SUNDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2008
“Somebody let off firecrackers in the street, then you became disoriented and fell out the window. Then I grabbed your arm, steadied myself against the window frame and pulled you back. Then I scolded you.” ~ the dream Natasja told me about this morning that she had had last night.
TUESDAY, 7 OCTOBER 2008
I fill my notebooks and type stuff on the computer to create evidence of my existence. My writings are proof that I am alive, and have been alive all this time.
WEDNESDAY, 8 OCTOBER 2008
I am getting a little tired of struggling every day and every night to pull a miracle from my computer. It feels as if I am confronted with a choice: take it easy, or keep pushing until I die, or until I drop dead.
If I consider it superficially, or if I want to be propagandistic about it, I would have to say, then I choose to keep pushing until I die, or until I drop dead (or until I succeed; I forgot to add that to the original set of possibilities … we do after all strive for something). But I would like to know exactly what it means to “take it easy”. Does it mean give up and become a couch potato? Does it mean spending your days and nights watching TV until you are forced to sell your couch and TV for food?
Can you take it easy and just maybe get more done – and just maybe live longer and be happier?
MONDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2008
[Excerpt from an e-mail to a friend]
You ask whether everything is going to work out “right”. I’m old enough to know things don’t always work out exactly the way we wanted. We hope and believe – in a better tomorrow, that things will work out, that the future will be fantastic … but everyone knows that faith and hope often end in disillusionment, and without a little luck every now and then our daily efforts wouldn’t take us nearly as far as we would like to believe they should.
What’s going to happen next is that you are going to go on struggling for everything that’s important to you, from serving a cause greater than yourself to fulfilling your potential. That is what will happen next.
Will things work out? You’re probably not going to have as many interesting experiences in the next few months as you have had in the past almost six months – or perhaps you are going to have even more interesting experiences. The immediate future might not bring as many interesting characters – but maybe other interesting characters.
Believe in yourself. Believe in what you do. Fight on. And forget about “everything”, the perfect life, and believing that something will always smile back at the end. As long as you remain on your feet, you’re still in the game – and if you stumble, you get back up.
If life is a struggle for something better, and for all that we can be, you already have more than enough tools, knowledge, experience, enthusiasm, vitality and tricks up your sleeve to see the fight to the end.
That is the best I can offer in terms of advice.
WEDNESDAY, 15 OCTOBER 2008
I always want to do more, while less is in many cases better.
WEDNESDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2008
How does evolution work? What mechanisms generate small changes that lead to a creature hunting, eating, swimming and climbing trees in a different manner after a thousand generations than its ancestors from a thousand generations earlier?
Answer: I don’t know.
Another question: What is 15,384,523 multiplied by 27,947,238?
Answer: That I also do not know. But someone can locate a big enough calculator, punch in the right numbers and give me the answer. And he or she will be right! It will be the real, true, accurate answer!
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