essay by BeaG

BG 347 – Anti-Fiction

Many people – especially men – in our Western world do not read fiction (think of novels, short stories, poetry).
That is a great pity, because fiction in particular – and I know this sounds contradictory – can help us understand reality better.
For example, it can teach us how best to deal with the challenges we face in our lives, and it can also show us that it is not so bad if that doesn’t always work out. It offers us the opportunity to compare ourselves with others, to identify similarities and differences in our emotions, our appearance, our beliefs, and our reactions to certain situations. It can ground us and make us feel less lonely. It can give us insight into other people and make it easier for us to connect with them. It can make us travel without getting out of our armchair. And it can stimulate our imagination and,  thereby, our creativity. At the same time, it provides a sense of total seclusion, even in the midst of other people, enjoyment and ultimate relaxation.

– ‘As a boy I read science fiction and adventure books, but now that I’m an adult I of course don’t do that anymore.’
– ‘Fairy tales are for children.’
– ‘My wife likes reading novels, but I definitely don’t have time for that.’
– ‘Why would I read fiction when there is so much interesting non-fiction? At least I can learn something from that.’
– ‘I find reading fiction a total waste of my precious time.’
– ‘Sometimes I find it downright reprehensible. For example, when explicit sex is involved. Or when it deals with unnatural relationships.’
– ‘Why should I read something that someone else has made up?’

Where does that aversion, or perhaps even fear, of fiction come from?
There are, of course, all kinds of reasons and excuses …

Read More »BG 347 – Anti-Fiction

BG 246 – Intelligence

All animals, and perhaps all living beings, including those without an identifiable brain, have intelligence, or cognition if you like; are therefore intelligent.
It is not because we are so limited that we do not (yet) understand their intelligence that they would not have it.
Even single-celled organisms exhibit rudimentary intelligent behavior, such as acquiring (through senses), processing, storing, and using information.

BG 341 – Why?

Toddlers and preschoolers sometimes just keep asking you endless questions. All day long, they demand your attention with ‘Why…?’
‘Why is there so much noise?’
‘A big car is coming.’
‘Why is it big?’
‘It’s a garbage truck.’
‘Why is it called a garbage truck?’
‘Because it’s coming to pick up our garbage.’
’Why does it pick up our garbage?’
‘Because we can’t live surrounded by garbage.’
‘Why does he pick it up then?’
‘To take it away.’
‘Why take it away?’
‘To the landfill.’
‘Why to the landfill?’
‘Because that’s where they take our garbage.’
‘What is a landfill?’ (Smarter kid, with a variation on why!)
‘A large piece of land with large piles of stinking garbage on it.’
‘Why stinking?’
‘Because garbage just stinks.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s old junk that’s rotting.’
‘Why?’
‘For God’s sake, will you just stop with that endless why!’
‘Why?’
Anyway, you probably recognize it…
Now, if you find yourself getting immensely annoyed by it again, remember that what the child is doing is very useful for her future. After all, we adults are also constantly interested in the reasons why someone does what they do, and why we ourselves do what we do. In conversations, we often ask for reasons, and online we search for reasons. We want reasons, we want causes and connections, to create order in the chaos of life and to find stability in it.
And those little ones? They are already practicing that!

BG 337 – What do you mean, intelligent?

Why do we, pretty stupid people, think that we can develop artificial ‘intelligence’, which develops itself further – at lightning speed – and then… becomes ‘super intelligent’?
Where do we get the idea that we could create super intelligence?
We barely understand a fraction of our own intelligence and our own consciousness!
For example, we apparently do not yet understand that we should only use this supposedly smart software to assist and advise us, and that we should of course not give it autonomous executive power, because that is a guaranteed recipe for disaster.
It’s a fact: we’re pretty stupid.

