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Over the past few weeks i have been lying awake during the night. My mind is worried. Worried about my money running out slowly but surely. The past day i thought about applying for a temporary job. That is not what i want, but it might seem to be the only real way out for me. Because i don’t want to live dependent on the friends i have.

At the same time i want to bump into that money limit. It is a completely imaginary way of almost dying, disappearing from life. That is what appeals to me. I don’t want to go back to working and making a living and dying in some place unremarkable with no history and nothing to show for my life. But, on the other hand, i can imagine my life being quiet and unremarkable and about learning to control my inner urges, which of course i do have. A restful life.

Why do i need to pick a side? Why can’t i simply live my life as i see fit? Well, the world and the people are not that fair. You need to fight for what you want. I have had it easy so far. So buckle up and take it as it comes to you, miss Pronk.

I have been hiding. I crept away. I was satisfied working here on this website with no clear goal.

And of course i am mad as hell. It is no use though. If i want something, fight for it!

I do enjoy the quiet. The past few days, since the day the war between Russia and Ukraine started, i was very much into twitter, youtube and even television. I watched the news, strangely for me.

I love the quiet, the solitude, the silence. The cars are far away, mostly i hear the birds singing their song lately. Early spring singing. It is my basis. Of course this doesn’t mean i can not handle any upheaval or confusion in my life. I know i can.

With the war going on between the Ukraine and Russia, i’m in between feeling angry and quiet. Angry with the world, with the way things are developing. Quiet because that is me. Of course now is not the time to be quiet. I want to yell. Scream. But no, i am not. Not yet anyway.

This is a confusing time. The war between Russia and the Ukraine goes against anything i can imagine. The deaths, the destruction, the fleeing of people, it is all so devastating. My mind tries to understand something of Putin, but this is too farfetched. Even when reading about people like Dugin – see my post of yesterday – it is alien to me.

I think back on the previous wars: the Iraq war, the war in North-West Pakistan, the war in Yemen, the war in Lebanon, the war in Somalia, the war in Georgia, the Boko Harum uprising, the Syrian civil war. This is just a selection of the wars in the world from 2003 till the present day. Three quarters of these wars i had never even heard about. I live here in the Netherlands feeling safe and protected.

In between the ongoing assault of the war news is a frightening message from the IPCC: “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction”. We are at the edge of counter measures against the climate change. Only for around ten years will measures we take have an effect.

Part of me rejects reading this message on the news website and on twitter. As i do all other messages i read which aren’t about the war. Something i have to fight within myself. The current war is a problem, of course, but there are so many other problems going on in the world right now.

And yet, to me this world seems to be going on and on. Wars, floods, fires, volcano eruptions, it all keeps on happening. There are only moments of peace and tranquility. It seems.

I do want to find rest within myself. And at times i find it. To loose it all once again. Like i did the last few days.

I stand still and straight.

Salute!

I want to be in the midst of life, have a house in a big city, with a garden, where i can grow veggies and flowers for cutting and enjoying them inside my house fresh or dried. I want to give dinners once or twice a week and bake lovely food for the people who feast on the food, making separate carbs dishes like potatoes or rise or risotto or pasta and then of course veggie and cheese and eggs and meat dishes and bake almond cakes or cheesecakes with strawberries or raspberries or any other kind of berry. I want to go out to dinner with friends and marvel at the food. I want to go to the Oscars and show of my beautiful dress which i have bought or made myself or whatever on the arms of my boyfriend who loves me. I want to keep on working here on this website and make drawings and photos and write these columns and whatever i want to do here.

But most of all i want to find rest within myself, a quiet acceptance of my life as it is, an exuberance in living and each day a new day once again.

Each day a new day once again.

That is what i really really want.

I don’t always manage being calm and gentle. Lately i get scared more. The last days i get angry at times. Angry at the world. Angry at all the people in it. Who don’t give me what i want.

That is of course ludicrous. Not giving me what i want. You never get what you want. Not that i know what i want for real. I still have a dream of meeting someone who i fall in love with. In the innermost depths of my being. Over the past years i came across some nice men i fell in love for a bit, but it never lasted. So here i am. Single.

I do find it difficult to write these texts, these columns. Last week on Thursday i was so confused about what to write. In the end i read the first bit i had written and followed this. I still find myself thinking of something which resonates within me; and then forget this the next day. Why i don’t know. It could be it is not the right time yet to write that text down.

Single. That is what i am. It is fine. I’m open and careful at the same time. Usually anyway 🙂

I just got out of bed.

I was lying in bed thinking of the near future. I don’t want any money from the state. I don’t want any help from anyone. I don’t want to get anything.

I do not know where i get these thoughts from. I can go and look for a job of course. Of course! But i don’t want to. I don’t want to live in this world with its money and securities and jobs. I don’t want it. I’d rather die.

Well, my mind is looking for other solutions. Which are all wrought with difficulties.

Silly me. Stupid silly me. Crazy stupid silly me.

Hmm, that was an outburst. I pretty sure i won’t die. But i still can’t see what will happen to me.

Still so many things to learn, each and every single day.

