Item1: 2023.03.11. The autobiography as refuge.
Why does someone write an autobiography? Usually the writer (m/f/x) is known for something, or considers themself known enough to arouse interest in their life among readers. Vanity may be involved, some critics will shout 'narcissist!'. One may have led such an interesting life that humanity is eager to read their memoirs. It can be an act of vengeance, an admission of guilt, a legacy, or an affirmation of a life before it vanishes into oblivion. The writer maybe feels unheard, wants to express themself, and let their voice be heard for anyone who wants to read it.
What is my motivation, you as a reader of course want to know.
It is not always easy to see yourself, especially when you have been through so many difficult things, as in my case. Probably all aspects are present to some extent. I have the feeling that i am only at the very beginning, and that in the course of this project i will naturally fall into pitfalls, walk in all kinds of ditches at the same time and eventually perhaps even sink into this self-dug pit. And that then (but hopefully before that...) i become aware of the mechanisms.
I can already name one reason. Because of my condition, the total of strange symptoms and syndromes, i have become a high-risk group member, and the risk of becoming seriously ill and/or worsening my current illnesses, or also contracting LongCovid, is a game of chance that i would rather not participate in, despite the fact that a large part of society has decided, thanks to / together with the government, that none of that matters anymore. Apparently a large part of the Netherlands thinks that my life is not important, so i have withdrawn as far as possible.
I don't feel like anyone misses me. If you do miss me, let me know.
Because i had been working on Greetings from Klotestad for years, and i wanted to write more about my life, this seemed like the ultimate moment. When almost everyone has abandoned you, all you have left is yourself. And so that's what you get. Myself. Fragments of myself, of my life, a history of my life, edited here and there because I don't want to hurt anyone. Not even if i sometimes want to :-/.
It is a way of being radically candid that i aim for. You can see it as a political act, to make my voice count as a woman, as an autist, an artist, as a person with disabilities, as a person on benefits. Due to all these factors, i have relatively few resources at my disposal, and no access to mainstream media, publishers, art institutions, etc. So this is how i do it.
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Item 2: 2023.06.03. My memories as ratty jammers.
My memories are intrusive stories that demand to be told. Until i write them down, they gnaw at me like ratty jammers, skillfully destroying my peace of mind by storming into my thinking at all times and especially at the wrong time, throwing their noisy odors and colors over everything else, so that i am forced to pay attention.
To get rid of them, i write them here, and burden you with them. With love, by the way, i love you all, and i grant you my golden soul stirrings and would like to offer them to you on an altar encrusted with diamonds, with My Humility before it doubled over to Your Graciousness to have all this. My thanks, of course, are eternal, if i have eternal life; if not, i'll take it all with me in my pout grave. Then let my infinite silence comfort you.
I hope that i will still have many years to be able to share everything with you, for your learning and entertainment.
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Item 3: 2023.09.26. Radical openness.
Just read a book by Jan-Willem Anker1 about the square in Amsterdam North where he came to live, reporting on all the happenings in diary form. Hangouts especially, litter, and the municipality neglecting its duties and instead trying to force citizens to participate.
I find it a toe-curling book because it seems the author is intensely open about his sometimes rather gutsy opinions and findings. Which often made me read on with some trepidation.
Anker wrote it in 2014. For instance, was it still common back then to call white people 'blank'? I don't think so anyway, but he goes on steadily with it throughout the book. Somewhere he writes something about "all those benefit recipients who would be obliged to provide a compensation". To put it away immediately as a joke: "Je plésante." He is a French teacher-to-be, so it will make sense to lard the whole book with (untranslated) French remarks, but it is elitist and irritating. Perhaps fairly elitist and irritating?
He makes up for the 'joke' about compensating eight pages later:
"Get rid of that degrading welfare. Away with low-paid work that makes people unhappy, and away with volunteering to supposedly make you more attractive for the 'real' job market."
I mean: it seems to be evidence of growing understanding.
And this may also be how it works for everyone. First you don't know something, then you hear something and form an opinion about it (under the influence of many factors), then you think you know something. But then - if you are open to it - you suddenly hear another opinion, and you find your own opinion not quite right after all, and then you adjust your thinking.
