This theme has been brewing in my mind for a quite a while now.  There's a blog post somewhere below about this text in relation to the death of Pepijn Remmers, which was a shock that was felt throughout all of the Netherlands.  Here's a repeat of the translation: 

​All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal.
A time to destroy, and a time to build.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh.
A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather.
A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.
A time to get, and a time to lose.
A time to keep, and a time to cast away.
A time to rend, and a time to sew.
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
A time of love, and a time of hatred.
A time of war, and a time of peace.
What has man more of his labour?

We are at moment in history where the impression of the passing of time is speeding up at exponential rates.  This is caused by the exponential population growth crisis, which goes hand in hand with climate change, species extinction, ocean acidification, housing shortage, drinkwater shortage, social unrest, and the current corona pandemic.  It is as if a convolution of world problems are draining rapidly, dragging down our capacity to mentally and physically deal with the possible solutions.  There is simply not enough time.  And we have caused these problems ourselves.  Knowing this, one might think that the only possible solution is to observe and accept.  To accept that we failed ourselves.  That we failed our future.  We cared only for the present, and we neglected the future.  There is a time for now, there is a time for later.  We are drowning in the now.

My next song is a parody of Mozart's concert aria "Voi avete un cor fedele."  This is translated as,  I know that you have a faithful heart. 

This aphorism is likened to how I view politicians chaotically attempting to hold the threads of civility together during this corona-crisis.  Little do they seem to know that corona is just a thin mask just barely concealing the much larger and much more important other issues that are threatening us with the complete collapse of society.  

Although I touch on various topics in this song, I personally think that the most important is the negligence of the older generations in caring for the viability of the upcoming generation(s).  The degradation of education due to corona restrictions and the mental damage imposed on youth is a key point.  Ample research has been done showing enormous rates of stress in the age group 16-24.  More than 50% of this age group is severely impacted mentally by the lockdowns and social restrictions.  The closing of elementary schools has had such a  negative impact on education, that researchers are afraid that no amount of extra funding will be able to make up for the lost time.  

My message is not a nice one.  I talk about fear and egotism being the drivers behind what I call mass hysteria.  But the politicians need to hear this message.  The Netherlands, as an example, is slamming down all resistance to their corona policies with water canons, attack dogs, and mounted police stampedes.  While I might not be outside physically protesting, I am not afraid to speak out though song. 

Politicians.  Wake up.  Stop the tunnel vision.  Take care of the FUTURE.  

Here is the translation
I know that you mean well.  
That you probably mean well,
in relation to the financial relief packages
and the restrictions to combat corona.

 But we do have some points to discuss
I'll start with the TOZO (*financial aid for independents)
We should have known.
All those crumbs?  You pay them back, 2 times.

That's a kick in the back, yes a kick in the back after a year of complete shit.
And who's going to pay for the rest?
45 billion.  Oh, I guess that will be the younger generations.
They can clean everything up for us.
Like the nitrogen crisis and climate change.
Now corona damage will be added to that.
Fear, egotism, liberalism overshooting it's bounds
and we won't accept death anymore.

No, no more kicking the can down the road.
We don't want to pay the bill when you all aren't here anymore.

So tell me more about that short-term strategy?

I know you mean well, probably mean well,
with all your attempts to battle corona,
including stoping groups from coming together.
But, we have some points to discuss.
What about health? 
All of those corona-pounds.  Mental damage
Depression, loneliness.

Collective insanity, that's where we are now.
Hurry up with vaccinations.
But don't dare to make them mandatory.
That goes against the fundamental right
of physical integrity.
I'm not livestock that needs to be approved,
so don't you dare.

Let those who work in culture, work.
And give us some perspective.
Don't put us in the last place again. 
Stop breaking everything over and over.

And, the younger generations will be our leaders in 30 years,
so don't let them down.
Let them learn.  In real life.
Because online education is worthless, yes, really worthless.
They need real contact.

