A narrating species.

We are a narrating species. We talk to ourselves, in our heads, about anything and everything to try and make our lives into something coherent.

It’s in our blood, it’s in our genes. I guess we need it to survive.

We think and talk about our past, our relationships, our careerplans, the news and everything in between and we try to make sense of it all.

Life is very different for species who do not perceive time as passing, nor life as a string of causations that can be manipulated. Species who live more in the moment have a very different existence. Cats. Dogs. Horses. Beetles. What a different life, what a different world! A very interesting perspective to ponder. It says much about how we live life and even more about how we rate it.

As this constant narrating is a human trait I’ve decided to employ it for a problem that I’ve been having for two deccenia now. The problem is this: when I was told my brother had suddenly died, half of my (figurative) heart was ripped out and I’ve been living with half a heart ever since.

(My mother is convinced I’ve got PTSS since that moment and judging by the chill in my body and my neck hairs standing on end when she told me this only a few weeks ago I’d say my body agrees to some point. (The thing is: I feel nothing thinking back to that moment. Nothing. I think I’ve done EMDR on that moment. I know I’ve felt emotions about that moment before but now: nothing. This might be indicative. Something to keep in mind and address at a later time.))

I was told in the dead of night. By an aunt who drove cross country (that’s two hours maximum in my country) and brought my other, younger, brother. My parents were out of the country at that time. The previous night, just before I fell asleep, I had congratulated myself with a pretty nice life. I was content, if not happy. I went to sleep and a couple of hours later the doorbell rang and I was told, while still groggy with sleep. I slammed forwards, doubled over, and screamed. That’s when I saw my heart ripped in two, a very strange experience. It floated away to the right of me.

I tried to postphone having to stand up or breathe in again because that would mean the beginning of a series of breaths, in a new world, with a new order. Then my younger brother was in my arms and we held on to each other. Then the whole thing began: travelling back to the hometown; getting hold of my parents; arranging the funeral; returning to university. Many new breaths and a life in a new, unknown direction.

Up until then I didn’t know me and my deceased brother had been two people. We only differ 20 months in age and in my mind we had always been one. Called “us” or “we” (but in a not exact term).

We both brought things to this entity. I was the outgoing, conquering field marshall. I would defend us both and coach him in a world that perceived him as a weird smart kid. I looked to him for guidance on how to be (true to) yourself (how to behave at the new school; how to explore which hobby you enjoy; how to handle the views that our upbringing installed upon us etc.)

I think you could say we were some sort of twin.

Well, in 1993 he died suddenly (myocarditis) and he was only 19 years old. I was 21. For the next three to four years I was in a state of shock. I walked around with a big hole in my torso and the cold wind swept through and the severed heart threads that bind us to our loved ones where trailing behind me in the cold and the dirt.

I mourned for seven years (unnecessarily prolonged by anti-conception drugs. Stay away from them, they are poison.). I graduated, found a man I loved and secured a home and a job. When I finally came to my senses (stopped the drugs and mourning stopped within one day. Ridiculous.) I could address this hole in my body. I slowly learned to fill it. With self love. With interests to pursue. With new experiences, with new people.

It was made clear to me that having half a heart is not normal. I visited a Shaman to try and help me. She said I had stolen a part of the soul of my brother and it had to be reunited with him. She did so. I felt a bit better.

On another occasion a healer massaged trigger points on my feet and lead me on a trance journey. I was in the womb and I was not alone, we were two. We were giggling. Birth was about to happen and one of us had to go. “See you soon” he said and I was born. I had never been one, I had always been two.

I went to therapy and learned to become an adult. Trust my feelings. Get over my daddy issues. I didn’t tell about the shaman nor the foot reflexology. My therapist was RET and these were silly things. We bumped into reverse transference and he treated me as if I was his daughter. We called it quits. I had learned to accept the existence of emotions and to not rely on mental constructions of the world.

I married. Quit my job, started a company, went to art school, got ill, was happy. I live my life. Once a year I cry about my dead brother but his passing has become a normal, healthy part of my life.

Now it’s 2015. My brother has been dead for nearly 25 years and I’ve been one-not-two for all that time now. I learned to live again, as one. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve grown mature. There is no trace of my brother anymore, not in life, not in me. Life has moved on.

Then tonight I watch the BBC series River. It’s about a policeman who sees his partner get killed. While he searches for the murderer he still sees her, his partner, around. They talk, they joke.

