Day-026-my need for greed

From my present perspective I have started to live the word greed since the first time I wanted the bigger piece of a cookie when my mother would brake it in half. That first moment I heard myself say "but his part is bigger than mine". That's greed to me. Mine! Mining for satisfaction of self interest. Always and only at the cost of others. The opposite can be greed as well. Where I pity myself and manipulate people into helping me. Where my behavior turns parasitic instead of predatorily. Where I lean on the crutches of others so to speak.The word 'greedy' has an old English / Germanic origin. In Dutch we say 'gretig' which means 'eager' which can easily be mistaken with enthusiasm. And that's how I primarily lived and projected greed into the world. My enthusiasm, 'my into me I am'. If I wanted something I became eager to get it and as a child I already learned how to manipulate by copying the principles from my parents and I saw greed in everyone. The word greed was simply a description of behavior like so many others. It never raised any real questions. It was simply something that everybody did and it was how the world I accepted functioned.I was introduced and started to see more perspective within the whole construct of greed as I went to school which was a catholic school and I heard all the bible stories. So as I got home and my mother told me I shouldn't eat so fast/greedy it made no sense to me. To me being hungry and having an apatite had nothing to do with Cain and Able.Within that context the concept of 'sharing things with others' is part of every parents vocabulary and morality construct within raising their children. It's an exact copy of what my parents said. But no parent lives his or her own words within it. So what can we expect of a child? I heard it often until it became part of my background noise. I had my own priorities for I was greedy. Share your toys, the playground, play together, share the fun, be nice. Fuck! Share the so called peace. Yeah whatever you fucking hypocrites. And there you have the arrogance of puberty. The freaked out pubic anger attack. Where every parent get's his or her last chance to look in the mirror before it cracks and shatters the fairytale of parenting children in a world where all parents live greedy ever after. My child before your child whatever happens. Go and reproduce ye little ones.As far as I can see that whole concept of greed existed within me as the polarity between selfishness  and generosity. Where greed became my primal motivation to become top dog and generosity the way to manipulate others to remain in position. Not understanding both mechanisms so essentially I was clueless and fucked myself oblivious. That's another story though.Giving is an investment and receiving the pay out. One can pretend to give unconditionally but it doesn't take a scientist to see how we live this principle as we create our reality as the human species trough it. And primarily that's how I see myself reflected back into this reality where I live out my greed as self interest within all my actions. That's like becoming my own corporation.Within that I see and realize that the concept of giving as I would like to receive made no sense because it was never explained to me into specificity what this equation entails. My parents and teachers like the ones before had no other option then to follow their preprogrammed path of destruction.Within that I see and realize that I have never done anything without wanting something for it in return. If I found a sick animal and brought it to the vet I thought I did it out of compassion. But I also wanted to get rid of a potential feeling of guild without remorse. I programmed myself to think that it was my moral obligation to act. Where did that come from? O yes education and religion. Good and bad and so on. I was educated and already part of a living reality based on winning and loosing, power versus weakness, hard versus soft, strategic intelligence versus lack of information, men versus animal. I see that not bringing the wounded animal to the vet might have caused me to feel guilty. In order to invest in feeling good in the future I reduced my 'feelings' of guild in the now. That's like protecting investments through intelligence. Then I brought the animal to the vet instead of helping him out of his misery because I had this whole morality thing about killing. The vet probably killed the little squirrel in the backyard as soon as I left the building. A perfect example of acting out greed and how I as the mind build the corporate structure that is me. Passing on karma without even knowing what it was at the time. Lol!I could go on and on about my participation within it. As an example as I got my first job I was one of the few people in holland working with Apple computers at the time. So I had an advantage and I knew if I kept studying the software and stayed ahead I would remain the power user I was at the time and the reason I got the job in the first place. So I was very eager to keep my skill set up to date and within this I got increasingly more scared of the future because I slowly started to understand that what happened in the bible was also happening to me. That there was competition rising and that I had become part of the equation. It started my quest for answers and it also fucked me up career wise because the rat race is not a race you step in or out of. You participate or leave the stadium. If I'm not part of the race I'm not competing on the world stage and without greed someone else will do the killing for me. In that regard nature is less cruel than I am. Nature is what it is I want to be more than 'I' am.Excessiveness is a disease, like the luxury to live a depression. A few years back I was able to do so because I had some financial reserves so I could lay on the couch for a few months smoking pot while feeling sorry for myself. Like I had more rights to be depressed than someone else and with that comes the guild. The catholic dogma coming full circle. Greed and guild is what made the dutch one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Like a lot of dutch I'm aware that we are guilty thus have committed a crime. But we tolerate crime and thus we became one of the richest and most liberal countries in the world because we breed the greed to do so. Welcome to my roots of greed.More to Come. Must Watch Documentaries if you are interested in understanding reality:The Century of the Self: Part 1- Happiness MachinesThe Power PrincipleThe TrapPsywarHuman Resources: Social Engineering in the 20th Century

Day-012-I do perceive here a divided duty. Othello. ACT I Scene 3

The moment I finish my coffee I see the character that is my private self take a deep breath and leave the house to enter the world stage. Often that deep breath is my private character (the one I'm most comfortable with) realizing it has a few hours ahead to play as another character. And so my days are filled with acting out scripts that my mind as the director presents me with. I realize there is no self direction what so ever. Every scene I play is coming from the main character I call me. Where I hear myself say sorry that's typically me or I'm sorry that's how I am. Moments of total integration with the main character. A being in character.