BG 333 – The true one

Although it naturally often seems to be a matter of a mix of factors, there is usually an overarching cause for a first long-term relationship or marriage not lasting.
The brains of young people are, partly due to a lack of experience, still very flexible and adapt easily to another person.
As soon as they fall in love with someone, they come up with all sorts of reasons why that particular person would be the right partner for them.
They feel attracted to that person by their perceived similarities, which make them find him/her very likeable.
But they are also attracted to that person by their differences, which they see as complementary qualities, and which they admire and respect in the other.
Falling in love is a wonderful feeling and therefore a strong motive.
Thus a chance encounter with one of the more than eight billion people on Earth can convince them that in this very person they have found that one ‘true love’.
And subsequently, that person often remains their true love for years, even for an entire marriage, through the forces of habit and memories.
Until their brains have matured more and they begin to realize that there might be other and better fish in the sea after all.
Often the situation is already complicated by then, and there are children.
After all, nature ensures that, driven by feelings of love and lust, we switch off our minds just long enough to pass on our genes to future generations.

BG 328 – Een rondje om de Maan

Het zal je niet ontgaan zijn: er is een tweede Space Race aan de gang.

In december 1968 (4,5 jaar na mijn geboorte) maakte een bemand ruimtevaartuig van de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA (Apollo 8) voor het eerst met succes een baan rond de Maan. Op 20 juli van het jaar daarna lukte het om met een ander ruimtevaartuig (Apollo 11) voor het eerst daadwerkelijk mensen op de Maan te doen landen. Ze huppelden er een tijdje rond, spraken een paar historische woorden en plantten er een vlag.
Dit alles werd mogelijk gemaakt met behulp van enorme hoeveelheden geld en research en met computers die nog in de kinderschoenen stonden. Het werd gedreven door de wens om de concurrentie voor te blijven.
En zo werd de eerste Space Race tijdens de Koude Oorlog nipt van de Russen gewonnen door de Amerikaanse NASA.

De laatste bemande Maanmissie van NASA (Apollo 17) dateerde al van 1972.
Maar nu is er opnieuw zo’n miljardenverslindende Space Race aan de gang!
En waar het eerder de Russen waren, zijn het nu vooral diverse Aziatische landen die kans maken die race te winnen. De Amerikanen moesten er opnieuw hun programma voor aanpassen, om toch vooral haantje de voorste te blijven, maar of dat lukt is nog geen uitgemaakte zaak.

Eerder deze maand (april 2026) is er op de tiendaagse missie ‘Artemis II’ van NASA door vier mensen opnieuw succesvol een baan rond de Maan gemaakt (ik ben nu 61, dus we hebben er lang op moeten wachten).
Deze keer bracht het mensen verder van de Aarde dan ze ooit geweest waren, ruim 400.000 kilometer, als gevolg van de ruimere bocht die er om de Maan gemaakt werd.
Een nieuwe missie van NASA, ‘Artemis III’, waarin mensen weer op de Maan zullen landen als alles goed gaat, staat geplant voor over een paar jaar.

In de tussentijd werken veel …

Read More »BG 328 – Een rondje om de Maan

BG 328 – A trip around the Moon

It probably hasn’t escaped your notice: a second Space Race is underway.

In December 1968 (4.5 years after my birth), a manned spacecraft from the American space agency NASA (Apollo 8) successfully orbited the Moon for the first time.
On July 20 of the following year, another spacecraft (Apollo 11) actually landed people on the Moon for the first time. They hopped around for a while, spoke a few historic words and planted a flag.
All this was made possible with the help of enormous amounts of money and research and with computers that were still in their infancy. It was driven by the desire to stay ahead of the competition.
And so the first Space Race was narrowly won against the Russians during the Cold War by the American NASA.

NASA’s last manned Moon mission (Apollo 17) dated back to 1972.
But now another one of those billion-dollar Space Races is underway!
And where it used to be the Russians, it is now mainly various Asian countries that stand a chance of winning that race. The Americans had to adjust their program again, in order to remain at the forefront, but whether they will succeed is not yet a foregone conclusion.

Earlier this month (April 2026), four people successfully orbited the Moon again on NASA’s ten-day ‘Artemis II’ mission (I’m 61 now, so we have had to wait a long time for it).
This time it took humans further from Earth than they had ever been, over 400,000 kilometers, as a result of the wider loop made around the Moon.
A new NASA mission, ‘Artemis III’, in which humans will land on the Moon again if all goes well, is scheduled for a few years from now.

In the meantime, many countries are …

Read More »BG 328 – A trip around the Moon

BG 325 – Handwriting

Piece of handwriting 01.

Not only was cursive writing much faster than writing with separate letters, but all the letters of all students were also uniform.
Much easier for the teachers to decipher.

Well, as far as that neat writing is concerned, I never managed that. Even though I tried very seriously, because I loved learning to write and read!
As a shy young girl, I even asked for extra writing exercise books for during the holidays. Even though I kept practicing those beautiful letters and words, I only barely managed to get a passing grade for ‘neat writing’ on my report card every time.

How I ended up with my current handwriting is a mystery to me.
That must have …

Read More »BG 325 – Handwriting

BG 318 – Liefdegem (Huis van Liefde)

Voor een kunst- en poëzieproject, dat vooral ook bedoeld was als een verbindend project in deze tijden van polarisatie, aangewakkerd door de nog vrij nieuwe maar niet meer uit te roeien zogenaamde sociale media, werd de gemeente waarin wij wonen, Lievegem, twee weken lang rond Valentijnsdag omgedoopt tot ‘Liefdegem’. Een mooie woordspeling. ‘Gem’ (zonder hoofdletter) is de uitgang van de naam van veel Vlaamse dorpen, en had lang geleden de betekenis van ‘huis van’.
‘Huis van Liefde’ dus. Mooi!

Omdat we allebei nogal creatief zijn, konden we deze gelegenheid niet aan ons voorbij laten gaan. Bovendien hebben we twee grote ramen aan de straatkant aan een redelijk drukke weg, één in de woonkamer en één in mijn atelier. Beide ruimtes vormden ooit, voordat wij hier introkken, samen de woonkamer, en ze worden alleen door een rij boekenkasten van elkaar gescheiden.

Ik schreef twee gedichten in een half uur tijd, dus het voorwerk was snel gedaan. Een Nederlands gedicht (‘Ik heb je lief, zo excessief’) en een Engels gedicht (‘Love the World’), omdat …

Read More »BG 318 – Liefdegem (Huis van Liefde)

BG 318 – Liefdegem (Home of Love)

For an art and poetry project, which was also mainly intended as a connecting project in these times of polarization, fueled by the relatively new but ineradicable so-called social media, the municipality in which we live, Lievegem, was renamed ‘Liefdegem’ for two weeks around Valentine’s Day. A lovely play on words. ‘Liefde’ is the Dutch word for ‘love’ and ‘gem’ is the ending of the name of many Flemish villages, and long ago had the meaning of ‘house of’.
So ‘House of Love’. Wonderful!

Since we are both quite creative, we couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Moreover, we have two large windows facing the street on a fairly busy road, one in the living room and one in my studio. Before we moved in, both rooms together once formed the living room, and they are only separated by a row of bookcases.

I wrote two poems in half an hour, so the groundwork was quickly done. A Dutch poem (‘I love you, so excessive’) and an English poem (‘Love the World’), because …

Read More »BG 318 – Liefdegem (Home of Love)

BG 311 – Snow Crystals

Our favorite snow crystals have six points. Always six. Well, unless two merge, then they sometimes have twelve points.
These six-pointed snow crystals are called stellar dendrites. Stellar means star-shaped and dendrite means tree-like, so they are crystals with branches and side branches.

When we cut out ‘snowflakes’ from folded paper as children, we were actually cutting out snow crystals. And usually with eight points, because that was easier. We were cutting out fantasy snowflakes.
In reality, snowflakes are a fluffy mess of snow crystals clumped together.

Besides six-pointed stellar dendrites, there are all sorts of other shapes of snow crystals, such as columns and needles, capped columns, triangular flat crystals, diamond dust crystals (which look like luminous dust in sunlight) and fern-like stellar dendrites (with many parallel side branches, like a fern).