At one time he goes swimming with her little brother who’s blundering through life and, in his minds eye, she joins in. It’s night and they have fun in an out door swimming pool. Splashing and giggling. These are not his (altered) memories of her anymore, now he is narrating new plotlines around her.

That’s what triggered me. I’m a narrating human being. I could tell myself stories about my brother as if he were here now, as if he were alive. I could think up his wife, his kids, his dogs and the many cats they have. It’s easy to do, it comes natural to my species. And it comes natural to me because my brother is still a part of me, as there is still a part of “us” he could occupy.

You see, that hole in my chest is still there. I filled it but it’s still there. I filled it with furniture but there’s no occupant. Not a living being. He’s not there. No, not “he”… “us”, “we”… me.

Because it was not a piece of his soul that I lost or stole 25 years ago. It was a piece of MY soul. It was my part of him. The guiding part, the together-in-this-weird-world-part
I lost something then and I have not retrieved it yet.

I talked about this to my husband. To check whether not this way madness lies. Thinking up stories about a dead person? Sure madness.

At first he thought so and he warned me. But after we talked some more he narrated it in his own way and gave his consent. Because if you change the wording it becomes something different. Something more sensible.

Because what I lost back then was the part that allowed me to be frivolous in life. To be yourself in the world, without minding what other people think. To play. To explore, for interest’s sake, not for profit. To waste an hour, a day, dreaming. To follow an interest, just because you want to solve a puzzle. It was the part that let me join hands with intuition and skip away along the path unknown, without reason and caution stopping us and demanding justification and cause.

It was not even that, our contributions to “we” were not as black and white like that. Not so polar. But is was something like that. Something that gave me courage. Freedom. Confidence. Escape from trying to control everything. From trying to cover all aspects.

My husband now says I’m going to personify my intuition and will be using it as a guide. That’s not madness.

I say I’m going to narrate the life my brother is living now, in my mind. I know I can do so because I’m an expert on my brother, after all, we were never two. You can say I use my intuition. I say tomato.

I know my stories will not be reality outside of me, it will be all in my mind. But it will be “us” again and I will not be so alone in my own internal existence anymore.

Because that’s what is the real tragedy of having your heart ripped in two unexpectedly, that you suddenly find yourself alone. More alone than you ever thought possible, because you didn’t know you were two.

I want to think we never were. Two.

(One may feel like I’m negating the very existence of my brother by thinking about him this way. But you see, I’m talking about his existence within me now. That’s somebody else from the individual who was born four decades ago and died two decades later. A person whom you might have known, in your own right. Your own truth. True story.)

End of this blog.

With the past post I think this blog has come to an end.
This blog was intended to help me straighten out my thoughts. To document what I want to do with my life. To navigate through my life, given the restrictions imposed.

I have found what it is I want to do. It’s still the same as it ever was: illustrate, write, art, design, engineer, create. All at once and none of them accumulating to something great.

There are still the same old things holding me back: ambition, perfectionism, fear of failure, fear of choosing, the need to be seen, the need to be acknowledged. Ah, such child’s needs… I may never grow out of them.

Watching me take these hurdles and me documenting this struggle will be tedious and with lots of repetition and small victories and never ending in a big crescendo.
I’m not going to write it down.
You’re not going to need to read it.
It would be equally exhibitionistic and boring, for all concerned. And really not that interesting.

Through this blog and the time that’s passed I’ve learned that there will never be enough hours in a day to do all the things I want to do. No matter whether I’m bed bound, brain fogged or running around drunk with sunshine.
There will always be choices and priorities to be set.

I have learned to think my way through some faulty assumptions I was carrying and building my life upon. Assumptions about life, about society and about what makes for a meaningful life. There’s that.

And as of today I glimpsed another truth. The truth about existing, meaningful, without giving account. Without given witness.
Without catching meaningful thoughts in a sentence. Without blogging, tweeting or writing a book about it. Shedding that urge, the urge to visibly exist. Using the time and space that it frees up to cuddle the cat, to share its place in the sun, examining something rustling in the tall grasses.
Because that is living.

I have a confidence that living unforced like this will bring out the drawings too.
Or it may be a tree house I build. Or an urban space I design. Or a cake I bake for a friend who loves owls.

a dream I refuse to participate in

In my dream last night people were suspiciously holding me up on my way out of the supermarket. It was as if my head wasn’t done yet thinking up the street and the storyline and it was stalling me.

