Am I an oikophobe?

[pieter]

Dear friends,

Sometimes I think I must be an oikophobe, when I am fed up with the Netherlands being a small nation with so many provinces, regional languages and dialects. Because I sometimes become tired of these people with their dialects, Frisian-, Low Saxon Groningen, Lox Saxon Drenthe, Low Saxon Overijssel, Low Saxon Achterhoeks, Utrecht, North-Holland, South-Holland, Zeelandish-, Brabantian-, Limburgian-,Flevoland-, and Arnhem city, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht identities (again) rooted in accents, dialects, histories, local traditions, and the Dutch lowlands (flatlands) with it's climate of dark and grey clouds rain, fog and mist. Sometimes I am fed up with the Dutch realism, the Dutch light and the Dutch climate.

Abroad means different landscapes, different infrastructures, different street signs, different roads, different highways, different bridges, different viaducts, different boulevards, different squares, different alleys, different sidewalks, different bricks and thus different brick houses, different architecture, different designs, different graphics, different esthetics, different styles, different landscapes, different chanals, different ponds, different streams, different rivers, different hamlets, different villages, different urban agglomerations, different suburbs, different cities, different atmospheres, different people, different languages, different shops, different supermarkets, different hotels, different pensions, different public transport, different cabs, different busses, different train stations, different airports, different forests, different country sides and different cultures.

The Dutch realism, materialism, being over organised, the densly populated cities and the narrowness of streets, house interiors, stairs, buildings and crowded supermarkets and pubs, make you long to foreign counties with large, wide, broad roads, less crowded highways and trains, large claccicist buildings, baroque and Gothic churches, cosy romantic restaurants. In trains abroad or during a long plane journey abroad with an international audience (passengers) I talk with people in the train and the Plane in English, German or broken French. I never do that in crowded full Dutch trains with compatriots. It's like in the New York Subway, most people don't talk with each other or they talk to loud in an irritating Dutch manner. In loud group discussions or speaking very loud in personal cell phone conversations. Very irritating. You never see that in French or German and not even in Belgian trains. These French, German and Belgian trains are pleasently quiet unless you have some load Dutch people, drunken Brits or extremely loud speaking American tourists (one of my irritations too. Why do these Americans always speak so loud and nearly cream. Shut, be quiet and have a conversation on a normal voice level).

Maybe I am not typically Dutch cosy (gezellig) and therefor am easily impatient, bored and used to other Dutch people (I have been around over here for 47 years, and should know the Netherlands by now). I have a stange tic or habbit, gut feeling or personal taste. I love it when I hear German, French, English (both British and American English if spoken by normal people, but also Australian, Canadian, New Zealandish and South-African English accents), and I love French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Chinese, and the sound of other languages in general.

Dutch is just a practical working tool, social tool, and some sort of equipment of my work. I like to read Dutch, Flemish and Afrikaans literature, poetry and essays though. I like it more to read and hear the language used by intelligent people used in rather good TV programs about politics, news, culture, history and the future, than to speak it to much. Ofcourse in a professional way I use Dutch often on a daily basis.

Dutch realism is like seeing a landscape extremely clear and in great detail. Dutch realism is filming both the total shot (helicopter view) and zoming in on the details of people. Close up of faces, eyes, necks, ears, hands doing something. You can have the habit of finding other languages sounding more sophisticated, classical, melodious, and more pleasant sounding. Again Dutch being only a practical daily communication tool. Not being fond of Dutch series, sitcoms, movies and theatre. Except a few very good ones.

Dutch realism. A good short movie, but to Dutch in atmosphere for me


Cheers,
Pieter

[karl]

Dear Pieter

What I surmise is your situation is very very personal and I would be at high risk to appear patronizing. This even though to lend a hand to you as a manner of lifting this burden from your shoulders. The best my self would in a humble way, is to simply say: You will know what to do when that time comes. This as realized by my self, is extremely vague, but it is accurate in the way of life.

For you are a very intuitive person with the sensibilities of an artist, the trained technicion as in your work that would stump a lesser person, but for you, simply a bump in the road that is your blue print for progress.

We each have our own personal account to draw upon in life, some toss it out on the street, others may hoard and have nothing in the end. Yours though, is a very active account, for others see you as a guiding light as of a light house with fail safe to guide others from going a ground and being torn asunder.

We each, may look in to the mirror and see what we wish to see, but this is not what others will see. For they will see in you as a person that is both a friend, advisor, working partner, a man to look up to as what they would wish for them selves to be.

There is a reason for every thing, the problem is some times we simply do not pay attention for that reason. We can run as fast as we can, but, we can not beat the wind. As the black African man once said also, such a long time in past: "White man, you can shoot in to the air, but you will never hit the sky".

The above is rather a bit silly, but once to think to understand, it places our selves in proper prospective.

Our world is what God made for us, some times we do not understand at the moment his will, but in time, it will come to us.

