The merchant, the army officer, the professor and the artist

I could also add: the priest or vicar, but I leave this out because the professions I mentioned deal with this world. The professions are ideal types of professions. It could be the result of a test on which you can score, indicating what type of professional you are. They are more or less mutually exclusive which means that they are “pure” and don’t tolerate each other’s features and characteristics. A good merchant is never a good artist, a good professor is very bad at leading an army platoon, etc.

I came to this distinction because of a discussion during a presentation of a dissertation team, in which the difference between a “manager” and an “entrepreneur” was discussed. I saw during that discussion the entrepreneur as the merchant, and the manager as the army officer. What does a manager do according to the management textbooks? Right: planning, leading, organizing and controlling, exactly what a high ranking army officer also is expected to do, just the same as a football coach is doing. The entrepreneur is both officer and merchant, which is not possible for a single merchant and a single officer. The officer would be accused for corruption and punished, and the merchant would loose real profit opportunities because now he is restricted by his organization, his employees and the law giving rules for enterprises: he cannot switch from trading in meals (restaurant) into car business overnight, and vice versa. But the true entrepreneur combines in a legal way both ideal types in him or her. The entrepreneur reflects the culture within which he can thrive, namely a democratic, tolerant culture. In the 17th Century the Netherlands were divided into the Arminians and the Gomarians. The Arminians recruited their members from the Amsterdam class of entrepreneurs with their V.O.C., and the intellectuals (the “professors”). Their spokesmen were Johan van Oldenbarneveldt (kind of “prime minister”), and the brothers De Witt, of whom Johan was also “prime minister”. They agreed with England that the Orange family had to be restricted in power. But the Gomarians uplifted the Orange family as their logo, and their orthodox Calvinist view on life and world was widespread among the common working class people. Although Oldenbarneveldt had been Maurits’ teacher and coach, Maurits was merciless in watching his beheading as a criminal. Maurits was a military, an officer, Oldenbarneveldt was a merchant and a professor. In fact, the Oranges made use of the Calvinist intolerance to gain power in collaboration with the army, damaging the economic interests of the merchants. The De Witt brothers were literally slaughtered by the “orthodox” mob, their bodies hung on poles, naked and cut open, while the “police” was watching, doing nothing. A situation as a consequence of co-operation between officers and vicars, who have to deal “not with this world”, according to Jesus’ words. We see the same now with imams calling for violent opposition to “worldly khafirs”, not realising that they also act worldly.
In those days an entrepreneur had far more characteristics of a merchant than he has today, today his job carries more and more the officer’s features. In fact, the pure merchant exists hardly anymore. But the “entrepreneur” carries a lot of his marking features: adventure, weighing risks and opportunities, striving for profit. The manager, like an officer, is more “neutral” and leaves the risk-taking strategy to his boss, the entrepreneur, who also is a manager (officer) more than he used to be. Democratic law makes his existence possible.
In fact, being an entrepreneur or manager in (post)modern times means that you have to be something of an artist and a professor, too. Not because these professions are worthwhile for their own sake but because they can be “profitable” (merchant) and can give “competitive advantage” (officer). In marketing and promotion/advertising campaigns the artist is “hired” and in product development and marketing the professor is also “hired”. Hiring means merchandise, and the modern merchant is aware that you have to hire as smartly as possible artists and professors to gain the biggest market share (officer), the best human resources (officer) to get the highest profit (merchant). The customer decides, this right is given to him by democracy, following the opportunities of technology and many, many services to be managed and merchandised by Covey-moulded managers and entrepreneurs. Alas, the customer doesn’t ask for many professor’s and artist’s interests that are not hired because the market doesn’t ask for them. They have to fight back with quality not measured by “meeting the expectations of the customer” but by “innate quality”, which is often not of this world, and is not for sale. You know what I mean, because it’s human, and any flesh-and-blood officer and merchant needs them, just like any real professor and artist needs merchant’s and officer’s traits.

Well, this was our ration of deliberation and rumination on an evaluation of a dissertation presentation by the younger generation :-)

Happy happenings

The audience during the general closing meeting when the prizes were awarded. The guy sitting next to his colleague, is me. The colleague wears a red shirt - he is young enough - I can be identified by the pink tie and the glasses.

