Contact!

Currently there are some 1300 names in my phone's contactlist. Take out the dead people and the people I called only once because they were the contact person at some venue where I worked in the past and some 1,000 contacts are left. Which is about the same number of contacts on Facebook. Who are not all friends or relatives. It simply means that one day we expressed the wish to stay in touch.

Over the decades I've learnt a thing or two about friendship. Like:

Does true friendship revolve around money?

If a friend is only willing to help you if you offer them money, that person may not be a true friend. Do you ask for money if friends asks you for your help?

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That I know some 1,000 people doesn't mean I send all of them a message for their birthday. And not just because some of them are Jehovah's Witnesses. Just the logistics of staying in touch with everyone I know is a nightmare. So I don't. Instead I simply live my life, my contacs live theirs and occasionally our paths cross.

Are you often in touch with all the contacts in your phone's contact list?

We know nothing

"How come people never heard of this?" Because there's an incredible amount of information out there that doesn't reach everyone. Quite often because they're simply not interested. It may surprise some, but not everyone knows that an actor who was famous for his role in a New Zealand soap in the eighties just had his third great grandchild.

And I wish I was exaggerating but the person who told me this was actually surprised that I - as someone who didn't grow up in New Zealand - didn't know who he was.

Because people care more about what happens in their own world, they seem impervious to information from outside that bubble. And not everyone is curious about other people, their background, their culture. 

It's why there are so many bigots.

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Want to read (more of) my short stories? My author page: Terrence Weijnschenk at Amazon

A donation (click) is much appreciated:

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I'm lucky to have many different friends. From all kinds of backgrounds, religions, skin colours and countries. When a friend from Lithuania posted a past date past on her socials, I heard a tiny bell ringing in the back of my head. I want the bells in my head to be silent so I looked up why that date seemed so familiar. Does 'The Vilnius Massacre' ring a bell with you?

It was January 16th 1991 and the people of Lithuania marched against their Russion occupiers. After the Baltic States were forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, resistance broke out. In the case of Lithuania succesful because they managed to regain their independence. Unfortunately at the cost of many lives.

"Yeah, but Lithuania was once part of the Russian Empire so the Russians have every right to take it back!" Sure. And US territories once belonged to native tribes. Should they take back Manhattan by force?

Because Hungary was once part of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks should have it?

The Netherlands was once under German rule, but also under Spanish rule and under French rule. Who is more entitled to The Netherlands: the Germans, French, the Spanish or the Dutch?

Multistage (a #poem)

Distracted by a flying moped

people don't hear your final note.

But it's wonderful

and appreciated

because it accompanies my mood

when I see your smiling eyes

And think

of the happy little moments,

running into you.

Backstage, onstage,

lifting off, multistage 

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Want to read (more of) my short stories? My author page: Terrence Weijnschenk at Amazon

A donation (click) is much appreciated: