Wine! (A piece of #stoetry)

Like a Knight's Templar 

who locked himself in the Pope's wine cellar.

At first he had no clue as to where he was.

Until he realized he was on the floor.

Apparently he was literally floored.

Could there be clues in his head?

The word was coined by Chaucer

who looked for a word to describe

the ball that was made of Ariadne's thread

and found it in the Dutch word 'kluwen'.

But that was not the clue he was looking for.

He remembered going down some stairs

to look for...something...

Ah, yes...wine!

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Wealth: hard work, fraud or luck?

'Andrew Tate became rich solely by working hard!'

People who state that apparently think that choosing wealthy parents is hard work,

that stealing money with ponzi schemes is hard work and becoming popular by not being ashamed of being a misogynist, homophobic, rude jerk is really hard work..

The only period in his life Andrew Tate (click) actually díd work for money was when he was a kickboxer. Until he decided making 'only' $100,000 per fight was not enough to maintain his shallow lifestyle with expensive cars, clothes and drinks and even more expensive women, he decided to become a pimp and to run a whorehouse. Well, he became a 'manager' for ladies with a webcam in their bedrooms. Meaning they did all the work and the only 'work' he did was calling his accountant to count his percentage.

This 'tough guy' got seriously owned by a young lady:

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Truth is: had Andrew Tate been born in the 1800's, in Yemen or from a less fortunate father, the world would never have heard from him. 

If only because he would not have had the means or possibility to rob insecure men of their money by starting an online 'academy'(click), teaching jerks like himself to make money with fake social media accounts, ponzi schemes and other ways 'to show the world you're a real man!'.

There's one actual valuable lesson Andrew Tate didn't* teach the tens of thousands of insecure men around the world who paid him millions a month to learn how to be 'a real man':

A real man doesn't need to prove to the world or himself that he is.

 *He and this brother got arrested (click) for human trafficking. Apparently it's not allowed to abduct women, beat and rape them and force them to into prostitution.

What do you think constitutes 'a real man'?

Merge (a #poem or #ShortStory. #Stoetry?))

There's a woman 

standing on the bridge. 

She mumbles to herself 

and occasionally 

shouts to the world. 

When you try to start a conversation 

she won't hear you. 

She lives in a world of her own.

Is it my world that is real 

or is it hers?

What if our worlds should merge?

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Only caring about yourself is stupid

Can you imagine a world without artificial, man made borders? I can. Because I watch Star Trek.

Although it's unlikely, I hope my grandchildren one day will see a united planet Earth. But as long as there are people that want us to be divided because they profit from division, it won't happen.

So perhaps it's time for an alien invasion and all of us will have to cooperate in order for humankind to survive and can thrive despite our differences in culture, skin colour, personal preferences or whatever.

Hey, maybe something like a climate crisis can bring us together! Let's see what happens when due to rising sea levels the state of Florida will be submerged (click. Disturbing. Especially for those who live there) and millions of white, christian, old US citizens become refugees. 

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Caring about yourself is fine. Of course. But if you - like many seem to do nowadays - only care about yourself, you're not helping mankind to move ahead but actively work on its damnation. 

I love concepts like 'the United States of America', 'the World Economic Forum', 'the European Union', the 'United Nations', the 'Paris Climate Accords', 'the Shengen Treaty', 'NATO', 'the United Arab Emirates' and other examples of people slowly understanding we need to work together in order to survive.

People who look up to the United States of America 'because it shows unity at work' and dislike the EU and the WEF 'because states should not work together because they will lose their identities!' simply don't know what they are talking about. Go ahead, ask them. If the answer is not in the tweet of a right wing populist, they won't know any of the related answers.

I personally think it's a bit weird to be part of a group 'because there's strength in numbers!' that won't allow others to be part of that group: If 'stronger together' is your motto, why not allow people to be part of your group?

If you're part of a group that excludes others, ask your group members why.

Are you part of a group of musicians that excludes non-musicians? Women who exclude men? Men who exclude women? Part of a group of homosexual people who exclude hetero- or even bisexual people? Part of a group of people from a certain religion that excludes people from other religions?

Can you truly state you're all for inclusivity while not showing that you are in practice?

Of course we can be part of all kinds of different groups. And that is fine. As long as we don't forget we're all in this together and shouldn't make life harder for others than life already is.

Their Faith (a #poem)

See the blinking lights

they're here

to guide you.

To make you aware

of the hidden darkness.

So take my hand

and join me

as we ride the morning,

straight into the night

where our demons hide,

shivering with glee,

awaiting the arrival

of their faith

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What is a perfect society?