I know that you mean well, probably mean well.
But what you're doing now is based on a short-term vision.

No, not again, not another lockdown.
Or news of other variants.
Get you head out of the sand.
There are other more pressing issues.
Like climate change!
But, we might already be too late.
So come on, stop looking away.​

God and Love.

Not believing in God can sometimes be paired with not believing in love.  Yet Eddie Izzard said something recently that stayed with me.  I believe in humanity. In the belief in humanity is innately and perhaps unintentionally the belief in love.  The interconnectedness of man, the invisible web that we just barely manage to grasp, even though we invented God to attempt to tune in to it; this is love.  It’s as though our mobile communications network are a tangible attempt to make physical what we yearn for most deeply; the wholesomeness and loss of ego when connected to the divine.
Yes, I can speak of the divine without believing in God.  I can speak of the divine, because music is the connection between ego and self, with self being the only part able to join with the human web.  For some the divine could be accessed by standing on top of the Grand Canyon, seeing the world from the summit of Mount Everest, or perhaps viewing the earth from the ISS.  My divine is felt, albeit very rarely, by intense musical experiences.  When attained, as in that the ego is completely cast aside and the mental antennae are glowing with startling connections, the emotional and physical reaction of the mind and body is so overwhelming that you can come away from the experience trembling, whole and yet broken at once.  The touch of the divine is an experience that is blazened on the hippocampus with a persistent permanence.  This can only be described as love.
I cannot trust individuals in the realm of love.  I can trust music.  In music is the love of humanity.

My next piece is entitled A wise old owl.  I was hesitating, because Daemon Lover could have also been an acceptable title, but that would have taken away from the essence of the piece.  This work is not about love at all, it's about life and death.
If you haven't watched the piece, please don't read this first.  Your own interpretation of my imagery is just as  valuable.   

So the question probably arises after watching this piece, what is it about?  And to be very honest, I have the same question, even after having lived the creation of this for the past month.  The texts come from three sources.  The wise old owl is a nursery rhyme, and quite a beautiful one.  It's a reminder to listen.  The second is an excerpt from old Scottish story called the Daemon Lover or the House Carpenter.  This text alludes most to the irresponsible wish to remain young forever, and to evade death.  The search for the fount of youth. The third is my own, and is partly inspired by Paul Kingsnorth, who at a certain point states in his book "Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist," ... saving worlds is an impossible business.   I couldn't agree more.  The more information we have, the more people we have, the clearer it is what we need to do, the less possible it becomes.  We have landed in the ultimate progress trap, and the bill is being presented now. 

Most of the themes arise from a deep disappointment in current situation, observation of non-sensible behaviour of individuals and governments alike, and questions about our trajectory in relation to the past, present and future.    Starting with the last statement, the question that has arisen is what is more important, the past, present or future?  The part that always takes the shortest straw is the future, which is probably due by a combination of our inability to plan and act on a long-term basis, and our egoism and greed of wanting the best for the present.  

When one looks at the corona crisis, the most blatant conflict of interest is the protection of the weak and old at the cost of the young and strong.  The first is group is easy to quantify in in numbers and lost years, while the second group is impossible to quantify, because presumptions are made of their resilience, flexibility, and ability to catch-up for lost time in schooling and emotional development.  The result is a society that accepts zero risk, hence stifling the future in order to preserve the present.   This idea of stifling is imposed by the once wise old owl who so wisely observes and speaks less.  At a certain point, not speaking at all, thereby letting it happen, is acquiescing to choke the future.  I feel we have all gotten to a point where we just accept, and feel that our inner conflict is strangling us.  Don't get me wrong, observing and pondering is healthier than shouting out premature thoughts at will.  But fear, which is my next issue, turns pondering into dogmatic thinking that takes the life out of society.

