Little Bee thoughts

I've just finished reading "Little Bee".

The thing that struck me most, is the way normal people like you and me are inextricably linked to normal people like you and me in third world countries. It brings a great sense of guilt for the you and me in the Western part of civilization. And no matter how idealistic we are, we seem unable to change things, because we are confronted with a complex system of power and simply a lot of evil in the world and in the hearts of men. The house I live in is bought with money made at Shell (my father-in-law works there), a company responsible for so much injustice in the world. I feel bad about that. Everything we do sustains the existing situation of injustice: the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the money we put on our banks. But what can I do? Should I give up my house? If I were to listen to my conscience, I would. And on top of that eat only locally, biologically produced food, buy clothes from shops I know are not engaged in child labour practices, put my money on a bank that doesn't invest in bad things. Would I feel better? Would I be a better person? First of all, I would be bankrupt, because living like that is expensive purely in terms of money and my income is too low. Is that enough reason not to do it? I could try to find a job that pays better, work more and live for a healthier mankind and planet. But then I would be unhappy. Is that worth the sacrifice? Is that all I care about, to be happy? How can I even begin to be happy when there are people starving to death, the exact same people that made the fabric for my couch, so to speak? I think part of the unhappiness is then due to the fact that I wouldn't directly see the consequences of my "good" actions. The evil we face is very impersonal, but so is the good. If I could tune in with a little camera on my laptop on the child who is released forever from the clothing workshop because I stop buying my clothes at H&M, maybe then I would be more likely to give it up, because I would feel happy that I helped in releasing the child. (I think though, If I kept on filming, I would see the child fall into the hands of other wolves). But it doesn't work that way. My actions do not have such direct consequences. Bad things and bad people will always exist, no matter what I do. And besides, this is a very selfish way of viewing things. Just because I don't see the results, I don't act, even though I know it is better? Come to think of it, I don't think I even know what is better. Because everything happens far away and it would cost a daytime job for me to figure out the history of all the products I buy, not even to mention the lies and misinformation you would come across from companies who sell them.

I had a discussion with a friend not long ago, where I stated that I hate the fact so many people believe we live to be happy. "All the choices we make and things we do are only to make us happy", he said, "even if we help others, because the gratification we get from helping others is something that leads us to be happy." I feel a certain emptiness in this statement, although I recognize that largely it is true, also for the way I live. I guess I should be glad then that God created us to be happy by helping others, otherwise things would go a little bit out of hand.

But I don't believe we should strive to be happy, because the action is then only directed by your own sense of gratification and thereby in fact selfish. I think we should strive to serve a purpose that is greater than ourselves. To serve, yes. "To serve" has a kind of degrading feeling for a lot of people, because you place yourself below something or someone else. I think we've lost our ability to serve in the Western world, because we are told daily that we should stand out and be confident and not let anyone walk over us. I recently heard a teacher say that all he ever hears in class these days is young kids saying they want respect. It's something they think they're entitled to, like a birthright, like a part of their bodies, an invisible arm or leg that also came out when they were born from their mothers. They are not aware that respect is something you earn. A president is a good president because he serves his country. He puts the needs of his countrymen above his own personal needs. Do you know a lot of presidents like that? No, you don't. Because it's very hard. It's sacrificing. We don't like to sacrifice and serve. We prefer to be comfortable and happy.

As do I. Some are willing to kill for it. They kill just to protect their comfortable happiness. I wouldn't go so far, but I'm not exactly on the serving side either. Actually, I'm mostly closing myself in inside my own happy safe state. I am aware that I buy the wrong products, that I walk past the poor man outside the supermarket without giving him my money. I stopped watching the news and reading the papers for a long time, because all the bad things happening in the world were piling up inside my body and I couldn't contain them anymore because they had no outlet. I am guilty, as are Sarah and Andrew in Little Bee, as we are all. Can you handle that? Can I handle that?

When you read a book like Little Bee the truth hits you hard in the face, no matter how hard you were trying to hide. For me personally, things are starting to get a little bit different now though. When I was a child, I was very idealistic. I knew that when I grew up, I would dedicate my life trying to make the world a better place. When I got older, I learned that my actions were insignificant, I learned about nihilism and systems of power that make you powerless. So I started to draw back.

