Maybe I need to write about the spectacular outcome of the Dutch elections for parliament last Wednesday, but I won’t. The radical right-wing Party for Freedom has won dramatically with 37 seats. But today that’s not even the reason why I won’t dedicate a post to this. I just can’t write about it, because the leftish politicians and people who vote for them (I myself I’m one) sometimes make me cry and make my blood boil. One look at the Dutch (social) media and you understand why. I can write a whole post of what I mean by this, but I won’t do it. I don’t feel like ranting. 

The only thing I would like to say is that I hope that left-wing parties can look critically at themselves (maybe also leftish influencers and other loud leftish voices?) why they didn’t manage to attract more votes. Please look at yourself and try to see what happened here. That’s it. And unnecessary to say, I’m also disappointed in the outcome.

Already before Wednesday I think the country is sick, like many countries in the world are. And the patient needs to recognize her illness first before she can start healing.

All right then. Onwards.

I just want to tell you how this morning our Mallorcan neighbors told us how they look forward to their 3-day trip to Amsterdam. She has never been to the Netherlands yet. They leave Sunday and we’ll look after their 8 ducks. Such cuties, all white, waddling over the land. We talked about Dutch pancakes, the flowers, the rain and cold, but also the ‘gezelligheid’ Dutch cities like Amsterdam and Haarlem has to offer, the brown cafes, the canals.

My mind went on a Dutch voyage for a few minutes, and I thought about my friend who lives almost in the centre of Amsterdam. How we would go to a cafe, drinking wine and, especially now, endlessly talk about world problems, her work she’s passionate about, and reminisce. And how I would visit my mum, living close to the capital, and we would express our frustrations about Dutch politics, and probably argue about some of the issues we disagree and decide to stop because it doesn’t matter anyway, then talk about books (much better) we have read or are reading at the moment. And a few miles further I would see my sister and her family talking about how it’s almost Christmas and we can’t help but dying by the thought of it. And of course that apparently I’m the only lefty in the family. No big surprise, I could have known.

I know I am the hippie. I am living in a bubble, which is quite peaceful. On an island without having too many worries for now. So for me it’s maybe easy to be an idealist, a dreamer in their eyes. When you’re both working in a sector where the government only cuts back, and especially with a leftish coalition, and you see billions going to an attempt to mitigate a problem you don’t really believe it’s true, what do you expect? And, as a young one, love to drive a car, don’t care about ‘green stuff’, work with social media on your business and fall for ‘manfluencers’ who try to poison your mind, it’s not that strange, is it? Or as a true, loyal liberal with only a few leftish ideas having a successfull business, why make a change?

But I feel a bit alone in this in my family. I understand their choice, but how cool would it be if they have the same dream of a better world without The Netherlands as the slaughterhouse of Europe (this I read somewhere ;)?

Still, we have to respect each other’s choices. Each person has her own worries and dreams. I really try to understand this, like I hope others try to understand me too. The naive hippie in her super tiny home on an island mostly writing when she’s pissed off about something. 

Currently I’m reading an old book by David Henry Thoreau, called Walden. It’s about him living in a tiny home in the woods. It’s a bit difficult to read, old English and very poetic.

But it contains jewels, like this phrase:

‘It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.’

Con Amor,

Eva