Between YourOpinion-1 and YourOpinion-2 there can be a few days, weeks, years even. And sometimes you just stay with YourOpinion-1, or -2, for the rest of your life. Or you just change your opinion every week.
And there you are, stone-dead on the stretcher
of being right.
i wrote in a poem in 1995.
I could write additional chapters on the factors that influence your opinion, and probably many people have preceded me in this. My main concern here is the idea of radical openness.
I personally find the above example somewhat radically open, because it seems that the writer is being completely honest and forthright, also sharing his gut feelings with the reader. Is that pleasant? No, on the contrary. But because he gives insight into his thinking and changes of position, as well as being able to look at his own position with some (in my opinion somewhat questionable) distance, it takes the edge off somewhat.
Still, the Luizenmoeder (a controversial Dutch tv-show) feeling creeps up on me: laughing under a blanket of "we're not allowed to laugh at anything anymore", the kind of not wanting to be politically-correct and expressing it loudly, in order to be able to dismiss those who don't like it as being hypersensitive left-wing co-blatterers. I can't quite put my finger on it, and probably that's the intention then. It is intricately subtle, and the difference can be captured in a just slightly higher eyebrow, an otherwise small corner of the mouth, the glance that stays with you for a moment while you don't know exactly why.
In a piece on the controversy that Sophie Passmann's new book 'Pick me girl' triggered among feminists in Germany, Nynke van Verschuer writes: "Passmann presents her radical openness about her insecurities and interventions as a kind of liberating coming-out."
And that Passmann points out in her book, that the image of her as a tough, funny, confident young woman, is carefully cultivated and only true for her stage self, and:
"Coolness is not real," she writes, "if it only works for an audience." 2, 3 and 4
It reminds me of writers like Heleen van Royen and Stella Bergsma, who also show a kind of tough, sexy, open presentation of themselves in their books and social media, and Van Royen, for example, also in her exhibition at the Letterkundig Museum (2014); Wikipedia writes about this, among other things, that there were mostly nude selfies on display, and:
“Also, the tampon photo was "literary really interesting though," the museum said. The picture was later auctioned off and brought 1900 euros.”
I was still on Twitter at the time, and particularly remember the many men who were very appreciative of Van Royen's openness at the show. It may have been down to my follower bubble, but women i heard little about it, apart from the more outspoken and popular of Twitter (now X) perhaps.
I imagine, on the one hand, that this sexual openness is precisely opposed to the 'male gaze'. Surely this was Heleen's own gaze above all? At the same time, it also appeared to encourage that same male gaze in particular. Was that the intention? Perhaps not, but anyone could have guessed that would happen.
Of Bergsma in particular, i remember 1 selfie, in which she is seen naked at the back, and her buttocks in particular are clearly visible through the mirror in front of her. Beautiful, powerful, what can i say. And then again the hordes of approving men, who responded. While one need have nothing to do with the other, it does evoke it.
Or i think of the picture an acquaintance took during a high heel race. There are several high-heel races, this was one in which mostly women participated. The photo was taken quite male-gazerily from below. Sure, very photogenic and all, given the subject matter logical perhaps, and yet. There is a kind of discomfort in the ease with which it is presented.
Another one of those little subtle changes, one letter crooked perhaps, your hand just barely touching the glass, thoughts blowing over in a split second but leaving a mark, one of those you feel but can't grasp.
One volume i read of Knarl Kausgård's autobiographical book series 5, the first because i like to read and watch everything in the right order. Which immediately tells you the reason i didn't watch Starwars, because nobody knows the right order of that. I couldn't borrow the second book until much later, and i didn't get through that one. Still, i would love to try it again.
I read somewhere that those around Knausgård were not very happy with his openness, as he also wrote openly about the lives of recognisable others, such as his family and friends.
An autobiography cannot be written without describing the surrounding lives, or at least some parts of them. As a writer, you also relate to others; what do you do with that? I also find that a bit tricky, because i don't want to hurt anyone or make them a target of woes. At the same time, i do want to tell my stories.
Does radical openness also testify to radical truth? That remains to be seen.
What i present as truth may be rejected by others and marked as lies. Conversely, i can mark others' so-called truths as lies. That the truth would always lie somewhere in the middle is polder thinking, and therefore not necessarily true.
What could perhaps be a guide to 'truth' is checking what the motivations might be, or what the purpose of a lie is, and whether that purpose has been achieved... but that too is often a case of looking at the bigger picture.
And so we skim along, between stories and words, sentences drifting by and decaying on the horizon of our histories. We go left or right, through the middle, sway along the quay or quench our thirsts in a robust shelter until the sun rises. Revel in self-pity or, on the contrary, feigned compassion; drift with the flow or dip our burdened brains into philosophical musings. Fan along, fan along! Don't lose yourself in single-minded thinking. Increase your intellect and doubt.
Sources:
1. Het Plein, Jan-Willem Anker, 2015 (Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers); the Dutch book at the OBA library.
2. Dutch article: Feministisch rolmodel doet aan botox; een stuk van Nynke van Verschuer in NRC, 15 sept 2023; archived version, seen on 26 sept 2023
3. German article: Schönheits-OP und Botox: Sophie Passmann und der resignative Feminismus, a piece by Katharina Körting for Der Freitag (Ausgabe 37, 2023, seen 26 sept 2023).
4. German article of Sophie Passmann herself about her book: Wir können nicht gewinnen for Zeit Online, 1 sept 2023 (seen 26 sept 2023).
5. Karl Ove Knausgård on Wikipedia
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Item 4: 2023.12.31. Representation.
With this website archive thing i also hope to contribute a small part to the visibility, for example of autistic people (or people with autism, as some people prefer to say).
Growing up, i searched in vain for information about who i am, but i couldn't find it anywhere. Now we have had the internet for decades (yes, i am very old), and even with that it is still important for people to recognize themselves in something, to see that they are not the only ones with one or another 'condition'. I now know things about myself, but that took far too long and has also really hindered me from finding my way in this already complicated life.
I now see people younger than me who manage to live their own lives the way they want and need. Of course i also see their struggles, it doesn't suddenly all go away, but they are doing much better than many people before them. I'm glad they're doing well, i wish this for everyone with all my heart. Yet i also sometimes feel envious, or kick myself for not doing this or that or i don't know what. While... if you don't hear anything about how it can be done, how do you know how things are or how things work, or what possibilities there are? I have tried things, but it was never accepted, or my questions were waved away, even my requests for help were not honored. For example, i didn't receive my autism diagnosis until i was 55; and only because i happened to see a psychologist, who sent a standard questionnaire before the intake, with the first question: Do you suspect that you are autistic? I didn't know what was happening! I had been asking GPs for this for over 25 years, but i had always been dismissed as: You? Nooo! You're so sociable! You're looking at me!
It may have come as a bolt from the blue to the people around me, because you stop talking about things when no one takes you seriously. Anyway, here on my own website i decide what is talked about now :-). And i hope it helps others.
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Item 5: 2023.02.05. Serial writer.
[previously published in Today's Thoughts]
A little contemplation about this writing project.
At the beginning of February i wrote 'Flat: situation 1' and posted it on Mastodon. It turns out there were actually people reading it, and one person asked me how the story ended. And i understand that. I left you with a huge cliffhanger. I reassured him, but now, a day later, i think i shouldn't have done that.
This autofiction is not like a book, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Although of course it will end at some point, but that is another story (which i will not be able to tell, unfortunately). Radio Klotestad is the story of my life. And in life nothing is ever completely finished. That's one of the reasons i write so fragmentarily. A second reason is: a book is never written in 1 day. This involves months, sometimes years, of writing and deleting and rewriting. And that's pretty much what you read here: the recently written things, sometimes also things that i wrote a long time ago, in which i deleted and rewrote. And it could just be, that something i wrote yesterday will disappear tomorrow to be rewritten. As far as i'm concerned, i'd rather not, because i still have so many new things to write that i don't have time for it at all. But in principle it could be done.
It's like writing a book live, with you, the audience, watching me. I understand the questions, but i think i will refer to this explanation from now on. :-)
Maybe you should see it as a series, and then as we used to see it: an episode once a week; you didn't know what would happen next. Here the episodes are often daily, but they are often about something completely different. And so we have to wait and see when the denouement of that other episode will follow. Well, that's life. My life, at least, how it is with you? It seems to me that it works the same, but i don't know for sure.
If you would like to respond to this, your response - provided it is friendly and not forceful - is always welcome, via Mastodon or email > see hannahcelsius@pm.me
As for the Flat part, creepy Clogsman will return in another story; i don't know when. I haven't planned anything. And that is a challenge in itself: all those memories that tumble over each other to be described first... quite tiring. Then again: as an autistic person i am somewhat used to it. It's my normal state of being, but it's perhaps even worse now, because now i'm actually doing something with it, all those stories stirring in my brain.
What will this all lead to? No idea, it's a huge and strange project. At the same time it is also interesting: what will i encounter on this unexplored road? Myself, at least, that much is clear to me. Angry acquaintances, hurt strangers, unspoken feelings that are still revealed? I especially hope for some very clear common threads, over time. Storylines that weave through everything, figures that pop up here and there. Discomfort and shame and difficulties and trying to overcome them. Insights that will hopefully also be interesting for the reader. In short, the complexity of a life that unfolds for everyone, in the form of a messy art project.
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Item 6: 2024.01.21. Memoirs as selfie.
On The Marginalian (Maria Popova's website) i read an article about Iris Murdoch, which is about different forms of freedom, including how that relates to love. Popova writes 'that in the twenty-first century, we have invented a third and greatest enemy of Love: selfing.' She writes how memoirs - from photography to poetry - are skyrocketing to the detriment of novels, and how their makers don't seem to realize that people only become interesting when they are interested in something other than themselves. She calls the memoir the 'selfie of literature', in a 'pandemic of selfing'.
I immediately think of the boom in selfies that 'everyone' sends into the world via social media, whether in images or in words: many toots, tweets and posts are about the creator themself. It can sometimes be extremely irritating, yet another pout or elaborately described morning ritual, but at the same time these and all other forms of selfies also function as ways of representation, recognition, self-identification and knowledge sharing. Not everyone has the same life, or the same opportunities for a 'higher' or 'richer' life, so you cannot expect disadvantaged people to use the same means as the privileged to express themselves about their lives and experiences.
Is it not too easy, and above all elitist, to dismiss the selfie or memoir as a lesser form of photography or literature?
I assume that Popova is writing here mainly from the context of Murdoch's writing about love. But why is 'selfing' the greatest enemy of love? To love, you also need self-love and self-knowledge. And for many people today, the road to self-knowledge is paved through social media, where you can read and see what life is like for others, which may horrify you, or make you wiser.
By the way, whether social media is only good for people is another story. The manipulative and uniform algorithm of most platforms is not criticized for nothing. All kinds of fascists who are working hard trying to suppress diversity and inclusivity, for example, and many people will pay a nasty price for that. Hopefully it won't get to that point, but we will have to do something about it. For example, vote as left-wing as possible, but hey, it's a bit late for that now (here in the Netherlands), with your damn fascist parties. But let me talk about that another time. In my toots for example.
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Item 7: 2024.01.30. The pitfalls.
One year ago i wrote in item 5 on this page:
"At the same time it is also interesting: what will i encounter on this unexplored road? Myself, at least, that much is clear to me. Angry acquaintances, hurt strangers, unspoken feelings that are still revealed? I especially hope for some very clear common threads, over time."
Since i had decided from the beginning never to mention a real person or organization name here in the case of personal matters, that seemed to me a good guideline to prevent problems. And i still stand by that. Everywhere on this site i urge people to send me an email if they disagree with something. It seems to me a logical step anyway: if you disagree with something, you send an email and talk about it. But never since November 2022, when i started the site in this form, has anyone contacted me about any of this.
Yet there is a group of people who are harassing me, intimidating me above all. I had already said goodbye to them in the summer of 2022, because strange things had already happened, that they did not want to be honest about. A year later they came haunting my house, talking about my website, the man in question seemed to want to meet me, strange stuff that i did not appreciate. And when i sent him an email about it, i got it back as if i were stalking him, that he was not interested in me, and still did not know where my house lived. Which are all blatant lies. Since that email the nasty behavior started. He filmed my house (also once in 2022), there was knocking on the windows (of the downstairs neighbors), i was shouted at by people i did not know, i was even cursed at recently, and especially the intimidating behavior of one of them, a woman who lives near me, is very worrying.
Who would have ever thought of that? Not even me! With every disgusting action on their part, i am flabbergasted again about how people can degrade themselves so much. A few last feats: a number of them walk past my house, the woman makes an insinuating remark, as if my son (whom they apparently traced via the internet - i don't know how) would have arranged or bought a house for me. Yet another boundary that is crossed. Do i really have to explain here how to rent a house, how that works, how you can register with 30 housing networks, for years if you want to and are a bit smart?
Yes, you noticed it right: i am angry. I became even angrier when i heard the same woman talking on her phone the next day, as if she was ordering someone to do something, something about not damaging it, but just loud enough. She had made phonecalls near my house before, then she pretended (? or was it real - i can't judge, i'll just have to wait and see) that she had a friend at the municipality, whom she asked to look up everything about me. Or that time i heard her say: Don't we have someone we know at the social housing office? (Ed: the office that was closed down 30 years ago, you mean?), because they are so eager to know where i am moving to.
For those who haven't been following this: after the bizarre email from that man and the resulting bizarre actions, i responded by telling the whole story on this site. Of course, again without their names. Oddly enough, before i sent that email, it seemed like they really liked my website. They called it something like 'cult fiction' or something. They knew in advance that i write about my life. They intruded on that in an annoying way, and then suddenly they were angry that i wrote about them.
Shouldn't i have done that?
Clearly it was adding fuel to the fire, so in that sense it wasn't such a good idea of mine. At the same time, i still think: I'm writing my stories about my life here. If you don't want to be a part of that, leave me alone. They knew what they were getting into, although they'll probably claim now that i'm making it all up. Unfortunately, i'm not making any of this up.
In the end i took the piece down, because of the intimidation, but also because i had written it more out of a kind of self-defense and anger. With the message that i will rewrite it someday, i just don't know when yet. Is that intimidating? No one has to read my website. I never invited them to do so, or forced them to do so, or anything like that: this was their own choice. And again: no one who googles any of them will end up on my site.
I had no intention of writing anything about it at all - before this shit started. I had fit a few pieces in somewhere, very short (and i keep emphasizing: without names!), and that was that. I didn't feel like it at all. I mean: i still have things to write from years ago, that i don't even get around to, because it's so difficult to do this in a way that i like. I just haven't found that way yet, for the more difficult things. Things that i can laugh about now, that's possible. But really nasty stuff... that's difficult. So i had put this somewhere on a pile in a drawer far away, probably someday, and if not, then never.
Their own bizarre behavior stirred everything up again, and in the meantime they have added a huge amount of nastiness to the story. Let me also be clear: i did not stalk them, i did not go to their houses, i did not go to their organization, i did not contact them except for that one email.
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Item 8: 2024.04.27. The truth
Yesterday i wrote in the Vandaaggedachten about a reading tip of Arnon Grunberg; in the book J.M. Coetzee asks himself, how to shape one's life story:
"What are the qualities of a good (plausible, or even compelling) story? When i tell other people my life story —and, more importantly, when i tell myself my life story— should i try to make it into a well-formed work of art, skipping over the times when nothing happened, dramatizing the times when a lot happened, giving the story a certain shape, creating anticipation and suspense; or should i instead be neutral, objective, trying to tell a kind of truth that would meet the criteria of the courtroom: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
Just now i reread item 7 - i had completely forgotten about posting this - and i think you cannot get me more honest than this; i was a bit shocked myself, TBH. And immediately i was thinking: OMG, did they perhaps read this, and are they angry about it, again?
There are several things at play here:
1. How can i write about my life, tell mý story, without people coming to intimidate me?
2. What is the truth? Do i write The Truth?
3. How honest can i be? I just cán't publish anything i'd like.
1.
Apparently it has become impossible, to tell my own stories. And people that aren't very pleased with it can just harass me without any consequences. In the one email i wrote to them, i offered to talk about it, but people rather go fully bezirk on me, than just explain me one time what's their problem with me.
That people deal with things in such a way, i just can't understand it. That you do something in a fit of panic or anger, i can imagine, everyone makes mistakes and i do no less - but harassing and intimidating someone with a group of people for 8 fucking months... it's bizarre. I've moved in the meantime, that makes a big difference, but i'm stuck with the psychological consequences now. It's not that hard to find me again, i think, although i keep that anxiously hidden. Which i also think sucks. Why on earth should i hide? But because i don't really know what the consequences are, if i am open about where i live, i just don't. What if someone who is also physically violent comes at my house and starts to do violent things? I don't want to think about it.
It also has consequences for my work. Actually, i want to hold an exhibition in my front room one day, for a weekend or so, but then i can't publish it anywhere, because logically my address has to be there... then i can only post it in my neighborhood, but i think that's a bit half-hearted. And then again: do i have to ask everyone who comes by not to Instagram anything? It's ridiculous that i suddenly have to think about these kinds of things again. It reminds me of the time when, out of fear of being beaten to death, i had to leave my house and everything behind and flee to another city. It's a bit like that, although i'm not physically in danger now (although threatening several times with a firework bomb that is just hard enough, but doesn't cause any damage... still comes very close to physical and severe damage.)
Some while back i thought i heard the voice of one of them in the alley behind the house, at some very early morning. She called: "Guys!" as in "Guys, come have a look here!", with the intention of someone who's all fired up and excited about visiting my house like this. The next ten minutes i lay paralysed in my bed; when i went to look eventually, ofcourse there was no one.
Was this real? I heard it. Did it actually happen? Yes. Was it the same person i thought it was? That i don't know. Maybe it was just some neighbourhood young people - i had heard some remarks about me before when they passed by late in the evenings. Because, well: a new little lady in the area... god it's so sad if you have to sneak around 61 y.o. women to combat boredom, but well, adolescents?
I stick to my position that as long as i don't name people or organizations, i can continue to write about my life. And i think the intimidations were done in the hope that i would name them, so they could sue me for slander or something like that. I don't know. I'm still open to a conversation, but not if they lie. And there was lying anyway, so it's all pretty much hopeless.
2.
What is The Truth?
Mine is undoubtedly not yours. Everyone sees things from their own perspective, colors things consciously or unconsciously differently than others, overlooks something or not, and so on. In many films and series, the story is illuminated from different sides, by different characters.
As for myself, i have often noticed that things from the distant past sometimes turned out to be quite different from what i had always thought. For example, i found a diary from which it appeared that i had completely forgotten some details. Now, these were not important things, and no one suffered any harm from them. But if i write about intimidations that took place recently, and i were to misrepresent important details, then that could cause harm - if i were to mention the names. I keep repeating it: i do not mention names.
However, as i wrote before: they drew attention to this themselves and involved all kinds of other people, so if it becomes known like wildfire: it wasn't me.
Anyway, i feel i should be honest about this. I don't make these things up, there's not a hair on my head that would think of doing something as disgusting as falsely accusing people. I took the story off the site, so it's probably not clear to most readers now if i take something from it and tell you about it here. But anyway: the strange 'act' at my house, in 2022, that i thought was 'Dennis', was that a false accusation? I was convinced that it was him. He strongly denied it, said he wasn't in town at the time, and that he didn't know where my house was. The latter was a lie, btw, which made the former even more unbelievable.
I would like to believe that it wasn't him. But who was it then? It must have been (i won't explain it completely now) someone from their organisation, i had no other contacts with young people. If it wasn't him, then it was someone who pretended to be him. That is also very strange, but who knows, that could be possible, someone who wanted to discredit both him and me. In any case, that worked out well.
Is it then a false accusation?
No, because i also remember exactly how certain i was that he did this. Otherwise i would never have expressed something like that. Only when he denied it, the doubt came, with the thoughts as described above: it did come from their group.
I will probably never know who it was. I think that is really shitty. There was also a young woman there who participated in the play, who knows, maybe she will regret it one day? Or was she perhaps the same person who spread the nasty gossip? I know who that was (also someone from their group), and she has never come forward to me about that, so she will not say anything about this either.
The Truth, then. One says this, the other that. I do my utmost to write honestly, even when i myself have done things wrong, and that is also quite difficult. You should try it :-).
Why i call my site an autofiction: because there are also stories in it that are made up. I think that that speaks for itself. If all of a sudden all kinds of supernatural forces happen: made up. Sometimes things are partly true, but i don't want possible readers to recognize themselves in it, and i place it in a somewhat different setting, which is no guarantee that one won't recognize themselves. So sometimes it starts out true, changes into strange things and fiction.
Also for safety reasons for myself or others, to ensure that people are not recognized by third parties, i sometimes adjust small things. What does it matter to the reader whether something happened in Paradiso or in 013? Sometimes i think it's a shame, i would like to write it all exactly as i remember it, but as has been said so often: i don't want to harm anyone. And sometimes i also write that it could possibly be recognizable, but it was so long ago that the people involved are probably already dead or far away or simply completely unknown, that it's not such a disaster. People involved can always email me about this.
So i make my own considerations each time, i don't have a standard idea or anything for this.
3.
So how honest can i be, with all those considerations? That varies. But in the case of the intimidation situation and everything that preceded it: i didn't make any of it up, no matter how bizarre the story actually is. Only the names are made up, and sometimes i adjusted a placeholder later, to minimize recognizability.
Something i also really mean from the bottom of my heart: i would never want to put them in a bad light. I understand how important their place in society is to many people, i don't want to destroy that. I also don't want to destroy anyone personally, as i once heard someone suggest, to which Dennis responded with: "Oh, but I can destroy her too." I don't want that at all, that was never my intention, that's why i didn't mention any names.
It is my honest story though. Something that really affected me, and still affects me.
The fact was that they came to my house, in an intimidating way for me, talked about me quite often, and that i sent an email about it, in which i indicated that i found that very annoying. And that i also suggested to talk about it. After which quite nasty things started to happen, and i was accused of stalking... a completely bizarre reaction: he actually turned it around. And that was the reason i told my story then. I felt very misunderstood, and attacked and i had no idea why. Still don't. And that is the reason that the story is back online now: i want to unravel it, understand why people do that.
Honesty knows no time.
Isn't that a saying? Or was that about 'gezelligheid'? Whatever.
Just because i want to be as honest as possible, doesn't mean that this applies to others. I can't change that. The only thing i can do is keep writing my stories according to my own honesty principles, which i've probably explained sufficiently by now. If not, email me your questions or concerns.
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Item 9: 2024.11.14. The Puppets, or The Puppet Show.
I had a strange, feverish dream in which it was crucial to zoom out from a photo of several people; i had to see the bigger picture.
It’s something i often think about: how we’re stuck in systems of oppression and domination, and how hard it is to get out of them. And maybe it’s impossible, and the most important thing is to know that it’s like that, how it works, and where your own blind spots are in that regard. Not easy either, especially when a large part of humanity is mainly looking for scapegoats, and politicians cleverly play on that to bind voters to them.
Street robbery
Years ago, late at night, i was robbed of my handbag, which contained only 10 euros, but also my keys, my bank and other cards (some of which also contained my address), and my passport. Everything was lost, in just a few seconds. Fortunately, all the costs i incurred were covered by my insurance, and that was it. The perpetrator was never found, nor was my bag and its contents, and perhaps i should be grateful to him, because my alertness on the streets has been much higher since then; ironic because it once saved me from another street robbery.
I had an idea who could have done it... one of the boys who often hung around in a certain place with a group. And despite my fear and anger, i still tried to understand why someone would do something like that. Which is not to say that i think it's okay to do something like that, i don't condone it. I try to see how someone is in a system, and acts from there.
Revenge
The revenge film is a genre of its own, and i like it very much. There are all kinds of revengers: the patient, the brutal, the fast, the underground, and all ways are even dear to me. I also like to think of revenge plans. Not that i carry them out, of course not. Not only because they are usually impossible, but mainly because revenge is never a good advisor. You end up in a downward spiral together with your opponent and how do you ever get out of it?
Like, it could be very special, to add a feature to this site, with which i could convert the entire site with one action to a version in which all the fictitious names would suddenly change to the real names. And then only very briefly, very occasionally, perhaps only a casual surfer would experience it. It's a nice thought, but not something i would actually do.
IRL there are things that others probably saw as revenge. Like me retracting my piece about Ene, but mentioning that i would rewrite it someday ever whenever. It was only later that i realized that could be seen as revenge, because then they would sort of be doomed to be glued to my website until the end of time, to see what i write about them, and how (am i naming names?). Whereas... fuck them, it's my website, my stories and i decide what and when i write about something.
Overview
I wrote earlier about my motives for publishing this archive of my life, and i think it’s about looking at the system, the patterns, the dangers, the omnipresences, about being able to see it all together to try to understand why things happen the way they do. Especially because things repeat themselves quite often; certain ways of doing things, situations, behavior of people around me... for an autistic person like me it gives a lot of satisfaction to recognize patterns, and wow do i recognize quite a few!
The funny thing about that is that the older you get, the more experiences you have and so you see more and more things that are very similar. And that is exactly where it becomes useful to bring overview to that: the patterns indicate something in common, and what is that?
In a podcast about fascism, Willem Schinkel also said it once: the puppets themselves are not that interesting (which politician is a fascist, or not), but the system in which those puppets act, that is what it should be about.
Now i'm not a great interpreter, especially not when it comes to politics, but i still want to zoom out more and try to get an overview of what we're all stuck in, hoping for answers and outcomes that might make the world just a tiny bit better (yeah, yeah, i'm still being very bloody careful).
The outcome of the elections, and what is happening both in the Netherlands and elsewhere, has so many similarities with what i have experienced in recent years (at least since 2014), that it is interesting to see where that lies. I am not really in shock, it feels more like an extra scoop of insecurity has been added on top of the insecurity that i have already experienced.
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Item 10: 2024.11.25. Stuck in the past.
That i was listening to the Legowelt remix of Stuck in the past (LFDLD) by Mézigue and was wondering if i am stuck in the past as well, with this website. Do i only rely on the past tense? Do i only look back?
Most stories are never finished, and everything influences the next, so in that sense it is also important to rake up the past, in order to learn from it. Or so you hope. People are generally not very good at learning from previous histories. Or maybe they are: they want things to go the way they go. For example, those who voted for the right do wish that, otherwise they'd have a huge concrete board in front of them if they didn't know what was coming with this fascist government. These are not mistakes or missteps that are made, but this is the intention: to create chaos, play groups of people off against each other and run off with the money.
As for my personal challenges, i have to look back if i want to get any sense of what's going on now. And of course there's a huge difference between being stuck in something and talking about the past. There are undoubtedly people who only listen to music from [insert decade of the 20th century] and condemn everything else as bad music.
Rear view mirror
Maybe that's it: that you always have a rear-view mirror at hand, for when you need it. That you can look back in case of contemporary incomprehensibility. Don't we all do that all the time?
Shouldn't the question then be: are there people who are stuck in the past? Would you call it that, for example, in the case of people who suffer from the consequences of a certain trauma, which causes them to experience flashbacks. That can have an effect throughout a person's life; at the same time, they also live their lives, experience new things, although always with an enormous burden that they carry with them.
The answer to all these questions is probably this: that there are different degrees and ways of being stuck and getting loose. And sometimes someone might not want to get loose from something from the past. Is that unhealthy, bad, indigestible, impossible, strange? It seems to me that if that person does not drag others down with him in this, and does not harm anyone, there is no problem (only if that person starts to see it as a problem). Of course, it becomes something else when all kinds of outdated customs, norms and values are pulled out of the closet again and this is forced on others. We see that happening all around us again, don't we. Let's keep fighting against it!
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