I refused to enable this dream.

So I turned towards the produce aisle
and crawled among the apples.

pic by sheridanck
There. Make a storyline out of that, dream master!

in other sleep related news:
1. the doctor’s office forgot to send a fax to the sleep clinic two months ago and my request wasn’t processed. I discovered this last week and fixed it but have been waiting for naught for months now.
All the while having bad sleep.
Tomorrow I’ll ring the clinic, check that they did get the paperwork. Then it’s a three month waiting period and then I can go and have a sleep study.

2. while I do lie awake now again every night I am waking up better rested. After my hour and a half insomnia I take a morsel of Hydrocortisone and this makes my body relax and allows for two hours good sleep. Instead of the broken snooze I used to have.

I have two possible explanations for this: one is that the cortisol dampens an allergic reaction or CNS alarm that otherwise keeps me from sleeping. This could be something lung related or throat related or gut related as these three areas give me pain/trouble at night.
Or this cortisol covers some of the usual awake response in cortisol levels, making me not dip too low.
Either way: I wake up feeling not too bad and I do not have to wait 45 minutes to come from a very very bad place.

I have better stamina during the day, presumably because of this. I also cover my cortisol and progesterone needs during the day better. (I now take 100 mcg of Progesterone every night. It doesn’t help me sleep -no allopregnanolone for me- but it does seem to cover my base line need for the hormone better)

Because of better stamina I try to be more physical active during the day. Having just spend 2 weeks in the city I’ve been walking and walking and showering and cooking. Doing multiple things on single days.
Physical activity is the best way to get hormone levels in flux and in balance so I’m really pleased.

I’ve had the opportunity and stamina to meet various knitter friends during these weeks and we had lovely cups of tea and chats and wool and spindle fondling. This makes me wildly happy.
Wild happiness is the best companion for a chronic illness.

PS
taking 50 mcg of vit D3 also helps. It really does. Never ever ever do I want to go too low on vit D again.

Monday: beating the blues

I’m wearing my new dress:

Judging by the amount of posts last week we can safely assume the chatter in my head has died down. And it has. I spend most days at the cabin, resting, knitting, taking little walks outside.

The wired chatter must have been a residue from things I ate in the city, sugary things. They’ve now left the system. I’ve had a week of taking a 100 mg progesteron pill at night and sleep has been good – by my standards.
Now the menstrual cycle is kicking in, throwing off all buttons and dials so last night I slept poorly.

I had a weird thing happen on Thursday and Friday: camomille tea made me sad. I was truly sad, living in this small world of ours. Walking around the little meadow near the cabin I saw how this country is all neat and tidy. No room for messy nature where animals can flourish.
We add more houses and cars every day. It is really getting crowded here. Animals are loosing their habitats, we are loosing the animals.

Historic landscapes are cleaned up, shoveled over, optimized, modernized.
I no longer find the landscapes I know from old paintings: horizons, wide rivers, cows with horns. I no longer find the landscapes I knew from 30 years ago.

painting by Willem Maris, around 1900

This is normal progress of time. People live their lives, they do their things, they alter their environment. All together we alter our country, our continents, our earth. There’s no use whining about it. This is how human life lives.

Sometime a small thing can make a huge difference in this flow and unexpected gems come up. Like how people find each other on the internet. We could whine all day about www pornography and violent movies on the net and how people are no longer connected to their irl community or their own feelings, how they hide anonymously and troll the net and how progress is nothing but misery.
But unexpectedly there’s an online knitting community that sparks goodness: Ravelry.com gives people new connections, new friendships, in real life. Or the joy people get from looking at online cat pictures. That’s really one of the weirdest things, how big that one got.

Surely there are things like that to be found when walking about in my crowded country. But I couldn’t see them. Because my serotonine was low. Because of camomille tea.
It was camomille-valerian-lavender tea. To calm down the chatter. The Sympathetic Nervous System. Which it did. An odd experience. And 100% reproducable.
pic by cozgrl05
I quit the tea. The next day -and after that- I enjoyed my walks. Serotonine levels are up again. I’m a happy junkie.

Now it’s Monday morning. I’m back in the city. I’m having a bit of a hard time as the week before my period has begun. My mood is in mineur. I need lots of progesteron and lithium. My belly hurts. I also got a gift from a friend: a book about Norwegian cabins. The pain of missing that country hit me big, again. It hurts. I cry.