In acting school they have a name for it called method acting. Becoming the character. What does that make me before I go into character, before another character? Where does it end? Is there a me or is it simply my mind presenting me with countless scripts and storyboards to choose from on a stage where I interact with billions of other actors?

From where or what do I go into character? If I'm not in character then what am I and where am I? It's a very cool point to look at because looking out into my world I see only projections of the characters I'm creating as reactions. My days are like a chain of improvisational sketches with the occasional passages I did memorize as I play 'the professional'. Within this I realize that growing up is ACTually going to acting school and working was the first serious role I played. I play the role of the father, lover, devil, demon, looser, etc. Played them all. My whole life is one big role playing game without ever realizing I was doing it. Totally forgot/suppressed what it is like to experience being here as breath without a script. What it is like to not re-act but to take action. The simplicity of walking by placing one foot after the other.

Isn't it completely absurd to look around and see that I'm only fucking acting out without ever realizing that this is not life. That I'm busy playing out predetermined scripts. I created so many characters I lost count a long the way and now I'm lost in wonderland talking to a rabbit.

I find myself lying on the couch as this lost character talking to a another character that plays the shrink. It's about time I start asking myself if all this acting I do is actually bringing forth something that is best for all? Can I ask myself? because that's like asking the director to give me another role to play.

Where do I start? How do I get to that point where I stop writing characters from the same alphabet to create scripts that have already been played by my other act-ore's a billion times? When do I act accordingly? Do I realize that nothing I do is act-u-all original in anyway? This realization for example is coming from me the character playing the observer. There is no realness here, I'm pixelated, recorded, projected and lost in the script presented by the internet at this very moment.


"I have to stop my thoughts" - character - it's a character because "I HAVE to stop MY thoughts" - then there's an I and a My and a "have to" - in this character, does one then ever really stop thoughts? The difference between character and Here, is a doing/living action in the moment, so whenever there is a statement instead of immediate application: you're creating a character" -


Sunette Spies


I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to judge all and everything as real not seeing realizing and understanding that all I see is characters forming words that make up the scripts that define the actors that live up and play to generate the pixels of reality where I'am lost within the play as the characters I play with.

I commit myself to observe myself as the characters I play in order to identify my ACTions to stop acting and become real as breath to remain here as breath and forgive myself for the creation of characters that cause physical harm as my projections of and as reality.

Links:
Breaking Character by Jozien Fokkert
Here

Personality suits by Heath Ledger
Part 1
Part 2

My life as a character by Maya Harel
Here

Stepping out of Character by Bernard Poolman
Here

Day-009-Can I have some privacy?

At home realizing that although I'm alone I'm also part of a group and within that I see myself in my kitchen alone 'wanting/claiming/having my privacy'. I'm walking trough the house naked wondering what I would do if I would not be alone right now?

Would I behave differently? Would I take on a different personality. From that perspective what is 'privacy' more than claiming a space for myself away/separated from 'the rest'? An exclusive form of separation by creating the luxury article of privacy for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to act like a junkie thinking I can escape the horrors of reality by having a moment for myself, a moment of privacy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that there is no escape from reality within and as privacy, seeing realizing and understanding that there is no privacy within birth, illness and death thus my privacy is my participation within and projection of me unto this world as the creator of privacy as separation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that by living privacy I separate myself from the rest as a private not sharing myself my emotions, feelings, insights and realizations thus excluding/separating myself from the rest by wanting more than others as privacy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize see and understand that when I claim/occupy a (private) space I take space instead of give space.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress my feelings of shame, frustration, anger and guilt for not living the realization that keeping something for myself as privacy is steeling from the rest and within that context I see I have never given as I would have liked to receive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel sorry for myself when others got something and I did not, realizing and understanding that I have never given the way I would have liked to receive because I always wanted my own private part within and as victory, to 'take' the win no matter what by manipulating everything and everyone within and as my kingdom of privacy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take on private personalities within and as privacy realizing seeing and understanding that by doing so I allow myself to create multiple separated personalities as different levels of privacy I project unto or believe to exist within this world and by doing so create points of separation between myself and reality as these private personalities.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing privacy to exist within and as me, becoming the dictator of my own privacy as the creator of separation within this world as the gap between those that can build walls to separate themselves from those unable to escape the horrors of daily reality within this world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I have the right to privacy as the right to not be disturbed, not seeing realizing and understanding that it is me as my mind that is wanting the exclusive right to manipulate me within the seclusion of my privacy, seeing and understanding that within this point 'my' privacy becomes my own bribery.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that within the point of privacy I have the right to do what I want when I want it, seeing realizing and understanding that what I allow to happen is a full on ego-trip at the cost of others where I choose to replace reality with 'my privacy'.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see realize and understand that the concept of privacy is an addiction to self interest where I choose to distract myself and avoid the rawness of me within and as the creator of privacy as separation

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that no matter how high I build the walls of privacy around me, the certainty of reality will always be on the other side showing me how I separated myself within and as privacy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to escape reality and seclude myself within and as privacy where I claim the right for me to see only as I want at the cost of all others. Lost within an ego-trip where I can see and do all things my way.

