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alternative, neoliberalisme

In a small village in The Netherlands – you may not know it, but Google maps does: Ophemert – the streetlights have been infected with covid19 since May 2020: they’ve had such a high fever that usually they are lit day and night. The villagers have reported this to the local council, and they receive an e-mail within two weeks saying ‘your report has been resolved’; but the streetlights are still lit (it’s October 2020 now). Expect that the electricity bill will be added to next year’s council tax invoice. In the current privatised ‘public’ sector, there is nobody politically responsible for this, and from a business perspective, Ophemert is too small, and therefore too expensive to really take care of. A company serves but one master: money. And money never serves the public cause, just the private cause.

For a large portion of the twentieth century, social democracy ruled The Netherlands (and quite a few other Western nations). This led to monstrous state owned companies, where inefficiency was rule rather than exception. They employed expensive yet incompetent people who were glued to their position so tightly that no cruise missile could dislodge them. The answer to this was implemented in the 1980s under leadership of Thatcher, Reagan, following the teachings of economists such as (among others) Buchanan: neoliberalism. The ideal became privatisation of everything the state used to organise. This was supposed to bring, on the one hand, a smaller government and thus lower taxes. On the other hand these formerly state owned companies would have to become more efficient in a free market, which would give the consumers a lower price for a better service.

We all know the result of this: hospitals can now go bankrupt; instead of one Transporter with packages, four of them race down every street, every day; and the Rijkspostspaarbank has turned into a morally unacceptable corporation where corruption, environmental pollution and weapons deals have become the way to make money. People have even talked of privatising the school system, making private companies responsible for the education of our children. This would be awesome for the rich kids, for they would be able to go to schools that can afford teachers on a real salary. For the poor children, it would mean going to the CocaCola-school in Overvecht or the Schilderswijk, where teachers would get nothing more than a contribution for voluntary labour. And a tax reduction has only been implemented for the very rich.

In the neoliberalist model, it turns out that profit is private, but losses are public responsibility. When banks make a profit, the shareholders and the board of directors share those profits; when they suffer losses due to continues mismanagement and poor judgements on risk assessment relating to investments, the population of a country has to cough up the money to prevent the bank from going bankrupt. When the corona-crisis has destroyed the tourism industry, a booking-agency that has sent billions in profits into private coffers, now is asking the public – the government – for aide to pay the salaries of their employees. Of course I do not begrudge the people who work there their jobs. But if their salaries are being paid through tax money, I expect that the billions that were skimmed off the profits of hotels in the previous years are handed over to the government. Of course it’s a very complex puzzle – who deserves help, and who doesn’t? Companies that made no profit before the corona-crisis… Do they deserve help? Don’t they? What is, and what isn’t fair? To make that call, we need a large government, with many capable officials who do not apply a one size fits all remedy, but decide on individual basis what is reasonable and fair, and what should be done in return for the help.

When will there be a politician who has the guts to start changing this neoliberalist system? Piketty has shown that everything is a choice; there are several very smart economists who offer alternatives. My question that will determine my vote in next year’s general election in The Netherlands is this: who has the guts to stand for an alternative to neoliberalism? Who has the guts to really change our household books? Roughly forty years seems to be the life span of an economic model; it’s time for a change, and in 2060 we’ll look for something new again.

Do I have the answer? Not in the least. I’m not an economist. But here in Ophemert, I see that neoliberalism isn’t working any more. This obsolete system has had its chance (and has done good too), but it has proven that it doesn’t serve the public cause. A service engineer has to be employed all day; there can not be a day during which he has no malfunctions to fix. Liander (the company running our streetlights) has promised in early June that there would be a service vehicle available to fix our streetlights ‘within two weeks’. What this service vehicle has achieved is unclear; the lights are still on. Day and night. Because Liander doesn’t serve us; Liander serves the profits under the bottom line, 246 million profit in 2018. And the extra costs for electricity will be demanded from the local council by 2021. The profits of Liander is private, but losses are to be paid for by the people. And nobody is responsible for that.