Yes! The presentations were a big success again. I was very proud that one of the four groups that I had been coaching, won the second prize out of 32 teams. They reported about a feasibility study they had performed for the establishment of a new restaurant in a new quarter of Leeuwarden. It would be the only restaurant with the chosen formula in town, namely an "all-in buffet restaurant". After the presentation an interesting discussion developed between them and the owner of another restaurant who was in the audience. Although its location and formula was different one could feel she wasn't happy with the new restaurant (competition!) and tried to ridicule the attempt with critical remarks. One of her questions elicited the remark "stupid question" from one of the team members , it was hardly hearable but I heard it and subtracted a point for offending the audience. I can imagine that the boys and girls were proud of their achievement and that negative criticism wasn't welcome in their mood, but suppose he was a restaurant manager or kitchen chef dealing with a complaining guest and would call his remarks stupid? Anyway, the general atmosphere was fine: half a year of hard work was completed and "everybody happy". But the true assessment had to come yet: the assessment of their written reports, of course far more elaborated and detailed than their presentations.

This was one of the bright days in my work. For the rest, I do almost nothing else than coaching and assessing dissertations (also called theses) by students not participating in the new setup of team projects as described above. They are written and submitted by students who are behind, sometimes three years or longer. It's a tough job because these are not the brightest students or have ( in their eyes) good reasons not to pay too much attention to this obligatory part of their study: a job, a marriage. Sometimes straightforward fraud occurs. Most students are not that brilliant in written English (in spoken English many are more fluent than I am), so when I see a paragraph in well-groomed academic or literary English, I type in a sentence in Google and there the site appears from which the paragraph or whole chapter had been stolen. That's what I call stupid. The student is confronted with the evil deed, and has to do a lot more work than if (s)he would have to do without fraud: re-writing the whole dissertation without any sign of fraud.

The majority, however, is honest and submits useful work contributing to knowledge and skills in hospitality business.

My son Menno has also done an exam: he has acquired the yellow belt in judo, and he needs the achievement! Because of my presentations I couldn't be present but his mother was there to encourage him, with success.

Also positive was the amazing TV program about sustainable industry, about the new concept "from cradle to cradle": it means (I couldn't hardly believe my eyes and ears) that captains of industry such as the CEO of Ford in Detroit and Chinese industry developers all of a sudden became green preachers like Greenpeace, and you know why? because a very intelligent and entrepreneurial couple (maybe they are future Nobel Prize winners) of an architect and biologist had proven that waste-prevention can save them millions of dollars, by what they call "turning waste into food". Food for the natural ecosystem, or food for technology. One of the secrets is that you have to design a product in such a way that it can be given back to nature or industry. Working like this saves money, waste processing and co-operates with nature itself. Cradle-to-cradle, the miracle of the century, and sooo simple! If only you see it like profit itself, and get rid of the prejudice that eco is expensive, on the contrary, it now has proven to be cheaper! This holds for manufacturing and constructing industries, but I see problems for the agricultural industry: how to apply the cradle-tocradle-concept for cattle breeding and the growing of agricultural products? The TV program didn't mention it, but it's very important, for the same evening I saw how agricultural engineers had discovered that a big percentage of our CO2-emission in the Netherlands was produced because of lowering the ground water level in peat areas, to turn them into grass land. About half of Dutch grass land is acquired this way. The peat gets dry and starts to rot, which causes CO2. Very expensive measures must be taken to reduce this process, and at the same time maintaining the grassland. On my photoblog you can see an area where the ground water level has been increased again, and more such areas are needed, not only for CO2 reduction but also to acquire natural water bassins to avoid floods in cities and villages. However, the farmers are not happy with these developments and they still have great political influence, although the last 20 years they delivered much of their previous power.

