email: 
password: 

The Swordsman by Andre Platteel , October 31st

Someone takes the seat opposite me in the train. He sits down very silently, almost as if no one is doing so. He looks at me for a few seconds, without wanting anything. I move my head slightly with the idea of making a friendly gesture. We pass Leiden, a small Dutch city that I used to live in. It has great universities, and a great hospital – a huge complex, almost a village really, mainly coloured yellow. I have never understood that colour. Memories in my body remind me of the times I spent in that village of sick people. I reboot my brain to the here and now. But this doesn’t stop my mind from raising questions. How come so many people get sick? Sickness isn’t our natural state, is it? So why do so many people get ill? It strikes me: And why haven’t I felt really healthy for a long time? I am glad I don’t live in Leiden anymore. I feel the eyes of the man opposite resting on me. When I look back I see not only a man, but also someone, probably of Japanese descent, wearing a beautiful suit; he has small but bright eyes and short black hair. The lines in his face are fine, no particular marks. He doesn’t have a big nose, nor does he have a strong jaw or pronounced lips. I find it hard to guess his age. His face could be anyone’s face. On his lap he holds a long black object, longer than the span of my arms. It looks as if it is made of strong material; probably containing something inside, but I have no idea what that could be. Or, to be more precise, ideas about what could be inside are bubbling up in my mind (some quite bizarre), but I can’t verify any of them – unless of course I grab the object and look inside. I don’t move. When we pass The Hague, he starts talking to me. He whispers, but his words are crisp and clear. He tells about great Chinese and Japanese warriors. “The best fighters did not fight that much,” he says. “A great swordsman often did no more than show an inch of the shaft – nearly that was enough to make the other person decide to back off.” Someone wants to sit next to me, but for some reason he then steps back and decides not, walking further to look for another seat. He carries two bags and I am sure they have books inside since I recognize the name of the shop printed on the bags. Books. For a long time I was addicted to buying books. I bought more than I could read. And the more I bought the less I read. I could no longer make a choice about which one to choose. One day, I got fed up with stories and sold almost half my collection. Most of them left my house unread. “That small but sharp and shiny piece of metal was enough to show the other that the limits had been reached. And let there be no confusion, if that warning was not understood clearly, the sword was used, without hesitation, fully and deadly. And without sorrow.” + more Someone takes the seat opposite me in the train. He sits down very silently, almost as if no one is doing so. He looks at me for a few seconds, without wanting anything. I move my head slightly with the idea of making a friendly gesture. We pass Leiden, a small Dutch city that I used to live in. It has great universities, and a great hospital – a huge complex, almost a village really, mainly coloured yellow. I have never understood that colour. Memories in my body remind me of the times I spent in that village of sick people. I reboot my brain to the here and now. But this doesn’t stop my mind from raising questions. How come so many people get sick? Sickness isn’t our natural state, is it? So why do so many people get ill? It strikes me: And why haven’t I felt really healthy for a long time? I am glad I don’t live in Leiden anymore. I feel the eyes of the man opposite resting on me. When I look back I see not only a man, but also someone, probably of Japanese descent, wearing a beautiful suit; he has small but bright eyes and short black hair. The lines in his face are fine, no particular marks. He doesn’t have a big nose, nor does he have a strong jaw or pronounced lips. I find it hard to guess his age. His face could be anyone’s face. On his lap he holds a long black object, longer than the span of my arms. It looks as if it is made of strong material; probably containing something inside, but I have no idea what that could be. Or, to be more precise, ideas about what could be inside are bubbling up in my mind (some quite bizarre), but I can’t verify any of them – unless of course I grab the object and look inside. I don’t move. When we pass The Hague, he starts talking to me. He whispers, but his words are crisp and clear. He tells about great Chinese and Japanese warriors. “The best fighters did not fight that much,” he says. “A great swordsman often did no more than show an inch of the shaft – nearly that was enough to make the other person decide to back off.” Someone wants to sit next to me, but for some reason he then steps back and decides not, walking further to look for another seat. He carries two bags and I am sure they have books inside since I recognize the name of the shop printed on the bags. Books. For a long time I was addicted to buying books. I bought more than I could read. And the more I bought the less I read. I could no longer make a choice about which one to choose. One day, I got fed up with stories and sold almost half my collection. Most of them left my house unread. “That small but sharp and shiny piece of metal was enough to show the other that the limits had been reached. And let there be no confusion, if that warning was not understood clearly, the sword was used, without hesitation, fully and deadly. And without sorrow.” The train stops in Rotterdam. I need to get out, but my body somehow refuses. A voice carries through the train, announcing stuff. “Every day, we take our sword out of the sheath, just an inch, many times. But most of us don’t know we do it. The movement of the sword remains unconscious. Some of us take out the sword and use it. But most of us not to the full, and with regret.” He takes the long object from his lap, moves his body slowly and stands up. He puts the object on the seat and tells me: “Know when you show your sword, use the sword when necessary – use it fully and without regret.” He walks away. At the next stop I get out too. As I leave the train I look through the window at the seats where the man and I were just sitting. The long object is still there. I know that what is inside must be inside me. There is no need to take it along. - less tagged:   swordsman   Japan   warrior   Chinese   fighting   wholeness   understanding   fear   Hero   martial-art    permalink  read: 4581  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Becoming authentic by Andre Platteel , October 6th

I see advertisements on the roofs of New York’s cabs for Heroes, an award winning NBC show now entering its second season. I’ve never seen it, so a few hours later I decide to watch some episodes from the DVD box set I have just bought. The show is about regular people from all around the world discovering that they have special abilities. Not knowing where their powers came from, each deals with life’s changing events. One of the heroes is Hiro Nakamura, a 24-year-old Japanese geek who can bend time and space, giving him the ability to both freeze time and teleport through it. One day he teleports to New York and discovers a comic describing his life, including his life yet to be lived. The comic is the creation of another hero (Isaac Mendez) who can draw the future. In the comic, Hiro Nakamura reads that he will move to New York – and of the horrific events that are in the making. Hiro wants to contact the comic’s writer and use his powers to stop the horrors on the page from actually taking place. In his latest film, Ober (Waiter), Dutch director and actor Alex van Warmerdam plays a waiter who, when he is bullied by his clients, protests to ‘his writer’ about his life. He asks ‘his writer’ to re-write him – including a new girlfriend, new neighbours and nicer clients. The writer of course complains: he’s the writer and his characters have only one choice, which is to live out his ideas. + more I see advertisements on the roofs of New York’s cabs for Heroes, an award winning NBC show now entering its second season. I’ve never seen it, so a few hours later I decide to watch some episodes from the DVD box set I have just bought. The show is about regular people from all around the world discovering that they have special abilities. Not knowing where their powers came from, each deals with life’s changing events. One of the heroes is Hiro Nakamura, a 24-year-old Japanese geek who can bend time and space, giving him the ability to both freeze time and teleport through it. One day he teleports to New York and discovers a comic describing his life, including his life yet to be lived. The comic is the creation of another hero (Isaac Mendez) who can draw the future. In the comic, Hiro Nakamura reads that he will move to New York – and of the horrific events that are in the making. Hiro wants to contact the comic’s writer and use his powers to stop the horrors on the page from actually taking place. In his latest film, Ober (Waiter), Dutch director and actor Alex van Warmerdam plays a waiter who, when he is bullied by his clients, protests to ‘his writer’ about his life. He asks ‘his writer’ to re-write him – including a new girlfriend, new neighbours and nicer clients. The writer of course complains: he’s the writer and his characters have only one choice, which is to live out his ideas. Weeks after I saw Waiter I enjoyed yet another movie with a similar theme. In Stranger than Fiction (2006, Marc Forster), a man discovers that he is actually a character in a book of a world-renowned writer. This writer has become famous because her lead characters always die in original ways. In order to prevent his death, the lead character must find his writer and convince her to come up with another plot. Heroes, Waiter and Stranger than Fiction play with interesting themes: Is my life destiny? In other words, am I being written without having a say, or do I have a free will? Can I be the writer-director of my own life? All three examples bring up ideas that I would like to interpret as follows: Yes, we are part of a greater picture that takes place without us having any notion of the totality of that picture; Consciousness is the source of life and is lived in unexpected ways; Our connectedness with others sometimes seems so invisible. At the same time as being conscious, each of us is also a form: a body-mind mechanism that is unique and different from all other forms and all other beings. Each unique form – each person – has unique abilities and powers that each individual has to discover for him or herself. By finding your powers you become authentic. But when one comes from authenticity, what does free will mean? - less tagged:   Waiter   StrangerthanFiction   consciousness   power   authetic   totality   Hero   NewYork   AlexvanWarmerdam   MarcForster    permalink  read: 4524  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Superheroes don’t age by Andre Platteel , September 26th

He fights for her to get better again. She has embraced her death and she becomes, as she describes it, ‘more full’ – every breath bringing her closer to the end. As a scientist, he doesn’t accept her death; he doesn’t accept death in general, describing it as a sickness that must be defeated. She drinks from the fountain of eternal life, knowing from what she experiences in her state-called-sickness that death must be no more than a transition to a different form – a different form of life. After discussing mind (in his film Pi) and body (in Requiem for a Dream), director Darren Aronofsky has chosen spirit as the theme of his latest film, Fountain; spirit: the endless source of life that cannot end in death. I am having dinner with friends in Manhattan. Earlier, an Amsterdam friend who was born and raised in New York and happens to be visiting at the same time I am, takes me to a fashion show for the company he works for. About twenty models, all young and beautiful, show the latest designs of a global fashion brand. The public is young and beautiful too. Afterwards, during dinner, we are joined by his two brothers and friends (still living in NYC). One brother is about to get married. His girlfriend describes how she envisages her wedding day and who they have invited. He tells about the day they met. They were at the Jukebox, dressed as superheroes. She wore a Catwoman suit with leather gloves – her fingers sticking out. He was dressed up as the Green Hornet. His eyes sparkle and illustrate how blessed he feels to have met this super woman. Someone asks if they met on Halloween. “No. When I go out I always dress up as a superhero,” he confesses without shame. “I love superheroes. As a child I loved to go to school in different superhero outfits. And at St Marks, there are plenty of places where you don’t look silly going out dressed up, even in the middle of summer if you want to.” His brother makes a cynical remark, something along the lines of “You’re too old to be a superhero now.” But superhero brother doesn’t understand this at all: “Superheroes don’t age,” he states. Everybody laughs but he – he knows. + more He fights for her to get better again. She has embraced her death and she becomes, as she describes it, ‘more full’ – every breath bringing her closer to the end. As a scientist, he doesn’t accept her death; he doesn’t accept death in general, describing it as a sickness that must be defeated. She drinks from the fountain of eternal life, knowing from what she experiences in her state-called-sickness that death must be no more than a transition to a different form – a different form of life. After discussing mind (in his film Pi) and body (in Requiem for a Dream), director Darren Aronofsky has chosen spirit as the theme of his latest film, Fountain; spirit: the endless source of life that cannot end in death. I am having dinner with friends in Manhattan. Earlier, an Amsterdam friend who was born and raised in New York and happens to be visiting at the same time I am, takes me to a fashion show for the company he works for. About twenty models, all young and beautiful, show the latest designs of a global fashion brand. The public is young and beautiful too. Afterwards, during dinner, we are joined by his two brothers and friends (still living in NYC). One brother is about to get married. His girlfriend describes how she envisages her wedding day and who they have invited. He tells about the day they met. They were at the Jukebox, dressed as superheroes. She wore a Catwoman suit with leather gloves – her fingers sticking out. He was dressed up as the Green Hornet. His eyes sparkle and illustrate how blessed he feels to have met this super woman. Someone asks if they met on Halloween. “No. When I go out I always dress up as a superhero,” he confesses without shame. “I love superheroes. As a child I loved to go to school in different superhero outfits. And at St Marks, there are plenty of places where you don’t look silly going out dressed up, even in the middle of summer if you want to.” His brother makes a cynical remark, something along the lines of “You’re too old to be a superhero now.” But superhero brother doesn’t understand this at all: “Superheroes don’t age,” he states. Everybody laughs but he – he knows. Francis Ford Coppola has made a new film, the first he has directed in ten years. The man who racked up great successes like The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation (and not-so-great movies like The Cotton Club, One from the Heart and Peggy Sue Got Married) had stopped directing films because he regarded himself as being too old. He preferred to speak of his children’s films and his pride in their work. Yet here it is, a new, Coppola-directed movie. The title: Youth Without Youth. Youth Without Youth tells the story of an elderly Romanian professor of linguistics who, after bring struck by lightning, becomes young again. His body is restored to that of a 30-year-old man who is immune to the effects of time. However, due to his experiences and newly gained memories, he has wisdom. The film speaks to the longing many of us have: What if you could go back and start all over again and again, without losing the wisdom and experiences that come with age? In an interview, Coppola states that the script has made him young again. “I want to make this film the way a student would,” he says in the New York Times. I walk into a bookshop and on the back of some covers I see the faces of the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. Both of them write and know that they are not only a form – a body – but that they are also and simultaneously consciousness: the Fountain from which Life emerges. Both of them are old; both look like young boys. I wonder: How will bodies look 100 years from now? Consciousness, the Fountain of Life, is endless. This is a Fountain that cannot dry up. If we all begin to embody the knowledge of consciousness then will age and death be no more than a thought? How will that knowing transform our bodies – our forms? The future superhero will not be a body with superpowers that end with death; the future superhero will be a body that knows and embodies endlessness. Superheroes don’t age. - less tagged:   hero   Manhattan   death   consciousness   Aronofsky   Coppola   body   NewYork    permalink  read: 4418  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

more articles in the Archive

.clients  .coaching  .contact  .publications  .strategy  Advaita  AlexvanWarmerdam  aliveness  Allen  animals  Anschauen  Antonioni  Aronofsky  arrogance  art  attention  authetic  awareness  Babel  balance  beauty  Bechstein  Beloved  Berber  beyond  BigMind  BigSur  bird  blackhole  blindness  blood  Body  Bohm  books  borders  Borges  brands  brightnes  brightness  BruceLee  business  Butterfly  carpet  Cartesian  CEO  change  child  Chinese  circle  Clueless  co-creation  colours  communications  community  concepts  condor  confusion  connectedness  consciousness  consuming  Coppola  creation  crocuses  Curse  dancing  darkness  Death  decadence  decay  desert  desire  dialogue  DiegoMaradona  difference  DirtyDancing  disorientation  doubt  dream  Duchamps  Dunaway  eagle  earth  endless  erotic  Esalen  ever-unfolding  everything  Evil  evolution  experience  faith  falling  family  father  fear  feeding  feeling  fighting  film  fire  flame  flow  flower  flowers  fluid  foam  form  fragment  freedom  friend  Gangaji  God  Goethe  goodness  gravity  grip  ground  Groundhogday  grounding  guilty  Gypsy  heart  hearth  heaven  Hero  holy  home  horizon  house  Hungary  hypocrisy  ignorance  image  images  imagination  India  innocence  intimacy  inviting  irony  Japan  Jarrett  Jewison  judgement  KarlBlossfeldt  Knowing  language  laughter  leaves  lie  life  light  Linklater  love  Lynch  lyrics  Madonna  Magic  Manhattan  MarcForster  marketing  martial-art  MartinParr  master  matter  McLuhan  McQueen  meadow  media  meditation  memories  memory  merketing  Merleau-Ponty  MET  mind  MIT  Moma  Monet  Montauk  moon  mortal  mother  mountain  mountains  movement  Murakami  Muslim  natural  Nazis  Newton  NewYork  Nolita  nothing  Olive  oneness  opinion  opposites  otherness  painters  painting  Paris  passion  patterns  phenomena  philosophy  photographer  physiology  Pirandello  plane  playing  Pollock  pornographic  power  promise  punishment  reality  red  repetition  resistance  river  Romania  roses  sadness  seduction  self-consciousness  Serra  shadow  Shakespeare  shame  Shapiro  silence  silk  singing  sky  Slacker  slopes  SmallMind  snow  SoHo  sorry  space  spaciousness  spirit  spiritual  spirituality  Spring  stars  stone  stories  StrangerthanFiction  strategy  stress  sun  swan  swordsman  T'aiChi  TallbergForum  tears  thinking  time  totalitarian  totality  travel  trees  TV-series  understanding  uniqueness  unity  untrue  Ursus  utopia  virginity  vitality  voices  Waiter  warrior  water  wholeness  wind  wing  Wing-Chun  wolf  WoodyAllen  youth  Zelig  Zen 

 objectevent

Advaita  AlexvanWarmerdam  aliveness  Allen  animals  Anschauen  Antonioni  Aronofsky  arrogance  art  attention  authetic  awareness  Babel  balance  beauty  Bechstein  Beloved  Berber  beyond  BigMind  BigSur  bird  blackhole  blindness  blood  Body  Bohm  books  borders  Borges  brands  brightnes  brightness  BruceLee  business  Butterfly  carpet  Cartesian  CEO  change  child  Chinese  circle  Clueless  co-creation  colours  communications  community  concepts  condor  confusion  connectedness  consciousness  consuming  Coppola  creation  crocuses  Curse  dancing  darkness  Death  decadence  decay  desert  desire  dialogue  DiegoMaradona  difference  DirtyDancing  disorientation  doubt  dream  Duchamps  Dunaway  eagle  earth  endless  erotic  Esalen  ever-unfolding  everything  Evil  evolution  experience  faith  falling  family  father  fear  feeding  feeling  fighting  film  fire  flame  flow  flower  flowers  fluid  foam  form  fragment  freedom  friend  Gangaji  God  Goethe  goodness  gravity  grip  ground  Groundhogday  grounding  guilty  Gypsy  heart  hearth  heaven  Hero  holy  home  horizon  house  Hungary  hypocrisy  ignorance  image  images  imagination  India  innocence  intimacy  inviting  irony  Japan  Jarrett  Jewison  judgement  KarlBlossfeldt  Knowing  language  laughter  leaves  lie  life  light  Linklater  love  Lynch  lyrics  Madonna  Magic  Manhattan  MarcForster  marketing  martial-art  MartinParr  master  matter  McLuhan  McQueen  meadow  media  meditation  memories  memory  merketing  Merleau-Ponty  MET  mind  MIT  Moma  Monet  Montauk  moon  mortal  mother  mountain  mountains  movement  Murakami  Muslim  natural  Nazis  Newton  NewYork  Nolita  nothing  Olive  oneness  opinion  opposites  otherness  painters  painting  Paris  passion  patterns  phenomena  philosophy  photographer  physiology  Pirandello  plane  playing  Pollock  pornographic  power  promise  punishment  reality  red  repetition  resistance  river  Romania  roses  sadness  seduction  self-consciousness  Serra  shadow  Shakespeare  shame  Shapiro  silence  silk  singing  sky  Slacker  slopes  SmallMind  snow  SoHo  sorry  space  spaciousness  spirit  spiritual  spirituality  Spring  stars  stone  stories  StrangerthanFiction  strategy  stress  sun  swan  swordsman  T'aiChi  TallbergForum  tears  thinking  time  totalitarian  totality  travel  trees  TV-series  understanding  uniqueness  unity  untrue  Ursus  utopia  virginity  vitality  voices  Waiter  warrior  water  wholeness  wind  wing  Wing-Chun  wolf  WoodyAllen  youth  Zelig  Zen 

2010	June May April
2009	June May April March January
2008	December October September August May April March February January
2007	December November October September August

contentpeople

June, 2010 Dutch Political Leaders Receive book Our World		May, 2010 Resistance Decadence New Book: Our World		April, 2010 Arrogance Naivety Ignorance		June, 2009 Mother of all memories
May, 2009 Come again, and again, and again		April, 2009 The Wolf		March, 2009 The three voices		January, 2009 Born to adore This Dancing with the Beloved
December, 2008 Listen carefully		October, 2008 A fragment of a circle God’s Gods You, me and everything else		September, 2008 Man with powers		August, 2008 The hidden promise Crazy for love
May, 2008 Dr. Feelgood What’s the limit of love		April, 2008 Spring Snow will fall The Cleaner		March, 2008 Motherless Child What I am made of Falling upwards Northern Lights		February, 2008 Glass-made-mind The outer layer of the mind Growing younger On Holy Ground
January, 2008 Watch for the wind to blow How is Diego Maradona doing? What are we guilty off? Everything is what is besides language The eagle and the condor flying together In the heart of Otherness		December, 2007 The man who loved too much The dark brightness The windmills of our mind To make two mountains one, gone Bigger than the stars		November, 2007 Act of passion Making love Life has no meaning Where the heart is Oneness is never the same		October, 2007 Mind blowing Becoming authentic Coloured Mind Hide and Seek Culture of fear The man on the bench The Swordsman
September, 2007 What is thinking? World happening Unity in diversity Smell no evil Going in all directions without beginning or end Alternative routes Superheroes don’t age No place like Utopia? Fog		August, 2007 The Wholeness of being Spirit through matter Looking in the mirror A new heart Is matter what matters? World of opinions. Spaciousness for a flower to grow