2013/06 Take Time

Take time

Last week, I was skeptical about political intentions. This week, I’m mainly surprised about the amount of information we must deal with: multi terra bites. So, my opinion is not melted solid in concrete, because there are always so many emotions and ambitions and targets going on alongside reason. George Soros noted, and probably for good reason, that most politicians are not intentionally doing wrong but just incapable of understanding the complex technical situation they are in. Thus it is that Jariko Vos, leader of the youth department of the liberal (relatively right-wing) party, emphasized that a referendum to remain part of the EU was far too simple a solution for a complex thing like the EU. Elections would do more good. So, maybe Europe will become an issue in the Netherlands, too. Now, we only need to wait for the politicians to take European democracy seriously– that means without being a lobbying group for their own self-interests or giving free rein to financial cowboys. If you do not mind, I’ll keep on going, while others might wait.

According to the PP Reflection [see MMU 05], change takes years. 

This gives me some time to tell this little story:

I got a small painting in Kunsthaus Tacheles Berlin from a great, great, very great, Belarus artist called Alexander Rodin. It’s a sketch of two people kissing (or biting) each other. One seems to have a crown, maybe the other one as well. There is some text that says: Bruderschaft. Brotherhood. He said, “You will find your story.” He was the second artist to do this and insisted in such a way that I had to accept his suggestion and respect it completely, because I usually never make up the stories. But in this case, I had to, and soon I found my story. There was this television program that posed the question “Why do we feel better when we do things that make others feel better?” Actually, it was a documentary trilogy about how humans interrelate to one another, with the titles “Liberté,” “Egalité,” and “Fraternité.” I only saw the last one. Brotherhood. They had an experiment. A number of people are placed in separate rooms. They get a candle, a box of matches, and two pushpins. The question is: Can you light the candle without holding it or using the floor? The reason: We want to see how long it takes people’s creative minds to find a solution. One solution is to fold the matchbox in such a way that you can pin it to the wall, creating a little platform on which to place the candle. The human brain takes an average of 2-3 minutes to find that solution. Then another group of candidates is asked to do exactly the same experiment but with one little difference: they are told that whoever does it fastest will get 100 dollars. The result is that these candidates take much more time to find the solution. Competition does not make us better, creativity does. And I learned this simple lesson in the program called “Brotherhood.” So, I found my story and remembered the power of Alex Rodin, to be seen in paintings.
Easy to find, hard to believe, funny to enjoy and amazing to love.