Exciting education experiences

A good hospitality consultant has to know how this is done, too! Look at www.chn.nl (English version)

Yesterday I cycled in my waterproof rainsuit the usual route to and from my work, through some tropical showers, the outskirts of the flood that was poured out over the UK at the same time. It was an exciting experience thanks to my waterproof clothing. The disadvantage of it is that after half an hour firmly pedaling, it gets wet on the inside, not by rain but by sweat. So you have to relax on your bike to avoid this as much as possible, which is difficult when you bike against a strong wind, but this wasn’t the case yesterday. It’s a weird week, this morning I’m supposed to prepare for presentations that will be held this afternoon by 3d year students. In a team of four to six students they have been working on improvement projects at small and medium-sized companies in the hotel- and restaurant branch, the so-called “hospitality industry”, I will asses them together with a colleague, after having coached them during six months. I did this before for three times so I more or less know what’s expected from me. It’s amazing how medium- and small sized businesses are so busy with their daily fuss that they are not able to retreat from time to time to reconsider what they are doing: is my concept still working, or is it outdated? What is the competition doing and how will I respond? What novelties and innovations are important for me? How do my customers feel about my services? What menu items are much asked for and what could I abandon or do I have to change for better profit? Etc.

I think it would be good for employment and for training / education purposes, as well as for service quality, if this kind of improvement projects would be made standard for all small businesses. It’s not difficult or complicated all you need is a group of coached students, working along a systematical path:
1. diagnose company and its business-environment by talks and research;
2. establish a point of improvement, measure its output at that moment;
3. design a way or method to improve;
4. implement the improvement;
5. measure the output after or during implementation.

In 9 out of 10 cases this will yield success, as our series of projects clearly demonstrate. It’s also exciting and motivating for students who are in their roles not as trainees or as learners, but as true experts, and in comparison with many entrepreneurs they are experts because they just ended and/or are in the middle of theory- and model building and analysis methods courses, whereas their clients are of course more experienced in running an real-life business. If you would follow theory and booklets in everything you do in a small business you would be bankrupt within a couple of weeks because you are supposed to immediately select the possibilities of your situation that suit you most and which could be totally different from what the books pre-suppose. But retreat and read is necessary to check whether you indeed selected the right available possibilities. Checklists and models are the diagnosing kit, bookkeeping and administration are the dashboard of the engine, customers and money are the fuel.

I have four teams this afternoon, in total there are 32 teams presenting their projects to an audience of students, lecturers and client companies in different rooms of course. Before and after there are keynote speakers and other celebration activities. I’m sure it will be a success just like the previous times.

Ad Deum, qui laetificat iuventutem meam

Last Sunday my 9-year old son and I went to out little church in Burgum, the St.-Martin’s Church. It's more a chapel than a church (see above). I returned to the R.C. church a year ago, and this year my son had been baptized and received his 1st Holy Communion. When we entered, we saw a whole group of men also entering the church from the altar’s side. They were dressed in black cassocks with white shirts on it, and they went to the choir’s place. I whispered in my son’s ear that it was a visiting choir because I was sure of that now. After a minute (we had taken our places) another stranger entered the altar stage: an old man, leaning on a stick, the priest, we didn’t see him before yet. He looked very stern and strict, and I feared for an old-fashioned service in which the rules of the Church would be stressed (again). I estimated his age on around 80 years and I never saw a priest with such an apostle-like appearance before. Despite his stick he had a strong and impressive posture, not a gram of superfluous fat, you could expect only old muscles under his garb. We were sitting in the second row so we could see everything. His hands which he would be using during the Mass emphasizing what he said, were beautiful and strong, the kind of hands old masters like Rembrandt and Michelangelo used as examples for their studies. His face, like I said, was stern and strict, imagine how St. Peter must have looked like in peoples’ minds and you have an idea. His hair was still fully present (unlike mine) and silver-white. He made fear for the worst, when he gave silent directions to the four Mass Servers, boys of around 15 years of age, that they should go elsewhere, not standing in their right places as they were: they were supposed to sit down that moment at the beginning, on their chairs at the right side. Then he climbed the altar, leaning on his stick and waited for Mrs. Jansen (fictitious name), the assistant-pastor, who would do the welcome word. Mrs. Jansen welcomed the priest and the choir and she announced what was supposed to be known (but I didn’t read it in the parochial guide, my fault), that we would have a Gregorian Mass. After her, the priest, I would almost say: “opened his mouth and spoke, saying:” “Well, that wasn’t a very good management of the stage for a start”, referring to the four Mass Servers on their wrong places. But he said it with a voice and tone one wouldn’t have expected: relaxed, mildly. Then he continued by referring to the special day it was, emphasizing that we had come together because it was the xth Sunday before Pentecost – which wasn’t true, many people had come because it was a Gregorian Mass – their xth Sunday could also be celebrated in their “own” churches in the area -, also in such a way that a slight irony was noticeable. Anyway, the Holy Mass started.

Introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam.

(I will ascend to the altar of God, to God who is the joy of my youth). When I had about my son’s age I was a Mass servant myself, and these were the words I heard hundreds of times, as the very first words of every mass, spoken by the priest at the foot of the altar, standing left of me, me kneeling at his right side, the audience of faithful behind us. I never understood these words, because God isn’t supposed to be only one's youth’s joy. But I never asked an explanation to parent, teacher or priest, I took it as it was. Later on I read translations in Dutch, saying “to God who is my joy since my youth” but I wasn’t satisfied by such “improvements” of the original words, dating back to AD 200 or so. Later again, I was 61 years of age and returned back to the Church, I discovered their true meaning: these words were intended for me personally, period. In my youth I had tasted the benefits of faith, and now God had called me back, as a lost son, or as a shepherd looking for his one lost sheep out of his flock of hundreds. That’s it, I don’t know why and how, I only feel it’s that way. I can only hope (and I think it's true) my son feels the same non-deliberated or reasoned “radiation” as I felt at that time. The words were not spoken this time, liturgy has changed since 1955. But I heard the old, Gregorian songs again, and sung them by heart, literally and metaphorically, because I remembered their texts, their melody and also their meaning because my parents had given me the advantage of a classical education with Greek and Latin. And I realised at the same time how Latin had estranged the faithful from Rome because only a small elite knew it, and if songs and prayers are in a strange language they cannot arise from the heart. That’s the other side of the coin, the one side is that for those who understand it – the priest also said it – it is a beautiful language, very well suited for religious expression.

De profundis clamavi ad Te Domine, Domine, exaudi vocem meam.

From the depths I cried to Thee Lord, Lord, listen to my voice. (I love Mozart's version of the psalm). This psalmtext was the theme of the Mass. Clamavi, said the priest, (pronounced with the “a” not in the English way but as it is pronounced in all other languages), isn’t that expressing its meaning far better that the Dutch “ik heb geroepen”? (the English “I cried" also expresses its meaning very well) There is something of “shouting” in it. I love Latin.
It was time for the sermon. The priest cam down and took place in a chair, and so for the first time in my life I experienced a priest or vicar holding a sermon while sitting. I must say, it was a good experience. The sitting posture gives dignity and wisdom, more than the standing posture which gives a rather “exclaiming” and prophesizing idea. Especially this priest, looking so much like St. Peter or a medieval bishop, spread an air of wisdom around him, which filled the whole church. He spoke slowly and with a firm and clear voice with a Southern accent, from around Roermond I guess (my sister lives there). He spoke about the gospel of that Sunday, Jesus visiting the house of a Pharisee, and how He dealt with His host and a sinful woman coming in, dropping tears on His feet which she wiped off with her hair. It was very impressive, although the priest didn’t say anything extra loud, he kept many silences in his story. It was for everybody as if (s)he was present at the event.
At the end of the Mass he announced that he was going to sing the words that never are said anymore in modern liturgy: ”Ite, Missa est”, followed by the people: “Deo Gratias” (“Go, the Mass has ended”, and: “Thanks to God”). I remember of course the jokes we schoolboys made about these words J. Then he forgot something because he wished everybody a good Sunday, and got a reminder form his “disciples”: of course the blessing, which was done of course, together with a small sermon.
Then we sang the beautiful old Maria-song “Salve Regina, Mater Misericordiae”, and went home or to the parish house for coffee.
After the Mass I praised my son for his endurance, the songs must have meant a sacrifice for him (although my wife told me otherwise, that it was only a pose), and that day it seemed he needed to express (much) more attachment to me than usual which made me happy.

