There are seasons when life becomes quieter than we expected. The phone rings less. A friendship changes. Someone who once felt close becomes distant. In moments like that, what Jesus teaches us about being alone without feeling abandoned becomes more than an idea. It becomes something we have to learn personally.

Sometimes the hardest part is not the silence itself. It is what we start telling ourselves because of it. We wonder whether we still matter. We replay old conversations. We notice who has not called. And that is where finding peace when people disappoint, reject, or misunderstand you becomes deeply connected to faith, because peace cannot survive if it depends entirely on another person's attention.

Jesus understood what it felt like to know people were about to leave. In John 16:32, He told His disciples they would scatter. Yet He could still say that He was not alone because the Father was with Him. A person can leave your life without God leaving your life.

The Quiet Can Feel Louder Than Noise

Sometimes silence magnifies everything. A thought that seemed small during a busy day feels enormous at night. A disappointment that was manageable while we were working suddenly becomes heavy when the house is quiet.

Maybe that is one reason we rush to fill every silent moment. We turn something on. We pick up the phone. We scroll. We look for distraction.

There is nothing wrong with those things by themselves. But sometimes we try to escape the silence before asking what it might be showing us.

Maybe the quiet is revealing how much we depended on someone's approval. Maybe it is showing us that we are grieving something we never admitted we lost. Maybe it is exposing how afraid we are of being alone with our own thoughts.

Sometimes the silence is not the enemy. Sometimes it is simply the place where we finally hear what has been there all along.

Jesus Did Not Avoid Solitude

Luke 5:16 says Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

I love that detail because Jesus was surrounded by people constantly. People wanted healing, answers, and His attention. There was always another need.

And still, He stepped away.

He chose quiet.

He prayed.

That tells me solitude is not automatically a sign that something is wrong. Sometimes it can be a place where we become more honest with God.

It can be where we finally say, “God, I miss what used to be.” Or, “God, I do not understand why this changed.” Or even, “God, I know You are here, but I still feel lonely.”

Faith does not require us to hide those feelings. It lets us bring them into the presence of God.

You Can Miss Someone Without Losing Yourself

There is a difference between missing someone and believing you cannot be whole without them.

When someone becomes part of our daily life, we naturally begin imagining the future with them in it. We build routines. We form expectations. We get used to their presence.

Then something changes.

Sometimes we are not only grieving the person. We are grieving the future we had imagined.

But someone can be important to your story without being the author of your story.

The disciples scattered, but Jesus' purpose did not disappear. Peter denied Him, but His purpose did not disappear. Judas betrayed Him, but His purpose did not disappear.

Other people's choices affected Jesus, but they did not define His identity or end His mission.

You can miss someone and still move forward. You can wish things had gone differently and still trust God with what comes next. You can remember a beautiful season without trying to live inside it forever.

Maybe You Do Not Need to Fill the Space Yet

We are often in a hurry to replace what leaves.

A friendship changes, so we look for another connection. A relationship ends, and we wonder who will come next. The house gets quiet, so we keep noise running constantly.

But maybe not every empty space needs to be filled immediately.

Maybe some spaces need to breathe. Maybe some losses need to be grieved before we cover them. Maybe some questions need to remain unanswered for a while.

I am not saying God caused every relationship to change. We should not make claims we cannot know.

But I do believe God can meet us in the space change leaves behind.

Sometimes that space becomes where we learn things we could not learn when everything was full.

Being Needed Is Not the Same as Being Loved

Sometimes what we miss is not only a person. We miss being needed.

When people depend on us, we feel important. When they call for advice or ask for help, we know where we fit.

Then they stop needing us in the same way, and we wonder whether we still matter.

We do.

Being useful is not the same thing as being valuable.

Jesus served constantly, but His identity did not come from how many people needed Him that day.

Neither should ours.

If nobody calls today, you still matter. If nobody asks for your help this week, you still matter. If your role changes, you still matter.

Your value is deeper than your usefulness to another person.

The Room Is Not Empty Just Because It Is Quiet

Psalm 139 reminds us that there is nowhere we can go beyond the presence of God.

That means the room we call empty may not be empty at all.

You can sit alone and still be known. You can drive alone and still be accompanied by God. You can walk through a season nobody else fully understands and still be seen.

That does not mean loneliness disappears instantly. Loneliness is real.

But feelings do not always tell the entire truth.

You may feel alone without being abandoned. You may feel forgotten without actually being forgotten.

Jesus could look at the reality of people leaving and still know that the Father remained.

Maybe that is the kind of faith we need in quieter seasons.

Do Not Build a Wall Around the Quiet

Learning to be comfortable alone does not mean deciding we never need people again.

Jesus withdrew, but He returned. He prayed alone, and then He went back to people.

Healthy solitude should make us stronger for relationships, not bitter toward them.

If you need connection, reach out. Call someone. Go to church. Invite a friend to sit with you. Serve someone who may be lonely too.

The goal is not to stop needing people.

The goal is to stop asking people to carry the weight that belongs to God.

Maybe the Quiet Has Something to Give You

I do not know what kind of quiet you may be living in right now.

Maybe it feels peaceful. Maybe it feels painful. Maybe you are still trying to understand why something changed.

But I hope you do not automatically treat the silence as proof that something has gone wrong.

Jesus knew crowds, and He knew solitude. He knew companionship, and He knew people leaving. Through all of it, He knew the Father was with Him.

Sometimes the deepest truths are the ones we hear when everything else gets quiet.

You are allowed to miss people. You are allowed to want connection. You are allowed to grieve what changed.

But you are also allowed to discover that your life still has meaning when the room is quiet.

You are allowed to learn that someone leaving does not erase you.

You are allowed to sit with God and slowly realize that being alone is not the same thing as being abandoned.

A Question for You

What has God taught you in one of the quieter seasons of your life?

Maybe you learned to pray differently. Maybe you discovered how much you depended on another person's approval. Maybe you realized you needed healthier community. Or maybe you are still in the middle of that season and do not know yet.

If this brought someone to mind, share it with them. They may need a quiet reminder today that people can leave, life can change, and the room can become still without God ever disappearing.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Douglas Vandergraph Master Index: https://douglasvandergraph.com/douglas-vandergraph-master-index/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

A checklist before any AI-generated news video goes out

I handle communications for a small organisation that publishes to a local audience, and I started generating video summaries of our written pieces about a year ago. I have also killed four of them before publication, which is the part worth writing about, because everything I have read on this subject is either a product pitch or a general warning that AI is dangerous, and neither helped me build a process.

What follows is the process I actually use. It is not elaborate. It exists because I got things wrong early and would rather someone else skipped that.

What actually goes wrong

Only one of these is the failure people expect.

Invented detail. This is the famous one and in my experience the least common, because I generate from a piece I have already written rather than from a prompt. The tool works from my document, so it does not invent facts. What it does do is generalise. A sentence saying the council approved the plan for the eastern section became narration saying the council approved the plan, which is a different and false statement. Summarisation drops qualifying clauses first, and in reporting the qualifier is frequently the accuracy.