Why do stellar dendrites always have six points? …

Read More »BG 311 – Snow Crystals

BG 300 – Our macho world

I belong to that part of humanity that makes up a little more than half of it, but whose members are often considered unimportant and inferior.
I am a woman.
‘Mankind’ is the English term for humanity. That sounds as if men are actually the only proper kind of human being, which is not really ‘kind’ (nice).
Fortunately, we Dutch speakers use a friendlier word, ‘mensheid’ (humankind) which unfortunately does not mean that women have a better position here.

Traditionally, men have determined the course of humanity.
They battle, plunder, fight competitions and wars, they murder, they are heroes, they are victors, leaders, managers, CEO’s, major shareholders, presidents, pastors, mayors, and heads of families.
They care about being the best, the fastest, the strongest, the most powerful, the richest, and the most influential, and they want the most beautiful and willing women by their side, to serve them, to stroke their egos, and to produce their sons.

So, I am actually an inferior kind of man.
I quite like competitions, but I prefer them with a broad finish line, which we cross together, hand in hand.
I value intelligence, strength, health, talent and happiness, but I wish the same for my fellow human beings.
And what I also love is being calm and gentle, alone or with others.
I don’t need power and influence, except to do good. To stop the climate disaster and restore nature. To distribute prosperity and well-being fairly among all people. Power without aggression, for the benefit of all living beings.
I don’t really need to be rich either. As long as I have everything I need for a decent existence, and occasionally something extra, I am satisfied. For I understand that hoarding wealth, like hoarding power, comes at the expense of large numbers of other people, and I do not want that.
Therefore men don’t see me as equal. As far as they’re concerned, …

Read More »BG 300 – Our macho world

BG 286 – Seasons

When the first humans experienced the first seasons, they must have been astonished.

That the world initially became so beautifully green, that flowers and blossoms appeared in all kinds of colors, that it then became wonderfully warm, that the birds began to sing with great delight, and that then all sorts of fruits began to grow in and out of the earth and on trees and shrubs, must have surprised them very pleasantly. Granted, they may have made a mistake now and then and eaten something that their stomachs couldn’t handle, but on the whole they must have been very happy with the nice weather and with this abundance of edibles that were simply given to them by nature.

When those same first people noticed that the last fruits were spoiling and they just managed to build up a stock of the good ones, when they felt the sun’s strength waning and saw the birds leave, when they saw that the green was slowly disappearing, that the once fresh leaves were changing color and falling from the trees, and that all the plants seemed to die rapidly, they must have been afraid that this was for good and that it meant the end of their world.

And then, when it also began to freeze and everything around them was covered by snow and ice, they must have retreated in fear into huts hastily built from branches and sods or into natural caves in the rocks. That was certainly no fun when …

Read More »BG 286 – Seasons

BG 283 – Unique together

Humanity is – in all its diversity – one entirety. There is only one human species. We humans are unique together!
Long ago, other human species also lived on our planet, but we, Homo Sapiens, turned out to be the most successful and are therefore the only ones left. Every reasonable person occasionally wonders how this was possible and whether we didn’t just cheat back then, but it is too late to find out now. So let’s just be happy about it.

There are now more than eight billion people! Which shows that you can grossly exaggerate success and that many people should think more often about the use of contraceptives.

Of course, there are also differences between us humans. Big and smaller differences, for example in our skin color, hairstyle, aversion to brussels sprouts, health, living environment, beliefs, oral hygiene, preferences, aggression, opportunities, intelligence, amount of visible nose hairs, urge to dominate, height, hobbies, waist circumference, political preferences, sexual preferences, and in our use of language, energy level, use of make-up, talent for mathematics, consumption level, our contribution to the devastating climate disaster and our opinion on whether or not we should urgently take action against it.

Despite evidence to the contrary, …

Read More »BG 283 – Unique together

BG 275 – Artificial Stupidity (AS)

We humans are busy developing and already using Artificial Intelligence (AI) on a large scale.
That is sometimes useful, but also a problem. We still do not yet understand exactly how our own intelligence and our own consciousness work, but we are building forms of Artificial Intelligence that should not only work as well as our own intelligence, but even better!
That seems doomed to failure to me for now.