The last days I ‘m also a bit annoyed about the “right-wing” declarations from the official church in Rome, I have to find my way and place in it. So I have problems with women not being allowed at priesthood, (although Mrs. Jansen would be a perfect priest), with divorced people not allowed to the Holy Sacrament, and with sudden exclamations such as I read in the paper from a Roman, Italian cardinal, that Catholics are “not allowed” to donate money to Amnesty International, because this very, very, Christian-acting organisation gives help to raped girls in the South of Sudan where everybody knows how a horrific hell is going on. Many of these girls have an abortion apparently with the approval and maybe help of Amnesty International (although A.I., as far as I know, doesn’t supply help on the spot but gives moral , influential and financial support), and that’s enough reason for the Vatican to issue an official declaration like this. I comfort myself with the thought that it’s not the princes and the Holy Father, the bishops and the priests who judge, they are not supposed to be moral judges but spriritual leaders and sometimes they might think they can stand between God and mankind, instead of guiding men to God.

An example of how wrong religious leaders can be is the way the famous 17th-century philosopher and scholar Spinoza was expelled from both his Jewish community and the Christian community of Amsterdam. By strict reasoning he concluded that God was in everything, an idea now widespread but at the time a blasphemy, because God was in those days a man in a place called heaven from where He ruled the world and the universe, which he created long ago. For me, God is in everything and all that has been created is an expression of His omnipresence. This makes one humble and happy at the same time, and aware of all the mistakes men can make abusing His omnipresence, including oneself, not merely including, but especially focused on oneself. Please Your Excellency Mr. Cardinal, go and visit an abbey of the Benedictines for some time (they are the school example of hospitality) and listen what the brother who is cleaning the corridor has to say or better, has to keep silent and take an example.

I’m glad I can share this with my blog, Those who have eyes to read, may read it. So mote it be.

About Fryslân

On my photoblog I got a comment from a co-blogger who congratulated me with living in such a beautiful countryside. I replied: I love it, indeed. I came here for settlement 15 years ago, and I saw around me the illustrations from "Ot and Sien" a series of childrens' book from my childhood. It seemed as if time had been frozen for 75 years: the houses, the pastures, etc. The only thing is that it is flat everywhere, no hills. Sometimes you find yourself in a kind of green prairy-landscape, other times amidst small fields cut by oak tree-lanes, or on a lake (many Germans come here to sail). I could fill a whole paper about this part of the Netherlands. Let me give you some highlights:
Fryslân or Friesland is the only province in our country with an own language. This language, Frisian, stems from the time the Frisians, the Franks and the Saxons populated our country. The Franks and the Saxons adopted Dutch, the Frisians kept their own language, which is also affiliated to English because together with the Saxons and the Danish they conquered the greater part of the U.K. in the early Middle Ages. Many words sound alike, or almost alike, in Frisian and English, however written differently. Frisian is spoken by some 300,000 people, and is the second official language in the Netherlands. The province is renown around the world because of the Frisian cattle; there is no country in the world without its offspring. Economically, agriculture is the main branch of industry, but since around 1960 tourism has become at least as important. Thanks to tourism, we can maintain a lot of traditional things such as traditional round- or flat-bottom ships (their keel is replaced by leeboards because of the shallow waters), and the costly maintenance of accessibility of water areas (campsheetings, bridges, mooring places etc.). Friesland (or Fryslân) has a number of very beautiful small towns, next to its capital Leeuwarden with also a beautiful centre that unfortunately has been modernized too fast on a number of places, in Leeuwarden’s striving to keep up with the Jones (New York, Paris, Shanghai J). To be mentioned are Dokkum (where Boniface has been killed by the heathen), Bolsward, Franeker Here used to be a university until Napoleon’s time. It also contains the famous Planetarium of Eyse Eysinga, an amateur astrologer who built a completely functioning solar system in his house driven by sophisticated wooden clockworks, it still functions today very accurately, it astonished the scholars of those days (somewhere in the eighteenth century). The ceiling of his living room is reserved for the planets turning around the sun, each in its own pace. Some of them make one circle around the sun in more than a human lifetime, which indicates the accuracy of the clockwork! Then there are Drachten (grown too fast in modern times to have an own character with an old centre – now they are digging out an old canal that first had been filled up to make the road broader, in order to get back something of the old times), Heerenveen (same story, famous for its soccer club) and Harlingen (harbour to the Waddenzee in open connection with the North Sea).
Friesland has been much larger than it is now, stretching from the Belgian coast all the way North to Denmark in the early Middle Ages. Soon the counts of Holland emerged as Frisian opponents on one side, and the Saxons on the other side. The Frisians had their own kings and had to yield to foreign powers eventually. In Germany and South Denmark their language is only a kind of curiosity, spoken by a handful of people, our Dutch province is the only area where it is still common language next to Dutch (in the countryside only spoken to people from outside Friesland).
Of course there is much more to tell about Fryslân, its history, its musea, the people, etc., but it will not suit a blog like this. I can refer to some websites:

http://www.drf.nl/images/1995/Zomer/index.html

http://www.hartvanfriesland.nl/engels.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friesland

http://www.frieslandholland.nl/uk/

John is rich, Peter is poor and that's John's fault

G 8

The World top conference has ended. Which gives me, regardless of its outcome, the opportunity to say something about the constant demonstrations and accusations against the “rich world”. I saw an African lady, a Noble Prize winner, declaring for TV that the rich countries constantly hide themselves behind the cop-out that the governments of the poor countries and the corruption prevent effective aid programs for the poor. This wasn’t an excuse, and she advocated a multi-billion dollar gift for Africa.

People are always inclined to find simple solutions and scapegoats. There are rich countries and there are poor countries, and if the rich ones would give some of their wealth to the poor, the problem is solved. It’s their fault, so they have to give. There are several arguments against this simple view, but it seems as if people are only proclaiming their view without listening to arguments contra. Every argument contra is wiped from the table: see above. Let’s have a look at some arguments:
In very poor countries, with a low education level among the people and powerful family and clan bonds every large-scale aid program is deemed to fail, because you always have to involve the local chiefs whose first concern is to preserve their influence and existing social (family) patterns. In Europe and USA we are used to bureaucratic rules formulated by Max Weber. These rules allocate the greatest power to those who actually contribute most to economic and social welfare, within a democratic system with separated government functions. Poor countries allocate power according to birth, gender, clan membership, sequence of birth. The authorities in these countries see Western aid programs primarily as a means to get money, not to get economic development. The result of this attitude, namely the suffering of their peoples, they put on the blame account of the rich countries who “don’t give enough”.
Europe has been blamed for colonizing a large number of countries who now are called “poor”. Colonization is a great evil that now belongs to the past. Yet, there are still action groups who demand monetary compensation because the West “has become rich thanks to slavery”. Then I want compensation for the Netherlands from the Spanish, the Romans, the Austrians, the French and the Germans who all once exploited Holland as part of their empires.
It’s NOT pointing at “countries” and demanding compensation from them, but first of all one has to point at themselves. If you are government member of a poor African country, it’s you who has to arrange things in such a way that prosperity is aimed at for your people. This is a “law” as old as humanity itself. It’s not the countries, it’s the people and their culture. Although authorities always want to stress that a country is an expansion of an inhabitant’s personality and identity. People should use their countries to pursue what is the right thing to do when it comes to mass operations like foreign aid and development campaigns. When the Dutch left Indonesia as their colonizers, the Javanese took over their role in colonizing the rest of the Indonesian archipelago. Without Dutch / British / Portuguese colonization Indonesia would never have existed, instead there would have been now a number of smaller countries just like in Europe. Even Java consisted in at least three different kingdoms, autonomously operating before the colonization era. For the colonizers, huge territories were more efficient to control. The problems this gave we see in Iraq, where all Iraqi people consider themselves in the first place as Shiite, Sunnite, Kurd, etc. and in the second place as Iraqis. Of course when Iraq is one “state” with uniform laws, then it’s they (their group) who have to be in power, and not the others. Iraq lacks now a strong leader such as Sukarno in Indonesia, to become one nation. Maybe Saddam Hussein was such a leader, but far less sophisticated than the erudite and elegant Sukarno, when we saw Saddam provoke every other power to withstand him instead of practicing diplomacy. In the USA we see that they have been a British colony (or a series of colonies) and afterwards we see that they themselves have been approaching each other and co-operating to become the country they are now, instead of constantly fighting each other. Of course there were armed struggles but these didn’t determine the result.
When we look at many poor countries we see charlatans as their presidents, constantly blaming and pointing to others, and doing everything except giving their people directions and guidelines of how they could develop as a nation. When the Pope visits South America, Mr. Chavez takes immediate opportunity to shout that the Roman Catholic Spain violently imposed Catholicism to the Indians, something that maybe happened 450 years ago. Uttering this opinion now, doesn’t help poor Indians at all and is only intended to show Mr. Chavez to the people as a friend of the Indians, exhorting them to forswear their faith, totally according to the Marxist principle that religion is the opium of the people.