But now, I think I'm waking up again. As I said in my last post, I have to stop dreaming big and start dreaming smaller. I don't want to look away anymore. I want to be engaged. I want to look evil in the eye and say: you don't scare me anymore. And looking evil in the eye also means seeing the people who are engaged in fighting it. This means reading the right books, the right magazines (like Ode or Vrij Nederland), watching the right programmes (like Buitenhof) and being inspired by activism, cheering these people on and being part of their community. Because mainstream media is only fixated on the grotesqueness of evil and not on the nuance. You have to look for the right examples instead of letting yourself be numbed down by the bad stuff and by the guilt. And, the most difficult part for me: let your actions follow your words. Try to serve the greater good in the little ways you can. Do it together with others, don't think you can do it alone. The object then, is not to be happy. It is to lead a deep and profound life, facing the painful consequences of trying to fight evil, the humiliation of people who make fun of your idealistic ideas, the people who stay evil no matter what you tell them, the feeling that what you are doing is useless. A true hero is not doing the things he does because it is making him happy. He is doing it because he believes in something, something greater than himself, and he is willing to suffer for it.

Clap your hands

So, after my last string of heavy posts, I decided it was time for some positive action. Life is like that. There are periods when nothing comes out of your hands, you just feel disappointed, overwhelmed, unable. And then there's always that moment when it's suddenly over. Without consciously noticing, something deep within you decides you've had enough. New hope and energy come boiling to the surface.

A friend of mine, after telling her the story of the friend on the boat, rightfully pointed out that I should look within my own house and see the beauty of it. It's true. Everything I need to be happy is within my reach. I think I realize now that I don't even really know what exactly it is what I want. I have all these vague notions of living like an artist, looking at others who do so, envying them, thinking I could never be as strong and courageous and wilful as them. Because that's the thing. I know I don't lack the talent, whatever that may be, I don't even care about that. I just lack discipline. I am already living like an artist and I seem to forget that sometimes. Yesterday I picked up a journal I was making the year I went to drama school. My favourite teacher in the world: Hans Lemmerman, taught us to keep a "book of things". He is still the most inspiring man I've ever encountered in my life. I was always so excited to get to his class, because my head would boil with brilliant ideas afterwards. Anyway, I found my "books of things" again and looked at the collection. I was kind of stunned by how good it was. And how it was exactly me, the way I see things. And I remember very well his advise. He told me I had a good eye for art, but I had to take it further. Instead of just noticing or pointing out, I needed to think of a shape to put it.

This is exactly what I have to do! I just have to find a better way to channel it, set clear and achievable goals for myself, get to action. I'm having these visions now about creating a crazy big schedule to hang on my wall, complete with my achievable goals, how to achieve them and the things I'm doing on a weekly basis to reach them. Some people are advised to dream bigger. My problem is dreaming too big. I need to dream smaller, in portions. What do I really want that I could reach in reality? Off course I'll never stop dreaming big, 'cause that's just who I am :). But I think it'll work this way. I feel excited about it, butterflies in my stomach. I hope I can hold on to this feeling now just long enough to actually get somewhere until I start feeling down again (haha, sometimes I wonder if I'm not accidentally manic-depressive). This is good. So, to match this positive excited feeling, I have a song for you, to get in the same mood: Sia, Clap your hands.

Two other things I'd like to share:
* I'm reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave. It's been a long time since I've read a good book. This book is simply brilliant. Beautiful, cruel, honest writing.
* I've enrolled in an additional education to be a primary teacher, whohoo! So excited about that. I'm just a nerd who loves school. It's going to be extremely busy though from September for the next 2,5 years. Hope I don't lose myself again. But I think this will be good. I love working with children. I dreamed about teaching children last night and woke up feeling fresh and happy. Off course I'm scared that this won't work out as well, I guess. But I believe I need to give it a chance.

Holiday

Yes, believe it or not. This is where I'll be this summer. Can't wait...

Hangover

It's tuesday afternoon, and I'm having a bad hangover. Still in bed. Haven't eaten anything yet. The hangover is not just from an overdose of alcohol (which I plan not to be drinking anymore for a looooong time). It's from something else also.