Of course, AI can be very useful! For the time being certainly for simple repetitive actions, calculations, designs and decisions. And now that the market is flooded with AI systems, developers will have to continue to innovate.
Almost all of the current AI systems are based on so-called ‘large language models’ (LLMs). This means that the developers copy huge amounts of text and other data, often illegally (a pressing ethical and legal issue!), and ‘feed’ it to their software.
With that, they have developed software that can not only literally repeat what we say, but can also predict what we are going to say before we have even said it! Sometimes it does so in a stunningly convincing way, but more often it works rather clumsily. This is not only because AI itself is not yet functioning optimally, but also because of the often-dubious data with which it is fed.
Only in recent years have developers discovered that simply feeding AI huge amounts of data is not enough – something that seems obvious, but …

Read More »BG 275 – Artificial Stupidity (AS)

BG 273 – Daylight Saving Time

Last weekend, in the night from Saturday to Sunday, daylight saving time started again.
We decided to go to bed and get up ‘at the normal time’, and only put the clocks forward an hour on Sunday morning.
Thus that morning became an hour shorter than usual, which I thought was still better than a shorter night.
It’s not like my biological clock can just magically lose or gain an hour and the duration of the effect of my medication doesn’t just change either.
Our body would rather just continue in the rhythm it is used to.
As far as I am concerned, daylight saving time may be abolished as soon as possible.
But of course, like many human inventions, it was conceived to increase productivity and thus to generate more money.
The EU wants to keep daylight saving time and it would be inconvenient if neighboring countries lived in different time zones, so EU countries cannot abolish it on their own.
Of course, the whole concept of ‘an extra hour of sunlight’ is nonsense.
The hours of sunlight remain the same, we only shift the clock time.
And we humans are not really built for that at all.
Of course, ‘the clock time’ is also just a made-up time, but it is the one that our bodies and brains are used to.
Clock time is a way to get a grip on the passing of time and to be able to divide it into handy pieces.
In the past, with the rise of industrialization, it was the way to make sure that everyone could get to the factory on time, to start working at the same time.
And, also nice, a way to see when people were allowed to stop working and go home again.
But anyway, it’s daylight saving time again, so we can have the feeling for a few days, maybe weeks, that it stays light a little longer in the evening.
And for that we pay the price that it stays dark a little longer in the morning.
Like I said: I don’t need it.

BG 269 – Killing time

We live an average of 43,000 weeks.
Forty-three-thousand weeks! And they’re over before we know it.
Of course we would like to spend all our time usefully, preferably each of those 43,000 weeks.
But there’s no need to kill time – although there are plenty of tips shared for it online, on TV, in travel guides, magazines, and podcasts.
Think about it: dead time is of no use to you. Just let that time live happily.
If you do absolutely nothing for a while, that is also useful! It recharges your batteries.
You don’t have to fill your spare time with ‘relaxing’ but oh-so-tiring activities. You don’t have to run, work, exercise, study, app, game, watch movies and go on holidays for 43,000 weeks.
It’s actually nice to occasionally not have to do anything at all and just enjoy being.
Especially in the summer, when the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming and the birds are singing away. But also in bleaker times: sitting nice and warm in a comfortable chair by the double-glazed window when it storms and rains outside, or when snow swirls down.
And of course you can sit cozy, with your legs stretched out on the couch – possibly kept warm by a blanket – and a pillow in your back, reading a good book. That is also useful. In fact, that is very useful!
That way you experience all kinds of things, you live through all kinds of things, and you end up in all kinds of places, without having to get up. And you usually learn something from it too.
Reading kills time? No way! It makes time come alive!