Collapsed sequence. Written pieces establish chronology through structure. Narration is linear and has to commit to an order, and twice I have had a generated script imply that one thing happened because of another when the original text only said both happened. Causation appears without anyone adding it.

Borrowed certainty. This is the one I did not anticipate. My written pieces hedge properly, with attributions and words like reportedly and according to. A confident synthetic voice reading a hedged sentence somehow lands as less hedged. I do not fully understand the mechanism, but I have watched people take a stronger impression from the video than from the article, and that is on me rather than on them.

The four checks I do by hand

Every generated script, without exception, before anything renders.

One: every attribution survived. I search the script for the names and sources that appear in the original. If the article said a spokesperson stated something and the script says it happened, that is a rewrite, not a summary.

Two: every qualifier survived. I go through the original looking for where, when, if, among, reportedly, alleged, and check each one is still there. This is the check that catches the most.

Three: no new causation. I read the script asking whether it implies any because that the original did not contain.

Four: nothing is stated more strongly than the source. A generated script tends to tighten prose, and tightening removes hedges.

This takes about as long as the video runs. It is not optional and it does not get faster, and anyone who tells you the workflow is push button has not published anything they were accountable for.

Disclosure, and why I stopped debating it

For the first two months I put a line in the description. Now I put it in the video, on screen, in the first five seconds, and I say it in the narration.

The reason is a conversation with a reader who asked whether the presenter was a real person at our organisation. She had not been deceived exactly, since the information was accurate and the description said so. But she had spent forty seconds thinking she was being addressed by a colleague of mine, and when she found out she was not, her question was what else she had assumed wrongly.

That is the actual cost. Not a complaint, not a correction, just a small permanent reduction in how much someone trusts everything else you publish. The line costs nothing.

The wider standards conversation is worth following rather than reasoning about from scratch. AP's news values and principles set out how attribution and sourcing are supposed to work regardless of format, and Poynter publishes ongoing work on how newsrooms are handling synthetic media specifically.

What I use it for

The list has got shorter over the year rather than longer.

Visual summaries of pieces already published and checked. The article is the source and the video points at it. This is the bulk of what I do.

Structured information that does not change interpretation. Meeting times, service changes, opening hours, results. There is no judgement in this material and the risk of distortion is close to zero.

Explainers on things that keep coming up. How a particular process works, what a term means. These are written carefully once and reused, and they are the ones where the effort is most repaid.

Multilingual versions of the above. This is the biggest practical gain for us. I use Leadde.ai, which will translate a finished video and produce a separate version rather than overwriting it, handling the on screen text along with the narration. Our audience includes a substantial number of people who read a second language more comfortably than English, and until last year we simply did not serve them.

I have someone check every translation. Ordinary prose comes through well. Place names, official titles and anything legal do not, and an approximate translation of a court outcome is not a thing I am willing to publish.

What I never use it for

Anything unverified. If I am not certain, the answer is to not publish in any format, and the existence of a fast production route makes that discipline harder rather than easier.

Anything involving an accusation against a person. The wording in those pieces is chosen sentence by sentence, and a paraphrase is a different document with the same apparent authority.

Anything about a death, an injury or a disaster. Partly judgement about what the format conveys, partly that these are exactly the pieces where the reporting is most conditional and the summarisation risk highest.

Anything time critical. This is the one that surprises people, given the category name. My check takes fifteen minutes, and a genuinely breaking story does not have fifteen minutes. So breaking news is the thing I use this for least, and if I ever find myself skipping the check because something is urgent, that is the moment the process has failed.

Corrections after publication

Publish something wrong in text and you fix the text. Video is harder, and I did not have a plan for this the first time it happened.

What I do now: correct the source article first, regenerate the video from the corrected article, replace it at the same location, and add a correction note that is visible without playing anything. I keep the superseded version as a duplicate rather than deleting it, because someone may have acted on it and I want to be able to say exactly what it said.

The thing I got wrong initially was editing the video directly to patch the error. The article and the video then said slightly different things, and I had created a second problem while fixing the first.

Questions I get asked about this

Does it save time overall? Yes, but less than people assume. Generation is minutes. The check is roughly the runtime of the video. Against filming and editing it is a large saving, and against publishing the article alone it is an additional cost that has to be worth something.

Do the videos perform better than the articles? They reach different people rather than more people. The audience for a three minute summary overlaps less with our article readership than I expected.

What settings actually matter? The audience and objective fields, and keeping the length setting short. A generated script pitched at nobody in particular is the default outcome and the main reason first attempts feel generic.

Should captions be on? Always, from the first version. Most of this is watched with the sound off, and adding captions across a back catalogue later is much more work than turning them on at the start.

Is the technology the risk? No. The risk is that publishing becomes cheap enough that the checking step starts to feel disproportionate. That is a process problem and it has to be solved before the tooling arrives, not after.

How do you decide who appears as the presenter? We use a generated presenter rather than a likeness of anyone who works here, which sidesteps a whole category of problem. If you do want to use a real colleague's face, get their agreement in writing, be specific about what the avatar will be used to say, and agree what happens if they leave. A former employee still presenting your output is an awkward conversation nobody plans for.

Does any of this replace a reporter? It replaces a production step, not a reporting step. Everything I generate comes from something a person already researched, wrote and checked. If there were no article underneath, there would be nothing worth summarising, and the format would just be a confident voice reading an unverified claim.

What would make you stop using it entirely? If I found myself publishing something I had not fully checked because the video was already rendered and it felt wasteful not to use it. The sunk cost is small enough that this should never happen, and the day it does is the day the process is running me rather than the other way round.

Where I would start

If I were beginning now, I would take one already published explainer that gets referenced repeatedly, generate a version, and run the four checks slowly enough to notice what they catch.

Whatever the checks find on that first attempt is the thing to watch for permanently. In my case it was qualifiers, every time, and knowing that has been worth more than any setting I have adjusted since.

You are three weeks into something and you find the source. A ninety minute conference talk, or an interview with the one person who actually did the work, or a lecture from 2019 that half the field cites and nobody summarises.

It is exactly what you needed. It is also ninety minutes long, and you have no idea which ninety seconds of it matter.

So you do what everyone does. You scrub the progress bar, land in the middle of a sentence, back up, overshoot, give up and start from the beginning at 1.75x while checking your email. Forty minutes later you have a vague sense that he said something important about sampling, somewhere, and you cannot find it again.

This is not a discipline problem. It is a property of the medium.

Text takes up space, video takes up time

A book sits in front of you all at once. You can see the shape of a chapter before you read a word of it. Your eye can jump to a subheading, drop into a paragraph, decide within four seconds that this is not the section you want, and leave.

Video does not offer that. Video releases its content on a schedule, and the schedule belongs to the speaker. The only control you have is the speed at which the schedule runs.

That is the whole difference, and almost everything annoying about working from video sources follows from it.

