people, whose rantings are not taken seriously by most people anyway. They are made out to be infinitely more numerous than they in fact are. Conversely, interesting how little one hears about the ‘extreme left’ or such, although their numbers are actually significantly larger.

The news, when I still took seriously this exceedingly slanted and propagandistic medium, loves to give the podium to angry, ranting, and clearly unintelligent people wearing MAGA caps, which is always balanced out with interviews conducted showing level-headed and intelligent people expressing leftist views. At the end of my career of entertaining this rather shameless show, I asked myself why this was always the case. Were people with conservative viewpoints really that dumb and angry?

My ultimate conclusion is that this has come about because the entire medium of televised journalism, as is indeed all of our current society, is governed by leftist ideology, and it is necessary for its loyal followers to make any opposition look ridiculous. Every instance in which people expressing opposing opinions are allowed onto the podium, it is only in order to demonize them.

This week I read about a movement to ban a rightist political party in Germany, and a similar discussion has been going on for a year or so now in the Dutch government, concerning banning a political party that is an absolute thorn in the eye of the others as well. It is seriously too ironical for words that these parties do this in the name of freedom and democracy, whilst in fact they themselves are undermining these.

I am in no way defending either of these demonized parties, but with this the ‘compliant’ ones are really teetering on the edge of a very dangerous precipice. Democracy is about allowing all opinions to have their say, even if one doesn’t like them or how unpolished the opinions they express are.

Yes, there is a political right at present as well, and, yes, they do pretend to be really tough, but in actuality they are just the lapdogs of the left. They are what I would call the ‘Acceptable Right’, as seen through the eyes of the left. They put up more of a struggle than those on the right, but they always inevitably arrive at the same spot. It just takes them longer. Ergo, the ‘Acceptable Right’ is just a collection of slow leftists.

The 4^th of July, 2025

A number of years ago, just in case I might discover anything new, but only expecting to simply have confirmed my suspicions, I had my DNA tested. I am ethnically Dutch, with Flemish roots (descended from a family from Antwerp that fled to Netherlands after its siege and fall in the sixteenth century).

The 4^th of July, 2025

Every summer all the grasses and grain fields turn a golden yellow, that is nothing new, but it has really struck me on my last two walks that never since I have lived here has the vegetation looked so much like that in Southern Alberta. All the colours now look just like those where I grew up. Especially the slopes of the dike now look exactly like they would if dikes were a thing on the arid prairies.

The 3^rd of July, 2025

The 3^rd of July, 2025

In order to fix all its environmental problems and those of economic disparity, it is necessary that two fundamental changes are implemented in the world, namely, that 1. a completely new, sustainable, and non-exploitative economic system be put into place, and that, 2. the global population be significantly reduced. However, these will completely change life as we know it, fix a heap of seemingly unfixable problems, and improve the quality of life of most of the world’s population significantly.

All nice in theory, I can already hear the critic thinking, but this is simply impossible in practice.
And it is people like these who ensure that this change never occurs.
There is a difference between difficult and impossible. Turning an entire global system on its head is not going to be easy… although it is essential. And I do have an idea of what needs to replace the unsustainable old economic system though. This is not just my theory, but how I myself aspire to live:

I think that a sustainable economic model requires more diversification on the part of everyone. It would likely entail (organically) growing and raising food, creating local products (such as body oils and soaps), both of which can be sold locally, and working online, whether for international companies or for oneself. Especially with modern technology actually one can work less, but also more efficiently.
By adopting the ultimate diet, which is comprised of large amounts of fruits and vegetables, and a small amount of animal products, nuts, and oils, a smaller human population can easily be fed, be kept healthy and strong, and be given longer lives. It would require infinitely less land on which to grow crops, especially by applying intense cultivation, immeasurably less land to feed animals, and far less animals to be raised for meat. It would make the populace far more productive, as well as significantly reducing medical costs. It would also free up insane amounts of land to return to nature.

What is required though is that everyone adopt a simple lifestyle. This doesn’t mean all living in cookie-cutter communist flats, but living without decadence, whether in a shepherd’s hut or in a castle. Simplicity doesn’t mean living like a tree-hugger; it entails living less extravagantly.

The results of these changes would be nothing less than earth-shattering. Not only would they solve the problems of environmental destruction and economic disparity, they would also completely eradicate the need for mass migration, erase any housing shortages, and allow the focus of parents, educators, and other kinds of instructors to be more focused on the quality of the individuals’ life and skills. They would instantly fix all the issues that are now deemed virtually irreparable. All this would also have the additional benefit of making populations more content and reducing intergroup conflict.

Again, I can hear the gears in the mind of the critic creaking: All good and well, but one cannot achieve this without toppling the powers that be, which will in fact create more strife.

No, the best solution has nothing whatsoever to do with dethroning anyone. Instead, it simply requires adopting this life oneself. If enough people do, their governmental and financial lords will simply feel compelled to follow.

Living a simple life is really not difficult. It requires even less effort than living a materialistic middling life in fact. And contributing to a reduction of the population by having no more than two children is easy enough; it will actually cost far less money as well, to both individual people, and to their societies.

The 3^rd of July, 2025

On the subject of true versus actual journalism, a quote from one of my absolute favourite books, which is both hilarious and strangely prophetic, as well as incredibly relevant:

<< ‘That kid’, said Reggie, laying down his paper, ‘is talking right through his hat. My dear old son, are you aware that England has never been so strong all round as she is now? Do you ever read the papers? Don’t you know that we’ve got the Ashes and the Golf Championship, and the Wibbley-wob Championship, and the Spiropole, Spillikins, Puff-Feather, and Animal Grab Championships? Has it come to your notice that our croquet pair beat America last Thursday by eight hoops? Did you happen to hear that we won the Hop-skip-and-jump at the last Olympic Games? You've been out in the woods, old sport.’ >>

The 3^rd of July, 2025

The current economic model that, with just a few exceptions, is used everywhere around the globe, is based on a need for eternal growth, ergo, on endless expansion and exploitation of resources (that are not bottomless) and populations, with absolutely no regard to culture or even material welfare. It necessitates treating the majority of the world’s population as a sort of worker ants, throwing them crumbs to give them the illusion of bettering their lives, but keeping them in poverty in order to exploit them.

It stands in direct opposition to the environmental concerns the proponents of this exploitative model themselves currently express.

What is necessary in fact, which is in fact the opposite of what is currently happening, is to significantly decrease global populations, to allow nature to breathe again and to live more in harmony with it, to create a new economic system that does not require the pillaging of resources… in short, to focus on improving lives, but this can only be done by reducing birth rates.

The 3^rd of July, 2025

There is a popular term at the moment that makes my skin crawl every time I hear it. I know it exists to make people feel they are more influential than they in fact are, but I have developed a massive allergy to it. It is the claim of helping the earth.

No human is ever helping nature. At best, one is damaging it slightly less.

The 3^rd of July, 2025

Recently, as I was watching the Giro d’Italia, I was led to ponder on a point that that has made me figuratively break out in hives any time I see it, which is a lot these days, and increasingly so. As is commonly done in the major cycling races I watch, helicopters occasionally provide aerial shots, especially of castles and villages the peloton is at that time passing.
On that particular occasion I saw solar panels covering the roof of a typical centuries-old Italian house, which completely destroyed its appearance. This blight on the architectural landscape has annoyed me for years now. However, what struck me on this particular occasion, was that as the camera panned out to include the entire village, the modern panels had not ruined the look of just the house on which the traditional roof tiles were now hidden behind large shiny panels, but it had in fact destroyed the appearance of the entire village.

I am perhaps more than most a proponent of (true) environmentalism, of finding pragmatic solutions, of simply doing what is responsible (even decades before it became popular to do so)…and, thereby not living in fear either. However, the solar panels and modern windmills that are now being plunked down everywhere are truly a thorn in my side, and here’s why:

Rather than simply being responsible choices, or perhaps even more so, they especially serve as symbols of moral superiority. Having solar panels placed on the roof of one’s home is a bit like flying a Ukrainian or a rainbow flag on it; it is not even truly about caring for the environment, just as Ukrainian flags are not really about deeply caring about the plight of the Ukrainian people (as witnessed by the fact that the intense focus has now shifted to the next hysteria), nor flying rainbow flags about that of LGBTQ+ people; they are all equally expressions of (purported) moral superiority.

The 3^rd of July, 2025

The 2^nd of July, 2025

I reflect on this point after having checked the weather forecast page, which forecasts 23 degrees Centigrade for today, but which has a bright orange banner sprawled atop it, stating that ‘Code Orange’ is in effect. I understand that the temperature forecast has been lowered from its original 26 degrees, and I understand that interiors are still hot from yesterday's infernal heat, but it surprises me that the apocalyptic warning has not been removed yet.

Yes, it feels like the very bowels of hell inside my house; in fact, I woke up to it being 27.5 degrees inside already, and even now it is still 6 degrees hotter inside than out. I even have a headache from the heat.

However, that goes with the territory of life in summertime.

It surprises me that since a few years a ‘Code Orange’ is declared for nearly every normal event, such as a hot summer day, or when three flakes of snow fall in winter. Obviously it seems little more than ridiculous, but there is something behind it that is more insidious than surface appearances betray. It implicitly supports the idea that almost everything is suddenly life-threatening, even things that were considered normal or even healthy before. Yes, the climate is warming up; yes, baking in the sun all day significantly increases the risk of skin cancer; yes, eating bacon all day will result in obesity and early death. However, normal summer temperatures or normal winter weather does not spell the End of Days; sunshine is even necessary, just as eating fats (in moderation) also is. The problem is, that people are whipped up into believing that climactic conditions are far more severe than they in fact are, or that a bit of sun or fat will kill them. It reminds me of how during the Corona Scare people were so concerned about not wrecking their immunities, that they en masse cleaned everything with bleach, ironically actually breaking down their immunites and making themselves vulnerable to illness.
The best response to all these things is simply moderation.

The doomsday hysterical thinking and colour code warning system results in people being afraid of absolutely everything, avoiding everything, even the things that are essential to life. It results, for instance, in people remaining indoors, afraid that a little sun will kill them; it results in a body ideal that is so fat-free that it is actually unhealthy. It in fact creates fear and disease; it doesn’t help reduce them.

The 2^nd of July, 2025

There is something that hit me yesterday as I was reflecting more than usual on my two decades of youth spent in Canada. I have long been appalled (and still am, no less so) at the incredible polarity in stances in our time, and how almost everyone (completely equally; it is no less so on any side) simply refuses to even listen to each other. These people deem themselves intelligent precisely because of their black-and-white thinking, not realizing that in fact real intelligence can only be achieved by carefully considering all opinions, by not shutting out people who hold other ones.
I suddenly realized that this phenomenon, which has indeed taken on unheard-of proportions globally at this time, actually existed in Canada in my youth as well, with respect to the language struggle.

Exactly as in the social and ideological climate around the world today, people on both sides (not so much all Anglo- or Francophones, but black-and-white-thinking Anglophones, and black-and-white-thinking Francophones) would not even listen to each other’s thoughts. Just like globally today, members of both sides would just pick a few words from the other’s expressed thoughts, solely in order to slot that person into a particular camp. Not only would they not even hear each other out, the main problem is that there was absolutely no room for any nuanced opinions, because both sides refused to hear them anyway. They just picked out a few words, categorized the speaker as belonging to the other camp, and then tuned him or her out.

The 2^nd of July, 2025

Due to my current limited funds, I am forced from time to time to purchase items from a supplier that sells them at impossibly low prices. I have had absolutely no illusions about how this is possible, but a Google search I just conducted verified what I already suspected. This got me thinking about the following:

There are countless people I have met in my life who are afraid of almost everything, who go through life tiptoeing over eggshells… afraid to use water, afraid to buy any products or clothing in case these were produced unethically, afraid to ingest meat in case animals have been mistreated, afraid to say anything wrong in case it offends anyone, etc., etc. They are constantly occupied, and it must consume a great deal of time and energy, in researching the provenance of everything they purchase, in mentally contorting themselves in their efforts to always say things that they hope will not offend, and so on.

The 1^st of July, 2025, Canada Day

This may well be the hottest Canada Day I have ever experienced, even when living in Cannes. I don’t remember, but that was before climate change awareness really became a general thing at any rate. Today it is forecast to get to 35 degrees Centigrade. Stepping outside now at 33 already feels like walking into a blast furnace. 
For those who live in arid regions, like that in which I myself grew up: 35 degrees there feels completely different than 35 degrees in a humid climate. To me at least, it feels some 5 degrees hotter, if not more.

You know it's sweltering outside when walking back into 28.5 degrees inside feels like stepping into a restaurant cooler.

No complaint. Just an observation. Give me this over winter any day. But my body will still never get used to humid heat. I will never get used to the fact that in the Netherlands there simply seems to be no pleasant temperatures: everything below 17 degrees feels cold, and everything over it feels hot. I'm sure it is the same in humid areas in Canada, such as on the British Columbian coast, but apparently my body developed as that of a Southern Albertan, and no amount of time living in a humid climate (although it is still arid here by Dutch standards!) will acclimatize it.