BG 261 – Now suppose that

Suppose I could be that young woman again, almost grown-up, who, in hindsight, stood at an important turning point in her life, and I could have chosen a completely different direction, taken a completely different path? And if I had actually taken that other path back then, as I wish today that I had done, would I have been the same person? What if I dit not choose the direction that I now feel would have been the fulfillment of my desires, because apparently those were not the desires of my young self? Otherwise, I would have after all chosen that direction at the time? At least, if I had been able to, if I had had the right possibilities. But I didn’t have them, so the choice was not there. If I had had them and had made that choice, then I would have been a completely different person by then, a young woman who, despite everything, had made that choice. And then I would have been a different person now, more than forty years later. But do you ever really become a different person? And what if I had indeed made the choices then, despite obstacles and setbacks, that I now wish I had made, so that I could have become then what my current desires would have wanted me to be? Then I would have taken different paths, and by definition would not have had those current desires, because I would have followed a completely different way and would not have become who I am now. In short: I would not have been able to fulfill those desires at that time if I simply did not have them. After all, isn’t every path in life that I find myself on the right path, the path I am supposed to be moving on now? The possibilities have shrunk with the years and the decline, but there are always different paths to take. And only in the here and now, with my experiences, insights and desires of today, can I make the best choices for my current self.

BG 254 – A white lie

Honesty and integrity are qualities that I hold in high regard.
Nevertheless, I cannot avoid using a white lie every now and then. After all, the truth can sometimes come across as rather rude or hurtful. And sometimes you can just make someone happy with such an innocent lie.
The question remains whether ‘innocent’ is an appropriate adjective for ‘lie’, even if you replace it with ‘white’.

If a friend asks you what you think of her new blouse, you like it, period. Even if that is not true. In such cases I think of a compliment that I can give without having to lie. First, I make an approving sound, which does not literally mean ‘oh, how I love that blouse’, but which is rather a confirmation of her joy about her new purchase. Then I say, for example, that the colour suits her, or that it goes well with the trousers she is wearing. In any case, I confirm her enthusiasm, without having to be dishonest.
But when she smells trouble and wants to know again emphatically what I think of her new blouse, I decide whether I can honestly say that I don’t like it – which of course she does not have to worry about, after all it is only a matter of personal taste – or I ‘lie’ to please her that I do like it and then immediately change the subject.

It becomes more difficult when …

Read More »BG 254 – A white lie

BG 244 – Our arrogance

For hundreds of years, fueled mainly by Christianity, Western man felt like the supreme being on this planet. As far as we were concerned, animals, plants, other life forms and non-living matter existed only to be exploited by us. And not in a balanced, sustainable way, but simply as much as we could get hold of in our greed, with the help of increasingly efficient technological tools. There was no end to it, we thought.

We thought we were superior. Or actually, I shouldn’t use the past tense, because most, especially Western, people still think they are superior. The result? Plundering of the Earth. Depletion of natural resources, pollution of our living environment, and the extinction of many species of living beings because of our actions. And there is no end to our greed. Not even now that we are all, to a greater or lesser extent, having to deal with the first serious consequences of the climate disaster we have caused. And with shortages in what we long thought were inexhaustible resources, to which we believed we were entitled.

Why do we think we are superior in the first place? For hundreds of years, we had forgotten that we are just one of the many animal species on this planet. We had invented spoken and written language and started an agricultural revolution, an industrial revolution, and an automation or information revolution, and there was no other living being capable of such a thing, so we felt omnipotent. Even when we had long since gone too far …

Read More »BG 244 – Our arrogance

BG 239 – Dream Lines

I read a lot of books every year. During the day when I sit or lie down resting on the couch, and at night in bed before I go to sleep. Now, I’m often so tired that I accidentally fall asleep while reading. And then something strange happens: my thoughts continue seamlessly with the story I was reading, but this continuation is created on the spot by my subconscious. When I wake up again, I find myself in two different story lines at the same time, and I have to look for the last lines in the book that I actually read, so that I can pick up the story of the book again. This sometimes happens up to five times within half an hour. I wish I could draw on that rich imagination – which fits in seamlessly with what I just read, but in the meantime goes its own way – in my full consciousness. Unfortunately, those fabrications disappear without a trace a few seconds after I wake up.

BG 235 – Between

We Dutch sometimes use the word ‘between’ in strange ways.