The raw speed gap is real but modest. A 2019 meta-analysis by Marc Brysbaert, pulling together 190 studies of reading rate, put average silent reading of English non-fiction at around 238 words per minute. Conversational speech and most recorded talks land closer to 130 to 160. Call it one and a half times faster to read the same content, which is nice but hardly life changing.

And you might reasonably point out that YouTube will play at 2x, which closes the gap and then some. Fair. There is even research supporting the habit: a 2021 study by Murphy and colleagues at UCLA found that students watching lectures at 1.5x and 2x scored about as well on comprehension tests as students watching at normal speed, with the losses only appearing at 2.5x.

So speed is not the argument. If watching faster were the only thing text bought you, transcripts would be a rounding error.

The argument is that there are three operations text supports and video does not support at any speed.

Skimming is not fast watching

Skimming is a different activity from reading, not a faster version of it. When you skim you are running a search, visually, at a level of comprehension deliberately set too low to actually understand anything. You are looking for a shape. A name, a number, a section break, the paragraph where the tone shifts.

You cannot do this to a video, because the low comprehension pass is not available. At 2x you still have to process every sentence in order. There is no equivalent of letting your eye fall down a page and stopping when something catches.

Which means the cost of checking whether a video is relevant is roughly the cost of watching the video. For one source that is fine. For twelve, it is a week.

You cannot search what you cannot read

Try to find the exact moment someone said a specific phrase in a two hour recording. The chapter markers, if the uploader bothered, are labelled at the resolution of ten minute blocks. The search box on the platform reads titles and descriptions and knows nothing about what is inside the file.

So you scrub. And scrubbing has an error rate, and the error rate compounds, and after the fourth attempt you are no longer sure whether you imagined the quote.

With a transcript this is a keystroke. That is not a small convenience. It changes which sources you are willing to use at all, because a source you cannot re-enter is a source you can only cite from memory, and citing from memory is how people end up in corrections.

Quoting from memory is how errors get published

Here is the failure mode that should actually worry you.

You watched the talk. You took a note that says something like: he argued the dataset was never validated externally. Three weeks later you write that sentence into your draft, in quotation marks, because you are fairly confident that is close to what he said.

It is close. It is not what he said. He said the external validation was underpowered, which is a different claim, and the person you are quoting will notice, and so will anyone who has watched the talk.

Text is what gets copied accurately. Every stage between the audio and your draft that runs through human recall introduces drift, and quotation marks are a promise that no drift occurred.

Can you get a transcript of a YouTube video?

Yes, and the honest answer has two parts, because YouTube already ships some of this.

Many videos have a transcript panel. Open the description, look for the option to show the transcript, and you get a scrolling list of timestamped lines that you can click to jump. It is genuinely useful and a lot of people do not know it is there. YouTube documents it in its own help centre, and if that solves your problem then you are done and can stop reading.

It often does not solve the problem, for reasons that are all mundane:

The panel is missing whenever the uploader has disabled captions, which happens more than you would expect on exactly the kind of niche technical content you most need transcribed. Automatic captions in some languages arrive without punctuation, which turns a lecture into one continuous unpunctuated sentence. There are no speaker labels, so a panel discussion becomes an undifferentiated wall in which four people take turns being indistinguishable. And every line carries its timestamp inline, so copying two paragraphs into your notes gives you two paragraphs interleaved with numbers that you then delete by hand.

None of that is fatal. It is just enough friction that most people bounce off it and go back to scrubbing.

The alternative is to run the URL through a dedicated tool and get clean prose out the other end. To transcribe a YouTube video with Vomo you paste the link and get the text back, with punctuation applied and speakers separated where the audio makes that possible. Basic transcription runs without an account, there is no cap on how long a single video can be, and the free tier covers thirty minutes of transcription per week, which is one conference talk or two short interviews. Export is TXT, DOCX, PDF or SRT.

Two features matter more than the file format. Speaker labels turn a panel into a readable document instead of a monologue by a committee. And with a free account you can put questions to the transcript in plain language rather than reading it end to end, which is the difference between having a transcript and having a source you can interrogate.

What the text is for, and what it is not for

A transcript is raw material. It is not a note, and treating it as one is the most common way this workflow goes wrong.

Ninety minutes of speech is roughly twelve thousand words. If you paste twelve thousand words into your research folder and move on, you have not reduced your problem, you have relocated it. Next month you will be searching a folder of transcripts with the same helplessness you currently bring to the video itself.

The transcript earns its place through three passes, and they are quick.

First, search it for the terms that made you open the video. You usually find in ninety seconds whether the source is worth the rest of your attention, which is the skim you could not perform earlier.

Second, pull the passages that matter into your actual notes, with the timestamp attached. The timestamp is the part people skip and later regret, because it is what lets you go back to the audio and hear the tone, the hedging, the qualifier that the transcript flattened.

Third, write the claim in your own words directly underneath the quote. Not later. The gap between reading a passage and paraphrasing it is where misunderstanding sets in, and closing that gap immediately is worth more than any tooling.

Then archive the full transcript and stop thinking about it. It is there if you need it. It is not a note.

Check the quotes against the audio

Automatic transcription is good and it is not perfect, and the places it fails are precisely the places you are most likely to quote.

Proper nouns go wrong. Technical terms get replaced by more common words that sound similar. Overlapping speech, which is most of any real conversation, produces confident nonsense. Numbers survive better than names but not reliably.

So the rule is simple and not negotiable. Anything going into your draft inside quotation marks gets listened to at the timestamp before you publish it. Everything else can stand as transcribed, because the cost of a small error in a paraphrase is low and the cost of a small error in a quotation is your credibility.

That check takes about a minute per quote. It is the only part of this that cannot be automated, and it is also the only part that carries any real risk, which is not a coincidence.

The part that actually changes

The thing you notice after a few months of working this way is not that you save time on any individual source. You do, but it is undramatic.

What changes is which sources you are willing to open. A ninety minute talk stops being a ninety minute commitment and becomes a document you can assess in two minutes and reject in three. So you check more of them. Some are useless. One is the thing your entire argument was missing, and you would not have found it, because you would not have watched it, because it was ninety minutes long and you were busy.

Video has been the default format for expert explanation for about fifteen years now. An enormous amount of what people actually know is sitting in recordings that nobody will ever scrub through twice.

Turning it into text is not a productivity trick. It is just making the material readable.

🤘 I went to see Iron Maiden for the fist time this weekend! It's something I've always wanted to do but never had the chance.

The funny thing is that I never thought it would be possible for me to see them. You know this “Run For Your Lives World” is celebrating their 50th anniversary, since their formation in 1975. And the set list is basically from their first album “Iron Maiden” from 1980 until their ninth album “Fear of the Dark” from 1992.

I didn't think they would still be doing big world tours.

Last year I was in a store to buy an Iron Maiden t-shirt (as you do) and I was chatting with the shop assistant who mentioned that Iron Maiden was coming to Canada in 2026. And I was like “Really??”.I was completely out of the loop.