The 1^st of July, 2025, Canada Day

The only reason I don’t normally display a Canadian or Dutch flag on the appointed flag days has nothing whatsoever to do with indifference on my part. I do so solely in order to avoid being ambushed outside by nosy people who fire twenty questions concerning the flags at me. This year I decided I cannot care. I need to do my own thing; I just need to stave off nosiness when it is launched at me, not stop being myself.
I adore my reclusive lifestyle, but it does not necessitate hiding from people. As I myself am now learning, it is important to proudly be oneself; what is required instead is the ability to stop nosy people assailing me with their questions.

Considering the matter carefully, I decided at length that it would be rather ludicrous that, in a village that is as Canada-obsessed as the one in which I live, in which throughout the year I see Canadian flags flying from the houses of its (non-Canadian) residents, the only real Canadian living in it should not feel free to display the Canadian flag.

The 1^st of July, 2025, Canada Day

<< To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. >>

The 1^st of July, 2025, Canada Day

<< I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. >>

The 1^st of July, 2025, Canada Day

To any Canadian compatriots who happen to read this, including the nearly three million members of the Canadian Diaspora, to which I myself belong, I wish a very happy Canada Day!

The 28^th of June, 2025

I have been pondering on the subject of freedom the past few days, and suddenly had an epiphany this morning. Namely, that there are in fact two kinds of freedom: one of a mental nature, and the other physical. This subject and realization are very important to me personally.

The revelation of the morning is that a certain degree of physical freedom can be bought, but never mental freedom. As soon as the quest to purchase physical freedom becomes even remotely of a materialistic nature, the achievement of mental freedom becomes impossible.

The 28^th of June, 2025

I have only ever seen water spouts three times, the most impressive one of truly tornado-like magnitude, but on only one of these occasions did I happen to have a camera on me.
The resulting image is not of the most magnificent one, but alas the only one I have managed to capture on film (well, on digital memory):

The 27^th of June, 2025

The 26^th of June, 2025

I remember one day, several decades ago now, upon my having expressed my passion for a non-materialistic life, being replied to by a certain man that money was in fact necessary, in order, so I was instructed, to buy freedom. Interesting reply from a man who is obsessed with wealth, but who was himself the furthest thing from being free. However, I suppose that irony was lost on him.

The 26^th of June, 2025

<< The nearest that I came to actual possession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife—every man has such a wife—changed her mind and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty. >>

The 26^th of June, 2025

I am very open to having this thought challenged, but from my own observation and experiences over the years, it seems to me that there are in fact two distinct kinds of meditation. I know that there are many varieties of the practice, but this is not what I mean. I mean that it seems to me that there are two ways of meditating.

I mention this, because I had all my life thought there was just the one. For years I approached and myself practised meditation by entering a sort of completely different dimension, emptying my mind so completely of thoughts that I on several occasions actually had the sensation of floating upwards out of my head. It was a real chore to get to that place though, and on far too many occasions I simply opted out of meditating altogether, as it cost me too much effort.

Conversely however, it has always just come naturally to me to sit, often for hours, in complete silence, entering a place of complete tranquility, savouring everything around me, and feeling completely blissful. I never considered this as being meditation though, but now I guess it actually is. This particular way I also practice when I am feeling tired or unwell, lying on my back, focusing on breathing exercises, clearing my thoughts, and just focusing on whatever beauty I can. I have come to see that this is in fact meditation too, so I actually spend infinitely more time meditating than I previously thought.

The 26^th of June, 2025

In Ancient Greek civilization, immense emphasis was placed on the concept of moderation. I got to wondering how this fit with a culture that was focused on excellence, including physical excellence. The lifestyle of any modern weight trainer is one of a very strict near-complete abstinence from the culinary delights enjoyed by those who are termed bon vivants (tacitly implying that the former do not enjoy life). It is more than obvious that the (near-)piggishness of the latter is excessive, as the medical price is, as is common knowledge, a very hefty one. However, went my musing, is the disciplined life then not also in direct opposition to the virtue of moderation?

The answer just hit me as I was eating my lunch: I have tended to look at moderation through contemporary eyes, but one needs to see it through those of Greek antiquity. Everything was difficult by all but a few to acquire, including even food. The athletic physiques we still admire today, were created perhaps even less by extreme discipline than by privation. I think the concept of moderation, as it pertains to Ancient Greece, is more about not getting drunk and things like that. Many of the associations a modern person makes with the word, such as overeating or lying too long in the sun, were simply not possible for most people in antiquity (not having enough food to even overeat, and not enough free time to lie for hours in the sun, to use the former examples again).

The 25^th of June, 2025

It might make all the itching and wiping myself off slightly worth it. 

The 25^th of June, 2025

I broke down yesterday and went in against my own advice. I simply cannot cope with injustice. Sure, it only concerns ten euros; I have had similar shameless behaviour by a business that ended up costing me three hundred fifty euros, but, equally in both cases, it is the principle of the thing that gives me an ulcer. I am bothered to the core that any business just brazenly steals money, especially from someone who nearly has none. In the previous case I actually got a lawyer involved, but ultimately had to give up the fight, as even that amount, fully a quarter of my monthly income, was deemed too small to be worth it. Obviously ten euros would not even be deemed worth sneezing at.

So I lodged a complaint with the company yesterday, sending a screenshot of my bank record to prove that I had paid… but simply was ignored (as is the current strategy for any person or business when any contact requires effort). The only thing I did receive was a mail asking me to rate their service, which never means they want a real rating, but that they are asking for a compliment, a stroking of the corporate ego. Ironic (yes, I know I use this word a lot, but cannot find a satisfactory synonym) that this I always receive these after the worst service.

The 25^th of June, 2025

The 25^th of June, 2025

I am completely in favour of a European union, I think it is essential in fact, but I am not a supporter of the European Union. It is amazing that we in Europe now have the ability to move around without problems, to live and work in other European countries, etc. That luxury does necessitate a league of European nations and treaties. However, these benefits could be very possible without the current governing institution though, without European nations reliquishing their sovereignties (and ultimately, identities).

The fib that is the very bedrock of support for the institution of the European Union, is that it purports to be the sole guarantor of peace in Europe, a continent, apparently, of uncivilized warmongering peoples who need a paternalistic organization to keep them from flying at each other’s throats. This is the lie that is also bought, hook, line, and sinker, by most of the populace of the European nations. 
The ultimate irony about the peace falsehood is that it is increasingly drawing member states closer to conflicts, such as the one in the Ukraine, which would not have affected most them nearly as much if they had maintained real sovereignty (which none of them have anymore), and even if they were to have sent joint military troops as a league of truly independent nations, the war would still have stayed far away from most of their own people.

In fact, it is more than obvious that this union of nations is nothing more than an ever-expanding economic monopoly for its financial elites. I always find it ironically humorous that the colour of the field of its flag also just happens to be the typical colour of bankers’ suits.

The European Union only pretends to be democratic. It releases information from time to time about possible plans, but by now the people of Europe should know that these are in fact merely announcements about things that will happen, whether they like it or not, like its increasing resemblance to a nation, with suggestions of a president and an armed service, which I can assure you will come, as these have been announced already, and ever-increasing expansion (the Ukraine will be the next to join, mark my words).

The 25^th of June, 2025

The 25^th of June, 2025

All of Western Society has been so shaped by a religion that celebrates weakness that it has become part of the very DNA of all members of its society, just as much those who claim to reject all religious principles as those who embrace them. This includes the concept of forgiveness, which is in fact now blindly accepted by all of society as being resident on the very highest peak of morality, the only alternative to it being bitterness and resentment.

All of the religious principles that shaped modern Western civilization work only because they are not taken completely literally by most, even though they are meant to be. Being autistic, for the entirety of my Christian career I took everything it taught extremely literally, as indeed I was told to, but which in fact no-one else around me did. So, I embraced the weakness and hatred of the human body and indeed of present life itself, just as I was instructed. It baffled me that no-one else seemed to take to heart what I myself did. The problem is, and herein lies the point of this post, is that taking the virtues of weakness literally in a society that (to be really frank) behaves according to its animalistic instincts, just invites abuse.

The concept of forgiveness is no different than any other principle that idealizes weakness, in fact, it is probably the worst of all of the ‘virtues’ of weakness. It entails, and I am not making this up, the Christian scriptures themselves instruct one to turn the other cheek, ergo, to just invite more abuse when one is attacked. These principles do work for sheltered individuals, such as people who have taken on monastic orders, who live in an atmosphere in which they are mainly surrounded by people with the same mores, but they do not work for single people surrounded by broader human society, in fact they function only as a welcome mat for attack.

The 24^th of June, 2025

I still haven’t managed to rebalance my mind since yesterday. I really cannot deal with injustice of any kind, even though I am determined to not allow it to ruin my own sense of bliss, which it unfortunately has managed to do so far. I am still in the mood to (figuratively! for all the literalists out there) kick bunnies and trip grannies.

The 24^th of June, 2025

It will eternally remain a mystery how it is possible that the body odours of the group of Poles who lived in this house before me still linger after all these years. I have re-laid floors and repainted walls in the meantime, have cleaned all the rooms multiple times during the three and a half years I have been living in this house, and yet the smell remains. It is (mercifully) not present all the time, but it is very much so when it is more humid. And hence, it has unintentionally become my personal hygrometer.
The point is, I was just lying on the couch when a waft of body odour washed over me again, so I immediately thought: The humidity must be up then. And indeed, having checked it the other day, when it was at twenty-three percent, it was now fully sixty percent higher.

The 24^th of June, 2025

The 23^rd of June, 2025

The 23^rd of June, 2025

Since I am on the war path now, allow me to share a rather cynical thought I have long held for myself. If you are not in the mood for sarcasm, I suggest you move on to the next post.

When some time ago I expressed in a brief chat (as I was still wont occasionally to engage myself in at the time, and this was extra reason to quit that habit) a thought to a person who turned out to be of the Palestinian-flag-waving genre, I had underscored to me the incredibly black-and-white thinking of these people. In response to his statement about lying awake at night fretting about the plight of the Gazans (which, I am not minimizing in the least, is utterly inhumane), I divulged that a former Jewish friend of mine from Brussels is now living in Tel Aviv, and that I was concerned about escalation of the conflict, and for his safety. The snippy reply about not needing to invest any energy in this concern, as he was far safer than any Palestinian, spoke tomes about the underlying sentiment.

The 23^rd of June, 2025

Or, to apply another English expression, 'pick your battles'.

The 23^rd of June, 2025

Having just wasted several precious hours of breath on trying to fix incompetencies and indifferences of brainless pencil-pushers, about which I will spare the details, but which have now nearly made my head explode, I have had to resort to simply walking away. Just this particular morning already, I have not received products for which I have paid from two companies, and any objection raised is simply replied to with excuses that make it my own fault (obviating the mindless employees of any effort themselves). I don’t want to gripe, that is not the reason for this (highly abridged) recounting; I am making a point here.

It isn’t easy living on the margins of society, but as, due to health reasons, I am currently forced to be dependent on The System, I am, in order to maintain my lifestyle and not waste my energy on senseless struggles, compelled to take the passive route, by which, such as in the the most recent case, just having to allow that company to keep the money I paid them but for which I received no product. After having invested hours of my life explaining my problem, it was abundantly clear that my messages were not even read by them. Ergo, this is an entirely pointless endeavour, although my own blood-pressure must be clear through the roof by now.

So, in this case, either I have to resort to simply going without any phone anymore (meaning that I cannot even call for emergencies), or I will just have to buy phone credit elsewhere, meaning I will have paid twice for it. I think will just put off buying new credit until such time as I am left with no choice, then at least the pain of the injustice will have dissipated.

The 23^rd of June, 2025

Most obviously this will be seen as an obsessive act in the eyes of most people; I wouldn’t even bother to try to pretend it is other than that. I maintain a list of all the important anniversaries in my life. This isn’t a birthday list of other people, although in the past I had those of a few people on it, but mainly about major events in my life or in those of my dogs, such as the dates of birth of all the dogs I have had in adulthood (insofar as I know these), the dates I adopted them (which serve as birthdays if I do not know the dates of birth), and the dates on which they passed away. 

I commemorate all the canine anniversaries, even those of, for example, my first dog, who died twenty-three years ago.

I have in urns the ashes of all these five deceased dogs. The reason I share this is, because they serve as a sort of test for me if I can imagine a certain place being my permanent location. If I can imagine burying their ashes there, it signifies that I can imagine this place being my permanent location.

The 23^rd of June, 2025

The 23^rd of June, 2025

The 22^nd of June, 2025

This post is not about, and does not contain, any opinion about either the current attacks on Iran or the validity of the corona crisis; I write this merely to relay an observation.

Although I generally do not watch the news, only perusing the headlines in teletext once a day, due to the potential gravity of the American attacks on alleged Iranian nuclear sites today, I found it interesting to see what the news reported on the subject.

What immediately struck me, is the repeated expressions of extreme indignation by interviewed persons or spokespeople of the blatant violation of international treaties. I find it interesting that these are treated as absolutely sacrosanct, which some years ago I still harboured the illusion that national constitutions were as well, but that not a single voice of protest was raised during the corona crisis as governments around the world unabashedly violated national constitutions. In the Netherlands, the government violated no less than six fundamental articles, nearly seven, if its members had got their way, and not a single person opened his or her mouth.

The 22^nd of June, 2025

The 21^st of June, 2025

The 21^st of June, 2025

Why do the misguided Don Quixotes of our present era not get worked up over the truly important questions?

