There is always one “Mind Cleanup” entry sitting in my drafts folder, where I can dump quick words, quotes and links that I might want to write about later.
What usually happens is that days and weeks go by without me having time or mental space to write. That “now is the moment” feeling seems to be more difficult to find than “before”. I haven’t really pinpointed the exact cause of this or when it changed exactly.
Let’s analyze this right here and now, shall we?
What was different “before”?
- If I count the amount of blogs I have written over the years I see that 2015 was my most fruitful year, boosted by a Blaugust challenge on the one side and the shock attacks in Paris on the other, followed by the rise of Daesh as a political and cultural phenomenon. It was also the year I started my current job.
- 2016 was the year I volunteered at the Roskilde Festival for the first time. In November of 2016 my boyfriend and I moved in together. November was also the month the Agent Orange was elected president of the USA.
- 2017 was a continuation of 2016; dealing with the POTUS situation, finding my feet in my new casa and volunteering at Roskilde Festival again (and writing a ton of stuff about that here).
Wow, that little walk down memory lane actually really cleared things up for me.
The reason 2015 was a very good blog year is because I had just come out of a job that had filled my system with pent up frustration, that I was finally able to vent when I left. I know that anger has always been the best fuel for my writing flow. The Daesh attacks added to the momentum as society around me reacted in all the wrong ways to the traumatic events in Paris and the growing threat in the region.
The US presidential race in 2016 and the resulting election of the Drumpf, was a deflating experience. I think I am still coming to grips with the reality of the situation and haven’t regained my blogging mojo since. It may sound like a sorry excuse, blaming the POTUS for my writer’s block, but it makes total sense to me and I think I’m going to stick with it.
An additional factor is my current living situation. I love my boyfriend and I love the house we have together. The one thing I am NOT happy about in our new house is the placement of my desk. It’s too dark and my desk is a bit too small. This has caused me to spend less time on the web with less chance to get inspired by random stories to spin into blogs.
It’s an easy fix, really. All I have to do is move some furniture around, right? Ah, but you haven’t taken into account the lazy-fart-factor! Also, I don’t think I have really admitted how much the desk situation really bothers me until now…
So, the rest of this blog consists of random words and themes that I once jotted down to maybe address in a future mind-cleanup-blog. All though a lot of it has gotten old or is still way too complicated for my current brainspace I have decided to just share them with you, without any further editing:
Newsy Stuff
- Bizarre wildfires in Greece, locals blame authorities
- Why would you want to find someone to blame for this?
- Nicaragua riots!
- Will Ortega allow history to depict him as a brutal dictator, like the one he once fought to replace?
- Stef Blok – Dutch minister of foreign affairs and royal ass-wipe
- Made “insensitive remarks” earlier this year and somehow didn’t lose his job
- Worst part: I think he doesn’t even realize how much harm he can do with casually calling Suriname a “failed state” and ruling out the possibility of different ethnicities ever living together in peace.
- Shame is what I feel. Another win for the racists and bigots.
- Zwarte Piet discussion in the Netherlands
- exhausting discussion, but I will not back down for my opinion.
- I am losing friends over my anti-Black Pete stance (or Facebook friends… not really friends, I guess)
- It’s an open wound in our society and it’s starting to fester. I say; chop off the limb and be done with it!
- Kavanaugh debacle
- Typical frat boy in a grown up body.
- What I hate most about him (and his kind): the aura of entitlement.
- Ridiculous TV trial.
- Feels like the nail in the coffin of US credibility.
- Brazil elections
- What’s up with this twisted fascination / longing that Latin America has for dictatorial type leaders?
Music
Music I’m into right now:
- Maro
- Anderson Paak’s Tiny Desk Concert
- This song and video by Kimbra & Dawn:
Greeting St Peter
People who died over the last few months and have made the world a little less beautiful because of it:
- Tante Djirah
- my great-aunt. And great she was. Pure goodness.
- Love her and miss her!
- Aretha Franklin
- RESPECT.
- Kofi Anan
- I grew up with him at the head of the UN.
- He was a symbol of eloquence and thoughtfulness.
- Seeing and hearing him speak reaffirms my belief that political correctness is a virtue and is never synonymous to dishonesty.
Epiphany 