Anti-social media

A couple of months ago, I left Facebook. I grew tired of its pointlessness. Its impersonal sharing of personal moments, bored me to tears. Its perception of being in touch while actually being far away, and alone, didn’t do the trick for me. I do not have the desire to share my life with the world; I do not desire the fake impression of being popular because I get lots of likes on my semi-funny posts, or cute cat-videos. That filled the bucket for me, but the drop that made it overflow, was when it became known that through Facebook, at least one shady company had elections for sale. Cambridge Analytica was the scapegoat, but I do not believe that they are the only ones who did what they did. In this day and age there are very, very few things only one person, only one company, can do. Especially shady stuff. I don’t know who the others are. Their only way to stay profitable, is to remain secret.

As news comes out that Facebook has been hacked a couple of times, and millions upon millions of people’s details are up for grabs, I’m glad I left when I did. I wonder though, as Facebook never deletes anything, was my data a victim too? And, though Facebook has promised to get in contact with the people who were targeted, will they if my data is now out there? Probably not…

I did stay on Twitter, though. For fun – to have something to do while waiting for a train. I did have occasionally interesting discussions with people whom I disagreed with – and still disagree with, but their way of arguing with me has led me to respect them. They seem to stand in life the way I do: I have certain ideas about where I think the world should be headed, and I have certain ideas on how the world could get there… But I am very well aware that my ideas aren’t perfect; and I’m very well aware that I don’t know everything. Especially not how the future will turn out – even if we follow my ideas to the letter. And on that basis, it’s fun and interesting to discuss pretty much everything – provided the counterpart holds the same position about flawed ideas. That’s something we can talk about; arguments with people who don’t claim to know everything, and remain respectful, sharpen your views. And, as I said, makes the encounter one that leads to mutual respect – even though you continue to disagree.

I admit, I’ve also lost my cool a few times. Ones I stated that I thought Donald Trump wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and got immediate verbal abuse thrown at me – so I threw some back, and then people complained that I was unwilling to talk. Another time someone stated that almost all of the bad things in the world were caused by white men, so we should have a racial bias against white men. Me, being a white man, pretended to think this was about me, in response to which someone asked ‘why do you apply this tweet to yourself’? And in an attempt to be racially incorrect, in order to show the other person a mirror, I used the N-word (in combination with a typical Dutch discussion about Black Pete, Saint Nick’s slave assistant over here, that people of colour apply to themselves too; a little side-note follows at the bottom). I probably shouldn’t have – the mirror effect didn’t arrive on the other end, that’s for sure. I don’t believe that becoming racially biased against white men is going to rid the world of racism. But perhaps I’m an idiot. For this misstep I was, quite forcefully told off – and rightfully so.

But that’s about it. The vast majority of my experiences on Twitter were summed up pretty good by James Patrick (@J_amesp), who said: “The screaming into the void, while being constantly proven right and simultaneously ignored, is just pointless.”. I’m of course not so sure about the ‘constantly being proven right’ bit, see above. But what I said was largely ignored. Occasionally one or two people responded. But in a digiverse of several million ‘souls’, that’s not much. And even the ones with a massive reach, rarely reach a million responses.

So here is why I’m leaving Twitter too – my last anti-social media account alive (except WhatsApp). It’s utter pointless to go on-line and scream at the top of your fingertips that the world is going to shit if people continue to be so biased against everyone with different views. This anti-social media is spurring on the polarization we’re seeing in society for it’s so easy to block out opposing views, to block out views you don’t like; and it’s so easy to find a few people who like what you say (even though it’s bullshit), which makes you feel strong and emboldened to continue shouting whatever non sense pops in your mind… Social Media is not the place to openly discuss new ideas (I strongly oppose the view of Dutch politician Thierry Baudet in this), for reasons stated above: you never have to respond to people who disagree with you. And as long as you’re not forced to counter critique on your views, it’s not an open discussion. It’s just screaming into the void hoping people will follow you. And that, my dear readers, is not just a waste of time, it’s a way for this world to go to shit.