For example, the Netherlands has been ripped apart for years now by an (imported from the Americas, let it be clear) indignation at the tradition that Saint Nicolas has a black companion and servant… which may or may not have its origins in forced servitude, but there is no evidence for this. However, in this insane time, any depiction of a black person automatically entails slavery, it can never be (or, become) a positive thing (which it indeed had become). How is that not racist? I get immeasurably more worked up about the local tradition of parading men around villages in my area, as I just witnessed again, to be publicly humiliated for daring to not have met the societal expectations of marriage by the age of thirty (I believe it was). Instead, this flagrant display of public shaming is protected as immaterial cultural heritage!

The 21^st of June, 2025

Well, it seems that they have this tradition here too, although it’s the first time in the three and a half years I have lived here that I have seen it. When I was living in the village near here, in which I lived a dozen years, I would about once every year or so hear loud noises on the street, which, upon pulling back my curtain, would turn out to be a procession. And now I just saw the same thing pass by here, first a vehicle making loud honking noises, followed by a crowd of people surrounding a cart that was being pulled by a tractor, on which sat a bale of hay, with seated on that a young man.

This colourful local tradition has now actually been classified and protected as immaterial cultural heritage.

The background of said procession, known as the ossewei, is that if a man is not married by the age of (I believe it was thirty), he is paraded around the village on a cart... quite frankly personally reminding me of the horrific scenes from movies about the Bourbons being escorted to the guillotine.

The 21^st of June, 2025

Sat one fine summer dawn atop the highest dune of the row bordering the nature reserve De Manteling van Walcheren, as I would often do, I witnessed a spectacle I would never forget. Officially one is prohibited from even entering these dunes, but as I observed hordes of tourists covering them like an army of ants each afternoon of the tourist season, I decided I would ignore this law too. There is really no way I intended to enjoy the nature around me less than the tourists!

On that particular day, on my spot high up, where I could see almost the whole reserve stretched out below me, I saw a tourist jogging across it. Not only is entry of this natural area strictly forbidden, what was clearly not visible to her though, if she would have cared at all anyway, is that on the opposite end of the direction in which she was running, I could see multiple herds of grazing deer running for their lives the other way.

The 21^st of June, 2025

The 21^st of June, 2025

There exists in the Dutch language a word to describe a concept that simply does not exist in any nation with an individualistic cultural mentality, and which is why, having spent my youth in one of these, I was not even aware of its existence. It is a phenomenon that is really typical of a collectivist culture, of a nation in which it is taken for granted that people should breathe down each other’s necks and know everything about each other. The culture shock with respect to this was enormous for me, and I have actually never got used to the difference yet, although after each instance I determine that I will protect myself from this in future. Being far too naïve and open and friendly, I fear I am poorly equipped to deal with a cultural practice which is in fact invited by precisely my character.

Absolutely nothing against the Dutch culture intended; I am merely stating that I will never get used to a cultural phenomenon for which I am not equipped.

Nosy people exist in all cultures of course, but their methods take them to an entirely different level in an entire culture in which it is found desirable to know everything about each other. I remember in the nineties being utterly shocked when, sat in the kitchen of a family I was visiting in the Netherlands, I heard the outside door suddenly flung open and a shout of Yoohoo! called out by a neighbour, this being completely acceptable behaviour in a culture which never even coined an equivalent for their very rich language of the concept of ‘privacy’.

The Dutch term for this habit that can only be a cultural practice in a collectivistic culture, is uithoren. Literally this translates into English as ‘hearing out’, meaning, to extract every last morsel of information from someone.

I have fallen for this time and time again after having moved to a new village, thinking about the friendly person who came to me directly to talk: Oh, what a kind person… by which I launch into verbal diarrhoea. The problem is that these ‘outhearers’ never speak to me again after their nosiness has been satisfied, unless of course they have new questions about me.

The 21^st of June, 2025

Some eight years ago, when I was still living in the seaside village of Oostkapelle, on my customary sunrise constitutional one of my dogs, whom I had just released, shot away in the direction of the shore. I soon thereafter heard him barking, and then saw him running in circles around a baby seal. Not being quite in the mood for seal pup cutlets for my dinner that day, I ran in its direction, trying not to be dragged into the sand by my other, leashed, dog. Arriving at the scene, I could immediately see why Lucas had not gone in for the attack. The baby seal was hissing and screeching, barring a set of razor-sharp teeth. Trust you me, all the sweet images of cuddly baby seals do not show their very mean nature. I don’t blame them in the least, don’t misunderstand me, but they are really not the huggable bundles of cuteness they are made out to be.
After I had with great effort managed to grab my hysterical Lucas with my free hand, with the seal pup screaming and hissing at me, simultaneously trying to restrain with my left hand my other dog pulling hard to attack it, I walked away from the scene, in order to leave the poor cantankerous baby seal to tranquilly continue with his basking in the warm rays of the rising sun.

To my dismay, just at that moment I spotted a tourist walking at some distance. The members of his rank are generally wont to sleep as late as any local for the rest of their stays, but often on the first morning enthusiastically go out on an early beach walk. Unfortunately, the man had apparently seen the whole kerfuffle take place, as he then walked towards the seal pup, pulled out his smartphone, and began taking pictures of it.
This annoyed me to no end, but it also raised the question in me, whether what I myself did was really that different. Obviously, every one of his sort, who only take pictures to show off how wonderful their lives are on social media, not because they feel passionate about anything they see themselves, thinks that he or she is the one exception to the concept of mass sensationalism.
Having pondered on this point, I finally decided that there really is a difference. Although I myself also took photos and placed them on social media* as well, it wasn’t in order to garner virtual expressions of validation, but because, just as I do now here, I was displaying what beauty there is at one’s very doorstep, but of which almost no-one avails him- or herself.

Every morning as the sun was beginning to rise, I would (and still do, albeit in another locale now) walk to the sea, on my way being the sole witness to truly amazing spectacles. On each of these walks I would see groups of deer, who had spent the night scavenging for food in the village, return to their retreats amongst the ferns in the woods next to it. As I walked along the shore, rather consistently in fact, several seals, clearly intrigued by my dogs, would swim alongside me at some five to ten metres distance for the whole beach segment of my walk. There was also a fox that lived in the dunes through which I passed, which had become so accustomed to my passing, that it would actually allow me to observe it calmly sunning from quite close.

These are the sorts of things almost no-one else sees. By the time they all get up, and most of the tourists come to the sea, the deer are long settled into their daytime hiding places, the seals have swum back out to sea, and the fox has retreated to its burrow. Sure, the visitors see the occasional deer and seal, but not even remotely comparable to what I witness. The seals do not swim alongside them, the fox does not tranquilly lie in the early sunshine, and the baby deer do not come running in their direction because they mistake their dogs for their own mothers.

The 20^th of June, 2025

This is the story of how I ended up as a secular humanistic Neo-Hellenist. I really was not looking to adopt a new philosophy anymore, and it is certainly not intended as a replacement for the religious fundamentalism in which I was raised either. I have seen countless ex-fundamentalist Christians take on an ‘ersatz Christianity’. They are convinced that their current belief system is completely different, but in fact they hold to exactly the same norms as before; only the characters look different. In this wise I also have read and listened to accounts of numerous people who left Christianity and now embrace Hellenism according to the very same literalist interpretation of it as they applied to their rejected faith.

In my day, after having left the Orthodox Dutch Reformed one in which I had been raised, I seemingly willy-nilly moved from church to church, and over the years even from religion to religion. I was extremely serious about all of them, allow me to be clear about that, and was truly convinced that each stop was in fact the final one, but in retrospect they all formed a single line. They were not random in the least, but, having been so extremely indoctrinated my whole youth, I needed to take very gradual steps away from the orthodox Calvinism of my childhood. I was probably no more programmed than others in the church of my youth though. I remember every Monday evening going with fellow adolescent churchgoers to catechism classes. It boggled my mind even then that whilst the images of (literal) hellfire and such were so vivid as to keep me up at night, to the others they were just empty cultural symbols, just blah-blah that did not really affect their lives. My own autistic mind interpreted the religion as I am also convinced it was meant to be though, not as an empty cultural symbol, but very literalist fearmongering.

One of the initial steps that encouraged me to start on the Neo-Hellenistic journey, was the fact that, like so many other members of their church, my biological parents sometime in my teens introduced a television into the home. Unlike the others however, who generally kept theirs behind doors in a cabinet, so prevalent that it was in fact almost a cliché during my upbringing, mine were open about this and thus excommunicated. What one was allowed to watch by them was extremely carefully monitored and censored, but one programme that managed to slip through the censorial maze was the 1960s cartoon The Mighty Hercules, which I so thoroughly enjoyed that I watched probably every episode. To me it was at the time, precisely as it is to almost anyone in the modern world, and which is exactly why it managed to slip past the strict censorship, simply a set of stories from a bygone age. It really inspired me though (not just philosophically at length, but it also began to pave the way of weight training for me), and even though, out of fear of hellfire, I dared not consciously even entertain the thought, I could not help subliminally wishing I could have engaged in that glorious and light-filled world instead of the dour and weak one in which I had apparently been placed instead.

Only a few years ago, so many decades after my ‘Mighty Hercules days’, I happened to read a comment left by a Greek man on social media*, in which he explained that, contrary to literalist interpretations of their religion by Christians and worshipping their deity, the Ancient Greeks adored their gods as symbols and embodiments of virtues. It was due to this simple comment that a ball was set rolling in my mind. Of course I could find no other literature to corroborate this, as almost everything about Ancient Greece is written as perceived through post-Christian lenses, so I had to do a lot of reading between lines and examining ancient texts through different eyes, and it completely changed how I viewed Hellenism.

Naturally, the average populace in Greek antiquity, who lead very difficult lives, had a literalist interpretation of their religion, just as did the adherents of all others in the known world, but Classical Greek civilization was not created by the average; it is an expression of high culture. It had confused me for years, to first dredge out my favourite example to illustrate this fact again, that a civilization that was so advanced that it knew to create a slight arch in the lines of their temples in order to make them appear straight, whose philosophy is still studied today, which laid the very basis for modern civilization, would believe in the literal existence of a slough of deities. After having read and considered the ‘adoration’ comment, I suddenly began to realize that the Ancient Greek pantheon was never even intended to be literal; all the gods are symbols. Naturally, the members of the more enlightened elite were content to let the greater populace believe in the same way as other cultures believed in their gods, but I don’t think they themselves actually ever embraced a literalist interpretation.

All the gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece represented various characteristics and virtues; they all represented various characters, and they all embodied various traits, which represented all the various people in Ancient Greek society. So there were both male and female deities, each with very different personas and passions. There was even a disabled god! And there is a very specific reason for all this. Each deity was created to be relatable to specific people, to symbolize to them what the very best is that they could achieve, to spur them on to aspiring to excellence. That’s why these symbols are so incredibly potent, and, although they are not about literal beings, they are no less sacred. Ancient Hellenism was all about celebrating humanity, about encouraging it to aspire to perfection, and it therefore had a pantheon that was relatable; all the gods were just like humans, but, the highest form attainable by a human.

I began to interpret the stories differently too, after having had the ‘adoration’ revelation. All the myths suddenly had a deeper purpose, and they all were brought into being, as I now see it, just as the entire ideology, in order to encourage people to aspire to excellence. So, for instance, the story about Hercules killing his children is not at all about an attempt to normalize infanticide, but to demonstrate that absolutely everything is redeemable. One may have to, like Hercules, work incredibly long (in his case fully a dozen years) and hard in order to redeem oneself, but one can, not just absolve oneself and still have a life, but can in fact even rise to the ranks of the gods themselves.

In direct opposition to the religion of my youth that idealized weakness and failure, that openly detested this world and humanity, and loathed the human body, which in fact abhors this life, Neo-Hellenism, although purely symbolic in nature, represents to me an idealization of strength and success, of a love of this present world, of humanity, and of the human form. It celebrates life.
Yes, I am aware of the fact that millions upon millions of cultural Christians adhere to a non-literalist interpretation, and ideally I could have simply joined their ranks, but, being wired as an autist and programmed to believe in a literal interpretation of the religion in which I was raised, it is impossible for me to accept that anything that is claimed is not literal. And, yes, the collective Ancient Greek mythology, when viewed through post-Christian lenses, seems to make similar claims, but it is by nature symbolic in character, and Christianity is not. To me, any liberal interpretation is just contorting the message, and I don't feel that with Hellenism. I think the most telling thing to illustrate their natures, is that Christianity claims that a single book contains all the knowledge needed in life, whilst, very deliberately not possessing such a 'divine scripture', Hellenism implicitely claims that this can only be gleaned from of a vast library of books.

The 20^th of June, 2025

The 19^th of June, 2025

I got to thinking about this subject last evening as I was studying the musculature on my legs in the mirror, in order to determine what would need to be undertaken to fix that, as every other part of my body was completely destroyed a number of years ago (I will not expound on the reasons here, as this is not the subject of this post, but it really happened in the span of just a single month). I was amazed to determine that, with the exception of slightly looser skin and a few new spots, my legs are precisely the same as they always have been since I began weight training. That being said, I never had large or what are typically associated as being bodybuilder legs, but they were always, thanks as well to my consistent walking and cycling, nonetheless very muscular, just long and thin. As this is not the aspired-to, or even the accepted, look for weight trainers, I myself always aspired to transforming my legs into the ‘appropriate’ muscular look, but absolutely no amount of training, and I can assure you it was not for want of trying, would make my legs any larger. And so I was always left feeling insecure about the wiry athletic physique I worked so hard to create, but which was arguably, which is the very reason for this post, completely perfect. 
This post has nothing whatsoever to do with lowering standards; that is absolutely not my thinking anyway, but about being realistic, about not aspiring to the impossible.