I spent yesterday evening in the perfect life of someone else. I still feel nauseated and overwhelmed by it. This couple, they have everything that I always wanted in life, and they're 5 years younger than me. They are on the way of having promising acting-careers, going to the most important theatre school in the country, already being asked by big theatre- and film directors to star in their plays and movies. For now they are very poor. They live on a small boat in the centre of Amsterdam, which was a mess when they first arrived there, so the rent is very low. But they renovated the interior themselves in the most beautiful organic way. All the furniture is hand-made by both of them from old wood, crooked in some places, because they're not furniture-making experts. All the books on their hand-made bookshelves are books I'd like to read. All the cups and plates and forks and knives they served us food in, was exactly of the old taned beauty I adore. The man spends his days writing a play now, and the women is in my favourite city in Belgium for an internship at the local theatre company. In the evenings they watch the sun go down on the tiny bench at the back of their boat, by the water, drinking red wine with the small lanterns they hung beside the boat turned on, surrounded by flower pots containing their own organic fruit and vegetables.

Uuugggh. I need to throw up.

Is this jealousy? I don't know this emotion very well. Jealousy means also that you don't want the other person having what they have, right? It's not like that. I like them very much and I am happy for them. It's just....I don't know. I am so ashamed of myself. It's very powerful. He asked me how come somebody as talented as me had all these dreams and didn't make them come true. He asked me that, the man with the perfect life I wanted in whose perfect house I was sitting eating his perfect dinner. He told me how hard he had to work for it and how insecure he was. I started crying and joked about jumping in the Amsterdam Canal. I couldn't be more vulnerable at that moment. I don't think he realized that. I didn't know him nearly good enough to cry in front of him. But I did. And I felt that all my fears and my holding myself back was just vanity or even just...plain silly. And he said, as many people have said to me in my life, that I probably didn't want it bad enough to go after it.

I don't blame him though. Most of my friends are people who are struggling with the things they love to do, like me. Not that he's not struggling. It's just different. He does it. It's very confronting, but very good to meet people who act instead of wonder. Everything seems suddenly so within my reach, as long as I just do it. But it's not like that for me. And I fear it's going to be harder even with every day that passes.

So I'll just throw up a couple of more times. And go on with my life.

End Credits

There is something very compelling in the combination of cruelty and vulnerability coming together in one character. Can a person be cruel and vulnerable at the same time? When you watch this musicvideo from Chase & Status feat. Plan B, you can see it in the boy's eyes as he hovers above the ground towards his death.

Necklace

This is a story about a necklace (btw.: as you can see, once I overcame my fear of drawing, I found joy in it, and now I want to do it again and again!).

Yesterday I had a really bad day. I had a talk at work earlier this week, explaining my problems and it was really good because I was as honest as I could be and I can be really scared of doing that when it could lead to confrontation. So I was being brave and I said it all and they listened. They recognized and acknowledged the problems and the share they had in things that went wrong. They promised to make things better and easier on me. I felt so proud of myself and relieved.

And then yesterday, after this talk, things went on in the same old fashion. I didn't feel protected at all, it was like the talk had never taken place, again blames were cast in my direction for a project that went wrong and I was so disappointed and upset by it. At the end of the day I rushed home trying to hold back my tears. And then when I got home, I got into a big fight with my boyfriend. It was so bad, that I did something I hadn't done since I was a child. Whenever I got so upset and powerless and frustrated that words could not express it anymore, I would grab the nearest thing and throw it across the room. Then I walked away, slamming the door behind me without saying a word and I just left and my parents would be really worried.

This is what I did now. I was eating a bowl of lemon quark during the fight. We were screaming and then I threw the bowl, still containing the lemon quark, across the table to the floor. Then I went into the bedroom, but I felt like I couldn't breathe and I had to leave. I went downstairs, put on my boots and my coat and I saw him cleaning the quark from the floor as he asked me: "Where the hell are you going?" I didn't answer. I just left, slamming the door behind me.

The only thing I knew would calm me down, was doing one of my favourite things: going to the cinema by myself, escaping inside a movie. But when I arrived at the cinema, the movie I wanted to see wouldn't show in another 1,5 hours. I decided to go somewhere quiet in the mean time. But I live in a small city, which makes it hard to find a quiet, private, anonymous place. I thought of a church first, but the one I saw that was opened was setting up some exhibition with workers walking in and out. Then I thought of the university library, because it was opened in the evenings when I studied, and I'd been wanting to see the renovations they had made over the past few years. I walked in and felt directly nauseous by the extreme nostalgia hitting me because the odour there was the same as it had been during my happy student days. But there were two guards sitting at the desk and they told me in the evenings I couldn't enter any further unless I was a student.

