Month: December 2003

There they were the poor plants which were to be discarded forever. Ripped out of the flower boxes - shifted and displaced so they were leaning against the first floor balcony railing. At an angle ever so slight but enough to make it all look uncomfortable for the plants left hanging in there.

Lots of dirt scattered around which made the chore indeed a filthy and unworthy one. Pull the clod and forcibly drop the mass of roots and leaves and other chloriogeniated tissue cells. Disappear into the garbage bag what a way to go and then dropped with a thud into the last place that I would see them again.

Now the coming end of the year and then the new flowers. (ah... the new flowers... that will still be some time to go...)

So good old Christmas is approaching ever so quickly, and I do not know for the life of me what I may wish for when it comes to telling others what gifts they may give me.

To be honest: I am just not in the holiday mood yet is all. Also, I feel like I do not deserve anything, because I have been a bad person (boy).

All of a sudden out of the blue it hits me. I know "exactly" the perfect most fantastic gift idea imaginable. At the same time, I realize that I am sleeping. This is a real shame, because I also realize in this dream that when I wake up I will completely forget what this great gift idea was.

That is how dreams work alot of the time: you wake up and you forget.

In this dream, I take hold of myself. I grab that imaginary dreaming self that only exists in the subconscious state. I take hold of him by his collar, and I hold him ever so tightly. And then I tell him to concentrate and remember, because it is very important that when I wake up I can tell the others what to buy me.

Just remember, remember, you better remember, alright?

When I wake up (you guessed it) I just forgot, plainly and simply forgot. The funny thing is that I can remember every single detail of that dream, even the feeling of having discovered the most perfect gift idea.

Except the most important aspect of all, what that gift actually is, I have completely forgotten. Right at the tip of my tingling fingers of the mind whatever that could be.

Do you spend much of your time surfing around the Internet endlessly trying to keep updated and get the feeling that it must be easier?

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The FeedDemon RSS Reader is now part of my Windows startup. So every morning I take my first sips of coffee perusing this wonderful world of information which has opened up for me.

So addictive though, and where does one stop?

Give it a try and you will just love it, I'm sure.

There was that guy again standing over there to the side. Off in the distance but close enough also. When he saw me looking his way, he walked up to me. It took him about five minutes or so. His shoes barely cleared the sand and his feet made shuffling sounds as he approached. His sandals were made of leather and he was wearing thick woolen socks.

"You know," he started to say and then stopped in the middle of his sentence as if I was supposed to give him a visual que or something so that he could start again. Permission on my part, showing we were equal in more ways than one.

I just smiled (the "visual cue" or something).

"Like I was saying," he continued, "it is periods like this that can be really trying on your relationship. Hopeless or so it seems..."

I had to agree, but how did he know what was on my mind?

"You get to the point where you know that it would not be good to stop, but at the same time it is more and more difficult to keep on going." (Cough). "Running away is a viable option."

Sure made sense. What does he know that I don't?

"You can just hang around, I don't care." He shrugged his shoulders as if it were he that was giving me the permission this time around.

Sounded alright with me. I blinked and then he was gone, back to the spot where I first saw him standing. Then he wandered further until I could not see him any more.

Now that that guy went on his way again, it got me to thinking. "The end of the year is just that: a time just to hang around is all..." was what I was thinking.

So that is what I will be doing, I suppose.

This is what my nine year-old boy Maarten told me this evening when I brought him to bed:

"Wat wil je dan: werken of een gelukkige leven hebben?"

(Translated from Dutch into English: "What do want then: have work or have a happy life?")

Proof that my son is a learned philosopher at an early age.

This has to be one of the most impressive pieces of multimedia technology I've seen in a long time. It's impressive, dramatic and deeply philosophical.

Ever wondered what 2001 was "really" about?

If you have the latest Flash plugin and a relatively fast Internet connection, then check it out for yourself at: Kubrick 2001.

The moral of this story
is try not to get too old
the more time you spend on earth
the more you see unfold
and as an afterthought
this must to be told
some people have taken pure bullshit
and turned it into gold.

Neil Young
Greendale
Leave the driving

Sometimes it is exactly this time of the winter season when during the early evening hours the moon merely hangs there. Just dangling beneath the night sky like a low-hanging fruit up for grabs. A circular slice of light being reflected backwards in time. Movement so powerfully slow that the passing arc is seen to change if one stares long enough and imagines it. So close that one can almost touch the sphere's jagged and cratered surface if only humanity could concentrate hard and long enough.

One could say that it is "almost" too cold to go running this afternoon. However, even if the temperature is barely hovering above freezing, we do not want to feel even slightly daunted by only one of nature's many ways. One of many many ways, just one really. There he goes like a dart piercing the icy air like a spear, the coolness left behind as if this was all meant to happen anyway. As the heart beats and the humid air condenses right in front and then passing by it will just not quite get dark enough upon his return. A good time for pizza you could say.

"I awoke once during the night. I pushed the canopy aside and looked out. The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark. The sea lay quietly, bathed in a shy, light-footed light, a dancing play of black and silver that extended without limits all about me. The volume of things was confounding—the volume of air above me, the volume of water around and beneath me. I was half-moved, half-terrified."

- Yann Martel, Life of Pi (chapter 60)

(There are certain book passages that when you read them for a second, third or even more times they really move you - this is one such passage)

There was this little picture over there inside of the mind that gave one the inaccurate impression that things were otherwise than what they should have been up to now.

In view of this situation, it became quite apparent that in oder to get past this illusion of an obstacle or whatever it was it would be necessary to assume a slightly different approach.

The trick (real challenge) would be to:

1. Just ignore it and continue as if nothing had changed.
2. Do the best that was humanly possible to change everything no matter what.
3. Choose a middle path even if that did not seem feasible at first.
4. Close both inner and outer eyes and make that mental picture go away by dreaming.
5. Not care what other people might think as if that did make sense when it did not.
6. Go back in time and relive things the correct way once and for all.

Choose one and only one of the above and please elaborate to the best of your ability.

Can't decide on your own? Try a random number if that helps.

"Hey I had a weird dream about you last night," Marlies told me this morning when I came down to make my usual coffee and toast.

"Tell me about it," I mumbled while my mind slowly started to wake up.

"I dreamt that you were a beggar," she continued. "You spent whole days in front of the grocery store begging for money."

I grabbed a plate from the cupboard and found the butter.

"Oh, that sounds like an interesting dream." (I wonder what it means.)

So I reached over and grabbed a couple slices of bread, and there was a slight pause as I thought about what Marlies had just told me.

I cleared my throat and asked quite seriously, "Are you sure that was a dream?"

Over there in the distance he could see them very clearly. To the unknowing eye perhaps merely smudges of the mind or better yet pinpoints of insects crawling their own ways.

Normally it would seem that this had in fact little or no impact on the daily routine of things.

The truth was quite the opposite.

That is why he chose instead to concentrate on this distant movement of things and objects and other living slices of reality in order to catch it before it was too late.

Catch what?

Just catch it, is all. The essence of things.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have unfortunately been forced to close down business. Good ol' GishTeq, see you later. All of it against my will.

("...I am afraid to admit it, but it is true," he cautioned me from the distance which was not that far away at all I thought afterwards.)

Six months ago it all seemed so hopeful, but now it is time to face facts and do something else. Perhaps even something more worthwhile this time around?

Could very well be, very well be.

(...and then that guy turned around, looked at me carefully, and then he said with that familiar hint of enthusiasm gleaming from his eyes, "I can't wait.")

Time now for me to take a break and catch my breath again.

Better luck next time...