This post deals predominantly with the male physique, as this is relevant to me personally. The female form, according to the women portrayed in Ancient Greek statues of Olympian goddesses, show a physical ideal that is far from matching the current feminine ideal of extreme thinness and non-curvaceousness. What these do have in common with the statues of the Olympian gods, is that both are covered with a thin layer of fat, which also goes completely against the current norms of a complete absence of any visible body fat.

I personally have always found it far more attractive to maintain a very slight layer of body fat. My fat percentage was historically very low, eight percent even, but I myself never liked six packs and extreme vascularity. In fact, I find them creepy. I always worked to keep a flat and muscular abdomen, but preferred as well that this be covered by a thin layer of healthy fat.
To me, extreme vascularity just looks unhealthy. When my first dog was tragically killed in an accident after my first years of weight training, steeped in mourning (as this was the being closest to me), I was shocked one day after several weeks to actually see the veins on my abdomen sticking out, as I had lost fully fifteen kilos (from an already-thin physique) in that period. My point is, that extreme vascularity to me represents this sort of thing, not health. A healthy person, although visibly muscular, should always have a thin repository of fat. Nature designed humans that way. The current ideals actually go completely in against what is natural.

The current bodily ideal for men is to achieve a bodybuilder’s physique, namely, as huge and muscular as possible. This is often done at any cost, using any means possible, and far too often at a much too young age as well. One often hears complaints about how females suffer from unrealistic body imagery, but the very same is true for men, increasingly so in fact. In my gym days (as opposed to training at home) in the last years I saw increasing numbers of teenage boys in the change rooms, showing off to each other with shirts off, sporting insanely enormous muscles, stretch marks from growing them too quickly, and an extreme vascularity that is very clearly only brought about by performance-enhancing drugs. The current bodily male ideal has nothing whatsoever to do with longevity, is based on instant gratification, and sets one up for disease and a shortened lifespan. 
I am truly all about natural weight training, but the problem remains that the goal is still completely unrealistic to most people.

Even the absolute zenith of the male physical ideal, which is Mr. Olympia, perpetuates a modern myth that that is how an Olympian god was meant to look. However, when one observes Ancient Greek statuary depicting the gods, which truly embody what Ancient Greece believed to be the very apex of male physical perfection, one will see that the ideal is in fact completely different.

Is this because the Ancient Greeks did not possess the knowledge of modern civilization? That is indeed the reigning opinion on the matter, but I myself completely disagree. I believe it was actually very deliberate of them to depict all the gods in the way they did, with various shapes and sizes, with different body types, all of them representing the absolute best of their own, all very muscular, in a healthy and natural way, and covered in a healthy thin layer of fat.
I am not even slightly idealizing the world of the average Ancient Greek, which was unimaginably harsh and cruel. I am talking about the high culture, which, as in all cultures, always exemplified the absolute best, and which created countless different examples, both male and female, and in various body types and conditions, to which to aspire.

There exists a (male) Grecian Ideal, founded on the proportions of Ancient Greek statues of males, which is based on the circumference of the wrist, and which determines all the appropriate measurements for the entire body, from the circumference of the neck and of the chest muscles, to that of the waist. 
Grecian Ideal Calculator: https://www.tmuscle.co.uk/pages/grecian-ideal-calculator/
The beauty of this system is, that, just like Ancient Greek statues, based on the bone structure, which is different for all people, a physical ideal is presented which is appropriate to one’s body type. Compare for instance Ancient Greek statues of Hermes and Hercules. They are very different. One is sleek and athletic, albeit still muscular, whilst the latter clearly has a heavier bone structure and a far greater propensity for building muscle mass. Common to both though, is a thin layer of healthy fat covering everything.

The modern world looks at Ancient Greek civilization through its post-Christian Western lenses, but this completely distorts the reality. The creators of Ancient Greek culture, just like they astonishingly knew to give large temples a slight curvature in their lines in order to create an illusion of straightness, I am convinced also really knew what they were doing in creating a pantheon of deities. The whole Olympian ensemble of gods and goddesses present a set of examples for every adult person to which to aspire, both male and female, of various ages, even of an invalid god, and of various body types.

Modern Western society needs to rid itself of its highly unrealistic physical ideals, but encourage all people to achieve their very best according to their own set of unique bodily traits. Again, I am not even remotely encouraging lowering standards, but encouraging aspiring to the appropriate ones.

The 18^th of June, 2025

The 18^th of June, 2025

I am not even remotely a Luddite. I would not dream of wanting to return to a pre-personal-computer world. However, I do not willy-nilly take on any technological fad simply because everyone else is. So, for instance, I own, and heartly embrace doing so, a laptop, which is basically my means of communication with the outside world. Even where most others make telephone calls for nearly everything, I write e-mails anytime I can, only using the telephone (which I personally detest using) when I absolutely have no other choice.
Even historically I never carried a cell phone on me, and in fact even left the one I had, which I only owned for emergencies, turned off for weeks, sometimes even months, at a time.

Growing up in an Orthodox Dutch Reformed environment, I was raised without many of the technological tools that were considered completely standard by others, most notably television. This resulted in me growing up with my nose deeply entrenched in all manner of enlightening literature, which wasn’t really the intention, but I wouldn’t trade that upbringing (well, the one I gave myself, immersed in books) for the world. It made me who I am and opened up my mind… ironically resulting in me turning my back on the very ideology that had gifted me with the isolation.

Even today, in a computer era and free of religious fundamentalism, I still, however, do not own a smartphone. This has nothing whatsoever to do with a rejection of technology, but because I very carefully weigh the benefits versus the disadvantages of everything I take into my life. The benefits of owning a computer are obvious to me; it has become simply indispensable. And although a smartphone will provide access to the greatest library and repository of knowledge humanity has ever known, I can just as easily use my laptop for that. That leaves only what smartphones are used for by most people, as tools for absolutely unparalleled superficiality, walking around like zombies, using them as tools to evade common human interaction, and in order to take duck-billed selfies to post on social media. I really don’t see that there is anything I am missing.

What is galling, is how one is, short of living sequestered in a cabin in the mountains, compelled to upgrade. Whether I want it or not (and I do), life without a computer has become impossible. Many businesses and institutions no longer even print brochures or forms now, as one is expected to simply print them on one’s printer (which everyone is assumed to have, ironically [and cruelly] even the poor). I owned the same Flintstone-variety cell phone for at least fifteen years, which I left turned off most of the time, but I am forced to own a mobile phone, because otherwise I cannot get the codes necessary fort logging into governmental sites. And really, aside from emergencies (and they have to happen at home), that is my only reason for owning a telephone.

However, a year or two ago, my signal suddenly disappeared, and after copious hours of precious life wasted uncovering the problem, I discovered that my phone was now so outdated that the net no longer supported it, by which I was forced (and only in order to have access to government sites) to buy a new phone. Although it also contains the option to access the internet on it, I have not connected it.

Point being that, short of living removed from human society, even, as in my case, living on the edge of it, one simply has no choice but to update technology, even if one chooses to use it as little as possible.

The 18^th of June, 2025

<< I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; >>

The 17^th of June, 2025

As I was writing the previous post concerning religious fundamentalism, I was reminded again of something that has entered my mind many times the past while. After my time spent living in Cannes, there was a period of five years before I moved to Zealandic Flanders in which I lived on the edge of Rotterdam. In its last years, anytime it was warm enough for it, I cycled to a nude beach on the edge of a lake surrounded by woods, located in the north of the city. There at length I somehow connected with another young man, with whom I would wile away most of every afternoon lying next to each other and talking, before he would have to leave for work. There was nothing of a romantic nature at play, nothing sensual either, but I felt somehow deeply connected to him. We never exchanged contact details, and this one solar sacrament was the single time we generally shared. But it felt magical… and is still, to my memory.
Only after I had known him for quite some time did we arrange to cycle together to the sea, forty-five kilometres away, one day, on which ride he shared with me that he had in fact also been raised in the same Orthodox Dutch Reformed denomination as I.

Throughout the years I have witnessed numerous ex-fundamentalists, not just of my same background, but others, who, in rejecting their dour upbringing, embraced the exact opposite, a debauched life which inevitably made all the warnings of their youths seem true. A good example is Amish youth during their Rumspringa, or of those who espouse to having completely rejected their religion, but following a lonely period of absolute debasement, return to the fold and repent, it being the only world they have ever known. I am convinced that this is infinitely more about culture than about conviction. Their god is just an expression of their culture.

And I have heard in my time numerous ex-Orthodox Dutch Reformed people claiming to absolutely despise anything that reminded them of that world. They could no longer stand to hear organ music, or see black clothing, or any such thing. I, on the other hand, although I very early on extremely ardently rejected all the religious nonsense of the persuasion in which I had been raised, never despised or rejected its cultural aspects. In fact, they are soothing to me. Perhaps it’s an autism thing, I don’t know. For instance, sometimes when my mind is a mess, although I cannot tolerate any kind of music for long, organ music or chanting actually has a meditative effect on my mind. I do not hate the outward trappings of many orthodox communities, it is their underlying philosophies I detest.

This is relevant to the point about nudism, because to my mind this is in absolute harmony with what I just mentioned. There is nothing dirty or offensive about the human body. There is no discrepancy to my mind in loving both organ music and nude sunbathing.
In fact, naked sunbathing is a sort of baptismal ritual, a cleansing rite to me. Washed by the rays of the sun, that is what is necessary for my mind to remove any vestige of doubt in it about whether I was right in my decision to turn my back on Dutch Reformed orthodoxy. I can rationalize until the cows come home, and still be left with the residual dread that what if they turn out to be right after all, and I end up after death being thrown into a literal lake of fire and tortured for eternity?
Seeing things like skimpy tops and tramp stamps on drunk ex-fundamentalists does nothing to my mind to dissuade this, but as soon as I am naked and feel the sun’s warm rays enveloping me, when I am completely in contact with nature and my natural self, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that what I rejected was really just absolute rubbish.

The 17^th of June, 2025

I got to thinking about this again just now as I was amending a post from a few days ago on this same subject. To the naïve idealists, who cannot possibly understand the nature of orthodox religion, which are in fact all mutually exclusivist, claim that all religions basically believe the same thing. Anyone who has been raised, like me, in a fundamentalist religion of which a central precept is a belief in a very literal lake of fire, does not need to be told that this is absolute poppycock. The particular strain of orthodox Calvinism in which I personally was indoctrinated, in fact taught that one cannot even choose to follow their god, but that their infinitely wise deity himself decides whether one is to be transported to an eternity of singing his own praises, or be thrown into the aforementioned fiery pit. Little wonder that psychiatrists’ offices in the Dutch Bible Belt are filled with adherents, and even ex-adherents of Dutch Reformed orthodoxy, and reports are even proudly given in its circles of its ex-followers going to the grave kicking and screaming, as this is to them a sign that their deity is real. Me personally it seems as much an enlightened validation of their rightness as getting confessions out of people that they are witches through torture.

Unlike the Catholics, who perform masses in basically every service, the Orthodox Dutch Reformed churches perform a similar sacrament only once every so often, known as The Lord’s Supper. I always absolutely dreaded as a child walking into the already dour sanctuary on a Sunday morning to see a table standing in front of the pulpit. This always resulted in the exact same show: an extra ominous sermon of at least an hour’s length, followed by all the ‘elected’ (who coincidentally also generally just happened to be the most prominent members of the community) slowly marching with teary eyes and long faces to the front. On one such an occasion I remember my corpulent bus driver bursting out into wails and having to be carried out of the church in a fit of hysterics. Every time I witnessed the black-clad long-faced participants partaking of the (internally joyous, I was assured) sacrament, I would always think how little I would want to spend a celestial eternity with these people.  

No adherent of a liberal denomination can even imagine that this still really exists. This is really like stepping back into the Middle Ages. The clothing may be more modern, although perhaps even more dour-looking, but the ideology has not changed since the sixteenth century.

In fact, I myself am the spawn of a religious community in a village in which to this day the only acceptable hymns are psalms set to music according to lyrics written in the sixteenth century, as those used by most of the other churches in the denomination, written a century later, are deemed too modern. And as organs are simply too worldly for use in a sanctuary, these are also sung without accompaniment.

The adherents of the Orthodox Dutch Reformed religion all claim that their beliefs are those of the first Christians, some two millennia ago, but in fact they are a cultural phenomenon from the sixteenth century, and have not changed since. This is very evident by their many logical inconsistencies, completely lost on the practitioners themselves, such as the fact that whilst dancing is prohibited, a minister of one of their churches can go to visit a sickbed (and drive there) with alcohol on his breath, as this  raises absolutely no moral questions.

How I myself see it, is that providing people with constitutional protection to adhere to late mediaeval philosophy is completely up to them, as long as they don’t push it on others, which they do… but then one should equally protect the right to believe that late mediaeval medicinal practices, such as leeching, are also the soundest medical ones in existence.