I’m also annoyed because there are about 14 things I really want to do today but I’m only good for 2. And those should be the sensible things (make soup, have a walk) and not the fun things (read an artbook, try out the new pencils)
I had a crappy night. My shoulder hurts for days now, I can’t lift things, can’t use the halters I bought.

So here’s me on Monday morning: I have put on my princess dress. It makes me feel a bit better.

Never mind the legwarmers, it’s about the dress and the layers. They’re mostly handknits. These months I love to dress in Winter Queen colours: blues, silver, mint, aqua, greens.

Underneath, in my spirit, I am a small strong bird. A Kingfisher. A Kolibri. A Starling. A small bird with determination and streaks of sparkling blues.
pic by Bruce Brouwer
pic by hislightrq

Holle Time Day 6: s(h)itting dog, dancing lady

I keep planning to tell you about the Atlas Profilax experience but things get in the way. Fun things!

So let me get the fun thing out of my system first, then I’ll jot down some fast things about my experience.

Frau Holle time for me means going with the flow. As long as I keep my rest schedule and manage to enjoy my social calendar I pretty much get to do what I want. All of the Grown Up Things To Do seam to be taking a back seat.

In stead of sewing up curtains for the three bare windows we have I find myself researching wool spinning colour theories and playing with roving. Those windows really need curtains! They’re single plated glass and the rooms are COLD! But no: colour study! Wool!

Instead of clearing the table where my husband spend his workdays and which I showed you yesterday I find myself bending shawl pins that I’ve been postphoning for ….oh…well…. 8 months now?

Luckily my husband has eye blinders for my clutter. They’re one of the pillars of our marriage.

But those pins, let me tell you!
As you know I’m handy with my hands. And I have a thing or two for letting things evolve in the moment, when it comes to art or design.

Now I haven’t been able to bend pins for over a year now because I want it too bad. There are a couple of people I want to bend pins for and this amount to such pressure -in my own head- that I’m unable to let things flow or enjoy the process. It’s the same reason I won’t knit for anybody nor make art for anybody. Or create things with the intention of selling them.

Yesterday Pippi was here! And we were sitting on the couch, chatting away, knitting. Pippi is the kind of person who doesn’t mind that I hadn’t removed the protective fleeces from the couch -because cats- nor that my hair is weird -because no time/energy to cut but have hat so there.

And it suddenly was there: that free time and free mind to bend some pins. I’m looking to make two pins for two friends who love dogs.

First one was a sketch. Second one was a success. Still a try-out.

Third one was a real one, in silver wire. Turned out ok. It still needs to be hammered down, this will give the wire character, more like a brushline with variation in thickness.

I was on a roll! I moved on the the fourth one. Oops!

This one looks more like it’s pooping…

Hmm.

I’m sure there are people who appreciate a pooping dog shawl pin. Just add a brown bead!

That’s when I rolled of the couch laughing, taking Pippi with me.

So there you have it. Holle time Day six is about poo and laughter.

Now: AtlasProfilax!

I briefly explained what it is. Reading back I don’t think I can explain it any better. But let me emphasize that in now way are the bones manipulated. All that is done is that the muscles keeping your head in place are nagged untill they relax a tiny little bit. In that split second the skull assumes its natural position, sitting comfortably and straight on the two little bone parts of that top vertebrea that are made for supporting the skull.

This is a shift of millimeters, you cannot see or feel it happening.

You can see and feel the results though. At the back of your ears, a bit downwards, left and right feel the exact same now, when you stroke and poke there with your fingers. That’s also where the muscles are located that the practitioner is harassing.

THE TREATMENT ITSELF

Only takes 5 minutes. 2 minutes prodding on one side, 2 minutes on the other and one again on the first site.

The prodding is done with a prod. A handheld little jack hammer (or that’s what it feels like). Yes, a monkey can hold the prod. But it takes a clever person to know where to prod exactly and to come up with the idea in the first place.

I found the treatment painful. Not extremely but it was quite annoying.

“Annoying” is also how my body experienced it. During the five minutes it started to panic a bit. My palms became sweaty and my body entered Fight or Flight, preferably the last one. I tried to talk it down, calm it, soothe it. It was like soothing a child while you overpower it so the doctor can give it a painful but well meant treatment. It wasn’t fun. But I overruled my body and submitted it to the treatment.

