yes belt up ‘cos this is not going to be pleasant and this is probably going to result in you starting some sort of rave, but we’re gonna have to be as honest as we could be, as the truth is that we sincerely doubt to your capability of maintaining mental balance in the sense of solid and ethical behavior – since you’re obviously accepting and executing even the most inglorious tactics without the slightest sign of an emotional response.

we all thought you were going mental over there and it’s not that surprising, since you’re so far abroad, but it occurs to us that you, with your eyes wide open- you, with no plans whatsoever- you, with not even the slightest idea what you’re doing- that you could be jumping cliffs, as a lemming without reason.

the only thing that we can do now is wait, wait for you to strike that pose, the pose of someone who is unable to express the very emotions which are so important in the life everyone is so fond of – or the pose of a dictator who’s only purpose is to retaliate on every human being who dares to stand up for itself and to strike a pose of its one, the very pose that you’re so afraid of.

and when you strike that pose, and when we strike ours, you can look into our eyes and  you can see it. you’ll know because our ideas, our IDEALS, have finally managed to shake you out of your unrealistic daydream. you’ll know we’re here. the individuals, the ones who stand up and stand out. you’ll know we stand together. and then you know its time to strike your final pose, the pose of a lemming.

jump the fucking cliff.

Thom is a blogger, lyricist, part time web designer and a new author for .doubtingreality. He is currently active as a freelance designer for his new concept called thxmb. You can catch him at Twitter: @mynameisthom.
Visit Thom’s website.

There are many kinds of people out there. You can look at the more common or even cliché stereotypes like: nerds, douche bags, the lazy guy, the wigger, sluts, the romantic guy, the artistic guy and so on.
This view on the world and people around you is called “hokjesdenken” in the Dutch language. A synonym for this word is categorization. It is the opposite of “out of the box thinking”, which actually is a worldwide appreciated quality to have.

The problem

Categorization differentiates and groups people in specific categories, usually characterized by a set of (similar) properties. Many people actually give categorization a negative charge. Even Dutch dictionaries give this view a bad name: “Having a (over)simplified view of the world”. Why? Because categorization leads to prejudice.
The dilemma is: you cannot escape using this method of viewing the world. Everyone categorizes and has prejudices to almost everything he/she sees. There are many reasons why you should and must prejudge the things and people around you.

An example: seeing something that has two wings and two legs, you instantly know it is a bird. This way you don’t need to judge every individual bird (crow, duck, eagle). Instead, you just put them in one group, namely: birds. This phenomenon is a very useful property of the brain. This ability to generalize is needed to simplify complex information your brain receives. Without it, you would probably be pretty dysfunctional.

Practical use

Most of the time, you are unaware of this process. When you are in a supermarket and you cannot find the product you are looking for, you automatically look for someone with an apron or a uniform to ask him or her. You actually are putting someone in the “box” of “supermarket staff”.

As you can see, this property of the brain comes in handy to compare different things more easily. Differences will be easier to be defined. You still know that everyone is unique and individual, but it makes it easier to identify a person… “Oh, you mean that nerd with the glasses?”

Innate or not?

Considering people cannot ignore this process of categorization means that many choices are based on the feelings connected to a certain group of people. Now when you look at a person who is wearing only black, you might think he is gothic instead of “just a person with black clothes”. This grouping is presumably characterized by the media and environment. This leads to dishonest grouping by only one characteristics: “black clothing”.
By now you might wonder where we get the information to group certain people. Is it the media? Is it the education? Is it innate?

I would say that it is most likely not innate. Considering the different forms of social cultures that exist, it is not thinkable that all those cultures are “natural” divarications (branches) of the standard human character. Most of our categories are made up by the media and education.
Some categorizations are innate though. For example: a person who is bigger than you will most likely win in a fight. This is a natural quality (also known as “common sense”) that almost every organism has. You need categorizations to survive. It will help you make a choice considering the properties of the group you put the person in. So, in some way it is needed to know where you stand and to plan your move for a positive outcome. You need it.

Reactions

The reactions on this “hokjesdenken” are varied.
People who were negatively placed in a box often feel rejection, anger, indignation and sorrow. On the other hand: people who were positively placed in a box feel especially proud, happy and cheerful. A disadvantage is that these positive expectations put a great pressure on the shoulders of that person. It becomes a problem when people have certain expectations of you while you cannot meet them at all. Another major drawback of the attempt to simplify the world is that often only the negative things are seen, and this often leads to racism.