There are only two people I’ve encountered on Twitter that I regret not talking to anymore. Just two. I highly enjoyed our discussions, even though with one of them we barely moved an inch closer together. But I highly respect the both of them – even though I’ve never met either, and perhaps I never will, as we live on opposite ends of the world. Given the chance, I would jump at it.

As for the rest of you, I’m giving you the ultimate block. I am leaving Twitter – it should be obvious to you why. I’m going to live among real people again.

P.S. I’m not re-reading this, forgive the typos.
P.P.S. As for the Saint Nick and Black Pete’s issue in The Netherlands, it’s basically this: when racism against black people was still completely normal (the 19th century), the Dutch invented a ‘tradition’ where Saint Nick and his black slave assistant would come to the country to bring presents to the kids. Pretty much like Santa, but on December 5th, and with black clown-looking suckers instead of elves. Anno 2018 this kind of racism is no longer normal and people of colour have a problem with Pete being black. They want him to be different colours. They present it as if that would solve racism in the country, and they seem to recognise themselves in the slave position of Black Pete. As my kids don’t care what colour Black Pete is, neither do I. For the rest I refrain from commenting on the topic.

Missed me?

Tags

depression, life, live, suicide

I couldn’t do it.

Did you think I’d gone out and do it? I skipped a week; did you think I’d not kept my promise of the first week that I was too much of a coward to kill myself? If you did, you had a great way of not letting me know. No tweet from anonymous, no police at my door – not even a call from a random shrink.

I couldn’t do it.

Or perhaps you trusted me to tell the truth. You perhaps thought I am a coward, and figured I wouldn’t do it anyway. Did you think I got sick of blogging too – like I’m sick of pretty much everything in my life? No, you should know better than that. I’ve proven the ability to finish what I start a couple of times before. And I didn’t play out any fantasies involving big rivers, cold waters, boats, or trains and bridges. No, I’m still alive, still fucked up in my head, and still thinking it would be a blessing to be dead.
On a side note, I must admit though that I did have some genuine fun this week. It has been a while since I’ve felt that kind of exhilaration; it did me some good to go into town with only my eldest son. But that’s not the reason why

I couldn’t do it.

I didn’t miss last week’s blogpost because I’d attempted to kill myself – nothing of the sort. I’m not in hospital with stitches in my wrists. Hell, that would not be the way to go for me. Too much pain. If I’d die, I’d rather die sudden. If I’d throw myself off a building I’d do it backwards. Enjoy the view of the sky and not know when I’d hit the floor. But I didn’t do that either.
I just had another week at work, and another week at uni, and another week where commuting was a torture. When you’re in my state, you don’t want to be anywhere. You don’t want to be at work (not because of the co-workers or the job; that’s all fine), but you don’t want to be home either. And you don’t want to go anywhere else either. There’s no point in the commute. The only way to either get to work, or get home, is on autopilot. Otherwise you’ll just stop and sit there. In my case, I’d lie there – on a recumbent bicycle – waiting for nothing, wanting for nothing. Looking longingly left or right at whatever may be able to kill you. And that was kind of the highlight of my week.
My autopilot continued to work though, and got me to work on time, and home in time for me not to be missed too much. And the ones closest to me have stopped suspecting that I’d rather be six foot under. But I didn’t get there, and that is not the reason I missed a week’s blog-post.

I couldn’t do it.

As a matter of fact, last week was really close to F’s birthday. And despite our differences, she’s still my mum. I’m not sure if she reads this blog – I don’t think she does. Still, I couldn’t ruing anyone’s mood while we were celebrating the fact that my mum managed to make it through another year. I was working too hard thinking happy thoughts so I could smile and wish her well. Blogging about misery of course won’t help with that. So now you know why

I just couldn’t do it.

While writing this blog, the blog was called “diary of a suicide”.

Rien…

Tags

depression, life, live, suicide

I am confused.