I commit myself to correct myself within these moments of self defeat and stop whining about my right to privacy seeing, realizing and understanding that it's me wanting to close my eyes and not take responsibility for what I have created in this world through participating within privacy.

I commit myself to investigate, identify, expose within and as myself the constructs of privacy where I accept and allow myself to go private, seeing realizing and understanding that through exposing my points of privacy I expose within me the points of not taking self responsibility for the fact I am part of a group.

The momentum of addictions

The end of the year is approaching and this year has been one hell of a ride. One of the most ‘important’ points for me this year was stopping my Weed addiction completely. I stopped using weed on the 13th of January. There was a previous attempt and during a sailing weekend a bit of hash was the trigger for starting again. So I fell and had to do a time loop. Stopping for the second time made me realize that stopping an addiction becomes much harder if one has to do it more than ones. In other words the second time I stopped was much more difficult. This also made me realize that it’s very important to be self honest about the moment you want to stop and the physical support you need in order to be successful in stopping an addiction. Be it Homeopathy, kinesiology, sports, a dog, a buddy. Whatever works for you. You have to look at these points in self honesty. You need to create support. A platform of stability to make stopping as comfortable as possible. Be gentle with yourself.

Am I addicted?
Looking at the reasons for my weed consumption and especially the point all drug users have in common is why? Why this addiction? Why this specific substance? I wrote one post about weed before and I noticed that it was very emotional and energetic. Well that’s exactly the point. We use substance because we are unable to cope with emotions or feelings from within as who we are and defined ourselves as personality. It doesn’t matter what drugs you are on. It’s always about suppression. And we all know that if something in this physical world is suppressed there will be a point where that build up of ‘tension’ has to be released. Be it an earthquake, dam bursting, volcanic eruption, murder, rape, lightning strike, explosion. They all have one thing in common and that point is (kinetics) energy. A release of ‘some sort’.

It’s the first thing you will notice the moment you stop a habit/addiction. There is momentum. Something want’s to move you forward as you just stopped. So you notice this push coming from the back that pushes you towards that point of addiction. That automated pattern you accepted as that habit. Something that belongs to you. And you literally feel you have to resist something. You have to push otherwise you are moved from where you are standing. Sounds familiar? Something is pushing you and that is the momentum of addiction. It’s not just drugs. It’s everything in this world. O that’s is nice, that’s cool, my kind of girl, my kind of car, my kind of food, my kind of art, music, candy, friends, sex, the way I pork my nose, education etc. etc. etc. All those reactions are habitual and can be considered addiction. Stuff/substance you are used to. That you use, that abuses you.

I preferred weed
Addiction for me equals identification as in preferences. Yes we can blame our parents because they where the ones starting to speak to us like that when we where baby’s. Isn’t that a nice brown teddybear? Euh, don’t know mom if you say so. So let's not blame. Anyway, eventually we get into groups that we prefer and start to do preferable things. We find a preferable wife, get preferable children and try to the give them preferable education that makes them preferred employees that become preferred bankers in the system with a preferable cocaine addiction. Why? Because in the end the whole world is addicted to money. Historians call that history. Darwinists call it evolution. Economists call it Economics and religious people call it God’s creation. Interesting. God’s creation is actually us, a bunch of junkies hooked on energy.

The way we live our lives is based on preferences. This law of attraction which in the end is addiction. This momentum. This system of energy that needs us to produce energy to exist. How do we do that? Through addiction. It’s sheer genius. Because we all have different preferences (addictions) there is alway energy generated. Scientists call it polarity. Now what would happen if we all stop? Just stop.

Impossible isn’t it? The momentum is simply to big. The whole system would implode immediately. That’s why the concept of equality is so hard to grasp for a lot of people because one of the biggest addictions is that to our own ego’s. I’m addicted to me and all my self definitions which ind the end are all preferences. I believe I’m full circle now. Am I drifting of here? Ok back to my 'former' addiction.

So let’s bring it back to myself. My addict-i-on. I on weed. Me smoking that shit for more than 20 years on a regular bases. What happened to me? Why was weed the substance I preferred?

Doctor, do you have something to ease the pain?
I already spoke about suppression. All drugs suppress. The drug I prefer is the one that does that job for me in a way I ‘like’ it most or feel most ‘comfortable’ with. Because I’m very aware of the experience I have with it. It does the suppressing in my most preferable way=to supress that what I actually experience within myself and (for a moment) want to suppress or ‘forget’. This also implies that there is NO DRUG that can make me ‘another person’ or forget always. That’s why I have to do it time after time again. To for a moment not feel/experience what’s actually going on within me. Within my state of mind (my mind).

 So, it’s not the weed nor is it the addiction towards it. It’s me fearing to be me here. To face myself here in every moment. Because I’m afraid of myself within and I want and need my weed to help me just for this moment to forget my own experience within. How I exist. Within existence. So I fear existing within existence. That’s it. Simple brutal common sense that applies to all addictions.

