We are a prisoner of society!

Too skinny, too fat, too happy, too sad, too open, too closed, too normal, too weird, too available, too distant...
One is being pushed in all directions not knowing what is right and what is wrong any more. 'Do what you feel' they say. But if you do what you feel and it is slightly out of context you will get judged. Not only by unknown people, but also by friends and family.

It's like we have to be a doll, dress nicely, be happy and content, say yes and amen and do what is being told!

It is known that mankind is a social animal; living in groups and needs others to survive. Yet you can't outrun self-absorption. What I see happening around me is that one's forcing others to listen to him or her talking about themselves, to be there, to do things together just to please that one person.
This is nothing abnormal you might say, but what if it's only a one way direction?
Is it okay for one person to be there for all but not the other way round? Or is that person considered as weak, not able to stand up for himself?
And what if that person does stand up for himself but is forced to shut up? Should he put all forces together to make them listen to him, or should he accept he's the weaker kind?


We are all striving for individuality and yet a place to fit in. But what happened to give and take? Are we all just taking now and not giving any more?
Is the the new Survival of the Fittest? An evolution?
Is this called Individuality or maybe Socio-individuality or just simply Selfish?!

Who says you can't make a mess?

Some great experimenting I have been doing today with a vaporizer combined with water, tea and coffee! Smoke is fascinating! And experimenting is a great job and so inspirational... and a great mess!

Frozen Smoke

It's edible!

Exploration pt.1

I am busy exploring smoke and materials that somehow relate to smoke.
This time I used cottons and tried to explore the look and the touch of it.
What you see is that the closer cotton is to each other it has this closeness. it's like a cloud. But not just that, it feels rougher. I somehow felt uncomfortable touching a piece of thick cotton.
When you take it apart though, like you see in the pictures, it feels really soft and pleasant to touch.
So the closer the particles are, the thicker, the rougher. And the more you separate them, they get thinner and softer.

This can be compared to smoke. If there is smoke in a small area, like a box or even a room, you can actually see it and it stays there. But when there's smoke in the air, it just evaporates within seconds and gets invisible.

This video was so empowering, even though it's something that was published 4 years ago.
It inspires me and makes me want to be a good designer. But not only that, it also gives you this better look on life. Watch it if you can!!

DDW

A selection of photographs I made during the Dutch Design Week. More to come.

True Colors

And that’s where the story ended. He couldn’t hide his true colors anymore. He gave in and showed all the black inside of him. Redness was nowhere to be seen. His heart was hard to find because it was so small and covered with all the blackness.
She was shocked when she looked at him. Her mouth fell wide open. No sound came out. She didn’t know whether to scream or smile or cry; all she did was staring.
How could she have been so blind not to see this black inside of him? Was it because it was her favorite color or because she really thought it was red instead?
Maybe it was because he kept dripping all the colors that existed into that black and she held on to the colors. She never believed that all colors mixed together would turn to black eventually. She was too stubborn. She was a dreamer and a believer.

He gave her signs all the time though. He told her that he didn’t want to expose her to the real world and he’d rather wanted her to stay in her own little safe world. He said he wanted to be part of her world. Of course she let him, but she was never aware of all the black marks he left behind. She embraced them instead and thought it was beautiful because the drops were his. And everything that was his made her heart beat faster. She was immensely in love with him.
At that time she didn’t realize that it was only a matter of time that she would stop accepting all the black drops in her world because it was overflowing all the other colors.
She tried ways to bring back the color and tried to convince him to try other colors than just black, but he was too powerful. He was filled with black and the little drops of color that she was leaving behind vanished in the darkness.
Yet she never gave up, she had this eternal hope that once he saw how beautiful it was in her world his heart would grow and become red.
She didn’t believe in evil and monsters. She believed in the good. But she had no idea what was waiting for her….

I've read one of my blog entries about being impulsive which I wrote last year October. It made me think about how much has been changed ever since. I've given in to the fact that I can do what I want and when I want without giving it much though. I should do more of what I want right at the moment itself. Living in here and now.

Yet I found some obstacles that are standing in my way. Blocking my way even.
My thoughts are driving me crazy because every single moment, every second of the day they shift from one thought to the other. I don't know if it's a fight between my head and my heart, or between my consciousness and subconsciousness.
I'm trying to protect myself by shutting every feeling off. And in this case, I can't do whatever I want because that can change on an hourly basis. And since there a second person involved, I can't keep doing that because it will also drive him crazy and not just that, I will also be answerable for my actions which wouldn't happen if there isn't another person involved.

I need to make my decision and be strong enough to stick with it. It's really bad to fall for someone just because he's nice for once and gives you a little attention when he can also tell you that he's tired of you when he's the one that contacted you.
Maybe it makes it easier for me if I share this with the rest of the world, thinking that I can't do otherwise because others will read this and this I'm a hypocrite if I do otherwise.

I wish I could block phone numbers on my mobile phone but I don't know how to do that!!
But okay, that's going to test how strong I am and I actually highly doubt he will contact me after these 2 crazy days.
I just wish.......... I wish so many things.
Here I go again with my thoughtshifts, I can't even control it.
All above all, maybe I should really distance myself. Like for real. I know I told myself that a million times, but it will work one day.

Live the moment. But be careful.

Love

Even though we were born as an individual, you see that people are always finding something to care for. Whether it's something solid like a mobile phone or a baby or a companion or a lover, it makes them the happiest people in the world when they do something for others. Our jobs are based on that, we always help one another because that gives us satisfaction. People at shops help you buy the right shoe, dentists and doctors help you to get rid of pain, designers make products to make your life easier, artists share their passion so that for a moment you can forget about everything else around you.

I, myself, want to be there for someone in good and bad times, both. Not because I need it, because I'll always find something to care for, something or someone that makes me happy. But I choose him and I exposed myself to him because I chose him to deserve my care. My heart chose him to take my breath away, my heart chose to skip a beat for him and to open up for him. What our heart feels is not something we have in control, but I'm trusting it that it's making a right choice. I choose to follow my heart because it makes me happy.

I'm living my life, do things that make me happy, buy things that make me happy, work hard; I see things happening. And in the end there's always one thing that's on my mind. Him. And that's when I know why I'm alive, what my purpose is in life: to love and to be loved.
It sounds so easy, and it is easy. Everything else around makes us realize that this is what it's all about.
I've read this book about simplicity and it says that you can't appreciate simplicity without complexity. You don't know what simplicity is if there's no complexity. All the complex things, like work, being busy, fights, struggles will make us appreciate and come back to simplicity (love).

I don't know where I'm going with this story. But something made me remember why I fell in love with him in the first place and why it's so hard for me to let him go. It made me remember why I want to climb all these mountains because when I look at the bigger picture I know what we have is so beautiful.
Life is a struggle, it always will be. And when it's not it's boring. That struggle often makes us forget to look at the bigger picture and that's a pity.
We've had a lot of struggles and I can tell that it's not the end. But it's up to us whether we look past all these struggles.

There are people in this world who are unhappy because they're stuck with someone they don't love. There are people out there who can't find love. I believe we are the lucky ones that have found that love that everyone else wishes to have. And why let go of something when you found it, when it's there?

Call me a dreamer, an optimist, an idealist.. but this is what I truly believe.

Love always,
B.