Wouldn’t Paris have been a perfect holiday for me this week? Get a couple of days away from my misery, see the beautiful city of love, kill a couple of faithless morons associated with Daesh, and die a hero. My loved ones would be taken care of by several grateful governments, and I would rest easy – away from my fucked up mind.

I am confused.

On July 14, 1789, Louis XVI of France wrote in his diary ‘Rien’ (nothing). Research suggests it meant that no animals were killed that day, not that nothing happened. Given the horrific events in Paris this week, I thought the reference fitting as the leaders of Paris probably didn’t go hunting for game either. But as it turns out, I was positively shocked by the events – and I felt true sorrow for those who lost their lives. I am not scared – of death or Daesh – and I am certain that – looking at the way the world operates these days – we are only at the beginning. More of these beastly acts are to come. And I want to stay far away from them.

I am confused.

I am hurting. This week even physically. On Friday I developed an ear-ache, which continued into Saturday together with a headache, and today all day my whole body ached too. But I am hurting mentally too. I am a coward, I am stupid, I am a cunt, I am an idiot. I have so much to live for, yet I can find so many reasons to die. But hearing about other people being brutally murdered, my survival instinct kicks in and sends me running. Well, I’m actually not close enough to Paris to need to run, but you get the message. I do not want to have anything to do with it. I am in no way tempted to join a group that is hell-bent on killing innocent people; have no worries. If I’d have the strength to die, I’d be the only one who does. But the flip side is, that if I encounter people who are going to kill innocents, I most certainly don’t want to be held hostage by them. I most certainly do not want to be in the team facing them, or amongst the innocents who get shot. So now you’re probably ready to understand why

I am confused.

I can not find a reason inside myself to continue living – all the reasons for me being alive are external; the people who care about me need me. But I don’t enjoy it in the least. I’d rather be dead. This lack of care should make me the ideal person to be among the innocent bystanders, for I wouldn’t care if I’d get shot, and I would probably lunge at them to try and peel their heads off with a potato knife. So why do I not want these beasts to shoot me? Why does this shit instil an unexpected fear in me? Does this mean that death isn’t as appealing as it most often seems? Do I really want to die? Or is there still some surprisingly good reason for me to live deep down inside of me? Or is it just animal nature that gets scared? I haven’t figured it out. That’s why

I am confused.

While writing this blog, the blog was called “diary of a suicide”.

So now…

Tags

depression, life, live, suicide

I am an insufferable cunt.

My miserable thoughts about killing myself, and the inherent depressed state I tend to be in, has turned me into this asshole your friends warn you about before you meet me. There’s good inside of me, but it’s struggling to come out. My shite thoughts about myself all too often turn into nasty remarks to the people I care about.

I am an insufferable cunt.

The most recent example of me being a complete piece of shit, who is undeserving of anyone’s friendship, was R. He is a great friend, and though I appreciate that he sticks around (even cunts need to be tickled sometimes) I feel that my vile remarks in the past week may very well have cost me a friend.
He is happy; he is in a great moment of joy in his life right now, and he deserves his happiness – like anyone does. He shares his happiness too, with anyone who wants to hear it, and of course especially with his friends. But then, when he asks me to comment, the first thing that bubbles up inside of me is bile. Instead of swallowing it, or spitting it out before replying, I give him all the bile I’ve got. And why? Well, I want to kill myself, but he doesn’t deserve to feel that way! There is no good reason to give him shit, yet I did.
If he visits me again I should get on my knees and thank him for doing so. He is a good friend, he is a great man, and he’s the best human who can stand being around me. I know I won’t get on my knees for him though. Because…

I am an insufferable cunt.