SO the more and longer I use the more I compound that experience of myself. The more I do this the more shit compounds and the more weed I’m going to consume. You see there’s only one outcome to this equation? Me wanting to smoke is me not wanting to face me. This is the critical point because here is where I had to become self honest in the moments that followed. I had to face myself. I had to stop running away from myself because it’s impossible? You will face yourself every day to come because it’s alway going to be you. It’s not someone else taking the substance is it? Substance or substitute. What is it that you need a substitute for? What is ‘missing’ in your ‘life’? It’s you standing up in that specific point. That’s what is missing. What am I holding onto within myself? Forgive yourself for that point and stand up within that point. It’s the only way! Yes I hear the question. How the fuck am I going to do this?

I dared to look
I am going to share some points I’m walking and still facing every day. I am facing the self-loser. I'm facing my self-deception. The harm I did to others. Me collapsing in the system completely. Me refusing to participate and share myself. Doing the things required according to my education as being a ‘good man’. What a fuckup. That whole morality implant I have. Accepting the system and the world the way it is and accepting the position I am in. Talking myself into delusion. Believing 'things’ instead of really investigating life as a physical experience. Thinking something outside myself is going to rescue me. Jezus, God, angels, yoga, enlightenment. Creating even more delusion, by projecting my believes onto others as ‘the truth’ as if it was real! (even my own children). Only moving myself if there is something in it for me. Making myself bigger better at the cost of others. Separating myself from ‘life’. I could go on for hours. And it's this kind of shit whe don't want to face within ourselves. This shit scares the crap out of us and makes us want to crawl away within addiction. Because we fear ourselves. I fear me.

Where does this stop? Where do I reach that point that is a real stop? It’s actually not a point. I simply realized that there where things not ok in my reality. But I still kept on reasoning with myself and that’s a killer because I was doing this with my mind. Yes, the same point where the addiction lived. This is where it get’s tough because I went nuts within justification and morality. It’s me I don't want to change lose my Identity because there is not enough self trust or value to just be who I am. The reason for taking my drugs in the first place. So stop that fear.

Create something new
So I had to get to that rock bottom point of absolute fear, where there was finally some humbleness within me. Where I started to realize that there was a problem and that I had to correct myself. I was very lucky to have someone in my life that was pointing these things out to me. As I am pointing them out for you now. I had support. But it was me who had to walk the correction. You can only do this in Self-Honesty. Because it requires walking backwards in your life to reassess the way you exist and correct yourself.

That’s the point where I am. I’m correcting myself. I corrected the weed point. ‘But’ it is a small point within lot's of points. It’s the tip of the iceberg that is me. You need to build self trust and that is a different story and not a walk in the park. However it can be done. Check out the tools that are available on the Desteni website and if you have any question or need support? Make yourself heard.

Former weed addict

Let's start a business

Why I started my first business
Back in 1993 I was the 3th of my 6 years in Art School. I was a student leading a student life. Meaning that I had a rather optimistic and careless view on my future and did a lot of partying. I did jobs on the side for a signage company on a regular bases. I didn’t have a lot of money to spent but I would say that I was able to lead a rather careless life. If I really ran into financial problems my parents would help with the little assets they had and I could always drop by for dinner. So I had my own place, education, food, friends and off coarse my bike. I drove my bike everyday. I never made  long term plans for the future. I always thought that the future would turn out fine if I just kept going. What I was doing was far from what so called ‘normal’ people where doing. I was painting abstract paintings, building objects, studied graphic design and typography and I was reading a lot. Most of my reading had nothing to do with Art or Graphic Design. It was on Philosophy, psychology, religion, and science. One subject that was always on my mind was ‘the truth’. As long as I can remember this question bugged the hell out of me. And off coarse I felt rather special.

I think I knew
I was 21 years old and somehow I knew that it was impossible to answer this ‘truth’ question definitively. If the answer had to come from ‘a brain’ we would all be fucked. No matter how intelligent the being might be the answer could not be trusted. From all I read the only conclusion I could draw was that it was all energy, vibration, frequency. Plus-minus, ying-yang, light-dark, rich-poor, warm-cold etc. Looking around the only thing I saw was extreme polarity. I found Quantum mechanics one of the most intriguing subjects at the time. I read a lot of that stuff and was fascinated. It made ‘sense’ because it didn’t make sense and that was as close to reality as it got for me. Strangely enough it also touched a lot of subjects that where very well and scientifically described in the Vedic scriptures I was reading. These where however more than 5000 years old and that raised another book of questions. Are we 5000 years behind? And if so, what the fuck happened during that time? These questions kept me pretty occupied with myself most of the time.

More Money?
Now if money wouldn’t have been a problem this ‘truth’ thing would probably have become my life’s work as an artist. Most of the things I made in school all related back to my central question ‘truth’. At that time I really thought I would become an artist. Living the ‘free’ life. No office cubicles, no nine to five. I felt superior to everything middle-class or had authority. I would become more or less famous and my art would tell the story. Money wouldn’t be a problem. However as time went by ‘reality’ started to burst my bubble. I was paying the rent and it went up every year. I was paying taxes and they went up every year. I did my groceries and they became more expensive every year. In the mean time it seemed like everybody got richer around me and everything got more expensive. It was very upsetting and I realized that I probably missed out an important part of this reality and that was economics.