The 17th of June, 2025

The 16^th of June, 2025

The 16^th of June, 2025

For the entirety of my decades-long attempt at being a social butterfly, which I may have appeared, although extremely awkwardly, and at great cost to myself, I have dated a lot. Contrary to appearances, this wasn’t because I was, like so many ultimately disillusioned single people, looking for something so perfect that it not only does not exist at all, but that one cannot offer the same in return. Taciturnly I have always been on the lookout for someone who would be willing to share my rather reclusive and simple lifestyle, but, although each time I convinced myself that this would be the case that time, it ultimately never turned out to be.

Having said that, in all those many years I dated (for longer or shorter periods, in real life and online) men of every conceivable background, not just people of European ethnicity, but of Sub-Saharan African, of North African, of Asian, of Arab, of Latin American, and of First Nations Canadian ethnic backgrounds. I have always had a physical preference for darker skin, so in fact actually preferred to date men of non-European origins.

I had always been proud of the fact that the Netherlands was a country in which race simply wasn’t obsessed about, but in which people generally were nonetheless treated with respect. Of course I am not blind to the fact that it is not a perfect society, and of course it always can do better, but at least it was a country in which one could talk about things like Jew Cakes (pastries - Jodenkoeken) and Negro Kisses (a type of sweets – Negerzoenen) without them being even remotely offensive. At least it was moving in the direction of complete acceptance of all differences. The aforementioned concepts are a reflection of another time, and one cannot rewrite history in any way, thus also not by breaking down statues and renaming delicacies. That doesn’t serve to change minds, nor history, it only works to create chasms. I in fact never even thought about race. It was completely a non-issue to me, just as it was clear to me it was with most other Dutch people (with the exception of a few morons, but these are present no matter what a society undertakes).

However, I would now no longer date any man of non-European ethnic origins, and here’s why. This has nothing to do with a change in taste, for the record. Sometime at the start of the twenty-first century, a non-Dutch woman, not even a resident of the Netherlands, expressed shock at the existence of Black Peter (Zwarte Piet), Saint Nicolas’s servant. It was then that the spit hit the fan, and it has never ceased since. This was the pivotal moment when all of the race-obsessed Dutch began to import American racial attitudes (incidentally hardly the best country from which to borrow on that score), destroying authentic Dutch tolerance.
I would now only consider for a potential spouse ethnic Europeans with tanned skin. The reason I would be unable to date any ethnically non-Europeans anymore, is because of their own obsession with race, not any on my own part. It is tiring beyond belief already that I cannot see any dark person on television without them inevitably beginning about race, about how bad they have it, and about how evil white people are. I most certainly am not interested in inviting that hatred into my bed.

In my young adulthood in Lethbridge, Canada, I befriended a young First Nations lady, who was incredibly proud of her heritage, which she had got from her father who was a chief, but at the same time found it essential to be eloquent in English, which she had learnt from her mother, who was an English teacher. Ironically, on the reservation on which she lived, she was taunted more by her fellow tribespeople, who called her Coconut (dark on the outside, but white on the inside), than she ever had off it. 

We are all responsible for our lives. This First Nations princess will eternally remain for me the ultimate example of simply getting on with things, of not embracing victimhood, and in fact of being proud of who she was.

The 15^th of June, 2025

<< Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon. >>

The 15th of June, 2025

Taking care of one's outward appearance does not make on inherently vain. This is just one of the numerous assumptions made and insults leveled at people who do work to better themselves by people who don't, a way to justify their own inactivity in this department.

The 15^th of June, 2025

Although in this post I will express some very negative opinions about the Dutch, allow it immediately to be abundantly clear that I do not find Dutch people to be in any way inferior or superior to any other people. It is about a cultural phenomenon that I write this post. Every single cultural group has its strengths and weaknesses, and this post concerns my major grievance about a particular cultural habit of the Dutch that gets very deep under my skin.

This phenomenon is not unique to the Dutch however, but I am convinced that no other people exhibits this trait as much as do the Dutch. It is so integral to the culture, that there is not even a name for it. However, even a half century ago the Swedes had already recognized this problem in their own language, and dubbed it the engelska sjukhet, or, English Disease.

Although I was raised and educated in an Anglophone country, and absolutely love language in general, aspire to be as eloquent as possible in my main language (which is still English), I have made every effort to perfect my Dutch, to such an extent that I do not even anymore have an English accent. This is important to me, mainly because as soon as any Dutch person hears even a hint of an English accent, he or she instantly switches to speaking to me in far poorer English than my Dutch is. It was far from the case when I first returned to the Netherlands, but after years of working to perfect my Netherlandophone speech, it is (according to what others have said) now even scarcely audible. Or, as one lady in the service industry in my village once said to me: You do not have an accent, but there is a very slight English quality to your speech. 
Generally, Netherlandic people assume from my accent in Dutch that I am Flemish, and Flemings conversely only hear a typically Hollandic accent. I am sure it falls between the two. I speak very standard Dutch, but obviously more than fifteen years of having lived in Zealandic Flanders and having had all my (former) social connections in Belgium, will have resulted in my having taken on decidedly Flemish elements to my pronunciation.

To dive into the crux of the problem expressed in this post, the Dutch are absolutely insane about the English language. It is a common obsession that is completely integral to the culture in fact. The Dutch (specifically, because this does not [yet, it is beginning among them too now] affect Flemings) see it as a symbol of cultural sophistication to throw as many English words as possible into their Dutch, even when there exist perfectly good words in their very rich language. This is not limited to any social class or group; I remember even in the nineties already hearing the late Prince Consort Claus state in an interview that he was not ‘happy’ (which he pronounced as [ˈɦɛpi], as opposed to the real English [ˈhæp ͪ i]). I can just off the top of my head come up with a whole list of perfectly good Dutch alternatives. I myself maintain as a very strict rule for myself to only use proper native words, except when there really exists no Dutch alternative, such as is the case with computer.

However, that is not at all what is really at play here. It is not down to not having a good alternative anyway; it is a prestige question. Just as how I wrote in a previous post about a then-yet-unknown-to-me cultural practice which is used by some to step over others on the societal ladder, this English obsession is also a way of doing the same, by demonstrating how one is superior in cultural sophistication. I am not implying that that was the conscious intention of Prince Claus with his ‘heppie’, but it is such a part of Netherlandic culture now that it just happens automatically.
I have often even heard Dutch people, in an embarrassingly botched effort to sound sophisticated, use English expressions in a completely wrong way, such as when I once heard a lady angrily say The sky's the limit! when she meant That's really the limit! I seriously don't mind when people don't speak English well. I don't mind when people say they don't even speak it at all. In fact I far prefer it over boasting that one speaks a language perfectly that one doesn't.

What really gets under my skin, is when Dutch people (and this happens constantly) pretend to have difficulty coming up with a word in their own language, because the English one is deemed better. Or boast about how they think in English, that English is easier for them, or state that their own language is inferior. I can assure you that there are countless things one can express in Dutch for which there exist no English alternative. And I can also assure the Dutch person who brags of being fluent in English that I myself can spend the rest of my life learning new words and grammatical structures in English, that even as an Anglophone I will never fully master the language. Sure, they may be proficient in International English pronounced with a heavy accent, but I do not believe for even a second that any of them speaks it better than his or her own tongue.

The irony that is completely lost on them though, is that the Dutch were doing the exact same thing with the French language in the time when that one was the most popular one. It really is just a question of trendiness. It is not without reason that the Dutch language contains for nearly any more complex verb one with a French origin, such as, for instance, aanvaarden and accepteren. The contemporary Netherlanders act like the English language is truly inherently superior, but, although forgotten now, they thought this of French before too.

To the Dutch, throwing in as much English as possible may be a sign of cultural sophistication, but I personally see it as a sign of weakness, of a lack of pride in one’s own culture, and of allowing one’s own language to rot and decay. I have actually even heard (multiple) Dutch people express a wish of replacing their language with English as the language of the country!

Compare that to the situation in the Dutch Golden Age. For endless words for which their did not yet exist a native alternative, new words were created from Dutch roots, such as evenaar for equator. According to what I once read, in peace negotiations in the Baltic wars, the Dutch language was actually used as the lingua franca. The Russian czar, Peter the Great, who studied shipbuilding in the Netherlands and was so enamoured of the the culture, actually wanted to make Dutch the official language of the Russian aristocracy (which however, ended up becoming French).

Contrary to ‘linguistically prescriptionist’ languages, such as Icelandic, in which new words are still coined, the current trend in the Netherlands is, in the days in which going with the flow and supposed authenticity are the guiding precepts, that language must be free to evolve on its own. I have no issue with that of itself, and English itself developed that way too, but the situation is completely different now to that of the Middle Ages. What is currently taking place, is not enrichment, but replacement.
Although I maintain as a strict rule for myself that I only use English words in Dutch where there exists no native alternative, like the previously mentioned computer, I believe that a true resurgence of pride in their own language would result in coining new words, such as rekenaar for the aforementioned.

The 15^th of June, 2025

In contact with a Belgian some years ago, I pronounced some stances which were not in harmony with the reigning woke ideology to which he adhered, which was answered with: Are you for Trump?
My immediate thought was: I am not even American, so how could I possibly support a politician from another country?

Having given the matter a great deal more thought than it deserved, I at length came to the realization that the person in question was not actually literally asking me if I was an American who voted for Trump. The ‘T-word’ has in fact become code now, in order to categorize people in the extremely polarized political compartments of the present time. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the person himself, neither with the nationality of the person who does not adhere to the woke ideology. The question I was in reality being asked, was: Are you one of them, one of the people who adhere to our most hated ideology?

In fact, if truth be told, I never cared for Trump, even long before he entered politics. However, if one purports to support democracy, as I am certain nearly all the anti-Trumpers do, one needs to accept that one does not always get one’s way. To not do so is simply poor sportsmanship. And so, for this reason I accept the fact that he is president of the United States, and for no other.

What worries me most about these adherents of wokeness, is that they are absolutely obsessed with their archenemies. It is almost like they need them in order to have a villain on whom to focus their venom. That is perhaps neither here nor there, the real problem with this is that they turn things into what they are not. They obsess so much about their fears, that they see monsters that are not really there. What they clearly do not realize, is that there is an enormous difference between bulls in china shops and monsters.

Yes, there have been insanely cruel leaders throughout history, even in living memory, and, yes, it is right to not like these people, but it is not right to imagine things that are simply not there.

The 15^th of June, 2025

After having written several posts now criticizing particular shared Eastern European cultural practices, allow me to say something in their members’ defence. Not only do I have nothing against Eastern Europe, it is not without reason that I have generally preferred to date members of their ranks over Western Europeans. There are most definitely cultural habits that do not match mine, and I have no illusions about the intentions of many, but there are in fact a number of cultural stances and practices I actually more share with Eastern Europeans than with Western ones.

I know that it is almost a cliché for certain Eastern European nationalities to aspire to getting to the West, most notably Ukrainians, where they all seem to imagine that everyone has access to a collective money tree that never ceases to bear fruit. And Russians have now become the ‘Nigerians of Europe’ with respect to internet dating and scamming. It is also very telling how proliferous are the Eastern European dating profiles that state that that person is attracted to older people. Interesting how few Western profiles state that…  

And yet I have historically preferred to fish from the Eastern pool. Western profiles (and people, from my numerous bad experiences) are on the whole very materialistic and superficial. The ultimate dream is to find a handsome mate, who will will bring plenty of validation by his or her looks, bring plenty of money to the table, so that they can have a luxurious life, and with whom they can spend swanky holidays on Ibiza or the like, having sex with others. I kid not, neither do I exaggerate. In fact it is perhaps even worse; I have met plenty of couples whose hobby it actually is to openly hunt for sex with other people together. This ‘open’ mentality is so prevalent in fact, that I have actually in the past been laughed at in my face for daring to still believe in such an outdated notion as monogamy.

Conversely, I have no illusions whatsoever about the fact that, aside from ulterior motives, most notably scamming and materialistic ones, there are plenty of Eastern European people just looking for a quicky as well. For what it’s worth, and I am still single, so it must not be that much, I have in the past always chosen to make very clear in any dating profile I have had that I am a recluse and prefer a rural life. I am not saying it will remain that way all my life, but at least it serves to scare off most materialistic and superficial folk instantly. It is not a watertight method; I have still had to deal with types who want to use me to get to the West and then dump me, so I still had to be careful.

The 15^th of June, 2025

In the numerous occasions in the past in which I have had interactions with Eastern Europeans, and this has been the case equally with all nationalities within the former communist spheres, they have maintained a common cultural practice of changing into loungey clothing when they enter the house, and back into ‘outdoor’ apparel when they go outside. This is not a cultural habit in Western Europe however, and I myself do not partake of it, but, after having weighed its merits and disadvantages, I have arrived at a very strong reason why, aside from culture, I personally choose to reject this.

There is a very obvious reason for this Eastern European practice having evolved. It was clearly in order to protect ‘good’ clothing, that in which one was seen in public, from wear and soiling, especially due to financial restrictions, by which one could not simply buy new clothing or even wash it often. Even now that financial means have increased for many, the practice, which had become engrained in the cultures, has remained. So, even young people I have met who have piles and racks of clothing, which they wash after every day, still change into comfortable wear upon re-entering the house. My opinion, based on personal experience, is that their indoor gear could be washed more often, but the tendency to not do so just serves to underline to me the fact that the focus is really on not wearing out or dirtying the outside vestments; it is not on the inside ones at all.