Fast forward to this weekend, I saw them at the Scotiabank arena in Toronto. And it was awesome! They really do a flawless show, and Bruce Dickinson and all of the other members are in top shape.

The set list was excellent, and I gotta say that seeing “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” being played live was worth it just by itself. I feel like this setlist was made for me, it's just the best of Iron Maiden “Best of”. I was singing along with them on all the songs, because basically I know them all by heart.

The opening show was Megadeth. I'm not the greatest Megadeth fan, I know a couple of albums. Their concert was okay by itself, but there is no comparison with Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson charisma and energy. Also there was something odd about their setup, I don't think they were using the main sound system that Iron Maiden used, Dave Mustaine's vocals were a bit off, and I couldn't understand well what he was saying most of the time.

Anyway, I was impressed with the big digital screens and the pyrotechnics of the Iron Maiden show. It was really well done, matching the songs lyrics and all. Also, giant Eddie was there as well!

It was totally worth it and I'm glad I took the chance to go see them.

I'd like to thank Andreas for helping me out to get a good earplug. I used the high fidelity Alpine MusicSafe Pro, and it worked pretty well. I've got no headaches or ringing or anything.

—

Post 13 of #Blaugust #NoisyMusings #music #heavymetal

De sidste par måneder har jeg lidt af hjernerystelse. Den 12. marts var en smuk forårsdag, om end lidt kold, og mit forhjul skred ud i høj fart, mens jeg cyklede sydover ad Mathildevej i Jægersborg Hegn. Det er grunden til at jeg ikke har opdateret mere, og jeg har med stor ærgrelse måtte opgive mit nytårsfortsæt om at udgive en tekst om måneden hele dette år.

Som menneske har det været frustrerende at gennemgå det her, men på en pervers måde også lidt fascinerende. Hjernerystelse er en mystisk lidelse som man ikke rigtig forstår eller tænker på, når man ikke har oplevet det. Det ved jeg fordi jeg engang boede med en der slog baghovedet op i en hylde hos en veninde, og siden måtte blive hjemme fra studie og arbejde i flere måneder. Det har de sidste måneder pint mig meget hvor lidt forståelse jeg havde dengang. Jeg vil ikke sige at jeg forstår hjernerystelsen nu, kun at jeg forstår hvor nedern det er. Som en der skriver piner det mig at jeg stadig ikke rigtig kan forklare det her. Jeg ved ikke hvordan lige nu, men måske en gang i fremtiden. Jeg har haft konstant hovedpine i fire måneder nu, men de fleste har prøvet at have hovedpine. Det egentlig slemme er at man bliver dum, man kan simpelthen ikke tænke ordentligt. Det er svært at beskrive netop fordi det ikke er noget. Det er en lidelse i negativitit: Men prøver ligesom at tænke over noget, men så sker der ingen ting. Det er derfor ikke rigtig som noget, fordi det ikke rigtig er noget. Det bedste jeg kan gøre er en analogi: det føles som at hjernen lagger, som på en computer. Man gør det samme som man altid har gjort, men af en eller anden grund som man ikke kan gennemskue, så sker tingene bare langsomt eller slet ikke.

Jeg er små småt begyndt at skrive igen, og jeg har en del idéer som jeg selv synes er gode. Jeg håber derfor at jeg med denne tekst kan genstarte min cyklus, og udgive en tekst om måneden året ud.

Det som jeg vil dele med jer, er et gammelt projekt som jeg begyndte på for snart 10 år siden. Det har fra starten af båret titlen „500 regler for livet“, og jeg deler det her i sin ufuldstændige, nuværende form. Det startede ved at jeg blev opmærksom på en række ret succesfulde bøger om det gode liv, henvendt primært til mænd, og eftersom jeg på daværende tidspunkt var ret fattig, så tænkte jeg at jeg kunne tjene en del penge på at udgive en bestseller i denne genre. De fleste titler havde en række regler eller bud, men jeg synes som regel at de var lidt uambitiøse. Det var titler som 48 Rules of Power, Stoiske Leveregler, eller den klart mest populære, megabestselleren 12 Regler For Livet af Jordan Peterson, der på grund af bogen er blevet en public intellectual, noget jeg ud over penge også drømmer om. Derfor besluttede jeg at 500 regler klart ville slå de andre, i overbevisning om at jo mere jo bedre.

Jeg er stadig fattig, og derfor fast besluttet på at komme ud af mine gældsposter ad denne vej, men det har imidlertid vist sig at være temmeligt vanskeligt helt at komme op på 500, men jeg er overbevist om at jeg vil nå det inden for de næste par årtier. Man skal også have en vis aldersbetonet visdom for realistisk set at kunne sælge sig selv som en vis mand, og der har jeg – på trods af begyndende grå stænk i håret – endnu til gode.

Dette er mine regler. Hvis man vil dele nogle med mig, så vil jeg sætte pris på en email på caluhv@gmail.com. Jeg lover at dele en vis andel af mine fremtidige indtægter med dig.

1. Man skal drage omsorg for alt det, som ens hænder rør ved i løbet af en dag.

2. Man skal altid skrive dagen efter.

3. Man skal, når man skriver noter eller skriver på en tavle, altid være omhyggelig med hvad pile betyder.

4. Man skal kysse langsomt.

5. Man skal søge sandheden.

6. Når man er færdig med at vasker hænder, så skal du ryste hænderne kraftigt og beslutsomt med håndfladerne vendt opad fem gange.

7. Man skal give uden forventning om at få tilbage, dog ikke altid.

8. Man skal ændre på det, som ikke føles rigtigt.

9. Når man kommer hjem til nogen, og de tilbyder dig noget, så tag i det mindste imod et glas vand.

10. Man skal huske på at nogle ting er også andre ting.

11. Man skal kun bruge ét stykke papir til at tørre hænder. Desuden skal man folde det én gang på midten.

12. Man skal tillade andre at gøre en tjenester, og finde en måde at vise din taknemmelighed.

13. Man skal lære at binde mindst fem slags knob.

14. I tilfælde af at man skal noget svært, så skal man ikke planlægge udførelsen, men være omhyggelig med at planlægge omstændighederne.

15. Man skal ringe en gang i mellem.

16. Man skal være ked af det.

17. Man skal have trøjen nede i bukserne, når man dyrker sport.

18. Hvis man gør noget forket, så skal man sige undskyld.

19. Man skal stille flere spørgsmål end man giver svar.

20. Når man løber, så skal man trække vejret ind i tre skridt, og puste ud i tre skridt. Desuden skal man kigge op.

21. Man skal lytte til sin cykel.

22. Man skal snuse til blomster med hele næsen.

23. Man skal lære at synge med maven.

24. Man skal lukke øjnene når man drikker vand.

25. Man skal som regel bestille en lille fadøl.

26. Man skal aldrig kun have sokker på.

27. Spis tre måltider om dagen.

28. Lad være med at ryge.

29. Man skal lære sig selv at tillade andre at gøre noget for en.

30. Man skal ikke stole på systemet.

31. Hvis nogen spørger dig, hvordan det går, så er det nogle gange fordi, de gerne vil have, at du spørger dem om det samme.