Over the past couple of years, my unrestrained tongue has killed more friendships. I won’t go into detail. It’s never to late to make things worse, yet nobody deserves the shitstorm I pour over them and repeating it anywhere won’t just make it worse, it’ll make it drag. And wounds that drag are infected; all I’m trying to do with all that’s in me is disinfect myself, and hope my misery isn’t contagious.
It’s not just my unrestrained tongue though, that gets me into trouble with people I care about. It is also my untrained tongue. Over the past few years I’ve allowed myself to be dragged into conversations out of which there’s no good way. My replies to certain inquiries have cut me in half, have made me regret being alive, have made me regret the moment I joined the company, for the inquiries were out of genuine concern, yet my replies showed no tactical or political skill whatsoever. I seem to be unable to bite my tongue and breathe before giving the politically correct answer; I go straight for my own harsh perspective; my fucked up, twisted, subjective version of a perceived truth. There’s no way I can make everything right I’ve said in the past years, and it hurts every day again.
In a nutshell, there you have it. Don’t ask me questions others may not like the answer to. Because I’m on a perpetual crash-course to ruin my friendships for no good reason. So better yet, don’t ask me anything at all, for…

I am an insufferable cunt.

This is perhaps the reason why I haven’t made an appointment with W yet; the tea may not get cold before I say something nasty. Like I’ve said before, I’m a coward – and I’ve become afraid to speak, for I am likely to say something nasty. All as a result of some depth of a depression.
On Facebook I found a quote on a picture of an out-of-focus seagull. Credit where credit is due; the picture and the quote are by Liz Young. I don’t know Liz Young, but Facebook has a way of getting quotes around the world. Liz must be quite crafty with words, as I need over six hundred words, for what she says in twelve.
“Depression is numbing.
Depression is evil.
Depression is cunning,
baffling, powerful,
deceitful.”
And that’s why

I am an insufferable cunt.

While writing this blog, the blog was called “diary of a suicide”.

And so…

Tags

depression, life, live, suicide

I am stupid.

I’ve got so much to live for. There are quite a few things in my life that many others envy – not in the least my past. I have two gorgeous children, an even more beautiful wife, a safe place to live and enough to eat every month. Who in his right mind would want to kill himself?

I am stupid.

I am not right in my head. Why would I possibly hang my dirty laundry out for everybody to read? I’m going to regret this, probably. And that adds one more drop to the buckets of burden my mind keeps telling me I’m carrying. Because that’s exactly it: my mind plays a fucked up trick in making me believe it’s all burden and no joy.
I have not experienced any form of exhilaration outside my bedroom for so long, that there is nothing anymore that gets me excited before it happens. Perhaps I should use some substance to get me going again.

I am stupid.

I am dumb enough not to have the insurance to go see a shrink; neither the mind-molding, nor the drug peddling version. Every month again I prefer to feed and clothe my kids and make it possible for them to have a good time during holidays. That has – for me at least – the obvious preference. But on the good days, where I don’t look at every train as a possible out, or check every rope to see if it would be strong enough, I realise it is a dumb idea to not go and see a shrink: what good am I to them if I can’t hold my own shit together?
But thankfully there’s Facebook. First I received the expected responses to last week’s post from unexpected corners. There was a friend, W, who very to the point read between the lines where some of the issues lie, and who invited me for a cup of tea – some time. But there are also others who advise me not to blog about this; I wonder why. Is it because of Buddy Kane’s motto: ‘one must always portray an image of success’, and they advise me to do so too? Or are there other reasons. Are they afraid I will alienate myself – from them?
Whatever it is, this blog is here to stay; better get used to it. I know I’m fucked up to the core, and it’s a risk writing this blog.

I am stupid.

For continuing this blog. But also for having tried substance: alcohol. I downed a bottle of liquor in a week, and I’d be doing a bottle a day by now if I hadn’t rigorously stopped myself. It was just too good to be healthy. It is true what they say – the down after alcohol is deeper than the high with alcohol. And I have so much to live for, and so many depending on me, it is unfair to go that way and tell everybody to go fuck themselves.
This is the reason I gave J when I declined his offer to visit him with a bottle of booze and talk it over, last week. And I didn’t respond when he said it was meant metaphorically – a good talk, to put my misery in perspective. Let me tell you, down here, there are shades of black, and hundreds of shades of grey (it’s bullshit that there are only fifty), but there’s only one perspective: me. Nobody else’s misery, nor your own possible pleasures matter when you’ve been as far down the well as I have. I feel like the snail climbing out of the well – during the day I climb up two meters, but at night I slide back down. Some nights I slide only a few feet, but there are moments where I am thrown back down all the way to the bottom. A brain with a short circuit has a habit of doing that.

