Marilyn
Author Archives for Ellen
Moving again
This morning i walked out of the house i live in, i took a few steps and was called by a good friend who was on his way to work. He asked me how i was. I started to cry. I couldn’t help myself. A woman was standing in her window below where he lived and asked what was wrong. She said she was going on a holiday today (= Monday) and that i could live in her house for three to four weeks.
I will move in today, after three o’clock. It is a short term solution of course. I do need to think about a long term one. But it does buy me a bit more time. So still, yay!
The day after
The past few weeks i’ve been having mixed and elevated emotions. Saturday morning i went for a walk. I sat outside of a coffee bar, drank a cappuccino and read the newspaper. After i finished i walked into the center of town. I was looking at the people and the shops with a distant and observing feeling. I enjoy walking into the center, not to buy anything but to look at the people.
At the market i talked with a friend. I confessed i collapsed during a phone talk with my mother the day before. Stupid filthy money. Stupid filthy world. Nothing goes as i want. The past eight years i have given up everything i have. My house. My work. I’m sitting here with nothing to show for it. I have let everything come to nothing.
That is what i keep saying to myself. This is not true of course. I have learned so much. About myself. About the world. About other people. Yes i was scared. Yes i kept it as low risk as possible. I sold my house with the provision i could keep living in it for two more years. I paid for my livelihood from the money i made with selling my house. Now i’m here, no where left to turn to.
Why? Why did i do this? Why did i let it all fall out of my hands? Why?
I can not disguise this hopeless feeling i have with feeling in love, doing the best i can, fighting for my life the only way i think possible. That all means nothing in the face of my going broke. Being against war, against the weapon industry, the oil industry, the agricultural industry, that is all fine sure. But it leads me nowhere.
What made me decide to go this way? What drove me? It is all gone. I wish i could run back to my old home, hide away and live my life safely away from prying eyes.
I have nothing left to go back to. Here i am, alone, no money, no home. I have some friends, but i can not live off them. Where do i go from here?
I would like to say i wish i knew, but i do not know. Time will tell. Until the time things will be a bit clearer, i can only try to stay calm. It will not be the end of the world.
The whole wide world
Tuesday i went to the market and the library. In the library i read the papers. When i walked back home i met a friend. The next couple of hours we spend talking about all sorts of things: sex, our livelihood, friends, conflicts, people we both know.
The day before i had a talk with my current house boss. It was a good talk, he was clear minded and well spoken. He called me fatalistic, waiting for an accident sure to happen soon. I do not agree with him, but i do see his point.
I am getting closer to taking a new direction in my life. My money is running out. It is difficult to describe my feelings to other people. What do i really really want to do with my life? What matters the most to me? What sort of job would i like to work in? What makes my life worth living?
What would i enjoy doing? Singing! I know i’m not terribly good at it, but i love it. Dancing! I love to dance! I love to make videos, but content is hard to reach the past years. I love to talk. Plenty of things i love to do. But it is all not significant to other people. That is not a job they say. That is simply something you enjoy doing! But why should a job be different from the things you enjoy doing?
Yesterday evening i felt a happiness which filled me up right to the top. How come, while i have only enough money to last me a month or two. Am i crazy? Deluded?
I am alone. This gives me pros and cons. I do not need to give attention to anyone. I don’t get attention myself.
I am not the most beautiful woman in the world. I am not the smartest. I am not the most skilled woman. I may be an artist, i am not sure. I may be a singer, a dancer, a talker. I don’t know.
I am determined. I am not letting go. I do not give up.
‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.’
– Laozi
– Laozi
This step was taken a long time ago.