Five minutes over we sat on the chair for a bit, my body and me. We noticed no difference from before. My body grew extremely annoyed with me. It was positively insulted that I had submitted it to this uncomfort.

I’ve never experienced anything like this, it was like there are two entities in this body. Me and my body (which is also me ofcourse). I pleaded and apologized and mentally cuddled my body but it was having none of it.

I stood up, still no difference.

Then I stood with my toes on one of the lines of the floor tiles and I looked down. I could see the top of my breasts. They were facing forwards. This is novel.

I looked up and asked the practioner what he saw. “level shoulders” he said. This is new too.

Untill the treatment I was skewed. My left shoulder was in front of my body, my right behind. I compensated by holding my head tilted so I can look straight ahead.

My hips are not level either, usually. Right is about three centimeters higher.

I usually wear my shoulders around my ears, I’m that much stressed. This is also where my RSI comes from.

Five minutes later I was at the front desk, paying the man. There was an ache coming up in my back. Muscle ache. It grew and grew. My right shoulder too, man, it started to hurt.

My body was still insulted and wouldn’t talk to me so I figured it might be some kind of punishment. However, I didn’t have a vegetal reaction and there was no other pain or ailment. I felt comfortable leaving the building, walking down the street towards the busy Amsterdam street where the tram and the traffic and all the noise was. So I did.

While walking I felt freedom coming down on me. I felt so souple. I could turn my head all the way to the right (haven’t been able to for years). I could move my arms any way I wanted too. I felt so … tall. It was as if I was stretching without effort. I walked tall and proud. That’s why I decided to linger in the city and enjoy it. Also because movement would help the muscle ache which was now severe, all over my shoulders and upper back. And moving will help my body explore its new soupleness and possibities.

There was a bounce in my step.

RESULTS

Since then, two full days later, the muscle aches are diminishing. There’s only a bit left in my right shoulder. I’ve felt like dancing constantly. And have been doing so, in the kitchen. I naturally take on a straight position when I stand or sit. There’s no effort involved in this. My shoulders are level and I wear them low now.

Somehow my intestines have found a better nesting position in my pelvis. They don’t blob over it like they used to. I had a muscle ache in my buttock for which Robert had a probable explanation: my pelvis has naturally tilted. I’m “tucking my butt under”.

I’ve been out of the house every day since. First day I went to the organic farmer’s market. Haven’t been there for years! The noise and people, I could cope with. And again: I was walking tall. And hungry. I’m so hungry! But not for my usual foods. I crave fish and vegetables. So I bought two kinds of trout -my totem animal- and celery root and made myself dinner. Twice. Ate the lot of it too!

The other day me and Pippi went out to get sushi and I didn’t mind one bit to take a detour to get something at another shop too. Noise and people, where?

Now I’m getting down from my fluffy cloud I feel. The first honeymoon is over. Old habits and old postures are creeping back, I found myself wearing my shoulders for earmuffs again last night.

So now the working part of the treatment has started: I have to actively work on keeping my muscles loose and long. Having a nice posture. Not overeating.

Today I am going for a yoga lesson. Because yoga is specifically recommended for this treatment. As are massages but on these days right before x-mas I couldn’t find a masseuse.

Also: this is not a cure all. I still need my pills and hormones, I still need my rests. But boy, has there been a lift of body burden for me!

Last night I have slept through the night.

ME/CFS THEORY

This week I entertain the thought that the body is a natural habitat for pathogens, just like any environment hosts critters. I have visions of a pond in the woods; the wild plains with big beasts and biofilms in the shower. All environments where there are conditions, food, critters trying to hold on, trying to survive, altering their environment, the environment altering them, other organisms hunting them. Why not the body too?

White blood cells are the predators of these critters. It’s that video I showed before that keeps popping up in my head. The hunted bacteria and the hunting blood cell are in their element, their environment, they know all the ins and outs and hiding spots, they are at home.

In systemic illnesses there’s an overburden and the environment is overwhelmed. Poisoned. It cannot function properly anymore. I’m thinking… medicine might be more like environment management than something else…

 

Sorry for the many words, few pics. Pics take time with me… Now I’ve gotta run, yoga starts in a bit. (I can run! yay!)

Holle Day 4: Mumbo Jumbo Day!

I did go to Amsterdam and had that alternative treatment. It’s called AtlasPROfilax or Atlas Correction. It’s a way of correctly aligning your skull to your backbone.