So then I was lost...I didn't know where to go anymore.

I just cycled and cycled. The scenery started to become more and more green, I was leaving the city behind. And at some point I found myself in an area I had never seen before. This was good, it distracted me, calmed me. I pretended to be somewhere else entirely. I entered fields filled with high grass and spring flowers of yellow, white and red. It became more quiet, leaving the noise of the city behind. I saw creeks with swans slowly drifting, old men fishing between lush green trees, little cycling paths with benches on the side. For a while now I hadn't seen anyone near. Through the trees framing the path I could see a tiny hidden open spot. I wriggled myself and my bicycle inside, and there I sat against a tree, hiding from the world underneath a roof of leaves. I felt grief and headache and tiredness overwhelm me. But I could finally let go. I had space to do that now.

And after going through all the anxious thoughts in my mind and crying warm tears, it became more quiet in my head. I slowly became more aware of where I was sitting. Cold, damp earth beneath my fingers. Tiny bugs crawling between fallen twigs. Fluorescent green leaves through which I could only see little cracks of blue sky. Suddenly my eye caught something that didn't belong in this natural space. Across from the tiny open space, something was hanging from the branch of a tree. I held my breath in excitement, forgetting all about my worries. It was a necklace. What was it doing here? Did someone leave it on purpose or by accident? It didn't look like it was an accident, because when I came closer I saw it was winded across the branch several times, like someone had really tried to attach it. Why would they have done that? Was there someone else here before me grieving and leaving the necklace as a symbol for what had happened to them? As I drew near I saw the necklace was made out of red twirling rope and it had two wooden beads. I held the hanger in my hand. It was heavy. A tooth-shaped stone with horizontal carvings. Who had worn this? It was like I became part of a new story. A fantasy story and this necklace was my clue. Or my passage to another world. The start of a journey or adventure.

This is called escapism. And I'm very good at it. This is why I think, when I finally get over myself, I should be a writer. When I was a little girl I wrote in another girl's "get to know your friends better book" my deepest wish: I wished that life was a fairy tale. She laughed at me and mocked me for writing that. This is what often happens when you tell people your deepest wishes. It's just how people are and how the world is. It hurts. People who say they don't care are liars or they have hearts made of stone. But I know could provide the world with the best escapes they could wish for. And that if I did that, life would become more like the fairy tale I imagine it to be. I would lose and indulge myself in my fantasy stories. I just lack the courage to do so. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the people who told me I'm talented that I disappoint them. I'm sorry for disappointing myself. I'm sorry. I hope I'll be ready someday.

I unwound the necklace from the branch and I put it in my backpack. I dragged my bicycle out through the trees and headed back to the city. I was on time for the movie: Prince of Persia. The best escape movie I could wish for at that moment. I know and see that it's not a good movie. But I enjoyed it very much. It contains a lot of elements I love and would use if I would make such a story myself. I think I have to collect those elements, and then maybe can I put them together and create the story finally. It did start already actually, but I'm afraid it will be no good. I have such high standards. Oh well...

At the end of the movie I returned home. My boyfriend was already sleeping. I lay beside him, quietly. He asked me where I had been. I said it didn't matter and that I was sorry for leaving like that. He said he had been worried. And then we slept.

Learning to love you more

"The best art and writing is almost like an assignment; it is so vibrant that you feel compelled to make something in response. Suddenly it is clear what you have to do. For a brief moment it seems wonderfully easy to live and love and create breathtaking things. In this section we have archived some of the work that has commanded us in this way. In a sense, these are assignments -- in the same way that the ocean gives the assignment of breathing deeply, and kissing instructs us to stop thinking."

I stumbled across this website while browsing the old pages on Keri Smith's blog: www.learningtoloveyoumore.com. It's a public art project with everyday simple assignments that everyone can do like: "record the sound that's keeping you awake". People who did the assignments could send the results to the website and were posted there. It's brilliant, but unfortunately they stopped because the grant got cut off. But it's worth taking a look and this quote is so familiar and lovely and it reminded me of my own post a while ago.