Source photo: Tao van Poeh, Benjamin Hoff
Repeat I’m Not In Love
I’m not in love – 10CC
I’m not in love, so don’t forget it
It’s just a silly phase I’m going through
And just because I call you up
Don’t get me wrong, don’t think you’ve got it made
I’m not in love, no-no
(It’s because)
I like to see you, but then again
That doesn’t mean you mean that much to me
So if I call you, don’t make a fuss
Don’t tell your friends about the two of us
I’m not in love, no-no
(It’s because)
Be quiet, big boys don’t cry
Big boys don’t cry
Big boys don’t cry
Big boys don’t cry
Big boys don’t cry
Big boys don’t cry
Big boys don’t cry
I keep your picture upon the wall
It hides a nasty stain that’s lyin’ there
So don’t you ask me to give it back
I know you know it doesn’t mean that much to me
I’m not in love, no-no
(It’s because)
Ooh, you’ll wait a long time for me
Ooh, you’ll wait a long time
Ooh, you’ll wait a long time for me
Ooh, you’ll wait a long time
I’m not in love, so don’t forget it
It’s just a silly phase I’m going through
And just because I call you up
Don’t get me wrong, don’t think you’ve got it made, ooh
I’m not in love
I’m not in love
Girl Drawn
Ideology
This weekend the following youtube video was published: ‘Ideologie houdt ons gelukkig. Een gesprek met Marian Donner (Ideology keeps us happy. A talk with Marian Donner). Her new book De Grote Weigering (The Big Refusal) was the main focus of this talk. This book is for a large part based on the book One-Dimensional Man published by Herbert Marcuse in 1964. In this book he argues the following:
He argues that “advanced industrial society” created false needs, which integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought.
This results in a “one-dimensional” universe of thought and behavior, in which aptitude and ability for critical thought and oppositional behavior wither away. Against this prevailing climate, Marcuse promotes the “great refusal” (described at length in the book) as the only adequate opposition to all-encompassing methods of control. Much of the book is a defense of “negative thinking” as a disrupting force against the prevailing positivism.
It is very hard to realize this one-dimensionality. Most people see themselves are ordinary, ‘normal’, simply living their lives as they see fit. Picking their shopping each week, picking their apps and living with them, getting children or not, picking a partner, or a partner for a couple of years. Most people see themselves as an individual, with its own specific wishes and desires and wants and needs.
But of course most people are shaped through the same industrial society with its mass media, advertising, industrial management and contemporary modes of thought. Most people are extremely alike.
A summer’s day on the Peace Garden
Me and the world
It is difficult to keep my head straight. Get a job! Make some money! The past few weeks i’ve been caving in. Almost.
I’m sitting in the cellar. Right now i do the washing of my clothes in a bucket. I never thought things would become like this. I have some friends. One of them lets me stay in his house for free. A good friend.
I gotta keep my head straight. I gotta stay on track. I can not let go. Even though i sometimes wish i could. Get back to the safety of having money, having a house, having things to do i enjoy, giving dinners sometimes. Do not worry. Things are ok.
Things are not ok. I do worry.
It is so easy to forget the troubles of the world in this northwest corner of Europe. The changes in market values by sector state that coal, oil, fertilizers and weapons have shot up in value since the Ukrainian – Russian war began. 1 Is this world all about money? Is it?
Having money equals having power. Having money makes it able for someone to do things. To set up shop. To make things and sell them. Anything you want. Having money makes it possible for you to buy things. Clothes. All the food you desire. Computers. Smartphones. Kitchens. A new house. Anything you want.
I try to stay clear of buying anything i want. I do buy food. I could use some new underwear, but money is tight. I sometimes visit websites where they sell clothes and dream away. I will buy a new dress once i get a bit more cash. Yeah 🙂
I don’t feel alone. Weird of me to say. Because i am alone. We all are alone. We get lonelier by the minute. I feel i need to let go of something. Something that is close to me. My own individuation? My own feeling of myself? My own me?
I wonder what part i will play in the worlds play. Of course i do not know if i ever will. I am watching this world drama unfold, with all different people playing their part in it. I am curious about it. How it would feel, to be part of that story.
1. Source: Who’s Cashing in on the War in Ukraine? Fossil Fuel Firms and Agricultural Traders
An Oath of Dogs
We all want to be unique. We cleave to the tiny things that define us as individuals. We rejoice in everything that marks us as beings different from all others, delighting in our free will. I believe that is what allows us to bring wrongdoing into the world.
from Meditations on the Meaning of Evil,
by MW Willams
by MW Willams
Source: page 123, An Oath of Dogs, written by Wendy N Wagner