The atlas: upper disk supporting the skull.

When aligned the bundle of nerves sprouting from your backbone can go into your skull unhindered, allowing better flow of signals. People get rid of their migraine, tinnitus, rsi etc. when this is caused by hindered nerves and blood vessels in the neck area.

Also, once your head is screwed on straight your body doesn’t need to compensate anymore so your backbone, shoulders and hips will straighten more. The muscles which have kept you in your crooked posture will have to learn to relax.

This is the big chunks explanation, in reality it’s more nuances and very down to earth. And no wonder pill by any means.
I did it. It worked. Mu shoulders are straight, my body is straight. I walk tall and souple now! I have great expectations. And sore muscles.

I’ll tell more about it tomorrow.

There was plenty more Mumbo Jumbo however!
For visiting the Big Bad City I wore my special neckwarmer:

It has “a polar bear’s tooth” and plenty of good karma poured into it. It was a gift from the land of magic, Norway, by Ullsmeden. A few years ago she send lots of woolens, fairytales and soul songs in a swap we shared over at Ravelry.com. I am still very touched by her skills and care and whenever I need a little fortification I wear the neckwarmer.

… swoon!

Mumbo Jumbo the third is that on Monday night I slept chained to the radiator…. With a copper wire around my wrist, tied to the radiator. Radiators are grounded in my country. I was trying to lift the difference in electrical potential between me and the earth.
Yeah… I’ll try anything.

That night I slept…. weird. Very sound. I thought there might be something in it.

pic by Colin Brough

The next night, I was now in the city, I wired myself up to the radiator using a piece of my conductive silver cloth, leftover from the Faraday’s tent. And a piece of phone cable with the ends stripped.
I slept terrible. Woke up every two hours.
Tossed the wire of course.

Haven’t slept a night since. Wake up every two hours. Lie away from 1 to 5 or 6. Twice as long as usual. Utterly messed up. Experiment went well, results terrible.
I hope I get back to the rythme I complain so much about: 5 hours solid sleep, 2 hours awake. What I have now is much worse!

pic by Colin Brough

An engineer at the ME-fora suggests grounding oneself is a form of micro current therapy and shouldn’t be done for hours on end.
The commercial party that coined this technique calls it “earthing” and sells equipment for it. However, I’ve read numerous accounts where the equipment was faulthy.
That’s not the case with silver cloth and copper wire (unfortunately)

We have a saying over here: “smiling like a farmer with a tooth ache”. It’s a kind of duped smile. When you have to agree amicably with a situation but you’d rather not. That’s me right now…
pic by Tibor Berki

And then: Mumbo Jumbo the fourth!
Asking your body questions and getting answers using muscle tone: Applied Kinesiology. Got me onto one of my most important supplements years ago: Lithium. For which I now have a scientific explanation because my CBS and VDR mutations deplete my Lithium rapidly.

Over time I did not have experiences with this technique that were that remarkably. Always the ego of the practianor (or me) would get in the way.
But I’m older and wiser now. Calmer (on most days).
So when I got a tip from a fellow Chronically Fatigued about self applied kinesiology I thought I’d give it a try. I believe I watched a how-to-video by someone called MagicMindy? You make a circle with your less dominant hand and try to break it while you ask a yes or no question.

I cóuld think up a theory why this does work. As well as how a dowser traces water with a diving rod (wichelroede). Minute electrical currents, altering muscle tone, electrical currents influenced by water (‘s magnetic fields) and all that. But I think I’ve used up my credibility allowance with you all for today…

I’ll leave you with the mental image of me, wandering through the city of Amsterdam all day: pulling my own finger, wearing the magic tooth of an polar bear around my neck, having my head screwed on straight and displaying green rings around my wrist from where the Copper had been.
But nobody noticed because in Amsterdam everybody’s weird.

Then a friendly lady smiled at me while she danced in a small window with red lights… She likes harmless weirdo’s.

This is where I walked and this is exactly how it looked! Because of wintertime it gets dark early and the lights are so magical! (this is not where the lady danced)

Red, cast iron, small, mechanical = squee!

This is a bottle jack, to jack up our car. It can take up to 2 tonnes (200.000 kilo).

It is fire truck red. All mechanical. Cast iron. Small. Costs about 25 euro. I LOVE IT.