32. Der findes en rigtig og en forkert måde at binde sløjfer på, som dog ligner hinanden. Man skal lære at kende forskel.

33. Hvis man tørrer af, så skal man folde og bruge viskestykket mens det ligger dobbelt.

34. Man skal som regel ikke bruge smøremiddel der kommer i en sprayflaske.

35. Selv om man kan regne det ud, så kan det være bedre at lade være.

36. Hvis man ikke kan regne det ud, så skal man nogle gange beslutte sig for det alligevel.

37. Man skal få motion mindst to gange om ugen.

38. Man skal lade sin telefon blive i jakkelommen.

39. Hvis man sidder alene på en café ved et bord med to stole, så skal man sige nej hvis nogen spørger om de må låne den anden stol. Man skal holde pladsen åben, hvis nu.

40. Man skal ikke sige „man“ hvis man kan sige „jeg“.

41. Man kan godt være venlig mod individer mens man er kritisk overfor systemerne.

<3

some masks are not a choice.

Absence became Its own power.

It dwelt unseen.

Not beneath a dark lord's polished shield,

A fell face lurked behind a disposition

As bright and terrible As the day.

Aglow with sparkling eyes And a brilliant smile.

There hides the creature within.

A villain who would lay innocence low

If it meant he could never lose what was held.

Again.

trip

A grocery store peach.

I didn’t expect much, Just to know it. Did it smell of chemistry? Which they usually do—

Or of peach.

Faint fuzz. Firm flesh, yielding. Stem, single leaf.

Surprise! It electrified me. My whole body racked by chills.

I — ECSTATIC!

Aroma! This wide door to memory… But few passages tonight Go to my youth.

But one.

My grandmother’s peach trees.

Three black things that had once been spindly, having become young fertile.

Where the fruit lay Brown and fetid, Food for the ants.

But, god! How I love this scent.

---

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: FULL SPOILERS

In “Slingshot” (2024), two determined men face a cosmic divide, caught between duty and destiny in a high-stakes space thriller.

My Rating: ½ (0.5/5 stars)

Don't waste your time. It looked interesting and had some big-name actors and actresses, but it wasn't worth it. The movie was too long for the ending it had, and the plot was weak.

#movies #review

Inbetweeners Part 9- Dolly

Thogg, a goblin ranger focusing on taming animals with a background as a surface performer, was one of the more colorful PCs to be brought back by the Interloper. Thogg was initially dismayed though as his familiar, a panther named Polly, did not come back with him. He asked the Interloper if he could retrieve Polly, and in classic Interloper fashion, Polly was returned... different. She came be renamed Dolly.

Dolly's notes were sparse, and had a lot more informal mechanics I never ended up writing down, but here were the basics:

Oakley’s Panther Dolly – 50% of all attacks miss it. Acts erratically, doesn’t follow the laws of physics

Hidden Abilities:

Static Reincarnation: When it dies it instead reappears in the gray room.

Shocking Bite: Deals 1d6 electricity damage in addition to normal damage with bite. Goes up 1d6 at levels 6, 11 and 16.

Phase: Can teleport at will to a random location nearby.

Glitchout: It goes completely static and releases a burst of destabalizing energy. Everything must make a con save (15) or be stunned for 1d6 rounds (may try again each turn). Also has other random effects on creatures (50% chance, both damaging and helping). Panther will then disappear until the end of combat.

Most of what Dolly did and how she manifested was improvised. I had her take on a biomechanical appearance, a deep blue/purple color with metal plating and wiring in place of flesh. The noises she made to varied, everything from the sound of a trumpet to a mechanical recording type sound of a dog barking. Her reactions to NPCs and different environments varied immensely as well. She was generally very protective of the group, Thogg in particular, but she was immediately interested in Zariel and allowed Zariel to pet her. Dolly also moved non-linearly, appearing through walls, walking on the ceiling, and disappearing and reappearing at random. She also was able to break rules, like leaving the bounds of the “room” that players were trapped in. Lastly, she served as a nice way for me to balance encounters in the early campaign when they would otherwise be too difficult.

Later on I gave Dolly the ability to transform into any single beast or monster up to CR 5. Thogg chose the form of a chimera, which ended up being very useful in boss fights as mainly a hitpoint tank, absorbing several attacks while the players could get their offense off. They also made use of Dolly by having her run errands, bringing things back and forth from the Grey Room when they were stuck. The first time Dolly “died” their was much sadness in the group, until they discovered Dolly couldn't in fact die and instead respawned elsewhere. Dolly ultimately served as a glitched out creature, companion, comedic relief, encounter balancing force and genuine NPC, all in one. I think towards the end before Thogg retired we had a mechanic where Dolly could actually turn into an Iron-Man suit type armor around Thogg to protect him, but I'm not sure how much we fleshed out that mechanic.

Though Thogg's character is retired, I may bring back Dolly once or twice more before the campaign is over... I'm still undecided.

The only game I intend to follow today has my Texas Rangers playing the Milwaukee Brewers. This afternoon MLB game is scheduled to start at 1:10 PM CDT. As I usually do I'll follow the game's scores and stats in real time via MLB's Gameday Service where we can also find links to the radio-call of the game provided by announcers of either team we choose.

And the adventure continues.

Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

One of the great things about attending scholarly conferences—aside from all the really smart people you meet—is the treasure trove of book recommendations you get. Now adding to my tbr pile:

• GOLIATH — by Tochi Onyebuchi
• GRACE — by Barbara Boswell
• MUTE COMPULSION: A Theory of the Economic Power of Capital — by Soren Mau
• MORE AND MORE AND MORE: An All-Consuming History of Energy — by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

That last one, I cannot even count the number of times it was mentioned or cited.

#radar #reads

DomiNEE's klantenbestand

Mijn eerste koopje [plak hier de bon aka boetedoening]

Verhalende Instructies voor de vers geoogste winkelier betreffende koopgedrag, jong geleerd, out te gaan

Kom maar met pappie mee, nee, even geen handje daar zit immers je kleingeld in dat is hier heel belangrijk zonder dat spul loopt dit uit op een grote teleurstelling. Daar zijn we dan, hop, vrees niet deze deuren floepen zomaar open zodra ze je zien komen, maar alleen tijdens openingstijden, daarna en daarvoor zit alles potdicht, maar nu zijn ze blij met jou zolang je die centjes in je knuistjes hebt, en Floep open glijden ze, Super handig. Je hebt geen handen meer nodig, geen bel, het gemak verleidt de mens.

We gaan voort, ook dit poortje, gaat open maar nu kunnen we niet meer terug, niet door deze poort. Deze gaat niet weer open aan de kant waar je nu bent, als klant, de kant met echt noodzakelijke waren, eten en zo. Voor het gemak heb ik je weinig centjes gegeven zodat je keuzes, keuze, zeer beperkt zijn slash/ is. Het is niet dat ik jou niet vertrouw alleen deze algemene winkel omgeving niet, deze lui gaan over lijken. Jij hebt er geen idee van hoe slecht zoiets kan zijn terwijl het er helemaal niet zo uit ziet.