I am stupid.

And yet…

Tags

depression, life, live, suicide, write

I am a coward.

Some people say that it’s a kind of cowardice to commit suicide. You’re unable to face your problems, so you end it. Coward. I know better. Ending a life is crazy – ending your own life takes crazy courage.

I am a coward.

I can’t do it. And by now, I know for sure that I won’t. But – pun intended – it’s killing me that I can’t. Over the past couple of years, quite a few times I’ve really wanted to just get it over with. Many times apparently unloved, underappreciated, and overworked, and to top it all off quite obviously a nuisance to all the people I care about, I’ve not only once thought: ‘Fuck it – they’d be better off without me.’
I’ve never even made it to the edge of the bridge though. I travel by train on a daily basis, and while many a morning I think of stepping off the platform in front of the train instead of into the train, I never will do it. I simply can’t.

I am a coward.

A little background is in place here, but I won’t give you too many details. It’s not fair on the people around me for starters. But this diary is also merely a reflection of my darkest musings. It may very well be far removed from the objective truth – it is surely very far removed from the subjective truth as seen by the people around me. I – like most – don’t see myself as an asshole, yet it is very possible that I am. It is bordering on certainty that these suicidal wishes are my own fault.
But I’m deviating from the background. So in short:
I have a few people around me in my life. There’s my wife A, me B (I would’ve put myself first, but Ben happens to not start with A), there are my two children C and D who love me dearly. C is the eldest, there’s five years and a week between them. The youngest is – at the start of this diary – too young to make any sense when speaking. Then there’s my dog – Dog – and cat – Cat who live with us. A circle wider are my parents F and M – F being my mom, M my dad, based on their gender not their names. They live next door. A little further away lives my brother J, with his wife H and two children. I do have a sister too, but for reasons I won’t elaborate here, I doubt she will feature in this diary. Then I have two close friends in my country – R and T – and a good friend whom I don’t see often enough to become close friends with, but I feel I could if given the chance J. Rounding up the friendships, there are three more people whom I consider close friends, but they live ten thousand kilometers away (give or take 7%) whom I became close to in a previous life – in between migratory movements. If they ever feature in this diary, I will give them a character then. And of course there are people at work, at my university (I study part time), and my in-laws, but also they live a long way away.
Looking at my inner circle, my first life, I have everything to live for. Right? And yet…

I am a coward.

I am a fucking coward with a death wish. But I can’t do it – and I don’t want someone else to come and do it to me – just because I won’t do it first and foremost to C and D, and secondly I won’t do it to A. But recently F has made it really hard not to do it, for she’s come to us – me and A – on quite a number of occasions to tell us that how we treat the children is wrong. We are bad parents. We have to do things differently, or else… We will probably ruin our children for life.
We quite obviously disagree; our way of parenting is different from hers; look at what fucked up boy she raised. I will try not to do that to my children, but of course I will fuck them up just like most parents do. All parents make mistakes, and do things according to their own insights. I for one have fairly solid reasons for doing things different – less harmonious (but most definitely not violent!) than F. But there’s no stopping the stream of ‘as-advice-wrapped-insults’. Despite this severe parental pressure…

I am a coward.

I know all of this is rather vague. For now I intend to keep it that way. I plan to post in this diary almost every Sunday. For two reasons – first, like it says on my Dutch language writer’s site: for your entertainment, and for my own. And secondly, because writing helps me to calm down. There’s a fat chance that keeping this diary will result in more peace between M, F and me. And perhaps also between M, F and A. 

While writing this blog, the blog was called “diary of a suicide”.