I never saw one before. I cannot believe there’s an industry making these small, functional, robust things. It’s perfect for women!

 

I want one in every colour.

Dutch promote ketogenic diet with language for ages

For centuries now the word for “sandwich” or “slice of bread” in Dutch is “boterham”.

“boter” = butter
“ham” = ham

It doesn’t need butter nor ham to be called “boterhammen”:

These “boterhammen” have no butter, no ham and no trace of our word for bread, “brood”.

Nobody knows where the word “boterham” originates from. And why there are two distinctive foods in there but no wheaty product.

There are a few theories.
Everybody pretty much agrees the “boter” must be the butter.
But “ham”, well that must be something else, it just can’t be pig’s behind, can it. Maybe “homp” meaning lump? Or from “inham” meaning bay-possibly-quite-sharply-cut-Norwegian-fjord-sort-of-bay?
“Inham” is also what you call the spaces occurring in a receding hairline… A “boterham” coming from these origins would indicate a coarse cut piece of bread perhaps? With few hairs on it.

Kind of a stretch, of you ask me. Why not go with the obvious “ham” = ham.

I like to think that the Dutch were keto-smart from an early age: bread is nothing but an edible plate to transfer your butter and your ham to your mouth!
Pretty soon people started to eat their plate. Got to fancy it up. But they couldn’t be bothered to think up an original name for it unlike the Spanish did with their tapas.

Fancy cro(o)ckery:

Don’t you get fooled by the fluffy gluten!
Nor your biological predisposition to carb addiction, eating is all about the ham and the butter!

I’d love to find out how long the word “ham” has been used for pig’s meat. I cannot find it easily though. I do know we have various dialects across the country, some calling “ham” quite different (“hesp”, “sjink”).

PS. EMPTY BOTERHAM
Guess how we call a slice of bread without anything on it?
“Een boterham met tevredenheid”
A slice of bread with contentment…
baaaaaa!

PS.2. HAMBURGER
The ham in “boterham” precedes the meaty interpretation of ham in “hamburger”. The ham in hamburger came about when Germans brought their Hamburger beefsteak over to America at the end of the 19th century which then got changed into “hamburger”, “burgers”, “cheeseburger” and -back to Dutch- into “kaasburger.”
pic by Andrea Mukka

PS.3. HAMBURG
Might the ham in Hamburg – the German city- give any clues?
“Burg” means fortification, akin to the word borrough (going into the word neighbourhood, neighbours. Which has the Danish word “bo” in it, living. The Joneses are your “nearby living-ers”. And of course, “burger” means citizen. It’s all so logical!)(Receding hairlines in bread are not logical.)

Anyway, a city with “burg” in its name is usually named for something in the vicinity or something of importance. Perhaps a sows market for Hamburg?

“The name Hamburg comes from the first permanent building on the site, a castle which the Emperor Charlemagne ordered constructed in AD 808. It rose on rocky terrain in a marsh between the River Alster and the River Elbe as a defence against Slavic incursion, and acquired the name Hammaburg, burg meaning castle or fort. The origin of the Hamma term remains uncertain,[11] as does the exact location of the castle.[12]”

Nah… the ham remains illusive in the beautiful city of:

other pictures by Tinpalace and Chidsey and Wikipedia.

Reasoning towards a meaningful life, part 3: Judging

So: feeling valuable in/at life can only be based on human perspectives.
These perspectives are not primarily logical or clear headed. This doesn’t make them invalid. Au contraire.

Now I’m wondering:

How does the mere act of judging influence the judgements I cast on myself?

As humans we are taught to judge all the time. We compare compare compare. We attach values at all the components involved. We do it in a split second too. It seems we can hardly use our eyes without comparing and attaching values.

(perhaps seeing IS the act of comparing? without comparing we cannot see?)
(- when a tree snow falls in the forest and there’s nothing left to see, am I then blind?)
(no.)
(- there you are then. Now enough with the philosophies, go get some results!)

We compare things.

All.
The.
Time.

And then we rank them. We rank options. People. Accomplishments. Fruit. Days.

It seems we cannot go a minute without comparing and ranking things.
It may very well be that this knack for judging is impairing the appreciation of the meaningfulness of our own life.

Our comparing and consequentally judging of apples things is influenced by:

• our habits in comparing and judging
• our upbringing
• our skills in comparing and judging
• our premisses

But all of these are subjective…

And therefor possibly flawed. Probably flawed!

