A few, short and succinct Wednesday thoughts...

It has been a bit of a ragged day today. I'm on my own in the department at the moment, our part-timer who works Mondays and Tuesdays was (understandably) absent today, my other full-time colleague is off sick with an infection in her back which I fear is going to be a bit more complicated than she would like.


One of the things in Western society that I particularly dislike is the way illness is viewed as a form of deviant behaviour. In the strictest terms, it probably is in that an individual is unable to function to the best of his/her potential and that there are limitations which need to be observed by both the individual involved and the social surroundings.


The thing that really bothers me though, is the way that illness is viewed as a negative state in the present economic system... that the fact that an individual is unable to participate fully in the generation of products, services and profits is almost a criminal offence, needing to be deflected, waylaid and negated. At every turn, being ill means facing negative sanctions designed to get the unwilling and the feigning back into the workplace... come on, lets get real now, nobody gets to be sick or unable to function properly just for the fun of it.


Here in the Netherlands, which was up until recently a reasonably civilised welfare state, the sick, infirmed, incapacitated and handicapped are being faced with larger and larger hurdles which need to be faced whilst attempting to live a qualitatively full life. The overriding theme is that if one is not able to work fully for the "common" good (read "generating profits for the established elites and society in general as a secondary consideration") then one is a bludger, a profiteur, a malingerer and a social leach. All of which is total nonsense as far as I'm concerned.


Illness happens, you don't choose to be ill. People get old and are unable to function as effectively as the midlifers. Students need to study, a form of investment for the society they live in. The handicapped have no choice, they're the way they are for no reason or fault of their own.


Why punish them? Why put up prohibitive sanctions if they're unable to move into the socially accepted workspace on the proscribed terms? Why put the generation of profits ahead of personal worth, ahead of the personally particular input into society to the best of ones abilities?


Somehow, we've got it all wrong here. Putting profits ahead of people, maintaining boardroom imperatives and pushing in-group agendas whilst neglecting the needs of large sections of the population... this is to my mind the way to ruin, as much socially, economically as personally.


Keep well...

Of mice and children

Think about it... most children have pets, most of us have had pets when we were kids. There's something special about having pets... real, live, living things in our care which we then need to eh... take care of.


A lot of children don't really pay attention, due to many and varying reasons but my daughters have been reasonably thoughtful in general which is something I'm sincerely glad of.


Hehehe... you're next...
Yesterday, Middle Daughter's mouse (Kyra) died. It had become a somewhat elderly beastie in the course of time, having passed the two-and-a-half mark recently and becoming more and more erratic in behaviour and motoric skills. Too often these last few weeks she'd just be falling over, unable to find neither food nor water and totally disorientated. It was really sad to see, we knew what was coming but really didn't have a clue as to what to do really...


We buried her in the garden this evening, down the end near the conifers which has become the resting place of many rodents, up to and including mice, moles, various hampsters and a gerbil. The girls, visibly moved, but effectively less distraught than usual, performed the remaining rites and left nature to take its course after that.


So many little, dependent and helpless creatures have populated our house in the course of the years... rodents (mentioned above), one mouse in particular who was a real treasure for her affections towards us big people, Chica who has a special place close to the house, too many goldfish to count, several birds of various plumage and Thomas the Old, our disturbingly old cat who deceased on us some time ago. Since then, we've been host to Mica the Ridiculous, who has treated us to all sorts of domestic mayhem in the 15 months she's been our presence but a presence we'd never want to be without by now ;-)


As a child, I had many pets of my own of whom I have so many loving memories (for better or for worse... I'll spare you the stories of the totally deranged Brian the Lion)


Take care of your children, take care of their pets if they don't do so themselves... they're a treasure and perhaps a burden but worth so much in the course of years...


Keep well...

The secrets of wardrobes

Last year I wrote a post on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of my favourite childhood books.


I finally got to seeing the film this weekend after many months of procrastinating and just having forgotten for a while. I bought it for the girls (and for myself ;-) ) and we had a kind of impromptu "film evening". Together with some totally irresponsible snacks (in dietary terms), we had a fantasy evening all of our own.


They loved it... the film was excellently made, and even though it was a little thin in places it carried an atmosphere of adventure and excitement that any child (and any adult who is a child at heart) could appreciate.