Conclusion

“Hokjesdenken” or categorization or generalization is not always a process you are aware off when it occurs. It is a subconscious process and it is almost impossible to turn it off. Categorization is a quality, a property of almost every organism, simply because it helps to make choices to survive.
It is also very helpful when you need some grip to make a decision. You consider all the positive and negative aspects of a certain situation, person or even food. So don’t be ashamed of using this method of categorizing people.
But beware when making decisions that way: you can hurt people unintended.
Also, if you notice yourself being very negative about a certain group of people, look out that you are not building up racist feelings.

He sat next to me without any difficulty of coordination. He held his stick firmly and moved a bit to the front of the bench so it looked like he was leaning on it. He then took a deep breath and looked around, as if he wanted to tell me or ask me something.

I carefully looked back, behind his sunglasses. His eyes were peaceful; they were relaxed and looked into nothing. It was around 6.30 pm. and the sun was almost completely hidden so the moon could dare to show its face. I was staring in the cold look of the man for maybe two minutes. Suddenly his iris moved to me. I turned my head and was afraid that he saw me. It was then that he said something. His voice quite recognizable in many ways. Like a sudden rush of hypnotics to my soul so It would ease the unnatural tension I had. It was a warm feeling.

“Hello, may I ask you something?” he said with a broken voice.
“What color is the sky?”

I was so surprised to hear these words from his mouth. And I know how this sounds crazy, but I really didn’t expect he would have the courage to begin such a conversation. I couldn’t grasp that this moment was anything like a normal person would ask. The thing about this man that makes him so different is just unimaginable for a normal person.

“The sky is red,” I said with an unscraped throat.
“How does it look like, red?” he then asked me.
“I’m sorry?” I responded confused.
“What does the color red look like. Could you describe it with anything familiar?”

That question immediately unleashed a chaos in my head of feelings, objects, moments and people who I associate with the color “red”.
I obviously tried very hard to respond with some sort of logic. So I told the man a few things.

Red is a very powerful color. It is actually the most symbolic color. It is associated with lots of passionate feelings like love, danger, politics and religion. It is often used to highlight an element between other less important elements. It also is the color of blood…

The man listened very carefully to every word I said. While I was talking he moved his mouth as if he was repeating the words I was saying.
After I was finished he smiled and looked away. He seemed relieved to have heard those words. As if he knew what I would say. He looked back without the smile. It almost seemed like that he saw something awful while he was looking around.

“I see,” he said with an emotionless expression.

It was completely silent for a few minutes when he suddenly stood up, leaning on his stick and looking away in the blurred horizon.
He greeted me and walked down the gravel path with a bit of a swing, ever holding his stick to the ground and moving it back and forth.

I had always hoped to visit Syria, it was one of those things that I had on my “to do before I die”-list. I had always seen Syria through television and a few stories from my dad. It didn’t look or sound too comfortable or luxurious, but that’s not really what I wanted either. It did sound very friendly and open.

When I arrived on Syrian grounds, I was immediately ensured by every human being I met that they were constantly only finding ways to get richer. Nonetheless, it was a pretty exciting adventure where the hard part was actually “blending in”.

I’ve made a few photographs along the way, hope you will like them!

More photos coming soon!

Complicated as we thought
We found ourself caught
Between the true meaning of
Hate and love

Direct experience
I’ve lived a few years in small towns, but as me and my brothers and sisters were growing up, we had different needs. We moved to a city, not that big really. But it was a lot bigger than the towns we had lived in. Anyway: we settled in an apartment and it was all okay. But as time passed, we’ve sensed a shift in atmosphere. The socialized people, the good neighbors and all the people who were friendly moved out of town. One by one.

After 10 years, every person we knew had moved. And guess who were filling the empty apartments? The uncosialized dirt, gathered from around the land. It seemed like the town has been filtered. Good out, bad in. Clustering negativity and positivity.