All of these aspects can (need) be examined and tuned or changed before any good judging of the meaningfulness of ones life can commence.

This exercise would weed out the unarticulated notion that I am worthless. If my life is indeed meaningless then I will at least be able to put into words why I think this to be true.

But without examining the way I judge it will never be more than a strong feeling that I am useless. Just a snap shot decision that I am. Possibly just out of habit and faulty premisses imposed upon me as a child.

I should examine these four points. How they operate for me personally.

Right here, on this blog, and right now, after only one cup of morning tea, I am not prepared to do this. But I may make myself a second cup and grab my notebook to do some thinking off line…

CONCLUSION:

Before passing judgement it’s a good idea to have a closer look at ones habit, values, skills and premisses used in judging. They are probably not very sound ones.

This is part 3 in a 5 part thinking exercise:

1. being in existence
2. being human
3. being judgemental
4. having values
5. having a brain
6. having a heart
7. being me
8. being perfectionist or just admitting you can’t count

pic credits: apples by Tibor Fazakas, taking a bit by Gary Scott

reasoning towards a meaningful life, part 2: Being Human

Feeling worthless for a long time now I’ve set up a reasoning to find my way to a meaningfull life. This is part 2, is there meaning to be found in BEING HUMAN?

pic by Gözde Otman

I’m a human. (Oh go on, let’s just assume so. Squabble squabble SNORE!)

Implications of being human are, amongst others, that I have a body, that I know other humans, that I have intellect, that I have feelings, that I’ve learned to make decisions, that I have language. All these things have consequences for how I value life and how I value my own life. I’ll look at some of them in detail in future parts (5: intellect; 6: feelings)

For now I want to focus on how being a human influences asserting value to something.

A human has a brain. This gives him the chance to predict the future, especially the consequences of his own actions while still in the stage of contemplating which action to take. His predictions colour the value he attaches to his array of possible actions. It may easily cripple his decision making, having him linger in indecisiveness.
This ability to think ahead also gives him an inkling of how his day is going to go, his week, his year. This yields expectations. Expectations are compared to the actual day/week/year. This is a danger zone, full of judgements and disappointment.

pic by Elvis Santana

A human has feelings. Feelings are a formidable force in life. They may give value and meaning to a life in a way that cannot be grasped by the brain.
Feelings give a human a connection to those that are affected by his actions and by his life/existence. This also makes the feedback he gets from those around him pretty powerful.
We should all be skilled in experiencing feelings, in not being afraid of them. Not feeling prompted to act upon them either. Just feel them. I suspect they attach value to a life…

A human is a group animal. This gives all kinds of intertwined messages and feelings on which we try to base standards with which we measure ourselves and others (more explored in part 4).
Apart from this, being a group animal gives us another non-rational set of standards to appoint meaning to our lives. We need interaction with other humans, we are biologically programmed that way. Each to her own degree (hello introverts, you are doing fine).
This means that having a good time with friends (or peers) has something to do with worth. I don’t have a clear idea how but that’s because I’m trying to understand all this with my brain. This is not a brain thing, this is biological thing. A valuable thing, making life meaningful.

A human is an eye-animal. This too is a biological thing. We lóve beauty. A nice pattern. Colours. Horizons, rainbows, patterned animals.

pic by Miguel Ugalde

I don’t know (yet) what this means for leading a valuable life. I just know it would be something a scientist researching us would notice.

A human is a playful animal. This too is in our bones. What does this mean for leading a meaningful life? I don’t know yet… It may just give a tool with which to handle living more easily.

There are other traits that go with human being. I’m sure they too have implications for how we value (our own) life. But these are the ones that came to mind instantly.

CONCLUSION
When determining how to value ones own life it is important to acknowledge our biological characteristics. Some of them invite to attach meaning without relying on intellectual values. For example: feeling good in the company of others or when enjoying a view or playing is good for you. Time spend with friends is time well spend. It is a valuable way of spending time in your life, even if it does not yield visible results.

Also: because you are human your system of standards is muddled. And illogical.

pic by Chris Greene, from Norway

This is part 2 in a 5 part exercise to reason myself out of leading a worthless life:

1. being in existence
2. being human
3. being judgemental
4. having values
5. having a brain
6. having a heart
7. being me
8. being perfectionist or just admitting you can’t count

the post where I admit how utterly worthless I know I am is this one