The Mystery of the Double "L"

Apart from the “P” and the “H” at the start, which constitutes the key to understanding the difference between Poland and Holland of course, there’s also the “l”.  No need to explain the provenance of the “P” and the “H”, that’s clear as sky (if it isn’t for you, please don’t tell anyone, but see * below). Dus. As the Dutch say, not wasting too many words, (because you shouldn’t absolutely ever waste ANYTHING) when they mean “isn’t that obvious?/I told you I was right, but you wouldn’t listen/I’m going to do it anyway/I don’t care what you think”. Dus.

Therefore we may conclude that Poland and Holland are actually quite similar, except for the P and the H, of course. And that double “l”.

The temperature has just got me on the right path to decipher the mystery of the extra letter. Please read on. The extra “L” unveiled. Your life will never be the same again. 

All seated with the belts fastened? 

It’s January. The thermometer shows 11 degrees Celsius. 

Seven months ago it showed 12 degrees for a change. It was June. This splendid heat wave (1 degree higher than in January!) continued well into July. 

Holland is namely a country where you can expect temperatures around ten all year round. Ten plus/minus ten, the “plus” option only available occasionally, for a limited period and if you’re really lucky.

In Poland, in turn, the winters are cold, and the summers are hot.  Therefore, there’s no risk of mistaking January with its minus fifteen for June with its twenty-five. And people have to live with it. People have to be different, depending on how warm it is. They’d be sad and melancholy in winters, having enough of it towards the end of the cold months (usually stretching until mid- April), revived and energised in spring, happy and outgoing in the summer, slowing down and lazy in autumn. They are Scandinavians and Italians in one. 

But the Dutch are just Dutch. They don’t need to be anyone else, as the way they are: direct, frugal and enterprising - fits all the seasons. It fits zero degrees just as much as it fits plus eighteen (usual temperature in the summer).

They are much more leveLLed. No highs or lows. Always attending the same funny birthday celebrations following a fixed scenario and ending before it's dinner time, whether they are eight or eighty eight. Whether it’s plus eight or plus eighteen outside. 

And when it’s above eighteen? Goodness me, soooo hot?! That’s when Holland becomes Hotland and people put on their summer outfits. 

Hotland sounds dangerously close to Scotland. I’ll level with you:  I’ve just been tempted to develop another groundbreaking theory on the differences between those two... But you might first want to digest the double LL. Beware: the capitals tend to stick in the throat. You’d better take the lower case.

*) P stands for Poland, and H for Holland, of course.

A Robbit's Trip through the Tunnel

If you hear a language which is completely unknown to you, your brain still tries, unwittingly, to decipher what the strange sounds mean. This is what brains is used to doing, deciphering things. Unless you switch it off, which I cannot. As an occasional practitioner of meditation I never managed to arrive at a state in which my mind was void: the moment I think I might be there, I realise that the very fact that I’m realising anything at all confirms that I’m anywhere but where I was hoping to be.

Our mind hungers for the familiar. It’s not used to emptiness.

Some internet sites require me to prove I’m not a robot. I look at the weird scribbles and try to see something recognizable in them. I must admit, I failed a few times. My robotic arm interpreted an “n” as an “h”, very inhumane indeed. Fortunately, the machine gave me a second chance. Irritated, I typed:

- How about you? Prove you’re a computer!          
- The text you typed doesn’t match the example.    Try again.
- Oh yes, I believe you now. You are just a stupid PC.
- The text you typed doesn’t match the example. Try again.
- wzBr9krin10
Redirecting...

If your car breaks down, you can repair it or buy a new one. If your wife leaves you and demands half of your Facebook friends as a divorce settlement, that’s not a tragedy - you’ll sooner or later recreate your friend-reservoir. If all your plants at home die, you’ll buy new ones and this time make sure you water them regularly. There’s always a way out.

If you see an elephant climbing trees, you’ll think it’s a new species, a peculiar kind or a squirrel or a hallucination. If you see photos falling from the sky, you’ll think it’s the Cloud reaching it’s maximum storage space (you might also think it’s a hallucination, or a peculiar kind of a marketing event). But if someone tells you that “Colourless green ideas slept furiously” you’ll think he’s crazy, a poet or a fan of Noam Chomsky. You won’t think ideas can sleep that way. There’s always an explanation.

Anything that happens will sooner or later be grounded in the familiar. And if it cannot be understood in terms of existing systems - a new one will have to be developed. Quantum physics for instance. There’s always an explanation or a solution, it might only not be known yet. 