The 14^th of June, 2025

I thought of this as I was stood gardening just now, with an overpowering olfactory cloud literally making my nostrils sting, assailing me from the drying laundry of a neighbour.

What I have is not simply a sharp nose, let it be very clear, but, like a dog, everything I encounter is judged according to my olfactory perceptions. Even the most handsome person, if I do not care for his scent, instantly becomes unattractive to me.

When living in the village of Oostkapelle, every morning I would cross paths with hordes of deer on my sunrise walks (as they were all retreating to the woods for the day, and in the woods). In a demonstration of the strength of my olfactory sense, I could even smell if a deer had been near where I was walking, when he or she was already gone, because I could still smell the animal (incidentally, deer smell like most herbivores, like wet hay).

One might be inclined to think that this acute sense of smell is a gift, and it is indeed a great joy in the natural world, but in any encounter with humans it is generally in fact a curse, a very unpleasant overwhelming of the nasal senses by a cacophony of heavily scented products.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with what are conventionally considered good or bad smells. I actually adore natural scents, even the scents of a body. It is unwashed bodily odours and scented products I despise. Ironically, instead of decreasing with age, as is generally the case with senses, this one has only got stronger. And even though I smoked like a chimney for a quarter century, which is generally understood to dull the sense of smell, I could still smell everything far too well.

Western Europeans (and this was not so much the case yet in my youth, and is still not with many older people), are generally well-washed, thus unfortunately completely devoid of all natural scents (I guess that is simply a matter of taste), but covered in a long list of perfumed products, which are not pleasant to me. On the flip side, and I know I am treading on thin ice here, in an age in which everyone is deemed to be the same (which they are thankfully not), although it is absolutely taboo to state otherwise, Eastern Europeans are still not as clean however. Even those who claim to be, seem to think that covering their unwashed bodies in heavily scented products is akin to being hygienic. I once dated a Pole, who in fact claimed he disliked the feeling of water on his skin, thus covering his entire body with some half a can of heavily perfumed body spray every morning in lieu of showering, but found it odd that I did not want to touch him. Another date I had with a Pole, although it was only a single meeting, left my home smelling of his overpoweringly scented body spray for three days. It seems that the body spray thing is really the current Polish idea of hygiene. Apparently a group of Poles lived in my house before me, who had however seemingly not yet discovered this phenomenon. Even after a number of years, I can (a complete mystery to me too, which drives me absolutely bonkers) still smell their unwashed body odours, especially when it is a bit more humid… even though I have repainted everything and laid new floors and such. I also even have to keep my clothing lying on top of my closet, because otherwise my garments end up smelling of their body odours. I like natural odours, but not unwashed ones, and certainly not this strong. I swear I am not attacking Poles here; I have had similar experiences with people from several other Eastern European countries.

Personally, I can use only unscented products. So, for instance, my soap, my laundry detergent, and my dish liquid are all unscented. And, due to drinking such copious amounts of water, I basically sweat water as well, so do not need to wear deodorants. I embrace a natural scent, but cannot have chemical ones fighting to overpower each other on my body. I have no qualms about spraying on a wonderful eau de toilette afterwards (but am exceedingly careful in my choice, and would rather wear none than one that does not perfectly harmonize with my own body scent… nearly any unfavoured scent [very literally] completely ruins my day… I personally can only wear very fresh, citrusy scents), but I maintain a strict rule of not having more than one scent on my body at any given time, except the orange essential oil I often put on the areas, like between my toes, which do get less-pleasant-smelling… however, this scent combines well with other citrusy ones anyway.

The 14^th of June, 2025

As long as I have been living in Europe again, nearly three decades now, I have chosen to keep more or less under wraps, without actively working to hide it, the fact that I grew up in Canada and am also a Canadian citizen. I have discovered that, just as the Eastern Europeans who flood here all seem to think the Netherlands is the fabled land of milk and honey, so Western Europeans all seem to think that Canada is that. I am glad I grew up in Canada; I was formed in that country, and I have no intention of dissuading anyone from following his or her dreams to emigrate there, but I have repeatedly found that Western European notions about Canada are actually based on absolute illusions, on seeing it through European eyes. This is especially relevant to the Netherlands, which has a culture with a very collectivistic mentality, whilst Canada has a very individualistic one. My entire youth I saw one after another disillusioned Dutch person return to the Netherlands for this very reason.

This region of Western Zealandic Flanders is particularly obsessed with Canada, due to having been liberated predominantly by Canadian soldiers in the Second World War; this fact is fortunately very much kept alive in Western Zealandic Flanders and the north of Belgianc West Flanders, where in October and November of every year one will see Canadian flags flying all around.

In liberating this area in the autumn of 1944, a group of Canadian soldiers marched from this very village to Knokke in Belgium, a walk of thirty-four kilometres. This trek is commemorated every year with a march of visiting Canadian troops and Dutch civilians following the same route. And the village in which I now live for this reason has assimilated this Canadian Liberation thing into being the central theme of its own identity. In the week of the annual Liberation March one will see (modern, not the one of the time) Canadian flags flying from nearly all the houses on the main street, and almost the whole year at the central point of the village, by the dike, a (modern) Canadian flag flies alongside a Dutch one. In fact, in the course of a year one will see more Canadian flags here than Dutch ones.

And herein lies my criticism. I posit that this obsession is possibly equally based on illusions about Canada. It almost seems to me as if the Liberation is appropriated in order to give reason to celebrating their illusion-based obsession with Canada. For the record, I am very proud that Canadian troops helped liberate this area, but there were others also, and these are not obsessed about. One almost never, for instance, hears about the Brits or Americans who fought here. And yes, the Canadian troops were the main force that liberated this area, and I most certainly celebrate that fact. And not to minimize the loss of Canadian lives to free this area in any way, but, as one goes a bit more east in Zealandic Flanders, it was the Poles who played the primary role in liberation, by which seventy-five of them actually lost their lives. I wonder if they are given as much attention as the Canadians here. I ask myself if Polish flags are as dominant a feature in Easten Zealandic Flanders as Canadian ones are here. Remember that the Poles’ own country was absolutely decimated at the time, that millions of their fellow citizens had been killed, and yet they fought bravely to free foreign soil.

The 14^th of June, 2025

I love seeing quirky things, and one of my great pleasures has been for the past few years now to observe the weirdest crew of four mismatched geese: two white-and-grey bar-headed geese, another similar but dark goose, and a Canada goose with a gibbled wing. These four have been friends and completely inseparable for as long as I have been living here now, and it always amuses me to see them.

The 14^th of June, 2025

As I passed through an olfactory cloud of pot, which seems to be the official scent of this village, as I am incessantly encountering this on walking through them en route to my real goal of the countryside, I was made to reflect on a fact that has struck me repeatedly since living here. On numerous occasions people here who have either completely given up on or are not interested in any sense of aesthetics, have complained to me of suffering from severe depression. And so they pass their days behind closed doors, emitting clouds of marijuana smoke and letting everything around them go to, well, pot.

The point to this is not of a complaining nature, but because I myself am all about fixing things. I have no illusions about the fact that this is not the nature of most of humanity, whose members instead prefer to embrace their states of victimhood and do nothing to change. I know my struggles are not just misunderstood anywhere; in this particular village, they are in fact the absolute antithesis of the reigning mentality.

It is not my place to judge them. Obviously I stand for my own approach, which is in fact in direct opposition to theirs, but everyone is free to do as he or she pleases. I respect this right, but only because I expect the same in return, not because I agree with them. However, I seriously ask myself how these people cannot see the connection between their depressions and their lifestyles.

The 13^th of June, 2025

The 12^th of June, 2025

I am clearly far more thrilled than most of the farmers in my surroundings about the fact that it is now mandatory in the Netherlands for them to have borders of wildflowers along their fields for the insects. Outside of the growing season, these fields otherwise just look like soulless brown clay deserts, and when the crops come up, as green ones, ergo, nothing for the insects. To me personally, it is beautiful to see the rows of flowers framing these otherwise-unicoloured fields as well, a real boon to the aesthetics of the countryside.

There are farmers, and this has absolutely nothing to do with the profession itself, allow it to be abundantly clear, which I think is perhaps the most noble one in existence, who, just like the practitioners of any other occupation, have no passion for their line of work, and are annoyed by any changes that require extra energy from them, even if this is to the benefit of the natural world. These people (in all professions) are motivated only by financial gain. But Mamon is not an environmentalist.

I was thus horrified to see recently that the border of poppies I had stood admiring the previous day had suddenly been mown, all the poppies now lying flat and dead on the trimmed border. To add insult to injury though, this morning I ascertained that this entire border, several metres wide, was not used for crops either, but was just a lifeless strip of short-cut shoots of weeds.
There were mercifully poppies and cornflowers in bloom along the banks of the ditch that ran next to it, and perhaps this will have motivated the farmer to have destroyed his own, as there were flowers anyway. But why he mowed down the flowers on a strip of land he does not use anyway is a complete mystery to me.

The 12^th of June, 2025

Traditionally I have always carried on my person a digital pocket camera on my outdoor excursions, although, feeling rather photographically satiated where I now live (one can only take so many pictures of the sun rising over the same pier), I am repurposing my favourites from my previous photos. It is enduringly painful to me that I have somehow enigmatically lost the hundreds, if not thousands, of photos I took in the dozen years I lived in Cadzand, a seaside village near where I now live.

The 12^th of June, 2025

I am reminded of something as I observe the weed-infested village in which I now live. This is no exaggeration in the least; many gardens are completely abandoned to the whims of nature, not just a lot, but it seems to be the norm. The municipality does not bother with maintenance either, presumably for two reasons, 1. that the people here do not seem to care anyway, and, 2. because this village is not one of the touristy ones on the seacoast. To state just one piece of evidence: last year a sizeable patch of grass near me was left unmown for so long that it actually had seed heads on it before it was cut.

My photographs will seem to suggest the opposite about this village, I am well-aware, but I very deliberately cut out all the uglinesses. This is one of the things I love about photography: that it compels me to constantly be on the lookout for beauty. This is everywhere, but finding it is admittedly more of a challenge in this village than in any other place I have lived.

When, in my early thirties I moved to one of the popular seaside villages near here, my front garden was designed to resemble a sort of dune landscape, with low mounds and recessions, and with various kinds of dune grasses growing on the higher parts, just like in the dunes. Apparently, to others, the conventional defenders of violets and geraniums, my vision was in fact simply a weed-infested garden. Being so proud of my front yard though, I was utterly shocked to receive one day a letter from the housing corporation instructing me to clean it up.

For the duration of the twelve years I lived in that village, all the gardens in my street complied with average Dutch horticultural standards, namely, sporting especially hortensias and short-cut lawns. However, seeing that new photos had been placed by Google Streetview recently, I went to pay a virtual visit, and was absolutely blown over to see most of the gardens in my former street (most notably that of my former house) now completely overgrown with weeds. Also no exaggeration: the houses are now seemingly wading in about a metre of weeds.

Yes, the municipality maintains the seaside resorts; I am not contradicting myself, but apparently the original village, set a kilometre inland, has been let go to the dogs now just as much as the village in which I now live.

The 12^th of June, 2025

The 12^th of June, 2025

The 11^th of June, 2025

<< We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. >>

The 11^th of June, 2025

Just as how sterilizing everything with bleach actually does the opposite of the intended purpose, actually breaking down the immunity, thus making people ill, so also protecting ideologies from outside opinions in fact serves to do the very opposite of the intended purpose, actually making people less intelligent, and fearful.

And just as how human beings need a bit of germs in order to strengthen the immunity, so the human soul needs to hear and weigh ‘germy’ opinions in order to arrive at a ‘strong mental immunity’ (by considering [often ridiculous] opinions in order to strengthen one’s convictions).

If an ideology does not stand up to the influx of other opinions, it is not worth having.

The 11^th of June, 2025

The 11^th of June, 2025

In Classical Antiquity the concept embodied in this expression (a healthy mind in a healthy body) was not simply a trite saying, but a guiding maxim, a foundational cultural precept in fact. In our times the expression is seen as being rather clichéd, but in fact it is not just worn out, but in direct opposition to the reigning conviction of contemporary Western civilization, which treats the psyche and the physical as separate entities, which do not influence each other in the least, or, at best, only slightly.

It is also considered a sort of universal truth that it is impossible to be both physically inclined and intelligent, that one is either un-physical and intelligent (and thereby mercifully not superficial), or physical and not that terribly bright (and thus by default also superficial). It is deemed impossible to be both though, and any person who does aspire to the two is ridiculed as being dumb and superficial. In a society which is at present absolutely obsessed with uncovering and obliterating negative stereotypes, this one, although so prevalent as to be virtually indiscernible, may in fact be amongst its largest. 

The 10^th of June, 2025

Quite some years ago on social media* I repeatedly saw posted photos of the island and the house on it in the picture below. This was always accompanied by a slough of comments stating how the writer would want to live there, far away from humanity.
I personally don’t believe for a second that any of these people would last even a day there, and if they did, it would be with a fully-stocked fridge and a good internet connection, by which they could exchange texts with their contacts all day, precisely as on any other, or post photos on social media of how reclusive they live. Only the location would be different. However, if they were deprived of these luxuries, I can assure you it would be nothing less than hellish for them.