The next theme is fear, and to be specific, the fear of death.  My brain has been wandering the halls of bafflement for the last 10 months and I have finally come upon the following conclusion.  Religion was "invented" to comfort mankind in the face of death and finality.  As a non-theist person, especially not having been brought up with religion, this realisation was really an ah-ha moment.  For some it might have seemed obvious long ago,  Sorry for my ignorance.  With the observation, the following can be concluded.  A growing population with a diminishing population of believers has found another religion; that of technological progress.  While bringing wonders, it has also brought us the ability to form the world the way that we see fit, therefore out-skirting the wiles of nature (specifically, survival of the fittest).  In our success and constant "progress," we have conveniently forgotten that death is the inevitable end of life.   When we ARE confronted with it, it is something terrible and heart-wrenchingly saddening.   When a virus comes along to "correct" us we refuse!  We shut down entire societies in order to banish the last vestige of that particular virus.   We shall prevail!  Mankind shall live to the utmost!

Almost eight years ago, I gave birth to my second child, my son Abel.  I specifically remember the moment, a few months afterwards, thinking that if I died, I would be okay with it, knowing that I had done the most important that I could do. Nothing (for me) could ever exceed the importance of what I had already made.  My voyage had reached its pinnacle.  I can definitely say that becoming a mother has made me accept that I will die someday, and that it is good.  New life can only exist because we die.  I am exceptionally grateful for the beautiful children that I have put on this world, and grateful for the joy that we have together, and the time that we spend together as they grow up.  Of course I want to be there to guide them on their journey, but if my time comes, then it will come, and they will be fine.

My song is about accepting, even welcoming death as inevitable.  Live well and do well for the world, and die well.  Don't live in denial as we do now.  The struggle that you see in the mirrors is the struggle that we face as mankind, as a society, with how we live and how we die.  Life without risk is truly no life at all.  Wrapping life in plastic will suffocate your soul, even if you protect your shell.  

The watching eye of the owl is not only a symbol for the "government" but also the individual who turns the eye inwards and struggles with the world.  The eye convolutes on itself, just as our brains struggle to deal with the levels of information that is offered to us on daily basis.  Simplicity needs to be found again to stop the bleeding heart.  

An acquaintance viewed the draft of my video and suggested that I get (mental) help.  I responded, if I need to get help, then so does at least 50% of society.  This music and video was truly born out of immense frustration, anger, and I dare call it....depression.  The situation crushes/ed me.  Making art is a way out.  I KNOW that most people are feeling this enormous depression.  I KNOW that society is feeling what I feel.  We are a society in need of help.  Are the ones who don't need it perhaps the ones calling the loudest to extend and intensify the lockdown?   So in a way, this music and video is a scream for the future, for the youth, for the children.  Let us care for and nurture the future in a greater fashion than we care for the present.  Let us put our engorged egos and fear aside and let us truly care for the generations that mean the most; our youth, children, grandchildren, and the children to come.
​-- 12-2-2021
  

Reading back, I can see a lot of negativity in my feed.  Apologies for that.  The mud in my brain that needs spewing out needs to be tempered by beautiful things. They do exist!  

Some wonder why I, being educated quite highly in music, want to work with children.  And I'll state it proudly and clearly.  I think that children are the most intelligent, exciting, fun, and talented human beings on the planet.  Their openness, their abilities, and their enthusiasm inspire me.  I see the potential for a better world in them.  I love introducing them to music and to laughter and love in music.  I love to see their lightning development.  Children are the future, and the future can be made beautiful through them.

This last week we got a message from my son's sport club that one of the junior members had died.  Without a cause of death I'm assuming it was suicide.  A picture of a happy, good-looking young man accompanied the message.  What are my assumptions worth?  Can this stifling depression that is rampant in society be justified for the "greater good?"  

I don't believe that we have control over the greater good.  And yes, I believe in science and no, not in God. 

All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal.
A time to destroy, and a time to build.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh.
A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather.
A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.
A time to get, and a time to lose.
A time to keep, and a time to cast away.
A time to rend, and a time to sew.
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
A time of love, and a time of hatred.
A time of war, and a time of peace.
What has man more of his labour?