For example, we say, ‘Ouch, I got my fingers between the door!’
‘Between the door’ and then what…? I assume between the door and the door frame, but we don’t say that.
And when we get our fingers ‘between the drawer’ (also painful!), we obviously mean between the drawer and the cabinet where it slides in.
Our fumbling with the word ‘between’ here seems to be in line with our fumbling with the aforementioned doors and drawers.

Another example: recently, a news item listed how often something had happened ‘between 2021 and 2022’. Uh, between 2021 and 2022…? There’s absolutely nothing in between! As usual, those years fit together seamlessly.
Just like you can’t do something ‘between Tuesday and Wednesday’. There is nothing in between there either. You probably mean that you’re going to do that either on Tuesday or on Wednesday, or maybe even in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.

And then we have the curious ‘between the afternoon’. Although that sounds very strange, it is correct Dutch. But between the afternoon and then what…? We mean around lunchtime, so between morning and afternoon, around 12:00-13:00, but we say ‘between the afternoon’. Weird right?

More logical ways to use the word ‘between’ are: at a moment after the first mentioned time – but before the next; or in a place with something or someone on one side and something or someone else on the other side; or in a place in the middle of or surrounded by, for example, people or trees; or in comparative expressions such as ‘the difference between a table and a chair’, or ‘sitting between two fires’ (having to choose between two unpleasant possibilities). Yes, that explanation stands ‘between brackets’.

BG 231 – Inventions

Until now, most of humanity’s great inventions have aimed to kill as many other people as possible from a safe distance. Let’s change that and henceforward come up with inventions to stop the climate catastrophe and give our planet a chance to recover. As far as I’m concerned, that may include an invention that ensures that fewer people are born, instead of more being killed.

BG 229 – Inspiration

As a writer (and also as an artist, designer and maker) you are often asked:
‘Where do you get your inspiration from?’ or ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’
As if there is some obscure website, a hidden beach, or an inconspicuous supermarket where you can ‘get’ inspiration and ideas.

At first, I was puzzled by such questions.
What do you mean, where do I get my inspiration from? It just IS there and has always been there. Isn’t that the case with other people, then? For as long as I can remember, my (un)consciousness has been filled with all kinds of creative ideas that demand to be worked out at some point, for example into a short story, an essay, or a poem. I don’t have to ‘get’ my inspiration somewhere.

I think writers are mostly perceptive people, who read a lot and who are interested in a lot of things. Who use their senses well and take in a lot of the world around them. Who see the humor or, for example, the wonder in small events that other people barely pay attention to. Who live consciously and who love language. And because I don’t have a very good memory, I regularly make a note about something I think I might want to write about one day. Or I come across a web page about a topic that I ‘want to do something with someday’ and …

Read More »BG 229 – Inspiration

BG 223 – Virtual Reality

Virtual reality, now almost exclusively linked to computers, due to rapidly advancing automation, is in reality as old as mankind. Virtual means fictional, imaginary, imagined – and you don’t really need a computer for that. When we had learned how to make fire and our distant ancestors told each other stories at bedtime about their own experiences and dreams and those of their ancestors, both the storytellers and their listeners used their imaginations to see before them and to empathize with what was conveyed with words. In rituals, shared feelings and interconnectedness were celebrated and strengthened.

Today, we mainly use our imagination while reading books and stories. As we take in the printed text, we create images, smells, sounds and other sensations in our minds. Recently, research has shown that the parts of the brain that normally light up on a scan with running, shouting, laughing, friendship and sexuality, for example, also light up when we only read about them. Apparently, we are able to experience things almost in real life in our imagination. Unfortunately, this is the case for fewer and fewer people.

Due to the lightning-fast development of automation, we still live with our bodies in the natural world, but with our heads a large part of the time in the virtual computer world. Our phones and other screens provide us with an abundance of ready-made, short, fast, and addictive stimuli, preventing us from concentrating on anything for long periods of time. Of course, this new world is very attractive, but it is a pity that we hardly read anymore. Because by reading books and stories and therefore by using our imagination, we learn valuable skills that we need in our lives. Such as: empathy, putting things into perspective, non-virtual communication, standing up for ourselves, care for our living environment, self-care, satisfaction, being able to be alone, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and resilience.

BG 186 – Artificial Intelligence

No AI (Artificial Intelligence) was used in the making of this Blog.

Everything you see and read on this Blog was made by me and is the result of my imagination, my creativity, my thoughts, my feelings, my intelligence, my knowledge, my individuality, my memories, my experience, my attentiveness, my fallibility, my sense of language, my talent, my effort, my faltering concentration, my perfectionism and my perseverance.

I have not illegally copied any sources of knowledge, violated any copyrights, or committed any intellectual theft (plagiarism) for creating this Blog.

Artificial Intelligence, on the other hand, is nothing more than super-fast reproduction and combination of other people’s data. Data that in many cases has been obtained illegally.
I don’t think intelligence is the right word for that.
What it lacks are empathy, (various levels of) awareness, conscience, feeling, morals, memory, self-correction, interaction, and everything else that distinguishes us humans from super-fast copy and combine software.

I wonder: …

Read More »BG 186 – Artificial Intelligence

BG 178 – Multiple lives

Everyone is free to believe what she or he (or they) wants and everyone else is free to agree or disagree.
Life knows no absolute and unchangeable truths, no matter how much we try to capture it in our stories and firm beliefs.
Having said that, I am of the opinion that some people have misunderstood the subject of multiple lives.
You cannot convince me that there will be other lives for me after my death.
Not as a human being and not as another living being, such as a favorite animal.
And it just seems pointless to me if such a next life is all about punishment or reward for the current one.
The shelf life of a living being is finite.
I’m more into science and not into wishful thinking, also where my own life is concerned. When I die, it’s over for me, and that’s fine.
I also don’t like the pseudo-science that would have us believe that our ‘soul’ is a tangible thing, that *poof* leaves our body at death and that, weighing about 300 grams, then makes its way to a newborn next living being to live on in and learn new lessons in.
No, I think that, like all other living beings …

Read More »BG 178 – Multiple lives

BG 165 – Name confusion

I suspect that I am the only Bea Graansma in the world.
And also the only Bregtje Graansma.

Bregtje is my baptismal name. But in my country of birth, the Netherlands, there are two kinds of official first names: your baptismal name(s) and your possible ‘call name’
A short summary of my birth announcement: ‘Born: Bregtje Graansma, we’ll call her Bea’. That’s how it was being solved.
In the 43 years that I lived in the Netherlands, I always used the first name Bea.
Only in very exceptional cases, those where I needed an extract from the population register, did I have to use my baptismal name.

I feel like a Bea. But the name Bregtje does remind me of …

Read More »BG 165 – Name confusion

BG 162 – Fertility

All over the world, sperm counts in men are rapidly declining. That is, if you forget for a moment that it is a sign that men are also generally becoming unhealthier, good news!
After all, our planet is overpopulated and we want to do something about it. But we can’t play god and decide who can or can’t have children and how many.
So, hooray, men are becoming less fertile en masse!
With a bit of luck, this will also boost the emancipation of women!
After all, many women really do have better things to do than be pregnant, bear children, and change diapers.
And, let’s face it, most women never had the inténtion to get married to, let alone spend the rest of their lives with, that man who accidentally managed to get them pregnant.

BG 161 – Detour

Belgians claim they are ‘born with a brick in their stomach’. By which they mean that they are always building, rebuilding and renovating. This applies not only to their houses, but also to their roads.
Despite this, the Belgians seem unable to make proper roads.

I come from the Netherlands, where the roads are much better and where there is also a safe and extensive cycle path network. That is why many Belgians who enjoy cycling or motorcycling regularly travel to the Netherlands. As a Dutch person, the deplorable state of the Belgian roads therefore strikes me even more.

We, for example, live in a street that is covered with cobblestones (in Dutch also referred to as ‘children’s heads’). They are probably intended to slow down traffic, after all, the maximum speed here is 30 km/h, but that doesn’t help, because …

Read More »BG 161 – Detour