The intrinsic point here has nothing at all to do with their purported hatred of humanity. It is that an increasingly large group of people on the internet use these types of posts in order to garner attention. I don’t doubt for a second that they wholeheartedly believe they are misanthropes, but they in fact generally lead very social lives, very little different from that of any other person, the sole distinction being that they assume the identity of misanthropy, by which they can justify being grumpy about other people, and garner attention in doing so.

I have also heard countless people in my day say that the only reason they live in cities is because they are forced to for their jobs, but that they would otherwise live in the countryside. Naturally, all these people fully avail themselves of their urban existences. Actually place them in the countryside for a week in a non-holiday situation, and I can assure you they would quickly recant.

The 10^th of June, 2025

I could be completely off on this, but based on what I am increasingly seeing on house remodelling and real estate programs on television, it seems as though the walk-in closet is slowly become a fixed feature in the home now. This may sound absurd, but consider that even in living memory, washrooms were not a standard feature in most homes either.

The 10^th of June, 2025

It never ceases to be funny to me, the urban tourist, who purports to come to the countryside to partake of the tranquility and reground him- or herself. One instance I witnessed a number of years ago will eternally stand out to me as the absolute epitome of this phenomenon.

As I was returning from a meditative sunrise stroll, I passed a young mother, who was 1. jogging, whilst, 2. pushing a stroller containing her child, whilst, 3. talking on her wireless phone.

Out of sheer necessity I myself combine activities, no criticism on that point, but I refuse to conduct any in a way that robs me of my serenity.

Another instance I recall is when I was ripped out of a meditative state whilst lying sunning in a recession in the dunes, by a very noisy (obviously urban) couple that had occupied the one next to me. After quite some (non-meditative) time of trying not to get too worked up by the loud comments about how wonderfully peaceful and quiet it was there, the couple mercifully left. When I had finally regained my tranquil state myself, I got up to leave as well, glancing at their former spot in the dunes, now filled with newspaper leaves and empty pop bottles.  

The 10^th of June, 2025

One of the various customary sunrise walking routes I have goes in a westerly direction along the dike along the Western Scheldt, in the direction of Breskens, where the river flows into the North Sea. In the twilight on a clear day, so one sans the fog banks shown on the photo below, I can easily see the light on a bicycle coming almost the whole distance from Breskens, as there is a cycle path that follows the shoreline the whole way. One one such occasion at the end of winter, I spotted a bicycle light at least five kilometres away, and followed it the whole while until it neared me. As the bicycle passed me I said hello, but the cyclist simply ignored me and kept going.

I mused on this experience again this morning as the third person who passed me simply ignored my greeting. I completely get that strangers do not greet each other in cities; I would do that too. And I accept that urban tourists will not greet strangers in the countryside on holiday either, so I ‘grant leniency’ for that. However, outside of tourist seasons and holidays I find ignoring people in the countryside both rude and an expression of insecurity.

To anyone reading this who lives in a city, my expressed astonishment will be bewildering. Allow me to explain. In the countryside, it has always been the norm to greet anyone one passes. So, it was doubly astonishing to me to be ignored by someone whom I had been watching approach me for some five kilometres.

It was always a sort of universal principle, or so it seemed, that rural people greeted each other when passing in the countryside. An unspoken addendum to the rule is that this is not an invitation to conversation, but simply a courtesy, nothing more.

However, the whole dynamic has changed of late, and I can tell you precisely when that took place in fact. It ended with the lockdowns. So much in social behaviour has changed since then. It seems most people suddenly behave like they act on the computer. The sense of anonymity they only had online before, they suddenly en masse have transferred to real life. I think it is because they discovered during the lockdowns that they could act just like on the computer, with impunity. And they have maintained that behaviour since.

If one has to search for a silver lining in this, I guess it is that people are displaying their true colours, but I am personally a great proponent of rural greeting. I don’t care if a person feels like saying good day, as long as they do it. To me that is just decency and an expression of humanity.
I guess that’s what I find so rude about this. My day is really no better or worse after being greeted, but being ignored is to me way more than a simple lack of greeting. I find it dehumanizing, as if I am just a turd they walked past.

The 10^th of June, 2025

When, after having spent two decades of my youth in Canada, at the age of twenty-five I returned to Europe (initially the Netherlands), I was almost immediately faced with a phenomenon in human contact that I was to encounter many more times, one that was completely new to me. In Canada I had been aware of its existence in limited numbers, but there it had not been the major cultural feature it was here.

Seeing everything through Canadian cultural eyes, I first fell for this (not meaning I believed it, but assumed it to be unique to that person), but as I began to hear more people claim the same thing, I started to piece together what was motivating this.

Almost immediately this person confided in me that he had a sort of sixth sense, that he was in fact paranormally gifted. I personally don’t believe in that, but I do have a very strong conviction about respecting others’ rights to believe whatever they will, so I left it at that. The nature of that first contact being romantic, this conviction of his played a very dominant role in our ensuing contact.

However, as soon as I had become aware of his claim, I constantly began to hear other people claim the same thing. Not because I had become more attuned to it, but because it really was that pervasive. Only after a while did I begin to see that there was a common thread connecting all these claimants, namely, that they all themselves did not emotionally stand on terribly solid ground. And then I suddenly understood what brought about this yet-unobserved cultural phenomenon. It was a way for these weak people to make themselves feel superior to others.

The 9^th of June, 2025

On nearly every occasion in which I have in the past conversed with foreigners, I have had to dispel their assumptions that I must then live either in Amsterdam or in a town located near it. Because, to nearly every outsider I have encountered thus far, the Netherlands is Amsterdam. I have then had to explain to these people that I in fact live infinitely closer to the north of France, which is only three quarters of an hour by car, whilst Amsterdam is three hours by car.

To me, the very idea of visiting this crowded city (which I have done in the distant past), let alone living in it, makes me feel like someone is choking me. On the opposite end of the density spectrum, I grew up on the prairies of Southern Alberta in Canada, where one could drive into the countryside and, apart from cultivated fields, see absolutely no sign of human life, which was far too unpopulated for my taste.

After having lived for a few years in Cannes in France, in a time in which, although even then I consciously chose to live in a small one, I still could live in a city, the infamous French bureaucracy forced me to leave the country, and I ultimately ended up living in the coastal area of Zealandic Flanders.

It is not without reason that the slogan associated with this strip of land wedged between Belgium and an arm of Dutch water is Een landje apart, or, A very different country. I have often heard Dutch people assume it to be like Belgium, and conversely Belgians assume it is just like the rest of Netherlands. It really is neither. It is a combination of both (well, of West Flanders and Zealand), but with its own twist.

And whereas the Netherlands is the most densely populated non-microstate in the world, Zealandic Flanders is very rural, its largest cities being the size of the town in which I grew up in Canada, which I considered small. In fact, with a density of 83 people per square kilometre (as opposed to 520 for the whole country) for the municipality in which I live, it is infinitely more tranquil than most people would expect of such a crowded country. It is in fact the seventh-least-densely populated municipality in the European part of the Netherlands. My municipality of Sluis is even half as densely populated as the one in which I was born, just a stone’s throw across the Western Scheldt, an area that to general Dutch norms is already exceedingly rural.

In this municipality I have a perfect combination to meet both my Southern Albertan and my European desires. I live in a tranquil area, but still have (just enough, but not too much) civilization around me. If I want to see a city, without having to actually stay there during the peak hours, the beautiful mediaeval Belgian city of Bruges is just a hop, skip, and a jump away, and the ‘Cannes of Belgium’, Knokke, just right across the border. I live between the Netherlands and Belgium culturally, but have all the advantages of the Dutch infrastructure (most notably the best bicycle network in the world). I have all the ruralness I prefer, but am right by the coast. It also, very importantly to me, feels very neutral. Absolutely nothing against Dutch culture, but here I feel like I am not truly in the Netherlands proper, and my combined Canadian and Dutch identities I feel I can myself experience in an undisturbed way, that is to say, it feels like an extension of the person I was as a child in Canada. Unlike what is the case in the rest of the Netherlands, but exactly like in rural Canada, I can easily forget to lock my door at night or when I am away and not be concerned about being burgled. It also just happens to be the sunniest part of the Low Countries. And, for some mysterious reason, infinitely drier than the Zealandic islands just across the Western Scheldt. Whereas, for instance, in my natal village across the water, where I lived for a number of years before coming back here, any lawn would make my feet sound like they were making armpit farts when I walked across them, and I had to wage an incessant battle against mould in my apartment, here there is for me a perfect combination of aridity and humidity: dry enough to allow for solid and un-musty-smelling ground, but wet enough to be green. Whereas the overall light in the Netherlands is very muted, here it is very clear and the contours sharp, similar to what the sunny skies of Southern Alberta and the French Riviera in fact produce. There are still very distinctive seasons, but not the extreme winters of Southern Alberta (the coldest I ever experienced as a child in Canada, was of a day with a wind chill factor of -52 degrees Centigrade!) For a recluse who loves walking in nature, without the possibility of being bitten by a rattle snake or mauled by a bear (as were genuine concerns in, respectively, the Oldman River valley, where I nearly stepped on a rattle snake whilst walking one day, and Waterton Lakes, the nearest Rocky Mountain location, where one could not safely walk in nature without the threat of being ripped to shreds by some predator) the perfect solution. And, just as in Southern Alberta, the land is very flat, and there are very few dangerous natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, tornadoes, or volcanoes.

Oddly perhaps, the ultimate Dutch dream is to in fact move away from their homeland, and some one in a hundred people do just that every year, but (and I am glad they are not onto this, because then it would be too crowded for me) if they want a more arid climate for their arthritic joints (as I have heard many complain), more space, and to still be near family and friends… then all they would need to do is to move to Zealandic Flanders, not to emigrate.

The 9^th of June, 2025

Although people are universally complaining about how bad the state of the world is at present, we find ourselves in what is potentially (I use this word, because this is not what humanity is doing) a perfectly paradisiacal planet, what people throughout history only dreamt of being achievable. Never in all of human history has humanity had so much at its disposal, so many tools and possibilities to make the perfect world, and yet it doesn’t. Nearly every person now, even the poorest, carries in his or her very pocket the greatest library and repository of knowledge the world has ever known, but instead it chooses to whine about how bad the world is, and instead of doing anything about this, devote its time to posting duck-billed selfies on platforms of that same universal library.

Never in all of history have humans had at their disposal so much medical and technological knowledge, the possibility to create incredible prosperity around the entire globe, but instead it chooses to waste its energy on superficial and useless endeavours.

It is truly just a question of perspective. I am not descending into idealistically naïve positivity here, but let me state just one example to illustrate my point. I have heard so much complaining in my days by people about how much more money they had at the end of the month in, say, the eighties. Fine, but in the eighties one didn’t have smartphones, computers, internet subscriptions, people weren't jetting to the other side of the world for a weekend trip, and so forth. Of course life cost less then, but who amongst the masses is willing to surrender any of these luxuries in order to have more savings?

The 9^th of June, 2025

The 8^th of June, 2025

The 8^th of June, 2028

Many products in Europe are now labelled as On the Way to Planet Proof… presumably because Not Planet Proof simply doesn’t pack quite the same punch.

The 8^th of June, 2025

The 8^th of June, 2025

Some years ago on social media*, I proudly posted a copy of a print I had designed from a photograph I myself had taken (the one below) and in which I had invested oodles of time and energy. Very quickly after it was placed, a comment was written by someone with whom I was not even acquainted: This is just made with AI.
Obviously this is no different than the envious haters who discredit weight trainers who have invested years of rigorous discipline, hard work, and a strict diet to create a perfect body by saying: That’s just from steroids. This isn’t a question of simply ignoring these haters though; almost all of human society unfortunately now believes the exact same lies, completely discrediting anyone with talent.

Although artificial intelligence has a number of wonderful advantages, such as for instance being able to listen to reconstructed extinct languages, it has the negative effect of taking the wind out of the sails of the polymath, indeed robs everyone who works hard of his or her deserved recognition.
I am not even remotely a Luddite. I wholeheartedly embrace the fact that I can now create art with the computer in minutes, which same job, meticulously painting by hand, took me on average literally two hundred hours a few decades ago. However, I still do this with a lot of care, and invest a lot of attention in anything I create. Computer technology is simply a set of tools, and I still put a lot of work into everything I do; I guess I will have no choice but to hope that there will arise people who are more discerning than the masses on that count.

We have entered an era in which almost anyone can create almost anything without having to be talented in the least; the computer simply fills that gap for one. And so, the person who actually does employ true talent is no longer even seen as having that… so every creation has become basically meaningless.

However, the Achille’s heel of artificial intelligence is that it is a bit too perfect, but this requires a great deal of scrutiny to pick out. So, for instance, the beauty of calligraphy is precisely the fact that there are miniscule imperfections and inconsistencies. A bit like how the tiny flaws in a human, such as gaps between teeth for instance, are precisely what make a person unique, and how conversely the too perfect looking person is really not that alluring (well, at least to me), AI also produces rather soulless results. I have seen that even in the attempt to create for instance fonts that have inconsistencies, that at first glance truly look like they have been produced by a human hand, that the same inconsistency reappears each time that letter is typed. I’m sure some AI fanatic will iron out this kink in time, but, for the time, for the person paying attention, artificially produced work is rather easy to spot. It just requires a keen eye.