Lullaby is done, and will be made public soon.  Daemon Lover is in the making.  After that, Omnia Tempus Habent.

An interview of Marli Huijer that appeared in the NRC this last week goes more in depth into the discussion that I feel is a very important to have at this moment.  She stated that if corona had happened 70 years ago, it would hardly have been noticed.  The reasons being that life expectancy was 10 years less than it is now.  If you add population growth to the equation (which she doesn't do explicitly, but does with numbers), then you see that there were 470 thousand people over 70 in the Netherlands in 1950, and 2,4 million now.  We have also eliminated many sicknesses due to antibiotics and vaccines, and we are not accustomed to death by disease at the rate that was part of daily life prior to 1950.

What bothers me more than overpopulation (which is part of this idea, BTW) and overconsumption, is the fact that we have been able to extract ourselves temporarily from natural processes, and are so arrogant to think that this is permanently possible.  We cannot face the fact that we are part of the natural world, which includes our dependency on the laws of nature.  Death, disease, hunger, war are undeniably a necessary part of human existence if we are to keep the balance with the supplies available to us to sustain our population.  A population that is exponentially growing and living longer lives while consuming resources at growing rate on a finite planet will crash into a wall so hard that far more casualties will be necessary to regain balance, than if we had allowed the balance to be found much earlier.  With all of our ethics, morals, and technology, extracting ourselves from nature might have been possible if we had immediately planned for the future by planning the maximum consumption rate and population growth.  

The conclusion that I have made in the previous months is that corona is not the problem we face.  The real epidemic is overpopulation, obsession with long life instead of a fulfilling life, and overconsumption. The last point is quite literally and uncomfortably seen by the fact that the obese are most susceptible to dying from corona.  

I have been reading extremely aggressive reactions from the older generations about the corona crisis, and I perhaps can attribute their reactions to fear.  However, it is also a certain egotism that radiates from their reactions.  Huijer states, "Je hébt geen recht op een zo lang mogelijk leven" which translates to "you don't have the right to live as long as possible."  You may have the "right"to a good life, but even that is not a given.  You have the obligation to do something good with your life,  let's put it that way.  

Continuing the ideas from my previous post, I've been perusing through the works of Sartre, Camus, and Kierkegaard.  

The corona crisis has really made my thoughts churn in the preceding months, and I think that these three above-mentioned have given me some clarity as to why we are so rigidly trying to avoid death as much as possible.  Some of you may leave now with the idea, of course you would try to avoid death at all costs. Yet, never in history has there been a global lockdown in response to a pandemic.  Hence, I find it a discussion worth starting.  

In the spring, the Dutch news always published the number of daily deaths, infections, and hospitalisations due to covid19, as if to remind us that this was serious business, and more importantly, that we had a responsibility to avoid more deaths, infections, and hospitalisations.  It was Erwin Kompanje, a clinical ethicist, who first stated openly in an interview, that our perception of life and death was no longer realistic.  In my own words; our cramped attempt at yet again evading natural life processes is no longer realistic.  

In an article in the Groene Amsterdammer, Basje Boer stated about the film industry (Hollywood) that "it makes us believe that we have a right to have prosperity and happy endings." "It causes us to be hopeful when despair would be more appropriate."

We have the most people on the planet than ever before in history, and it is only logical that a balance will be found (soon), because our capacity has been reached (for a while now).

Kierkegaard, a proponent of Christian existentialism, is surprisingly the philosopher that brought me closer to understanding our current mindset than any other.  The Sickness of Death brought me to understand that religion brings the promise of continuation after death, thereby releasing man from the fear of death.  The loss of religion has thereby created a large portion of the population that has no other option than to fear death, due to the knowledge of the finality of the act.  As a non-theist (not an atheist), it has always been difficult for me to understand the blind faith in God, but now that my eyes have been opened to the role of death, the comfort of the protection from fear,  I finally understand the creation of religion.  I can also understand that societies deeply rooted in religious practices are much more at ease in the face of death than atheist societies (if those exist). 