Yes, people of the demonstration circus around “globalization”, you are in good company.

Some reflections

The days are racing along. My work, family and new two hobbies (photoblogging and the sailing boat) require their attention. I must be aware of priorities and luckily I manage to. I’m also starting to feel that I’m in my sixties and not in my forties anymore. Cycling to and fro my work is a daily enjoyment but I see more bottoms of overtaking fellow-cyclists than I did before. When I visited my brothers and sisters during a birthday party I felt a member of an aged people club, and I was the oldest of them! They were showing each other photos of their grandchildren: very cute but there is a big chance I’ll never experience how it is to be grandfather and I have also to regret that I cannot produce energy and effort to keep track of the developments of all my grand-nephews and –nieces, being aware that they are of great importance for my brothers and sisters. At the same time I felt blessed with so big a family. Nowadays youngsters have only a few brothers and/or sisters, my son has none, and one’s brother or sister can be of great emotional help in times of problems. Not because of the expertise of their advice, but just because someone of your “roots” is listening and takes interest in you, no therapist or pastor can give this. On the other hand, just because of the same reason I think there can be big conflicts and clashes between them, as well as complete ignoring each other. The bond of being of the same roots is very strong, but has to compete with other bonds people feel such as having the same view on life, having the same kind of interests and preferences, etc. and brothers and sisters can differ enormously in these things. In our culture family bonds are often broken, just like there are so many divorces, which one should regret. But it’s only one side of the coin. I wouldn’t like to swap with cultures in which families are al-mighty, and can be felt as a prison. Anyway, our family keeps “the middle of the road”.
Since our parents passed away our mentally handicapped brother (46) is more or less the “centre of the family” keeping everybody together for a great deal, although he himself isn’t aware of it.
I really discovered photographing. In my thirties I used to have a dark room and also photographed a lot, but digital photography gives an extra dimension and is so easy and convenient. No rigmarole with chemicals and stuff.

I’m also bothering about things from the newspapers, it’s a kind of feeling yourself powerless and privileged. Poetin and Bush quarreling about anti-rocket installations in Europe (the idea! Europe being threatened by Iranese rockets, thank you says Poetin, for the reason you give me to profile Russia as a superpower), the rainforests being devastated (when I ride my bicycle across the little bridge across the ditch I ride over tropical wood planks), the arrogance of “religious” fundamentalists with whom no discussion or talk is possible because they feel they have always right because God lays His words in their mouths, that’s why they do so much damage to the rest of the world instead of visiting a psychiatrist, etc.

The photoblog gives me much confort, when I see how photographers from Iran and USA complement each other with their products of beauty, like a Utopia becoming real. Almost every picture is taken and published with love and dedication and deserves a compliment. Some of them are of a breathtaking beauty (Kaveh, Mehdi, among others), others are candid and spontaneous, it’s really fun.

See you soon.

Old professions and crafts

Sometimes it's good to browse around in collections of old photos, from before there were:
telephones
computers
cars for many people
supermarkets
long vacations
(many) airplanes
diplomas for most of the people
highways
mortgages for many people
TV's (or even radios)
cameras for non-professionals
etc.

The man on the picture I took from www.winshem.nl and I 'm curious if you know what occupation he has. He is a "wake-upper" and businesspeople (other people didn't have the money to pay him or didn't need him) hired a wake-upper to make sure they would get up in time for their appointments, for which they often had to make long journeys through the country. With his stick he knocked on the door until the client showed he had heard it and could pay him.

Now we have alarm clocks. Maybe the wake-upper's client had also one but wanted to be sure.

In those days there were also hot-water sellers (mostly women, there were also female wake-uppers, a Dutch novelist wrote a short story about one). As you can guess looking at the picture, there were no pensions for lots of people and also a wake-upper had to look neatly dressed considering the importance of his clients.

I'm getting old, finding these things important enough to post on my blog.