Taking the short cut
I didn’t have any money and didn’t have a clue about how it worked. So one day this job offer comes in. It meant working with a Mac computer from 08:00 in the morning till 17:30 in the afternoon, inside an office, 5 days a week. The strange thing was that all my ambition and principles kind of went out the window the moment I heard what they where willing to pay me. It was ridiculous. It was more than three times the amount of money I got in at that time. Even my teachers in art school weren’t making that kind of money. So they told me to just go for it. And from one moment to the next I was a 23 year old middle class person in an office cubicle. I became ‘them’. I got my drivers licence. Refurbished my apartment. Paid of my debts. Went on holidays etc. Yes, I got used to money.  It changed my view on life dramatically. After one year I started to become really depressed. I saw people having affairs on the work floor. Dipping responsibilities, going home early. More or less everybody around me was fucking the company so in fact we all fucked each other. It was disturbing and you couldn’t do a damn thing about it except leave. Which I didn’t do because of the money. I felt guilty and at the same time I justified my guild with having no choice. Then the whole plan changed as they planned to move my department from the east of holland to amsterdam in the west. There wasn’t one hair on my head thinking of moving to amsterdam. So I waited till they asked me what I wanted to do. I said that I would not join them and politely refused. The moment they asked me what my plans where I heard myself say I was going to start my own company. Strangely enough a good friend of mine cancelled his plans for a trip around the world and of we where to start our own design/advertising agency.

My banking experience
Now if you don’t have any money to start a business, what do you do? You work and save till you have enough to do so. You use your scarce time to find clients and you build a network right? No. We just made a plan. My friend who is a good writer made a hell of a story out of it. I made a nice book for the story to fit inn. That book was taken to a bank where a nice man with a nice suit looked into it. This man called us back and said that lending us about 150.000 Dutch guilders wouldn’t be a problem. So without any business experience and 150.000 in the bank these two young adults go into business? We didn’t have a clue but we got work inn and we did some rather nice projects. The other story is that after 3 years we where totally busted, our friendship was down the drain and we owed the bank a lot of money. It would have been better to get the money from the Russian around the corner. The Russian was a much better motivator to young adults.

My inner experience
After all this time I know that the one thing that fucked me up the most in doing business was a complete lack of self-honesty. The blind eye is a trap that traps a lot of self employed people. Identify yourself enough with what you do and think and it takes you over completely. I became a jabbering kind of advertising robot spewing out the lingo. After this ordeal I promised myself to never loan from banks ever again. Debt is the shackle that has chained reality. You and I are fucked within the system. Camouflaged with paper and computers and decentralized responsibility. You can’t touch them but they can touch you for sure. Who’s getting the best out of this deal? We are all participating in the biggest pyramid scheme ever and it’s called -economics- Yeah I know, you never see the truth when it’s standing right in front of you. Well this is where that truth finding mission ended for me. This game is the end game and it nears it’s saturation point. This is my wake up call to an equal money system. And now I must make some money, got to eat tomorrow.

Body language...

17 03 2011

What is happening...
What a week it has been so far, and am I judging this week as different than last week? As in more impressive or having more in store than usual? Yes I do. Let me say this. The weekend was physical and confronting. This has to do with sharing me with another person. That makes a difference. The most important realisation I’m having at the moment is the one of ‘physicality’. It’s somewhat difficult for me to express or explain exactly what I mean. I’m starting to rediscover my physical body again. But it’s not in the way I used to explore or be aware of it.

Observing my daughter in the water
The weekend started physical because I go and swim with my daughter whenever we get the change. Last week she took her toy diving goggle and a snorkel with her for the first time. In the water I took the time teaching her how she had to breath, keep the class from fogging up, her posture in the water etc. I noticed a very interesting thing. Her whole physical expression as a body submerged in water changed the moment she stuck her head in the water and started looking around through her goggle. Normally her expression while swimming is rather hectic. It’s the point I remark on the most when she swims. Slow down, relax, you don’t need all that movement to keep floating. Now when she looked down through those goggles and into the swimming pool, her body completely gave itself over to the water. The two kind of merged and she was floating comfortably on the surface looking into the swimming pool while breathing through her snorkel. She got it within the minute. I was a bit amazed.

The conversation of water with water
So I decided there and then I would buy her a decent Diving goggle and snorkel. So this week we where in the water again and she was hooked from the first minute. We where in the water for nearly two hours straight. My daughter is six years old and I’m 42. I’m always amazed of her physical stamina. I mean I’m probably still thinking that my physical condition is OK but it’s really not to be honest. I would probably kill myself if I tried to keep up with my six year old daughter on a physical level (lol). Anyway the element of water is kind of a rediscovery because the swimming agreement with my daughter forces me to swim on a regular base. I often noticed that I would be totally tired after being in the pool with her. A real physical tiredness. Every muscle in my body would feel drained of it’s power. In the ‘back of my head’ I know it’s not just the physical strain. My body releases stress when I’m in the water and It’s moving muscle groups that are parked in neutral during the rest of the week. Tension that is locked up inside those muscles releases and the body has to disperse the ‘acid-toxins’ that go with that. This is actually hard work so you get tired. Common sense I suppose.