Does of loss of faith explain the extreme reactions of world governments to avoid corona deaths at all costs?

If so, the next step for atheism is to accept death, even to welcome death.  As Kierkegaard states "the inability to die is what is to be feared."  "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."

This week, the last of 2020, is a week of reflection and creativity.  A week of solitude, swimming, and development.  One of the themes that has been simmering in my mind since the beginning of corona crisis is our seemingly increasing inability to deal with death.  

When my mother died when I was sixteen, she was 55 years old, yet she looked 99.  She was bedridden and had been hospitalised for years.  There was nothing left inside.  She was just a shell with working lungs and a tired heart.  The official cause of death was dehydration.  The real cause of her death was a broken heart, a broken mind, and the crushing loneliness that goes hand in hand with separation.  It's an extremely long story that I won't go into here.  My father stated that he was thinking about suing the hospital for negligence.  I still think back on this moment with disbelief.  What was the point of keeping this shell of a human being living?  Why on earth would you sue the hospital for the case of dehydration?  She had died years before her actual death.  She stated it in her letters.  "Van binnen ben ik dood, nu het omhulsel nog."  My choral work, Mille Regrets, goes more in depth about how I feel about her death.

My grandmother, Joan Bruineman, was an extremely active and strong woman.  Being left with four children after her incompetent husband left, she was the embodiment of "when the going gets tough, the tough get going."  I visited her during her last months of life.  She had turned into a very frail little bird of a woman, transparent, and strapped to a chair so that she wouldn't fall and break a bone.  She pleaded weakly to be freed from her imprisonment.  I could see the shadow of that strong woman in her eyes, hating her condition.  

In the preceding century, and especially the last decade, technological advancement has enabled us to put death increasingly farther at bay.  Especially the development of vaccines has virtually eliminated sicknesses that would otherwise have kept the population at non-exponential levels of growth.  Cancer treatments and genetic testing for cancer is so far advanced that a cancer diagnosis is no longer a certain death warrant.  We are able to live longer, healthier lives.  The question arises, are we now able to lead more fulfilling, happier, more meaningful lives?  Does the prolongation of life bring the being into question more happiness, or are we feeding our ethical egos with our own search for meaning in life?  

Looking at and working with the texts of the Lübecker Totentanz, I am personally searching for my own understanding of what death is, and what death means to life.  So far I have come:  death is absolutely necessary for life.  The day that nothing died would be a terrible day for life.  To live is to inevitably move closer to death.  Welcoming this moment, or, dying well, shall we say, might be a better aim than prolonging life until it becomes agonising.  

A question for the philosophers out there:  What happens in the following situations? Economically, socially, demographically?
If a village of 10 people loses 50% of it's population, 5 people die.  
A village with 100 people loses 20% of it's population, 80 people survive.  
A city with 100,000 people loses 5% of it's population, 5000 people die.
A country with 350,000 people loses 1% of it's population, 346,500 people survive
Another country with 350,000 people, but 3x the population density of the previous, loses 2% of it's population, 343,000 people survive.
A world population of 475 million is reduced to 350 million, with a loss of 25% population.  
A world population of 7,8 billion experiences a pandemic with a .015% death rate, at the same time having a birth rate 2 times the death rate.  

The second to last was obviously the Black Death that took place from 1346-1353.
The last is also obviously our current situation.  Never before in history have there been so many living people on planet Earth.  At the same time, we are crippled, almost I dare say, felled, by the relatively small death rate (and the relatively large hospitalisation rate) of the coronavirus.  This is a serious question for philosophers out there.  How do we solve this magnitude of problems facing us?  Because let's be honest, the coronavirus is a symptom of a much bigger problem.   Stepping out of evolutionary processes may be a token of our intelligence and ability to achieve amazing feats of technological advancement, yet at a certain point there will be an enormous price to pay.