The eternal play between good and bad and the tensions of darkness and light strike very basic chords in all of us, something archetypical buried in our psyche associates almost instinctively to the saga being acted out... C.S. Lewis went one step further and wove all sorts of Christian metaphors into his stories but thankfully not in an overburdening way. His books can be read on many levels, and I still reread them occasionally and still discover something new every time.


I suspect the makers of this film were also inspired by the succes of the Lord of the Rings cycle since a number of scenes and special effects were oddly reminiscent of the happenings on Middle Earth. Not surprising in a way since C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien cooperated extensively on a literary level, inspiring and cross-pollinating each others works in the course of the years.

I'd recommend the film to any lovers of fantasy and children's stories, if for any reason just as a way of reconnecting with the child within us all... Keep well...

Unsettled

A day filled with a little too much homesickness for comfort. Living on the other side of the globe, twenty thousand kilometers and disgustingly many time zones of difference can hurt occasionally.


Not something that bothers me usually, but today just the need for a little reconnecting somehow.


A couple of telephone calls, being able to hear familiar voices and some retelling of tales... a way back to the place I've come from...


I ask myself occasionally... am I being selfish, too self-centred and egotistical? Or am I trying to reconstruct an illusion, reanimate a world long past and even longer gone?


Is the world really so fluid and transitional? Are images and impressions so momentary and translucent, as if existence fades into the dreams and the nightmares we live and relive from day to day...

I'm not sure, or perhaps less sure than I ever was... Keep well...

The bottom line

Carrying on from a post a couple of days ago...


Perhaps resources aren't as unlimited as we'd like...

Shooting at random

Some photos taken in the city this evening, during a guided tour of the harbour... I wasn't particularly concentrated, more's the pity, but here's a couple of the best shots taken...

Ascension Day

Some more modern artwork based on Ascension Day, which I rather liked...

Droplets of now

This Ascension Day morning was mainly drizzly and horridly damp, but exciting and fresh in its own way...


When you get in close, the world takes on a new meaning, the forms and shapes are brilliant.

The chives, in full flower.

The droplets in the grass

Another grass, bent by the weight of the moisture.

Lavender, scented and beautiful.

A strelizia imitator, in green
Keep well...

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

From the Christian Bible, the book of Daniel,

"...the mysterious riddle written by a hand on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast. These Aramaic words may be translated literally as, “It has been counted and counted, weighed and divided.” Daniel interpreted this to mean that the king’s deeds had been weighed and found deficient and that his kingdom would therefore be divided."

****************************
Take pity on those who can't comprehend the changes in the world around them, because they are faced with the results of circumstances changing over which they have no control.


Pity the polar bears, whose habitats are being wiped out by the rising temperatures in the polar regions, who are unable to feed their young because the ice caps are melting faster and faster as the years progress...


Pity the whale, one of the most intelligent of sentient creatures, hunted to distraction in the name of science and of single-minded corporate greed... a gamut of neurological and psycho-sociological wealth sacrificed in the onslaught of heightened profits and social "efficiency", the most beautiful and elegant creatures to have inhabited the earth, offered on the altar of modern "progress"...


Pity the lion, whose life is sacrificed to human, economic imperatives... his/her hide is worth so much more than the gift of being in human financial terms, that the ecological and ethical considerations are pushed aside as being totally irrelevant...


Pity the human being, who is unable to see the wealth around him/her... who is ignorant of the legacy nature has left behind for his/her use, who refuses to see that capitalism and the "growth" imperative is a dead-end objective which leaves nothing but ruin behind it...


Pity us all, who refuse or are unable to raise our voices and accuse those who have held humanity to ransom for short-term, ephemeral gains... not willing nor being able to indict those who have put personal or in-group agenda's ahead of ethical considerations, uncaring and intellectually distracted by imposed social agendas...


Humanity has been granted stewardship of this earth on which we live... we have the right, we have the duty to use and protect our heritage as best we can, not to let be misused and ravaged according to the whims of the prevailing economic system...


Please forgive my rantings this evening... I'm just so slightly beside myself, grieving and insightful for a moment... Babylon fell then and is falling again, we would do well to heed the writing on the wall...

Keep well...