However weird the circumstances may be, we still manage, with time, to find our way and the answer. You’ll get those characters right one day. After all, things somehow work out. Always.

That’s why when we die we think we’re still alive, somewhere. Once we get out of that tunnel, which takes some getting used to, but after all - we’ve travelled through tunnels before - we say “hello” to those awaiting us and give them an update on what they missed on earth. Your wife divorcing you, your car breaking down, your plants dying and other vital information. They don’t have FB there - they really need some serious filling in. 

And then, flabbergasted, you see those ideas, green and colourless, sleeping furiously under a blue sky on a soft bed of a Cloud. They suddenly look so familiar.

That's the moment you're Redirected ...  for good.

(photo source: www.akinvong.com)

Shape of My Heart

He deals the cards as a meditation

And those he plays never suspect

I'm not so sure. I started to suspect something this morning.

He doesn’t play for the money he wins.
He don't play for respect
He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance *)

I saw it this morning on the windscreen on my car. The drawing was on the inside and only became visible after I’d scratched away the ice from the outside. There’s no explanation to it, this is not the way frost usually works. EWA gazed in AWE at the letters and shapes in front of her.

If this was pure chance it would mean that chance can be geometrical.

That “chance” might not be pure chance after all.

That there is a plan behind.

This morning I found the sacred geometry of chance on my windscreen. Einstein assures us God doesn’t play dice. Would he play cards instead? 


*) Sting "The Shape of My Heart"

Daily poem by H.P. Printer

end of life.

Open front door,

Smooth, shiny

surface of black

Close front door.

To exit press ?

Chosen personality

Not available.

This is not a poem. This really is a conversation I had with an HP printer this morning, who happened to be missing yellow cartridge. I just love HP printers for the subtility of inspiration they provide.

“I can’t print in black, because I miss yellow.” Fair enough. I can’t make dinner, because I lost my favourite socks.

“End of life.Open front door,”

You're not dead, you’ve only just arrived at your next destination. Open front door, and see what’s awaiting you outside of your capsule.

Would that be a “smooth, shiny surface of blackness”? If you don’t like it, just close front door. Stay dead, if you have problems accepting the new reality as it is.

Press “?” if you want to exit. That may bring you somewhere else, for instance – to a smooth, shiny surface of yellowness. After someone’s replaced the cartridge, of course.

And do make sure you choose the right kind of personality. The one you’ve selected is currently out of stock.  We can’t all be the same.

HP. HSP. A Highly Sensitive Printer.

PS. In case you enjoy this kind of stuff, chances are that you are an HSP yourself.  In such a case, I seriously recommend a visit to www.hsperson.com as well as the books Elaine Aron has written on the topic. They might help you appreciate the personality you already have, and have your HP printer congratulate you on the occasion:

“If you want to keep chosen personality, press ! Hurrah!”

Nothing rather than Something?

Children are born philosophers, but only some stay that way. Overwhelmed with modern technologies, exposed to constant shifts of attention, they risk losing their capacity for deep reflection. They’ll be quick and efficient in the superficial realms, but as philosophy demands time and profundity, not guaranteeing any quick gains – in fact, guaranteeing no gains at all - they might lose interest in that domain.

That’s why it’s better to limit the game-playing time and let them climb trees more. But what to do if the only trees they are interested in are the digital ones they can construct by themselves? I was quite desperate.

Maybe it is too late? Maybe the brains of my children have gone in the direction predicted by Nicholas Carr in “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains” and they will soon turn into efficient, quick and short-tempered robots (short-tempered they already are), who won’t be able to concentrate on a page of text longer than ½ of an A4 or reflect on anything but how to kill those aliens?

A recent visit to church proved the contrary. Bored during the mass, my 7-year-old bombarded me with questions:

-          How do people know that angels exist?

I was perplexed, but replied:
-          Well, they don’t actually know they exist, they believe they do. Just like some people believe in God, and others don’t.  
-          Can God do anything he wants?
-          Yes, he can.
-          So he can also do nothing? – he grinned suspiciously, as if preparing a trap for me
-          Well… I guess he can do nothing, if he chooses to.
-          But what I mean is not that he lies back and does nothing, but that he creates nothing.
-          You mean, that he doesn’t create anything?
-          No, I mean that he creates a nothing.
To be honest, I felt cornered and wondered if this wasn’t the time to ask him to stop talking. A typical excuse for your own lack of answers. I chose not to say a word, but he continued:
-          No, of course not. Nobody can create a nothing, not even God! – he started to laugh, and there were twinkles in his eyes, as if he’s just made a big discovery.

Which he did.

