No matter how you look at it.

Having to decide what is important to blog about, I realize lots of things are not, although I very often, if not always, blog about the most unimportant details of my life. Today those seem not to matter and I want to talk about other things that go a bit deeper than that, the only problem is that I have to go deep inside of me to get to those subject matters. I do care deeply about a lot of things, but as a rule do not discuss them on this blog, which I try to keep as lighthearted and apolitical as possible. It seems to me that most bloggers do and do not discuss their more controversial points of views on their blogs.

 

You must know by now that I am a western European socialist and a humanist who does have a longing for some Higher Power. Not all of my opinions are cast in concrete and I realize there are in life lots of gray areas that we have to move in, in which nothing is written in black and white. The older I get, the more aware of that I am. But it is also true that with my advancing age, I do become more sure of some of my opinions, but do not want to force them on other people or convert anyone to them.

 

I realize that life is a process of gathering experience and that everyone has to go through that at their own speed. It is something that you can not force and you hope that everyone has enough smarts to learn from their lessons and gain wisdom quickly and not like I did by stubbing my toe on the same stone over and over again. I think you have to repeatedly go through the same experience until you have learned from it, and the moment that dawns on you, you have. You can't be aware of this in a superficial, laughing sort of way, but you have to have a real awakening and have a light bulb go on above your head. You have to have your 'eureka' moment.

 

In the end, it is possible that politically and socially and ideologically, you return to those values you had in your late teens or early 20's, but that they are more underbuilt and sophisticated now. Don't reject and belittle them. You probably had a very pure and honest point of view on the world when you were that age. Whatever sense of justice and injustice you had, was probably the right one.

 

Another thing you will come back to are the things you instinctively knew to be right and wrong when you were a child, because children can't be bamboozled. They have very strong instincts and they need those for survival, and it is only the adults around us that teach us to suppress and ignore them. Doing this is what gets us all into trouble and we learn to accept the unacceptable. We stop being indignant when we have every right to be.

 

I sign lots of petitions on line, and they all have to do with finding peaceful solutions to explosive conflicts, and for the preservation of endangered animals and natural habitats. I support Amnesty International and Greenpeace and the Dutch Environmental Defensive Group. If I run into a petition that I think is worthwhile signing, I do, and I don't do it anonymously like some people do. I don't have the money, but I do have my name to add to the cause. When I was 15, I marched against the war in Vietnam, and I suppose I would do that all over again.