jankruizinga

[jankruizinga]

Second thoughts

An old man whose house I was cleaning asked me once why I meditate every day, so I tried to explain this to him. At first, he seemed satisfied with the answer I gave and kept quiet. Then, during my coffee break, it turned out he had second thoughts. He had understood my answer, yet the act of meditating itself had remained obscure to him. He said; I can see that meditation is pleasant for you to practice, but isn’t it important that one can share pleasant experiences like that with others? Now I kept quiet. 

Today it came to my ears that the old man had passed away, meaning that the conversation about meditation we once started would remain unfinished. Yet, this afternoon I formulated an answer after all: Meditation to me is simply being present with my senses. Sitting on my cushion, eyes closed, is just training for any other activity, eyes open. Any realm we can enter without being present is hard to share with others. Any realm that demands us to pay attention is excellent meeting ground. To me, an old man caring enough to have second thoughts is close to a man meditating.

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Nature Morte

Gazing at Antoine Mortier's painting Nature Morte (S.M.A.K. collection) evokes memories of other paintings in me, of which Permeke’s Daily Bread comes up most vividly. It’s something about the elegance of the composition contrary to the dark and blunt nature of it’s components. By painting what was nearby, both artists seem to have captured a hint of dignity in the midst of a harsh life. However, anyone that contemplates Nature Morte immediately feels that this painting is not about any form of salvation whatsoever. In fact, it looks like this painting could have been the starting point of which Joseph Brodsky’s like-named poem Nature Morte took off. In the first part of this poem Brodsky is wondering out loud what to speak about; (…) About things, not people. They will die. (…) To continue later on (…) Things are more pleasant, their outsides are neither good nor evil. And, if penetrated, nor are their insides good or evil. (…) Here, already, Brodsky takes his Nature Morte one step further than Mortier could do, just by penetrating objects with his fierce mind. And although, at first hearing, this movement into the objects  appears to be a possible mistake, over time the opposite turns out to be true; Brodsky indeed finds some form of salvation. Maybe I think Mortiers still life is beautiful to look at, because Brodsky taught me what’s hidden behind.

Joseph Brodsky reads Nature Morte (English subtitles); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPmMFbCI_f0

Joseph Brodsky leest zijn gedicht Nature Morte (nederlandse ondertiteling); https://vimeo.com/76597839

[jankruizinga]

Two birds

The September 4 issue of The New Yorker contains an elegant poem written by Derek Mahon, titled At the Window. Its vivid imagery of a short encounter with a bird reminded me of the closing scene of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, in which a bird lands in a window and thereby makes three characters gaze as one in the same direction, that is at the bird in the window of course.

(Meanwhile, Julee Cruise sings Mysteries of Love.)

Although the bird in the movie contrary to the bird in the poem displays itself, both birds represent a passage between two different realms of being. In the poem, both realms coexist simultaneously yet the bird prefers one over the other and therefore leaves us behind. David Lynch’s bird however tempts us to take a dip in our unconsciousness once again, just after we emerged from it during the ending of the movie. Paradoxically both realms, in and out unconsciousness, seem to be preferable. - it’s a strange world, isn’t it?

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A high quality debate

On BBC Newsnight of 13 September Lord Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England at the time of the financial crisis, stated that the quality of the debate on Brexit was rather poor. When asked by Evan Davis about whether people had enough of experts after they had experienced experts who didn’t see the financial crisis coming, and when it did, didn’t handle it in grand style, King said;

I think the concern about experts during the referendum on membership of the European Union had much more to do with the nature of the campaign that both sides ran, which frankly treated the public with a good deal of disdain and as if they were rather stupid. We didn’t get the quality of arguments in the European Union referendum campaign that we did actually have about the future of banking after the financial crisis.

One could say that the quality of a debate often drops as soon as it’s being held for the participants to collect votes. One could also say that despite the high quality of the financial debate, bonus-grabbing bankers won’t change their behavior unless they’re being held back by (often poorly debating) politicians. In both cases, the biggest disadvantage of ordinary people is that they are many. It’s the wool that makes sheep valuable, not their sense of direction.

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Van over zee

Op 11 september werd in het radioprogramma Kunststof op NPO Radio 1 bekend gemaakt dat de dichter Hans Tentije de Constantijn Huygens-prijs 2017 heeft gewonnen. Tentije ken ik van zijn bundel Om en Nabij, en dan met name van het gedicht Van over zee. Het kan voorkomen dat, vooral wanneer ik buiten ben, Van over zee in mij de kop opsteekt als een ongrijpbare herinnering die zich niet in mijn geest, maar alleen op papier scherp laat stellen. En zelfs tijdens het lezen van dit gedicht lijkt iedere vorige regel dan te verdwijnen zodra de volgende begint. Van over zee is een lucide schets van een landschap, waarin alle substantie verdund lijkt te zijn tot een onstoffelijk uiterste waardoor er in het gedicht zelf niet meer aanwezig is dan een vergeestelijkt staketsel dat alleen door de handeling van het lezen aangekleed raakt. Stopt de lezer met lezen, dan trekt de mist weer op. Een strijklicht dat zijn schaduwen uitstrekt, zo opent het gedicht. Zonder het (denkbeeldige) lichaam van de lezende lezer is er in de eerste regel überhaupt geen landschap, en pas in de laatste regels wordt de lezer in ruil voor zijn aanwezig zijn iets terug gegeven; een van over zee, van over duinvalleien en verstuivingen komend licht, dat alles verheldert maar niets verklaart. Tentije laat de lezer in Van over zee een innerlijk landschap optrekken, dat na lezing van het gedicht terstond weer verdwijnt. Het lijkt een voorproefje van de slaap, of zelfs het sterven te zijn en doet me denken aan wat de onvergelijkbare Lucebert zo mooi verwoordt in de slotregels van Poëzie is kinderspel; (…) U rest slechts één troost ligt gij op sterven. Gij verveelt u dan ook niet. En plotseling kan dan pop en bal, laat herinnert u laten weten, dit was ik en dat was het heelal. Tentije’s Van over zee maakt voor de lezer op zeer subtiele wijze voelbaar wat het behelst om als lezer, of daarachter als mens, aanwezig, dan wel afwezig te zijn.