Category Archives: Mind Tricks

The Troglodyte

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I feel the need to think and be reclusive for a while so I can put my thoughts in order. I’ve started reading again which, in my case, is exceptional but I guess the words come looking for me in a different way when I decide to be quiet. It’s funny because it’s the book that I still haven’t finished *working on it though* and that I mentioned several times in previous posts. Last night I picked it up and started reading instead of playing a few of the very addictive Professor Layton puzzles on my Nintendo DS Lite…

In quiet moments, if there ever is one, I’m working on my business website which will be a combination of a front page representing the business, a flash portfolio with work examples and a blog where I’ll discuss design in general, my own work for clients and other design related topics. Quite often I receive emails from companies asking me to write something about a product, design contest or an event. I received one from New York last week with the same request but this is a personal blog so I’ll use my other outlet.

Last night I read a chapter about ‘The Red Shoes‘ with an explanation about the deeper meaning of this fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen: ‘when a woman has a famine of the soul, she will take any substitutes offered, including those that do absolutely nothing for her, as well as destructive and life-threatening ones that hideously waste her time and talents or expose her life to physical danger. It’s a famine that makes a woman choose things that will cause her to dance madly out of control too near the executioner’s door.’

‘And when we hit bottom, it is exactly there where the best soil is to sow and grow something new again. In that sense hitting bottom while extremely painful is also the sowing ground. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them…’ And that is exactly why I need to become the Troglodyte for a while: I want to create and design, be quiet, think, be in my own world/cave and like I said above allow answers to come looking for me, in other words: let things happen…

A very addictive game… with amazing drawings and cute characters, a mix of Japanese and European [Eurasian *hehe*]

The Protagonist

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A previous draft:

I just realised, I’ve been writing this blog for over six years now. It started out as a place to vent using the free Blogger software. I was in a bad ‘relationship‘ at the time with an English guy who got divorced six months before we met and who didn’t have a clue what he wanted until the moment I got fed up with him and all the disappointments. When I told him I’d had enough, he all of a sudden seemed to have made up his mind. Sorry dahlin, too late to hesitate, I’ve been extremely patient for what felt like a very long ten months period…

I was reading some of my old posts and the lyrics of this song by Unkle Bob that I was playing reminded me of that situation. He had a bad temper and a short fuse, lived close to Rotterdam of all places and was not a happy character in general. I still don’t understand why I didn’t quit things sooner. I’ve asked myself that question many times and not just in this particular ‘situation’. I read this Buddha quote the other day: ‘A dog is not considered a good dog coz he’s a good barker; and a man isn’t considered a good man because he’s a good talker’.

I wanted to believe but was being manipulated by the smooth talk and that’s exactly what it was: all talk and no action. I should’ve listened to my gut feeling but then again my gut feeling told me to start writing so I had a time line to reference what was going on. Women in bad relationships unconsciously tend to make up excuses and rationalise away bad behavior of the man involved. Once out, I no longer was stuck and I started to do things I had ignored for some time, I was happy again and it showed in my creativity and my accomplishments.

These days, the more I think about options, choices, circumstances and even a quite scary abyss the more I realise I’ll have to do the exact same thing as I did back then: break free from restrictions caused by others or myself. Fear for the unknown can be paralysing and can hold you back from taking action. It’s something ‘W’ reminded me of and it got me thinking. I don’t know where all of this will take me but since I’m the protagonist of my own play, I -at the same time- have the power to turn it from a satire into a comedy…

And perhaps in the future a romance. All it takes is a bit of perseverance and Goats have plenty of that.

Amsterdamse Bos 2005