Eerst het fruit, de groente, luxe toetjes, prefab voer voor het afbakken, in plastic verpakte voor je onhandige veel te drukke vooraf gesneden groente bundels, alles afgebakend in hun relatief flexibele sector. Heel verstandig hoor, jong, zo'n pak conferentie peren maar net te duur. Ik ga je een beetje sturen, voortstuwen, naar de super kern van deze samenleving, met zo weinig geld koop je in het beste geval een peer, appel of banaan maar al dit spul groeit voor zon en water aan bomen, maar dan moet je wachten, en wachten tot alles rijp is, hier koop je voor deze centen beter verschrikkelijk ongezonde spullen want die zijn goedkoop, natuurlijk kun je ook kruidenmix voor macaroni of nasi kopen of van die fratsen voor door het eten waar je niks aan hebt zonder de uitgaven voor een compleet maal, maar voor zo'n copieus maal ontbreken je de middelen, dat heeft pappie voor je geregeld.

Pappie zelf heeft wel meer dan zo'n handje vol maar koopt desondanks heel veel ongezonde spullen omdat hij dat als eerste heeft gedaan en juist daardoor is blijven doen, super simpel. Zo werkt dat, je laat de kindjes tot je komen en dan daar de regels voor schrijven, markt gericht ontwikkelen bestaan, rondom de kassa, levenslang zitten opgehokt met de markt werking van het levensproduct, de koopgeest, hier en nu tot ver in de voor dit doel, behouden vaartje, van de aangeschafte toekomst tot ver ver in de agenda, hypothetisch leven, net als pa en ma, jou en de eigen slaapkamertjes bezitten zolang we die ruimte afbetalen aan de grote geldgever, de heersende bezetter van de inhoud van ons hele hoofdje, daar waar winkels en dergelijke organisatie lijken te leven.

We zijn al bij de kleine lekkernijen, op maat verpakt, ook alweer in plastic, plastic is voor de super markt als zuurstof voor de longen, echt waren, gemaakt voor een kleine aanschaf, klein maar fijn. Net als jij. Het maakt niet uit wat je koopt niks in deze vakken is vies en tegelijk is niks in zo'n vakje goed voor je lijf en leden, maar o zo betaalbaar! Goed bedacht, speciaal voor ons soort mensen uitgewerkt opdat we geen echte weerstand ontwikkelen tegen al dat drukke gedoe om ons van 0 tot einde te bezitten, beschikbaar te houden en bereikbaar te blijven voor alle aanbiedingen, ze aanbidden, alle dagen, oud en nieuw, en dit normaal te vinden, heel gwoon. Huis gemerkt van huis uit ingetrokken. Gemarineerd in de aanwezigheid van de bekende symptomen waaraan we last van moeten hebben, ze verdragen in bedragen.

Later kun je dankzij hogere geld steun machten meer kopen, en dat ga je ook doen, dat is zwaartekracht van de markt, maar nu valt negen tiende van het klein grut aanbod buiten je budget, voor het gereserveerde inkomen kun je alvast kennis maken met de voorsmaken van het groots en meesleurende aanbod, het op je laten inwerken van de kennis en kunde waarmee deze artikelen voor je gebrekkige weerstand verstand zijn ontwikkeld, ze meteen via je zintuigen binnen komen om je daar en dan nooit meer te verlaten, gehecht in je. Die geld limiet van je jonge leven, is allesbehalve een schild, beschermende factor tegen de almachtige invloed van winkel wetenschap, de kunde in omkoperij,

Het pappie inkomen plafond gebaseerd op pappie's inkomen plafond is een schertsvertoning, onderdeel van een groot falend verszinstituut. Zaten wij, je ouders in een hoger geplaatste loon schaal dan had je nu heel misschien wel meer kunnen bezitten en wegkanen mits die andere echt gepaarden niet enorm krengig zijn, gierig want dan zou jij net zo arm zijn als de armen, maar de bank(en) die je pa en of ma”s bezittingen beheren absoluut niet. Die bank koopt met dat geld zo'n lange rij chips voor anderen, nobel toch, geweldig volk mensen die anderen met geld overheersen. Goed betaald volk. Bananen schuimpjes, voortreffelijke keuze en binnen het budget. Ik ben trots op je, jij weet de supermarkt te waarderen voor wat het waard is, leverancier van suiker, vet, zout in plastic verpakking met daarop het merk, de 25 ingrediënten, streepjes qr code en natuurlijk het prijskaartje, de piepende rede gehecht aan die strepen. Bananenschuim is een subliem symbool voor super kracht machten, het heeft niks te maken met echte bananen, je kunt ze niet pellen, alleen uit dat niet afbreekbare plastic omhulsel vissen, als jij dood bent, en ik, en je kleinkinderen, is dat pakje er nog, het product er in is zeer smakelijk, extreem zoet, je eet het door en door, en voor meer moet je wel terug komen, hier heen, en daar ligt nog veel meer van dergelijk suiker strooigoed. Het suikergoedje moet ironisch zijn, denk ik, wij apen, zijn geen echte aapsoort hoor, we zijn goden kinderen, dit is bananen manna, valt uit geconditioneerde lucht, hoor, een kleine, versie, een knipoog naar de natuur, ver ver verwijderd van het oerwoud, ben ik, jij, wij samen wandelend, met mandje, wagen, tussen de kasten met stampvolle vakken, en bijbehorende onderlaag der beloonde vullers, het idee voor dit schuim ontwikkeld bederft niet, is dus niet natuurlijk, en voor een luttele seconde van dergelijk in een laboratorium ontwikkelde propje smaak krijg je een ellenlange procedure waar in je lichaam een luttele seconde aan voeding voor werken uithaalt en daarna uren bezig is om stront te maken van de rest, bijna alles daarin moet in ons omgezet in kak, want iets anders ermee doen kan niet, de energie daarvoor nodig haal je uit gezondere voeding, dit mijn zoon, is een super geslaagde aankoop. Echt iets voor nu, dit is onze economie in een notendop, eh, plastic zak, een miniem maar wel echt geldig succes, ellenlange ellende er na, de zeer kleine nog gezonde, echt actieve groep moet later eens al deze zooi en soortgelijke tot samenleving stront omzetten zodat het min of meer onschadelijk lijkt, moet ergens in en of onder bedekt opgesteld, vreselijk veel gedonderjaag dankzij misselijk gemaakt leven, overleven met de handelsgeest, die dooie bankier, na de grote graaiers markt, de door en doordrijvende impuls handel, de door reli-re-reclamisten, in markt gelovigen, hun god en goud gevat in een pakketje schuim, hun veroorzaakte puinhandel hoop, oftewel wij allen samen heden ten dage zijn samen het bananenschuim op aarde...