It’s a physical thing
Walking back to the car after being in the pool for two hours immediately confronted me with this fact and it brings the point of ‘self-intimacy’ back. My daughter still has a strong connection with her physical body. And she is dispersing all these things naturally. If I don’t give these points attention my body will start to manifest problems. It is doing that all ready lol. So was I tired? Yes I was. But I’m always ‘that tired’, I’m just not aware of it. It gets stored inside my muscle tissue like carbage inside a landfill an there it rots away until the whole landfill get’s ‘moved’. That’s when ‘the gas’ is released and you smell ‘the smell’. Fascinating. 

Stop and look
The rest of the weekend was physical and fascinating too because I had a buddy visiting me. This meant little sleep, lot’s of talking and again physical work-out because I give her massages. Monday was fascinating because I was completely done. I was really and I mean really tired. No emotions just tired. I went with it. Slowed myself down and slept it out for two days. Luckily appointments got ‘magically’ cancelled and I was able to just be there in this rather strange state of mind. I felt like being in more than one place at the same time. No focus, no drive. Was it laziness? Stop judging Mike. 


'My' body the one and only
I’m fucking freaking tired and my body is telling me what happened over the last 10 years. It’s shocking what I have accepted and allowed to be stored inside my body. It’s a huge point and it makes all the difference in the world. Do I address or do I ignore? Ignoring the fact that all the shit get’s stored means destroying the only thing that is real in my reality. It’s my body and I’m not even aware of it. How fucked up is that.

‘Being’ inside my body
Yesterday I had my 3rd appointment with my Kinesiologist. I got my ‘Kraneo’ head massage. I could wright a book just about that hour being massaged and ‘touched’. I want to keep it short though so I’ll  stick to the points. I’m becoming aware of the fact that I’m floating on an ocean of pain. Every cell in my body is screaming but my ears are stuffed. I relax and I relax even more. The more I relax the more I’m aware of this overwhelming presence of ‘pain’ that is stored in my body. I could rant about systems and shit but I’m no authority so in my own words. It’s pain. Painful, personal. Information stored in every cell as me as what I have defined myself of over the coarse of my life. And it is huge!

A universe of pain
During the massage I really went into it and the horror cannot be described. It’s so vast I can’t bring it into words. But I was ‘OK’. Observing the whole thing and letting my body do the ‘talking’. The massage was aimed at equalizing the right and left hemispheres of the brain. I noticed myself inside and as the absolute outline of my physical body (being a balloon). Inside was nothing and outside was nothing. It was just me. Everything else was pain! The balloon was kept in place by pain it was defined by pain. I was watching one of the most exiting movies ever and it was al me...

The ghost image
L left me on the table wen she was finished. I waited till my eyes opened up and got up and off the table. L looked me in the eyes and was apparently satisfied with the results. “I don’t want to see you again, call whenever you think it’s necessary”. Laughter and that was it. I was very thank full for this experience. Getting support like this cannot be described in words. It has to be experienced. Is it fun? No. Is it cool? Yes. Getting to know the horror that is stored inside my body... Well it’s something else. Walking back to the car I wasn’t even completely in my body. It was like being in a time-lapse behind it. Like a silk scarf in the wind that follows the movement of that what pulls it.

Off the brakes
I haven’t really got anything done this week (matrix wise) and it’s Thursday as we speak. There is so much going on inside me but I can’t pinpoint what it is or what 'they' are. To be honest, I don’t want to. I’m here. I’m breathing. I’m slowing down. I’m slowing down for real. Not because my mind or the 'to-do' list tells me too but because It’s how it is. It's me slowing down and I'm freaking thankfull for that. This process is actually pain-full (full of pain, intresting). And I have an overwhelming urge to stop everything I’m doing. Just to stop myself completely. At least I allowed myself to take it easy and sleep it off. Did a lot of sleeping. It’s fascinating and it’s me that's doing it.

One breath at the time.

Killing my own darlings

25 01 2011

Where my money comes from?
I wasn’t consistent in my daily writings the past few weeks. Been working hard in the matrix because the money point needed attention big time. Lot's of fears and I was drifting all over the place. April 2010 I started working on a rather big project. For a company that does 24 million euros in revenues a year. I mainly work on corporate identity projects. These projects take time which means I don’t have to be in involved in cold acquisition every month. I wouldn’t survive the horror of having to do that. Anyway It’s a lot of work meaning a lot of hours. Doing one big project a year brings in about 10-15.000,- on top off the small stuff. This is just enough for me to survive and pay the morgage.

Moving inside the wolfpack
Make no mistake, this is the corporate world. I love my work but 'that world' is a different story. The corporate world is 'fuckup' beyond believe. I’m independent since 2006 but earning money in this system is no fairy-tale. I mostly deal with people on general management level. This means I as an outsider always step into a group in which the rules are already laid out. So before I can do my thing I have to know the rules of the pack I’m getting myself into.

The pack from the inside out 
Imagine people closely working together for more than eleven years. They have there own codes, lingo and group behaviour. I’m never sure if what I see is what I get. There are so many unwritten rules and secrets. So much psychology I’m not aware of and at the same time I’m responsible for fairly intensive periods of change within an organisation. In theory you could say it’s their own wish, they want to change and they need the expert advice. Getting this done is another story though. I’m dealing with people and confront them with change that wil affect their daily lives. These are the hard facts about working inside a pack. The pack is always more important then the individual. This relates back to the 'corporate identity', meaning that I will be confronted with different opinions, ego’s and resistance sooner or later.