* I wrote this post in a period in which I was still present on middling social media, attempting all the while though to be true to myself. I found that it negatively affected me though, and have since removed myself, now only using my own ‘social medium’, my personal website.

The 8^th of June, 2025

Anger does not make a person look tough, but weak and not in control of him- or herself.

The 8^th of June, 2025

I need to be very careful how I word this in order to not come off as complaining. Obviously, just as with every post I write, this too is based on personal experience, but I want to present it in a non-whining manner in order that others might benefit from my own experience, regarding what has become an absolute scourge in our time.

‘Ghosting’ is not a sign of strength, but in fact a sign of weakness, of a lack of backbone.

Feigned kindness followed by ignoring is not polite in the least, but incredibly rude and cowardly.

The 8^th of June, 2025

Countless have been the instances throughout my life, and I know this is the case for everyone else too, regardless of culture, that I have had people say to me in bad moments, ‘Don’t worry. I am sure it will be alright’, generally followed by, ‘You just have to think positively’. This has grated on my nerves for as long as I can remember, and I usually then do my utmost to not respond according to what I am really thinking, but on a few occasions of extreme stress, such as after the death of one of my dogs, I have not been able to stop myself from snapping, ‘And how the [frack] do you know that it will be alright?! On precisely what evidence are you basing this?!’, and to the trite expression that nearly always follows, ‘And how the [hang] will thinking positively change anything?! How will it [to continue with the example] bring my dog back to life, eh?!

It is me myself who ends up appearing unkind when I snap on such occasions. These are just token responses, even though the people who utter them actually think they are genuine, but which really mean: I am saying this to appear kind in order to not have to talk about this uncomfortable issue any longer, but still seem like I care. It sounds embittered of me, that has not escaped me, no worries, but unfortunately it is true. And I am not even slightly promoting negativity. A positive mentality is absolutely essential to have with respect to situations that one can fix, but it is not appropriate to be dispensed this advice with regard to cases one cannot change. 

The 7^th of June, 2025

It may not look like it, but I am actually incredibly allergic to the plethora of people on the internet acting like they have the answer and inside scoop to everything. Anything I place in my personal online journal I do not ever do in order to seek attention, to seem right, or to boast.

I felt I needed to post this thought after having written about the easy solution to the decades-old housing crisis in the Netherlands. I sincerely believe what I have written though, but my solution, and the other posts I create, are never meant to be pompous. I in fact really cherish humility, and absolutely loathe the tooting of one’s own horn, but I do need to be free to be myself on my personal space.

The 7^th of June, 2025

Dutch politicians and society in general have been discussing the issue for years now, the seemingly unending and unsolvable housing shortage in the Netherlands, and yet cannot come up with a solution. Fortunately the wait (there are actually waiting lists to rent homes here) are not so long in Zealandic Flanders, where I live. In my experience, it generally takes about a half year to be offered a house. The capital, Amsterdam, coversely, a crowded nightmare to rural people like me, but apparently absolute paradise to Dutch social butterflies, reputedly has a waiting list of a whopping eleven years!

An additional problem is where to house the enormous wave of refugees, in a country with such limited housing, when even its own citizens cannot find homes.

And yet the solution is staring them in the face. It is so easy to implement, so inexpensive, and will take up so little space in the most densely populated non-microstate in the world, and they can easily be impermanent and removed, they can even be placed on wheels for impermanence. It is tiny homes. Not for the centre of cities, but they can certainly be placed around them. 
Dutch homes are surprisingly small anyway, and an apartment in the centre of a large city is often really no larger than a tiny home anyway. Except, tiny homes can be infinitely less expensive than these.

Obviously, they can be built in any style, and I have designed for myself the smallest possible space to accommodate all the basic necessities of life, including things like a washer, a luxury even many apartment dwellers do not now have. What all these basics are, are equally those of any other person. And I have managed to fit all this into a space of 2 x 7 metres. This is what is easily and quickly possible for single people and couples, and for families with children ones with two stories can be created.

The politicians, who, on the taxpayers’ dime have sat and scratched their heads for decades now, could really have come up with this now. It is also the perfect way to house all the refugees who require homes.

The 7^th of June, 2025

At the end of a day of mental exertion, so, every day, all I long for is completely senseless piffle to empty my mind. I don’t want stimulating conversation, don’t want to read, don’t want to watch (what are purportedly) intellectual programs, don’t want any difficult things… I just want mental candy floss. The dumber the better almost, but scraping the bottom of the barrel, such as with the ads that currently assail me of reality programs about dim-witted tweens who do each other, only serves to aggravate my mind. It is superficial nonsense, but it is of such low standards that it just riles me up, the opposite of my intended purpose.

The only reason I ever watch any so-called intelligent programs about survival in nature or reliving the past, is as a sort of mental escapism, to mentally transport myself to those places and times.

Anyway, that having been said, what annoys me to no end is how everything is made so political now. I want escape, not to patronizingly be instructed what to think. There was a time when I could just ignore political programs (which give their viewers a false sense of actually being politically engaged) and ideologically propagandistic shows, but it has become absolutely inescapable now. For this reason that it annoyed me so profoundly when attention-seeking demonstrators blocked the Tour de France last year (I believe it was). That’s why it makes my head want to explode that comedies that should be void of any deeper material suddenly are geared at pushing political agendas. It annoys me that the television is suddenly bombarded with pseudo-intellectual reality programs to promote an idea (after endless programs about first drag queens and then transsexuals, it seems gypsies are the current grist for the propaganda mill).

The 7^th of June, 2025

I remember once, years ago, having a short conversation with an older man by the sea whilst sunbathing. He explained with glee that he had just been to Bangkok.

I responded: That’s wonderful for you. I’m glad you had such a nice time. By the way, how did you find Thailand overall?

He: I said I went to Bangkok, not Thailand. I’ve never been to Thailand.

The middling masses jet around the globe as if it were nothing, on their short breaks from the 95% of their time spent in suicide-inducing sterile glass office buildings, which tedious existence they naturally do not ever show on social media, to bungee-jump one day off a bridge in New Zealand, and then spend a weekend in Barcelona sipping expensive champagne in the most popular restaurant, posting photos of everything and placing another few pins in their online map of the world, but having no appreciation for or interest in the country in which they have been. All that concerns them is using the 5% of their time to create an online image of a life they do not even really lead.   

It is all empty, all show. Which is their choice if it makes them happy. The problem is that it is as fragile as thin porcelain. The merest shift in the wind can take away the bliss they pretend to have. That’s one of the many reasons I am firmly of the conviction that leading a slow and conscious life is infinitely superior to the average, materialistic one, because its sense of blissfulness is enduring. Nothing can shake that.

The 7^th of June, 2025

I have for years heard people of a particular ideology purport that their nonactivity is actually based on a specific philosophy. I really am not conversely defending the average life of working oneself to the grave in order to appease others either, but I cannot shake the feeling that letting weeds cover one’s yard is in fact more the result of complacency than of a real conviction.

I got to pondering this point as I was reading from H.D. Thoreau’s Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (no, I do not read only this book, but I have quoted a lot from it because I happen to be reading from this particular book each day at the moment) and comparing it with the lives of people of an Alternative (with a capital A, implying a very specific stance) ideological slant, purportedly living in harmony with nature, building huts for themselves with sundry gathered bits of woods, tires, sheets of plastic, etc., i.e. creating a dwelling with absolutely no regard to aesthetics.

<< Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house, which were already impervious to rain, with imperfect and sappy shingles made of the first slice of the log, whose edges I was obliged to straighten with a plane. >>

Henry David Thoreau – Walden and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1854

Living completely on his own and doing everything himself, from literally building his own home to growing and hunting for his own food, the previous quotation validated to me my suspicion that Thoreau was a man of a similar ideology to mine, a lover of simplicity, and practical, but still maintaining an aesthetic sense in all he created.

Everyone should be left free to live according to his or her own conscience, but let is not harbour the illusion that a simple and natural life of letting everything take its natural course is the same thing as a simple and natural life that adheres to stylistic cultural norms. Here also there exists a subtle distinction that is lost on most of humanity, who only see, to use only the example of gardens, as the distinction is extremely prevalent in the Netherlands, a very sculpted and cultivated look (like French gardens) versus a weed-infested natural look. I am of the more nuanced type, a bit, as with so many things, between the two, favouring the English garden look, natural, but guided. I mention this because I think this is in line with the aesthetics that governed Thoreau.

I think this in fact distinguishes us from wild creatures, the ability to cultivate, even in simplicity. This is not the same thing as actually trying to mimic the life of a wild animal however. I have long questioned myself if the Alternatives were not in fact a contemporary version of a legacy left by the Thoreaus of the past, but the aforementioned quotation confirmed to my mind that this was not the case.

The 7^th of June, 2025

It amazed me when I was living in Cannes where I encountered scads of other Northern solar migrants, to hear from locals, who always lived behind drawn shutters to escape the intense heat, that their ideal escape was in fact to spend time wandering the streets of London in the driving rain. I had simply assumed all my life that it was a sort of law of nature that everyone gravitates towards the heat and the sunshine. Apparently, one seems to naturally seek solace in whatever is the opposite of that of which one has an overabundance.

My thoughts as I was walking through the drizzle with grey skies overhead this morning. Not every day begins with golden skies and pastel-coloured landscapes. It is in fact this very fact which is essential to making those things special. I photograph them precisely because they do not happen every day.

The 6^th of June, 2025

A truly confident person does not feel threatened by associating with someone who adheres to a different ideology.
So, for instance, a truly confident masculine man, will not even feel remotely emasculated being associated with, say, a drag queen. He would also not feel even slightly threatened by being photographed with arms around another male, including those who are completely different to himself.

Conversely, a person who needs to ‘not be yoked’ with anyone who adheres to another ideology, which is typical of all black-and-white thinking, whether of a religious or of any other philosophical persuasion, is not truly confident. A person who needs to block out all other opinions without exception does so out of insecurity and fear of having his or her own ideological stances shaken.

The 6^th of June, 2025 

A few years ago on social media*, an extremely militant online woke zealot I initially connected with on an entirely different point than on his ideological stances, posted a meme about destroying all the nazis and fascists out there.

Although I chose to say nothing in response, my immediate thought was: Very noble sentiment. I couldn’t possibly agree more with you. But, pray tell, just where are all these nazis and fascists to whom you refer?

I am not saying (real) extremist idiots do not exist, but they are (mercifully) a very tiny minority. It is only because the powers on the side of the reigning ideological stance make all their true opposition out to be ‘extreme right’, ‘nazis’, ‘fascists’, and what have you not, that the masses who do not think independently are easily manipulated into thinking that they are wielding the intelligent position, by which they see all the great hordes of people holding opposing ideologies as the monsters they are made out to be by those who dictate their opinions. And thus these manipulated loose cannons are turned into a contemporary sort of Don Quixotes, madly rushing at windmills with lances because they think they are in fact fighting dragons.

* I wrote this post in a period in which I was still present on middling social media, attempting all the while though to be true to myself. I found that it negatively affected me though, and have since removed myself, now only using my own ‘social medium’, my personal website.

The 6^th of June, 2025

I don’t know who decides how many stars a film receives in Dutch promotions of movies. I just have noticed that Dutch movies seem to automatically get four out of four stars, regardless of their merits, although, with the exception of a very few absolute masterpieces, such as Zwartboek (Black Book) and Oorlogswinter (Winter in Wartime), I personally think most Dutch movies are absolute shite. 
As I mentioned in a previous post, I generally do not like things that are hyped, thus usually hate movies about which everyone raves, and so, in like spirit, I generally don’t like movies that receive four stars, and often do those that receive less. There are a few I really enjoyed, even rewatched, that have been rated with two stars in fact. I just saw that the remake of Red Dawn is showing on television this evening. It was accompanied by two stars, which sounds promising, so I think I will watch it.

The 6^th of June, 2025

Although I do not follow the whims of fashion, this does not mean that I have no aesthetic sense, the black-and-white thinking normally attributed to this point. Rather than following the fleeting trends of the moment, I focus on an aesthetic that is timeless, but that reflects the spirit of the times, namely, more or less from around the turn of the twenty-first century.

It is not simply for visual reasons that I have my entire life thus far rejected and found ludicrous the fickle vogues; I embrace a life of simplicity and quality, and these do not fit in that. That, however, does not mean that I do not adhere to an overall style that reflects the spirit of the times. What I aim for, is an aesthetic that would be equally acceptable in 1995 as in 2025.

In the 20^th century, every decade had a very distinctive look, but that tendency ceased in the mid-nineties, and the look has not fundamentally changed since then. Compare for instance the completely different looks in the seventies with those of the eighties. Then study the clothing worn by the actors of the show Friends (after the first few years). That aesthetic style really does not look significantly different from that of now.

I personally aspire to a look that seamlessly stretches from about the mid-nineties to now, cutting out all the silly and fleeting vogues, such as droopy rears on trousers and underwear hanging out. To the minimalist, clothing should never be about being a slave to trends, neither about the polar opposite, of rejecting aesthetics altogether, but about garments that are made of strong fabrics and that show off and enhance the body, that serve as a frame for the personality of the wearer. That is what clothing should do.