We stappen langzaam en blij naar de trechter waar ons koren zal worden gescheiden van het kaft, het orkesteaal industrieel gejubel hun blijft toebehoren, op naar de kassa der immer onderbetaalden, waarbij zij hun tijd er op laten zitten, of dezelfde trechter maar dan met min of meer onzichtbaar personeel, zij rondom en boven die zone resideren, ons begluren met kunst oogjes gehaakt aan het showciale plafond, ook leuk. We gaan deze handelingen vertalen in het plastic taalmiddel, de symbolische schuld afdracht en daarvoor een bon krijgen, instant beboet worden voor leven samengevat, opgehokt in winkels, straf krijgen voor de hele huishouding, Het ontvangen boete bonnetje gaat in je oei ik groei plakboek, eerste stapje, woordje, plasje in de pot, tandjes, en nu je eerste koopje, onderdeel van deze kunstmatige door middelen bezeten samenkleving, dit prijs plakkerige geheel. Omringd door het bananenschuim op aard, deze omzetten in een door hun gewenste aankoop, suiker, vet en zout met een schone witte lab jas aan ontwikkeld door hoog betaalde professoren bezig in dienst voor de verslavingszorg van de om woeker winsten draaiende markt sector, universeel loon naar samen scholen en werken ontvangen en moeizaam verteren, vooral door al dat niets omzetten in nog langer voorgebakken lucht, waarop andermans prijsplaatjes hardnekkig plakken, waarmee die lucht van hogere waarde moet worden voorzien. Heel hoog, hoger dan de hemelen, en dat begint allemaal met jou zakkie bananenschuim. Geef de zak maar aan de laag loon diender, zij piept het zakje wel, dank je wel, jeugdige deerne, wij, mijn zoontje en ik zijn je levenslang dankbaar, geef haar je centjes maar daarna is alles wat zit in die zak voor jou, jou mond, lijf, je buikje en hartje, voor je pret oogjes en meer, nu dankzij dit in gemerkt plastic afval gewikkelde suikergoed ben jij, mijn kind, onderdeel van de pin oorblog machine, waarin zij, wij allen, wedde ijveren voor je levenslange aanwezigheid in hun vretensbestand. Fijn of niet, dank dat we dit, deze plek, ons enige huisje, samen zo kunnen verkloten om een dergelijk systeem in schijn leven te houden, ongeacht alle beurs effecten die het heeft op ons en onze kinderen, de kinder ziektes, kwalen, de vroegtijdige aftakeling, virale infecties, hartzeer, de algemene verzwakking, gebrekkige weerstand, uitval van organen, en nog veel meer zaken waar alle koop en doorverkoop ziekenhuizen op teren opdat zij de welvaart in stukjes via operaties en interventies op gezondheidsmissies blijven verdelen onder allebeide oksels onderwijl zelf lijdend aan die zelfde beurs geklopte effecten in de zo gretig gehoorzame stereo setjes.

Hmmm, bananen schuim, lekker nou!

Ja, ja, het heerlijk leven is een enorm langdradig experimenteel leerproces, dra je deze ken nis tot in je centjes bezit, ervan bent doordrongen, ben je net als ons, ook ontzettend dom. Mooi, toch bij je groep horen, de beheerde kudde tussen zeer krappe hekwerken. Zullen we het meteen nog een keer doen. Ik heb veel meer klein geld voor je in mijn beurs zitten. Koop nog maar een keer hetzelfde soort spul, er is genoeg, des te sneller gaat het leer proces.

I guess it's a facet of being in your 40s; childhood memories you had long forgotten come back in fragmented chards. I remember growing up not far from the airport, looking up at planes coming and going, and dreaming of growing up one day and traveling to faraway places. This was in no way a realistic dream, for traveling was not something that was common or easy in my circles.

Despite several things not going my way in life, and indeed increasingly challenging in recent times, I realize how blessed and lucky I ultimately am. To be able to have gone to all the places I've gone and met the wonderful people I've met is nothing to be taken lightly.

How many people can claim to have gotten beautiful dick art by a German barista?

#journal #travel

Je pensais devoir tout comprendre avant de pouvoir retrouver la paix.

Il fallait que chaque pièce retrouve sa place. Chaque parole. Chaque silence. Chaque contradiction. Il fallait que je sache à quel moment l’histoire avait changé de direction, à quel instant l’amour avait commencé à se transformer en autre chose, et comment deux personnes qui avaient partagé une maison, des enfants, des repas, des projets et une vie entière avaient pu finir par ne plus se reconnaître.

Je voulais comprendre ce qui s’était réellement passé.

Pas seulement connaître les faits. Je voulais accéder au mécanisme secret. La cause située derrière toutes les causes. Le geste originel qui aurait déclenché le reste. Je pensais qu’il existait quelque part une explication assez puissante pour remettre de l’ordre dans dix huit années de désordre.

Je cherchais la phrase qui ferait tomber toutes les autres.

Peut être qu’elle ne m’avait jamais aimé.

Peut être qu’elle m’avait aimé, mais qu’elle avait cessé.

Peut être que j’avais été aveugle.

Peut être que j’avais trop donné.

Peut être que je n’avais pas su entendre.

Peut être que certaines personnes détruisent ce qu’elles aiment lorsqu’elles ont peur de le perdre.

Peut être qu’il n’y avait jamais eu d’histoire commune, seulement deux histoires parallèles qui avaient vécu dans la même maison.

À chaque nouvelle explication, je ressentais un soulagement de quelques minutes. Enfin, je tenais quelque chose. Enfin, le brouillard se dissipait. Puis une autre question apparaissait. Un souvenir contredisait la théorie. Une parole ancienne reprenait un sens différent. Un geste tendre rendait le portrait moins simple. Une cruauté rendait la tendresse presque incompréhensible.

Alors je recommençais.

Je reconstruisais le procès depuis le début.

Je convoquais les souvenirs. Je comparais les dates. Je rejouais les scènes. Je corrigeais mentalement mes réponses. J’imaginais les phrases que j’aurais dû dire et celles que je n’aurais jamais dû prononcer. Je cherchais dans son enfance, dans la mienne, dans nos familles, dans nos blessures, dans les rôles que nous avions adoptés sans le savoir.

Je croyais faire un travail de compréhension.

En réalité, je cherchais une sortie.

Je pensais que comprendre toute l’histoire me permettrait enfin de la quitter.

Mais plus je cherchais à la comprendre, plus je restais à l’intérieur.

Chaque analyse devenait une nouvelle pièce de la maison. Chaque hypothèse ajoutait un étage. Je bâtissais méthodiquement l’architecture de ma propre captivité. Je voulais ouvrir la porte, mais je continuais à construire autour de moi.

Il y avait aussi une autre attente, plus secrète.

Je voulais qu’une vérité soit reconnue.

Pas seulement par moi. Par elle. Par les enfants. Par les proches. Par les professionnels. Par la justice. Par tous ceux qui avaient vu un fragment de l’histoire et avaient parfois décidé que ce fragment suffisait.