He will learn one day that there were some people before him who undermined the power of God, by positing that if God is almighty he should also be able to create a stone so heavy that he couldn’t lift it by himself. 

He will also learn that some religions don’t speak of God, but of Nothing. And I hope he can reconcile those notions in his clever blond head. Even if the trees he likes to climb are all digital.  

The Blessing of Glasses

Being shortsighted, I need my glasses to make something out of the “reality” surrounding me. Without them, this “reality” becomes quite surreal, and I can’t tell one person from another if they are at more than 50 metres from me. I can’t find my exit from the highway and I probably wouldn’t be able to tell a rabbit from a squirrel, had it not been for squirrels climbing trees. If it’s running quickly and moving up along a tree trunk, it’s likely not a rabbit’s kin.

But when I take off my glasses the world doesn’t change. I might claim things instantly become very blurred, but they become like that just for me.

So I wonder how the world is for those who don’t need any vision help in the form of a pair of spectacles. Is it spectacular? Always sharp and very true? Does it leave no doubt? Is it nice this way?

Despite being simply a prosthesis, glasses might be of some more use. They helped me find a solution for the moments when the world becomes bad and people seem evil. I just take myself off and put it, the “me”, on the bedside table.  The blessing of glasses is that you can always remove them.

I don’t need to wear them to have clear dreams.

The Hole Story

It’s time for the whole truth about Rabbit Hole. Female audience needn’t read it - I’m sure you never questioned its meaning. I have something to explain to those who aren’t female and thus, by definition, think of one and the same thing without interruption. All the 196 pages, and the rest of the time (http://rabbithole42.blogspot.nl/2012/10/a-brainy-brand.html) At night, too - they either practice it, or just dream about practicing it. All those for whom the word “hole” evokes you know what, and a “rabbit” evokes a bunny. They are in need of an explanation.

The idea about Rabbit’s coming out arose at the table, densely populated with bottles, and less densely populated with male human beings.
- Your blog might be ok, but how on earth do you imagine to get more readership with such a name? A Rabbit Hole?  - said one of them.
- Yes, can you imagine a Monday morning conversation in the office: “Have you read the latest post in the Rabbit Hole?” “The hole, you say? No, I’ve been there, but I haven’t read anything. Have you? Wow, tell me about it. Practiced some Hole-a-Hutra? A new sport?” Ha ha ha. - added another, bursting in laughter.
- Now it's official. You’re not my target audience anyway. - I said - It’s a blog for those who like to read. READ. That’s something you need the big brain for. It’s a niche thing, you know. 
- A niche?! - he fell off his chair.
- Confirmed again. All the time about one thing.
- No, I don’t always think about it. Let’s see... Sometimes I think about my work. 
- And why is it you work?
- To earn money, primarily.
- And why do you need money? There we go. Same thing again. 
- No, but seriously. Someone who googles “rabbit hole” on the web, is looking for bunnies, not reading stuff. 

All right, I’ll explain.
The Rabbit Hole is a hole in which lives a Rabbit. 

If this isn’t enough: there have been many rabbits living in holes in the past as well as in the present, and it’s quite likely that this trend will continue well into the future. Not all of them were famous, but there are at least two prominent predecessors, which got into close contact with the Hole. 

1. Winnie-the-Pooh. 

Winnie  once got stuck in his friend’s Rabbit’s doorway (in other words, the hole) having consumed too much food. As a consequence, he had to be read to for the whole week by Christopher and not given any food, to lose weight and be able to get out of the narrow cavity (yes, narrow. Does this make you happy, too?). Being read to, as a side effect, helps losing weight. That’s a fact worth noticing.  

1. Alice in Wonderland. 

She got into the absurd through the said Hole. 
I quote after Wikipedia: “the Rabbit Hole, which symbolized the actual stairs in the back of the main hall in Christ Church” . I’m not sure if the staircase was particularly narrow, but that’s irrelevant. It’s a Church, my dear.

My Rabbit Hole isn’t that notorious, obviously. As I said - a niche. Looking quite dull on the outside - just another plain and average hole dug out in the ground. Except for the month of September, when it is beautifully decorated with heather. 

But inside, if you ever are invited, and if you dare - there’s a surprisingly spacious apartment. There’s my bedroom (the room where I sleep, read and wake up, alone), there’s my living room, filled with books, there’s a kitchen, a small bathroom, and there’s one more room. The one no ordinary  apartment is equipped with: a room for imagination. 

This is where all Rabbit’s imagination is stored. Not in the cloud, but under the ground. 

And 42? It’s the answer to life the universe and everything. Just google it.