The misconception of 'value'
A lot of corporate identity issues have to do with ‘perceived value or intrinsic value’. This means that a lot of what is communicated has nothing to do with measurable facts or 'real' value. Being in this process of confronting myself in self-honesty is the opposite of my daily work. It’s schizophrenic beyond words. Corporate communication is the business of professional liars and spin-doctors. All those companies claim human values and the whole spectrum of clichés that go with it. I’m on the inside observing from the war rooms of deception. The company I was working for employs 75 people that they hire out to large institutions in the Netherlands. Hospitals, schools, government and large companies. Big IT projects that need management. I soon found out that the management team knew exactly what they where inn for. In contrast to the CEO who was still completely in the dark

Being part of the illusion
After my first presentation about the strategy and proposed identity they where very impressed and they liked the strategy, visionary aspects and points off change I presented. I got my first uncensored feedback from people below the general management and the CEO. People that where in the field. The breathing living workforce that makes an organisation what it is. The physical reality of this brand. They addressed the pressure points spot on. That’s when I started to feel really uncomfortable. They asked exactly the same questions I asked the CEO 3 months earlier. He told me he was going to create an internal team of people that would take on the task of internalising the new strategies within the organisation. So to be confronted with the fact that this didn’t happen in the middle of a presentation in front of all employees had to be rather embarrassing for mister CEO. But what I observed blew my mind. He stepped forward and without hesitation and full of confidence started ranting about the future, sharing, personal targets etc. etc. He was completely in his own world as I watched in horror how 75 people slowly but steadily lost complete interest or got hypnotized by words without any substance.

Stuck in nothingness
I felt ashamed to be there. I felt like the people in the audience. Being fucked with a straight face. And there I am. Me, my, a company consultant next to this person who completely believes his own story. I can’t even blame him. I mean I’m just as mindfucked as he is, it’s just in a different place. But in that moment I somehow knew this was not going to work. It was not real and my strategy was built on real values that had to be in place otherwise this strategy would not work. Afterwards People on the board (asskissers to the CEO) spoke to me. I got compliments, taps on the back you know the drill. So I’m driving home in this snowblast not being able to really drive and my mind is everywhere. It’s not going to work. He does not understand or sees it. Doesn’t take himself serious enough and he’s leading the company not me. What can I do?

To do or not to do?
Nothing. There is absolutely nothing I can do. Making a stand would mean confronting this man. The outcome of telling men with ego’s the size of aircraft carriers the painful truth is shockingly simple. You get eliminated as a threat. Removed from their matrix and replaced by someone who doesn’t ask questions. I’m inside a part of the moneysystem generator. It’s so clear, shockingly clear. In these moments I really lose it. Horrible fear! Sickening vibes in my stomach. Not a clou of how I would be able to apply myself in this line of work in the future.

Not being directive enough
Third big project as an independent consultant and I more or less knew this one was not going to have an happy ending. I decided to just stick to it. I needed the money. So in that moment I kind of decided I would be prostituting myself. And If I was to be making money I would have to keep doing it. This would get to a point where money would meet my ethics and self-honesty and I would brake and loose it. To cut a long story short. Because of his complete lack of knowledge on the subject a lot of hours had to be added in what could have been a fairly straightforward process. So eventually I add up the hours over a two month period and this ads up to 227 billable hours. The CEO promised me he would straighten out the financial aspects with me before he went on a four week holiday with his family.

Consequences
I mailed him several times and a day before he would fly I got him on the telephone. He promised to have a proposal on my desk before he flew. He flew without the promised proposal. That’s where it cracked. So I wrote my first honest mail. In which I confronted him as a person that not stood to his own word. In other words I called him a liar. This is not done in business. I received a reply full off apologies and the next promise that he would have everything in order the moment he returned from his holiday. I was on him the same day he returned. Nothing. Fried air and bullshit-bingo excuses. In that moment I played out the only card I had wich was the very expensive corporate brochure that was going into production. Half of it was paid in advance so his MONEY was in there. I told him that legally I owned the creative and intellectual contents of that brochure (which is actually true but very hard and EXPENSIVE! to defend in court). So this worked. I also told him I wanted all the money he owed me at once. No more spread out payments or tax constructs. Pay the fucking money. I wrote a mail that was angry, personal and had all the raw facts of his behaviour in it. The money was transferred and I committed commercial suicide. That was yesterday. That’s the moneyfuck.

Tomorrow I will be Walking the streets again looking for another customer to screw. It sickens me. Tomorrow I’m going to apply for a job. Again!

It's in my DNA

25 02 2011

New client evokes 'energy'
So, let’s do this. Ok. Had a productive and enjoyable day (business wise). Which brings me to my daily words-thoughts and feelings. This morning I was invited to a strategic brainstorm regarding the biggest city in the east of holland called Enschede. Every big city makes claims and we had to come up with one for Enschede. For example Vegas used to claim “what happens in Vegas stays in vegas”. Easy to remember with a drip of humor so it sticks in ones mind. In advertising this trick is called “brain positioning” and there are a lot of strategies/ways to do this (great job in psychological warfare I have). But I have a few principles otherwise the schizophrenia in relation to my process would be unbearable. In this particular case it was rather fun and enjoyable.