Je voulais que quelqu’un regarde l’ensemble et dise enfin que je n’avais pas rêvé.

Que j’avais aimé.

Que j’avais tenu.

Que j’avais travaillé.

Que j’avais construit.

Que j’avais supporté des choses que je ne savais même pas nommer à l’époque.

Que certaines blessures n’étaient pas le produit de mon imagination.

Que certaines pertes étaient réelles.

Je voulais que la vérité me rende ce qui m’avait été pris.

Je ne savais pas encore que la vérité ne restitue pas toujours.

Elle éclaire. Elle distingue. Elle protège parfois. Elle empêche de se raconter certaines histoires. Mais elle ne remet pas nécessairement les enfants dans la maison. Elle ne ramène pas une voix dans la cuisine. Elle ne redonne pas à un repas son goût d’avant. Elle ne reconstruit pas les dimanches. Elle ne remet pas les années dans le corps.

Certaines vérités arrivent après que tout a déjà été emporté.

Et même lorsqu’elles arrivent, elles ne mettent pas fin à la douleur. Elles lui donnent seulement un nom plus précis.

J’ai passé beaucoup de temps à croire que la paix se trouvait après la dernière réponse.

Comme une pièce silencieuse située au bout d’un long couloir. Il fallait seulement continuer. Encore une conversation. Encore un livre. Encore une séance. Encore un message relu. Encore un souvenir compris différemment. Encore une preuve. Encore une théorie.

Un jour, pensais je, j’atteindrais le fond.

Mais peut être qu’il n’y a pas de fond.

Peut être qu’une histoire humaine ne peut jamais être comprise entièrement, parce qu’elle n’a pas été vécue par une seule conscience. Elle a été vécue par deux êtres qui ne voyaient pas le même monde, puis racontée à des enfants qui en ont reçu les éclats, puis observée par des proches qui n’en connaissaient que les scènes visibles.

Il n’existe peut être pas une histoire complète.

Il existe des mémoires.

Des angles.

Des défenses.

Des fidélités.

Des mensonges conscients et des mensonges que l’on finit par croire soi même.

Il existe ce que j’ai vécu, ce qu’elle a vécu, ce que les enfants ont compris, ce que chacun a dû inventer pour survivre à ce qu’il ne comprenait pas.

Pendant longtemps, cette idée m’aurait paru insupportable.

Je voulais une vérité unique parce que je pensais qu’elle seule pouvait me libérer.

Aujourd’hui, quelque chose a changé.

Je ne sais pas exactement quand.

Il n’y a pas eu de révélation spectaculaire. Aucun matin où je me serais réveillé délivré. La paix n’est pas entrée dans la pièce comme une lumière soudaine. Elle s’est plutôt installée par endroits, comme le silence revient après une machine que l’on n’avait même plus conscience d’entendre.

J’ai commencé à remarquer que certaines questions revenaient sans produire de réponse nouvelle.

Elles ne m’apprenaient plus rien.

Elles me faisaient seulement refaire le chemin.

J’ai compris qu’une question peut être légitime et devenir malgré tout une prison.

J’ai compris que tout ce qui mérite une réponse ne recevra pas nécessairement la sienne.

J’ai compris aussi qu’une réponse donnée par la personne qui nous a blessé ne nous libère pas toujours. Elle peut être incomplète, défensive, réécrite, sincère mais fausse, ou simplement incapable d’atteindre l’endroit exact où la blessure demeure.

J’attendais parfois d’elle une phrase qu’elle ne pouvait peut être pas prononcer.

Pas parce qu’elle refusait forcément de la dire. Peut être parce qu’elle ne la possédait pas.

Nous imaginons que les autres détiennent l’explication de ce qu’ils nous ont fait. Mais les êtres humains agissent souvent depuis des zones d’eux mêmes qu’ils ne comprennent pas. Ils blessent, fuient, mentent, attaquent ou effacent, puis fabriquent ensuite un récit suffisamment cohérent pour continuer à vivre avec eux mêmes.

Il n’y aura peut être jamais de dernière explication.

Cette pensée, autrefois, aurait ressemblé à une condamnation.

Aujourd’hui, elle commence à ressembler à une permission.

Je n’ai pas besoin de tout savoir pour croire ce que j’ai vécu.

Je n’ai pas besoin qu’elle reconnaisse chaque blessure pour prendre soin de celles qui restent.

Je n’ai pas besoin de résoudre notre histoire pour recommencer la mienne.

Je n’ai pas besoin de choisir entre le fait d’avoir aimé et celui d’avoir été blessé. Les deux peuvent être vrais. Je peux reconnaître les jours heureux sans rendre les jours cruels moins réels. Je peux reconnaître mes fautes sans reprendre sur mes épaules la totalité de l’effondrement.

Je peux laisser certaines contradictions exister.

Elle a pu m’aimer et me faire du mal.

J’ai pu être fort et terriblement vulnérable.

J’ai pu comprendre beaucoup de choses et rester aveugle à d’autres.

J’ai pu protéger mes enfants et parfois leur transmettre ma propre douleur.

J’ai pu être injuste sans être le monstre que certains récits avaient besoin de fabriquer.

Je peux regarder tout cela sans devoir prononcer un verdict définitif.

La paix n’est peut être pas l’acquittement.

Elle n’est pas non plus l’oubli.

Elle est la fin de l’audience permanente.

C’est peut être cela que je commence à sentir.

Le tribunal intérieur ne siège plus jour et nuit. Les témoins peuvent rentrer chez eux. Les souvenirs ne sont plus obligés de venir déposer chaque fois qu’une émotion traverse mon corps. Toutes les pièces du dossier ne doivent pas être rouvertes pour expliquer une larme.

Je peux être triste aujourd’hui sans devoir recommencer toute l’histoire.

Je peux ressentir l’injustice sans consacrer toute mon énergie à la faire reconnaître.

Je peux regretter la maison sans vouloir y retourner.

Je peux me souvenir d’un repas, d’une odeur, d’un rire, et laisser ce souvenir être simplement ce qu’il est. Un morceau de vie qui a existé. Pas une preuve. Pas un piège. Pas un argument.

Je découvre que la paix n’exige pas que le passé devienne cohérent.

Elle exige seulement que le passé cesse de commander chaque mouvement du présent.

C’est une différence immense.

Je croyais que guérir signifiait enfin comprendre pourquoi la tornade avait commencé.

Aujourd’hui, je regarde plutôt le vent.

Il souffle moins fort.

La poussière retombe.

Certains objets sont cassés. Certains murs ne seront pas relevés. Certains êtres que j’aime se trouvent encore de l’autre côté d’une distance que je ne sais pas franchir.

Mais je suis là.

Je respire.

Je peux regarder les dégâts sans être moi même le désastre.

Je peux prendre une tasse, ouvrir une fenêtre, entendre le matin entrer dans la pièce.

La vie ne me demande pas d’avoir terminé le passé avant de commencer la journée.

Et ça s’arrête là.