Last week i saw Marli Huijer’s reading about the loss of rhythm in the corona lockdown time. For the first time it became clear to me the great loss in social and interpersonal relationships these lockdowns have caused. The daily, weekly and yearly rhythms we are accustomed to were diminished. Holidays were no longer an usual part of our routines. Public holidays like Christmas and Eastern were less celebrated with fewer people present.

For me this was less the case. For the past seven years i have been working on this website, ellenpronk.com with a very strict rhythm: five updates a week, each published six o’clock in the morning, five weeks of holidays a year. This rhythm has kept me sane over the past years. This rhythm made it possible for me to live my life as i was used to. I still made walks, lockdown wasn’t as severe as in other countries where you needed to stay home the whole day.

I am partly living outside the commonplace working life rhythm most adult people have here in western Europe. I don’t have a house anymore, i don’t have a job, i don’t have a regular income. I am not sure what the future entails.

But why would i need to be sure? Why not live my life as free as i can? Why worry so much about money? I do worry, i know that. It is very hard to get away from that worry. Sometimes i succeed, but it does come back.

Each life lived here on this earth needs a steady rhythm to feel healthy. Day after night, week after week, the moons growing fuller and lesser, the seasons turning into each other.

I do feel happy in my life. I hopefully can make a difference in this world. Fingers crossed.

Salute!

Yesterday morning someone asked me the following question at the harvest market: ‘Do i think i have something to say to the world?’ I thought about this for a short time. ‘Yes’ i said ‘i do think that i have something to say to the world. But i do think most people have something to say, if not all. What hurts me is that we are learned not to say anything.’

I felt happy with this answer. I still do.

Last night i was lying awake for a time in the middle of the night. I was thinking of a post i wanted to write. I have half forgotten this now. But this morning when i woke up the memory was still close to me.

It had something to do with this book i started reading yesterday: Hare Brain Tortoise Mind. Why Intelligence Increases When You Think Less written by Guy Claxton. Published in the late 90s, it is about the difference between being smart and clever and being intuitive and creative. Currently the main focus of what we learn in school and university and in life is the first one: being smart and clever. Deduce and calculate your way into a job or being rich or whatever.

In my life right now my main working attitude is intuitive and creative. I actually need to learn to be smart and clever. To become well-known. To not worry about money anymore.

But my thoughts of last night keep staying away from me, i’m sad to say. I do hope they or any thoughts worth writing up here on this website will come back to me. Or i will get up out of bed in the middle of the night and write them up. Do that!

I was thinking. Just yet. What am i gonna write today? I went upstairs. I’m taking care of the cat of my neighbour who lives above me. I played with Joep. He/she is quite fierce. Slapping me with his paw. Not with the nails out. I gave him some fresh water and cleaned up her litter box.

Downstairs again. I made a cup of tea. And then this thought came up. So i got my first bit.

I am watching a youtube video called Talking masculinity with the ‘most dangerous therapist in the world’, Jerry Hide. It made me think of what kind of man i am interested in. What kind of man i would like to be interested in me. Not sure i am there yet. I will watch it from where i left and return here. Be right back!

I hope i have something to say. It feels to me that i do. I think in the past i have felt portions of this. I remember in the past couple of years moments of clarity. They do pass. I need to work at it. It is all muddled through.

I hope my life is part of a story. A narrative. I am actually fighting against it. I know i need to give up fighting this battle. Go with it, not against it. But this is so hard. It is still not clear enough for me. It is a mess. I still have this believe in my own free will. I take direction in my life. It is all up to me. But it is not. It feels to me that once i give up fighting, once i can set my life in its own course, than i can simply gain my life back. Because right now it doesn’t feel like my life at all. Right now i have my head full of dreams, but nothing on the outside as proof of these dreams. That they exist, they are mine.

That is it for today. I hope you have a good weekend. Salute!

Shared widely is the current understanding of a nation state, a country. It seems that around two hundred years ago this idea of a country came into existence. Before that humans died so much younger, people didn’t travel that far, didn’t speak to someone else over a long distance through a ‘telephone’, didn’t write for a worldwide audience on the internet.

The nation state made possible our current notion of a constitutional state with a social safety net. The residents of these states were given a livelihood and a clear identity. Especially over the last two hundred years lives have changed. But does that make us happy? Does it give us a full-filled life? Does it give us a sense of purpose wide enough?

I have my own sense of impending doom which makes my life difficult at the moment. But i am still not changing my ways. I still have the sense somewhere close in the future lies my salvation. Close yes, within a month or two. I’m burning up every penny i have to find a new way to live, a new cause to fight for, a new story to tell.

We need to work at our earth. We need to right the wrongs we have done here. There is so much work to be done here: make the cities nicer places to live, make the forests wilder, make the plains a better place with loads more wildflowers. Make the grass fields we are so proud of disappear. They are no use to us. These mono cultures are a waste of space. Make the oceans cleaner and stop emptying them of fish and filling them with plastics and pesticides. Make less babies. Stop using all sorts of sugar in our food. Stop it!

This is only a small piece of things we should be working on. Not all the wasteful jobs we have right now. This is what we should fight for.

Get rid of stupid economic neoliberal system. Once and for all!

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Kerstessay: Waarom onze politiek geregeerd wordt door doodsangst