A bit of history
This land has had a very rich history. Lots of wars, lots of power, lots of weird stuff. But let’s get to a more recent happening. After the second world war, the Netherlands were totally disrupted: the pre-war economy was no more. After 10 years of hard work coupled with economic cuts, the land has gained a lot of improvements. In the beginning of the “wederopbouw” (reconstruction), there were a lot of “gastarbeiders” (guest workers) from East-Europe migrating to the Netherlands for work. Though, in the seventies there was a much bigger need for workers. So workers, mostly from Italy, Spain, Turkey and Marocco, were supported to migrate to the Netherlands and some work to later head back to their families in the land they’ve left… So after a few years of work, every smart guy stays in the Netherlands: work is payed very well and there was a certainty for work, thus ensuring a positive future for their families. Who would leave with such an oppertunity?
Anyway: in the coming years, the Netherlands has had a growing amount of immigrants. It was not bad at all: people worked hard and ensured a brighter future for the Netherlands.

Turkish "gastarbeiders"

Bad immigrants
After a long time, around the year 1990, immigrants became well-known about the ins and outs of the social welfare provision system. Immigrants had the intention to abuse this system to only live off the social welfare payments. After a couple of years, politics became aware of this issue and started reducing the amount of immigrants by tightening the rules to be allowed as an official asylum seeker. Still, they had to reduce it with time, so there have been lots of immigrants who are only here to abuse the social welfare system. The only thing they did was make problems: “Idle hands make for the devil’s work”.

House of Representatives elections, May 21, 1986

Current state
There are big groups in the Netherlands who dislike (hate) immigrants because of the abuse and the problems they brought. I can understand that, but the problem is that they mix the cause with the consequence. When they needed workers and supported them to come and work for the Netherlands, they should’ve known there was a risc of immigrating “bad people”. It’s a side-effect and should be accepted as a failure of the system. Other than that: I am not saying that abusing the system is a good thing.
So people get pissed off about immigrants and blame their social differences as the cause for the lack of cooperation between the immigrants and the natives. Terms like culture and religion become a reason to differentiate citizen and seperate them in two parts: “allochtoon” and “autochtoon”.

Since the beginning of the 80′s, there have been several nationalistic and anti-immigrant parties such as the Centre Party (CP) and the more recent Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) and the Party for Freedom (PVV). They all share the same obession of rearranging lives of new immigrants and of people with a different cultural background or religion. They preach about the rule “freedom of speech”, and say all the things they like. They embarrass, vituperate and lie without any difficulty. The only thing they have to say when you try to tell them that it’s not socially responsible and honest to say these words is: “I say what I want, it’s a free country. I have freedom of speech.” The funny thing is: if any immigrant tries to open his mouth, he’s immediately a terrorist, a  “haatzaaier” (hatred sower) or the more common “ape”. Because of course, we – as immigrants – have no social skills and lack the intellect to have the same rights.

Wilders illustrated as an ape

Recently there have been hundreds of Dutch websites hacked. An image of Geert Wilders (the founder of PVV) resembling an ape has been put on the websites. Also, there is The websites are hacked because the owners of the websites did not update their software of their websites. Nevertheless, I bet you’ve heard about Geert Wilders before. He has been on the news almost every single day the last two years. He speaks the most flagrant things about religions and cultures only to be accepted because there is “freedom of speech.” The funny thing is that when the site is saying Wilders is an ape, they call it stupid and unsocialized, while Geert Wilders wrote, spoke and filmed much worse things about whole nations. Where is freedom of speech now?

Something to think about for now – I’ll return on this subject later.

Looking at my own arm, I see hairs, holes, shiny parts and dull parts. Every hair has it’s own length, it’s own density and even it’s own color. Some are standing straight up, most of them slanting to a certain way. If you follow the direction they’re pointing, you’d often end at a point where two directions intersect – often in a spiral. I distort these, ordinary but complex, tiny parts of the things I see every day. I distort them, rotate them, adjust them and make them planets…

Every hair becomes one of many many trees. Imagining myself in the middle, I’m surrounded by thousands of trees that are so tall, they end up in nothingness. It’s a dark place. It’s a miracle these trees can survive this harsh place. The ground is pretty dry but still movable, resilient. A very strange texture on the ground. It has a certain repeating pattern but it still contains a certain beauty of unpredictability. If you look closely, you’ll see that all the trees are bending towards one side. Every one of them in a different degree. They’re bended so far down, that it’s pretty easy to climb them, but that’ll just leave you at the top that is too high to jump off. Why was I placed in this land? What am I here for? Maybe I’ll find out if I choose a path. But the only paths are to follow the trees or to go against them.