The franchise of The Walking Dead follows survivors of a civilization ending event. On their quest to find a new life they encounter other survivors and sometimes they come across a community. All founded by idealistic people who want 'the perfect society': either based on communist, fascist or capitalistic ('As it once was') principles. Of course the leaders of those communities all get frustrated because they all fail. 

We can't have a perfect society because everyone has a different opinion on what 'perfect' is.

Never ever has a perfect society been one in which a group or several groups are excluded from society. Because a society can't be perfect when it's only perfect for one single group but not for women, slaves, people of colour, people with not much money, Irish, Jews, Protestants, people from the LGHBTQIA+-community, refugees...

Societies in which certain groups are supressed can never be perfect. Not even for those who don't belong to any of those groups. Or only think they do. Because the danger always lurks that the group they belong to is next to be excluded from (participating in parts of) society.

Everyone belongs to several groups: male, white, heterosexual, working class, Netflix-addicts...it's impossible to name every single group that exists. Do you live in a society where certain groups don't have the same rights as the group you belong to? Why don't they have those same rights? Do you yourself belong to a group that's not offered the same chances in society as other groups? Are you okay with some groups of people not having the same rights as the group you belong to? If so, what makes your group so special that you deserve certain priveleges? What have you yourself done to earn the priveleges you enjoy?

What helps is empathy: you don't have to be best friends in order to live together:

What is 'a perfect society' according to you?'

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Let me tell you about my mom (a #story)

Let me tell you about my mother.

My mother is dead.

End of story.

But there's more. She was a feminist. Without calling herself one, without publicly burning her bra or shouting 'Women have rights too!' in marches.

She had a different approach. 

Like when her boss in the mid seventies sent her home: "You're wearing pants. That's not becoming of a woman. Go home now and return tomorrow wearing a skirt or a dress, as all women always should be dressed."

She returned to the office the next day. Wearing pants. Just like all her female colleagues she had called the night before. She ever so calmly did her job, not grinning or even with a defiant look. She just simply...did.

She was an ever so sweet Indonesian lady. But don't cross her boundaries. I'm not only referring to a man in his forties who hit my then twelve years old brother and was last seen crying and running with a fork jammed in his buttocks but also to the incident with our pastor.

My mother, me and our parakeet in the arms of the pastor's wife.

He had beautiful sermons about how the God of Love loves all people and Jesus never said: "Love thy neighbour. Except when they're black, poor, foreigners, homosexuals or in any other way differ from you."

The poor guy made the mistake of kicking his daughter out of the house when he found out she was a lesbian. My mother heard about it through the gossiping in church where she was an Elder.

She set up a meeting with the pastor at his home. Under the guise of helping him write his next sermon. And she did. Nine years old me was there and only later, as an adult, understood I had witnessed a historic event. 

Without raising her voice but with a look that would make the Devil wet his pants had he been wearing any, she calmly told him: "In this Sunday's sermon you will tell the congregation that you are a hypocrite and tell them exactly why. Then you will invite your daughter and her girlfriend over for dinner and apologize. Only if it's a good apology and she accepts, can we ever be friends again."

This was only one of the stories of my mom. Who I dearly loved and often miss.

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It's five past twelve

We've had a good run. Time to give the planet back to jellyfish and other animals who are less stupid than humans. We tried for some 300,000 years. Seems like a long time, right? Yeah, about that: jellyfish are still here in basically the same form as they lived over 500 million years ago. Apparently trying not to exterminate your own kind because some have a different colour tentacle and not ruining your environment for money and power makes you live longer.

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Even if we drastically start cutting emissions yesterday, we are too late. Scientists were wrong with their climate-models. And that's not good news. For instance: the North Pole ice is melting faster (click) than predicted. Science predicted summer ice in the Arctic would be gone by the year 2050. But recent figures show we may reach that point as early as 2030. 

If we want the climate to change its behaviour, we must change ours

If you're now already worried about foreigners coming to 'your' (did you create it yourself? Did you buy it?) country now, try to picture a near future with some two billion people relocating. That includes everyone in Florida. Because that entire state will be submerged.

Big oil companies have known since at least the seventies that the emissions they caused would have this effect. And simply decided not to raise awareness but decided instead to pay people to tell the world 'climate change' is a hoax. 

Shell also knew and even made a film (click) about the dangers of rapid climate change, caused by them. And decided to go for more profit instead of trying to save the planet. 

Do you think ExxonMobil and Shell should be held accountable for the disasters that are already happening and the loss of millions of lives? Or was 'Big Oil' right with putting profits over people and planet?

In other words: will you be one of those people to blame scientists and governments for not having warned us of the effects of climate change?

Hopefilled (a circle #poem)

Hopefilled

and ready for a future

that started yesterday.

Does it matter if and when

it may end?

Perhaps.

But not today.

For today is

hopefilled.

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