For many many years, people colored me ugly after I moved to England. And this got worse and worse and worse (and still hasn’t stopped).

When you do this to a person for a very long time, the person will eventually start losing beauty and may need a lot of healing to recover. There’s little to no healing behind bars inside other people’s cages.

If you color a person beautiful, that person will become more beautiful.

We are currently in a world in which we are often coloring other people ugly.

Let people be who they are. Let people free. Let them out of your mental cage.

Watch this:

I’d missed this…

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And this, below, makes me smile… and despair. Look at those criticisms. What is it with people that they can’t just let others be themselves and do their thing?

Dutch people tend to think that all other countries are exactly the same as the Netherlands, except that people speak a different language, whereas English people tend to think that other countries have almost nothing in common with England.

(The English have a point, but the Dutch don’t.)

In addition to the monthly premium of about EUR 130 to 165, and the a minimum reimbursement threshold of EUR 385, which you will need to put for yourself, you ALSO pay for healthcare through a percentage of tax on your income. 5 to 6% apparently.

The billing system for the monthly premiums appears to be a giant mess, by the way. Why is that so? In this day and age?

Tickets to this ERC event are free. The last places are going fast…

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Ben Feringa (chemistry) is on the panel too. I attended an event in Groningen once that had him in it. I don’t remember whether this was before or after he got that Nobel Prize. Probably before. Engaging speaker. I spotted Maria Ressa on Twitter, years ago, and she’s certainly very worthwhile to listen to. I don’t know any of the others.

https://www.worldofshowjumping.com/en/News/Harriet-Biddick-on-her-bridleless-derby-experience-It-made-me-understand-how-unique-our-partnership-and-connection-truly-is.html

I am 39 minutes into this and there’s far too much that I seem to identify with. But I’m Dutch. And I was in England.

It is unsettling.

And now it may be happening again, and it scares me. Who are you if nobody’s on your side?

https://www.lawofficesofjudithlwood.com/

Who are you if nobody ever tells you that you need to keep fighting for yourself? If they tell you to shut up, over and over and over again?

It’s good to be reminded that those who keep telling you to shut up aren’t necessarily right. It’s good to be reminded that you always have to keep fighting for yourself.

Like that teacher, though, it isn’t always possible. Sometimes, people will just “disable” you and call you catatonic.

And afterward, you may first suggest to marry your uncle, that nobody will know that it’s not a real marriage, conveying that you don’t count anyway. But then you must find a way to straighten your back and stand tall.

I just posted the following on a forum:

There’s this ad on YouTube for an IT company. Employees are featured. Every single one of them is dressed in drab olive green. Doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe they want to emphasize “we don’t care what you look like, we’re interested in your brain”, however. Who knows.

Continue reading →

One of the webpages on this site had been taken offline. Must have happened overnight.

Eh. It’s been… Duplicated???

So nasty. So destructive.

Here it is: the self is suppressed

That’s why the “Pompey born and bred” cult is so destructive. (I have referred to it as Portsmouth’s ‘ndrangheta.)

This is directly related to my most recent book, but I’m not going to add it.

What does it mean? Did I spot it in the body language in a recent photo or was it the headline above that previous article? And what does that mean?

Now I’ll go read this article to try to get a feel for how worrisome this is or isn’t.

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Turns out that I never read this article. I saw the headline and the photo. Did I catch some of the other words in spite of that or did I pick up on something in the body language in the photo? They just don’t seem to be at ease with each other but I can’t say why, specifically. (Any explanations in hindsight would be heavily biased.)

Most people are fear-motivated. They can really hold back opportunity-driven people who see the bigger picture.

I try to avoid them. It’s not always possible.

I hate being stifled. Shackled. Suffocated.

In Portsmouth, I was forced to live like that for far too long. #inhumane

Just sayin’.

I have been told – in person, but not by an employer – that it’s against Dutch law to remain employed beyond one’s legal pension age in the Netherlands. So, you get fired at 67. It’s mandatory. That’s what I had been told.

However…

Continue reading →

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https://www.gamepix.com/play/design-a-baby

https://genejury.bio.ed.ac.uk/db%20lz%20design%20a%20baby%20game.html

PS
If you have a good command of Dutch, and a paid or free FD account, then you may want to read this too: Bureaucratie grootste struikelblok voor gehandicapte bij vinden van baan (fd.nl)
(Posted a day later.)