Heh, I guess it’s pretty weird to have read that if you’ve never considered such stories to be  set on tiny surfaces of your body. The funny thing is, my eyes are too powerful; I can adjust my eyes to very very close objects without any difficulty. I can adjust my eyes even more than a regular person can so I can see more detail on close objects. Though, this comes with a price: I have to wear glasses for far-lying objects. Maybe that’s the reason I always looked differently to the world?

Nowadays I regularly make macro photographies. A camera with a macro function has the ability to focus just inches away from an object or subject so as to produce big close-ups, sometimes even larger-than-life size. Here follow a few macro photos I took recently.

Hey guys! This is my first recipe ever I am going to write so bear with me if you didn’t get everything from the directions!

This recipe is meant for an evening dinner that has an eastern/mexican taste. Though you could make sandwiches of the kebabs and have them for lunch! The best way to make this is by baking it in the oven.

This recipe is supposed to be for 6 persons who like to eat!
Preperation time: 15 min.
Cooking time: 30 min.

Ingredients

• 1 kg of minced beef meat
• 1 big yellow onion (chopped)
• 1 big juicy tomato (cut in thin wedges, throw away the stem end)
• 1 yellow sweet pepper (remove the core, chop 1/3rd, cut the rest in thin wedges)
• 1 teaspoon of fine grinded black pepper
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1 tablespoon of sambal bajak (badjak)
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon of sunflower oil
• 1 tablespoon of ginger syrup (or honey)
• 2 tablespoons of curry powder

·

Directions

1. Wash the minced meat and put it in a big sturdy bowl. Make a dent in the middle of the meat and add the sunflower oil, chopped onions, chopped sweet pepper, sambal bajak,  soy sauce, curry powder, ginger syrup and salt.
2. Mix the meat with the ingredients so all the ingredients are equally mixed.
3. Bring a large oven baking tray and make long regularly thick bars of the just mixed meat on the tray.
4. Decorate the meat with the tomato and pepper wedges, sprinkle the pepper over the meat.
5. Put it in the oven for 30 minutes on 200 degrees.
   Tip: Serve with basmati rice and some fresh lettuce salad with olive oil and vinegar.

Hope you’ll enjoy if you ever plan on trying this out! My family really liked it and gave me lots of compliments.

We enjoyed life in the positive ways. We saw what life would mean if everything would go according to plan. We were just children.

But it’s not that simple. It’s never that simple. When you start being an “adult”, you’ll see life through different eyes. It’s more bitter now – you get to know the truth and the beauty of all that you had dreamed of. Because what you felt, when you were just a kid, was reality. You know it could be so beautiful as back then. Yet it’s hard to seize the moments of purity and total control of the awareness of life. You’ll get depressed because you cannot make the time run back to how everything was. The harshness of reality returns as a toreutic coating on top of every sense you have.

It makes you mad, it turns you into a faithless person who lost sense of reality, or just wants to run away from it all through excessive drownage of awareness. People who don’t have faith in the positivities of life often lose theirself in materialistic pleasures and shallow meaningless activities. They pretend to know what they want. Placing their targets on pure earthly values give their life the everyday motivation to go on without thinking too much – the values they are looking for are shallow but still time-consuming. Honestly, it consumes all the time and all of their minds. It even makes them forget about others.

Because you can just live your life pretending everything is alright, but it isn’t. If you do, you’re selfish. Why shouldn’t we stand still and rethink the goals of our life to something more human, something more valuable? Think about the people in need, think about lives being lost without any meaning. Think about the value of being a human. Think about having a goal that makes you give the most of yourself. Because there are lives that have never had any of the great feelings we spoiled people have had. Think about happiness; is it really something selfish? Because helping others is for all of us the greatest experience we can have.

We have to consider others, we have to give. Because we have received the most, it is now our time to give.

PS. This is a quick message after a visit at http://1000awesomethings.com
What would people, who haven’t had the oppertunities we enjoy every day, find awesome?

That way I got these beautiful pictures. Have a look!

All photos have been taken in Delft (The Netherlands).