Where I come from
In the early 20th century Enschede belonged to the biggest textile producing city’s in the world. And strange as it may sound it was also the biggest advertising capital in holland sharing this position wit Amsterdam. Amsterdam was about money and goods, Enschede was about Textile. It’s still called Textown by a lot of people. The whole region where I live was dependant on textile. Whole villages lived from the local textile factory that was present. In the village where I live (haaksbergen) you can still see this. The big houses that belonged to the daily factory management where closest to where the factory would be. The further from the factory, the smaller the houses. These houses are still called ‘labour houses’. They where build by the textile baron (dictator) same as the theater, the museum, the park. All textile money. Then you had the have not’s who didn’t belong to this structure. They where on there own and left to there own devices. Very poor mostly living of the land in huts you can hardly call homes. I talked to my grandmother about this wen she was still alive so it’s close to me. It’s really the world reduced to a village and a textile factory. Sounds familiar? America was build on exactly the same principle with railways connecting the city’s together. A bit like what the internet is doing right now. America is a European concept imported with the Europeans as was Apartheid in South Africa.

My birthplace and herritage
Everybody knew everybody in town so there was ‘social control’ as well. There would always be ears and eyes. George Orwell stuff really. So my father, just like his father was preprogrammed to end up behind a machine in a textile factory. Which off coarse happened. He was 14 years old wen he started working in a noisy, dusty plant. There where simply no other options. This is where the Desteni material comes inn. If you where born into a ‘management’ family you would live out your life according to the boundaries set for that group. If you where born in a ‘workers’ family etc. Now here is the strange thing. My grandfather was born as a ‘Lammers’ but the family couldn’t find any traces that went further back than that? That’s at least strange in a village where everybody knows everybody. I mean if you would fart in church your name would be known, halleluja.

The privilige of guild
A few years back wen my grandmother died we discovered that my great grandfather was a 'Jordaan' and not a 'Lammers'. He was a member of the big textile family that ruled over the little village. This man had a very illusive reputation and a female housekeeper that got pregnant. She was forced to marry a factory worker also called Derk (Lammers). This 'created' family got their own little door in the wall surrounding the factory. Completely bizarre. No other factory worker ever was given this privilege I mean this is really creepy. My father was never told by his own parents. They had to die first before the secret came out. The moment I got this news I wondered what this meant in relation to my family tree and DNA. I mean, how big can the contrast be. My bloodline runs back into two completely different families. One of them being the bourgeois the other poor factory workers. I also wonder if the above has anything to do with my father being able to eventually work his way up to become a print designer for The Jorzelino brand. This normally would have been impossible for the 'normal' folk.

Inventing Enschede
Eventually in the 60s asia became the centre for textile production in the world and the whole region where we lived went into a deep recession. Imagine how this must have been. The hole structure was build on textile and it collapsed completely. So it took everything and everybody with it. The whole region was forced to reinvent its self. So wen the session kicked of this morning, it was said that Enschede really needed transformation. This was worked into one of the first remarks I gave during this brainstorm. I said that this was a process that all ready started back in the sixties nothing shocking. So if there was one starting point for positioning this town it would be ‘Transformation’.

Information inside my body
All this family stuff was with me as we started to brainstorm at the communication agency this morning. I noticed that I was one of the few people that really new the region and it’s particulars. Most people present where not as well informed as I was on this subject so I was able to put a lot into the group and we really kicked ass this morning. I felt at ease with myself also because I limited my sleeping hours this week to a minimum. I stopped weed last week and having little sleep helps me to stay more or less relaxed during the day. I don’t get hyped up so much because I’m simply to tired. I was more focussed than I normally am. I was also more able to listen what was coming over the table from the other participants. It felt rather good and I was really trying hard to be professional and not let my ego or pride fuck things up. I loose my self very easily wen I get enthusiastic. Which is an emotion anyway thus not real. Anyway I made some very good contacts and made my money in the process. I did OK today and I was professional and productive which feels refreshingly good (which is an emotion thus not real). It was quite cool to be able to observe myself and at the same time be really productive and part of a group making money at the same time. I couldn’t help thinking about this strange outflow regarding my family though. I felt authority on the subject running trough my vanes (which is ego thus not real). But it helped me to stand in the matrix equal to the money I want as the Professional they hired to do a job.

A bit intimidated
There where a few moments I got carried away because of the dynamics of the group. I mean MT was there who is kind of the godfather of advertising in the east of holland and founder of the famous M agency. He and I had a very nice creative vibe going. It was the first cool professional day I had in years. But I was very aware of my emotions as I drove back home. Kept breathing and kept myself stable and calm reasonably well. I heart J’s voice next to my on a couple of occasions. Reminding me to shut up and listen unconditionally. Today was a learning experience in the physical and it was cool. Another point that keeps coming up is my yearning for a dog. I always had dogs and I wonder if it would be good for me to go find a pup. This house has only me in it. I think it needs more life. I really do.