Karl

[pieter]

Dear Karl,

To answer both to your reply and my own question 'Am I an oikophobe?' is not an easy one. I consider myself a Dutchman, a Dutch Patriot, a Dutch liberal, in some cases a Dutch conservative, have some libertarian elements, and some European Social-Democratic elements too. I am North-West-European in core and bone. I am very, very Dutch, and am rooted in the Holland Western part of the Netherlands, but live in the Low Saxon Middle East of the Netherlands. Arnhem is not Holland, but a Gelderland city, near Nordrhein-Westfalen.

A Dutch Patriot means that I am a Dutch Roman-Catholic with a Calvinist Dutch culture, because the first 20 years of my life I grew up in a Calvinist region of the Netherlands as you know. The Calvinist South-West of the Netherlands. So that Calvinism of the farmers, fishermen, harbour workers, sailors, Shipyard workers and that coastal mentality and stormy weather and heavy rains are in my nature. My partly oikophobia is maybe part of the Dutch nature. Because a negative or peculiar habit of Dutch people in their self critical mentality is complaining about the Calvinist mentality, Dutch directness and the Dutch climate (number one complaint of Dutchmen is the Dutch weather and climate).

However despite my struggle with it I am of course rooted in the Dutch language, culture and history as Dutch patriot. I was positive about some positive Dutch elements I saw in New York and South-Africa, and ashamed of some negative aspects like Apartheid. I was nice to see the positive attitude towards me when Americans in the West Coast (Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Las Vegas) and East-Coast (New York) found out that I was Dutch. They like Amsterdam and had a positive image of the Netherlands (or Holland as many Americans call the Netherlands -not knowing that Holland is only a small part of the Netherlands-)


The Holland part (in Black) of the larger Netherlands (the rest of the Netherlands is painted grey)

The Dutch, who are very organised people are very critical about their own country, people (compatriots) and the Dutch role in the world. Some Dutch people believe we do to much in the world in the sense of foreign affairs and development aid (charity, food support, micro-credit project, development economy) and others believe we do to little. The Netherlands is a rather international, cosmopolitan, liberal and a typical Maritime transport nation. We are surrounded by English, French, German and Scandinavian (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian) speaking nations and regions. In the past our educated people, the academic class spoke English, German and French next to Dutch. We always had subtitles and not voice overs under foreign movies and therefor French movies were in French, English language movies in English, German movies and sitcoms in German, Polish ones in Polish, Czech in Czech, Russian ones in Russian, Italian ones in Italian, Ingmar Bergman movies in Swedish and Spanish and Portuguese movies in Spanish and Portuguese. Israeli, Arab, Iranian and African movies were in the Hebrew, Arab, Persian Farsi and African original languages. In that sense I got used to the sound of world languages and via these linguistics to the sound, temperature, atmosphere and vision of other cultures. The Same was the case with the Belgian Flemish tv BRT ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlaamse_Radio-_en_Televisieomroeporganisatie ) we watched a lot in Zeeland.

I got used to the Dutch flatlands with the cows, farms, little country roads, and the hamlets, villages and towns in it. I got used to the smell of cows, horses, pigs and sheep. In grew up near the country side, near farms, near the Dunes and near the sea. The sounds of Foghorns, heavy tugboats and Commercial crude oil supertankers were part of my daily life, like also the sound of the Tractors, Combine harvesters and other agricultural machines of the local farmers. Also the large trucks of international Dutch transport firms who transported containers from our ports to all corners and parts of Europe were a normal part of my life. In a densly populated country you have many roads, highways and boulevards.

I have a romantic, melancholic, positive, optimistic, rosy, maybe a little bit exaggerated image of other European peoples. Seeing the Scandinavians as a more relaxed, more social, Lutheran version of ourselves. The Netherlands is a borderland between continental European etatism and Anglo-Saxon Laissez Faire, between a stakeholders economy and a shareholders economy. The Netherlands has both continental European elements and British and American elements in it's financial system, economy, culture and society.

We are a Civil Society in which there are some corporatist elements next to more individualist libertarian elements. We are more liberal than the conservative Belgium for instance. I like the Dutch openess, the fact that Dutch people find equality and leveling important, and that there is some aversion and resistance towards to much American influence, in the sense of super capitalism and dominance of American ideas and media. I am "Vrijzinnig" in Dutch which is difficult to translate into English. The term, which literally translated would be "Free thinking" or "Free minded" is used to refer to both liberal or latitudinarian tendencies in the Church and more progressive and social tendencies in liberalism, as opposed to classical liberalism.

I am not fond of the present Rightwing Populism, national conservatism and simply nationalism which is becoming dominant in my country, but understand that these ideologies and the feeling of the people who support these ideologies and political parties are there due to the faillure of "Vrijzinnige", "Free thinking", "Free minded" politicians in the past, also of the party I am most sympathetic to, D66.

My political position:
Historical roots: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-thinking_Democratic_League
Present day representation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrats_66

You are right in stating that my situation is very very personal Karl. I hope you will take that high risk to patronize me. I love that. I like constructive advises and criticism of friends, colleagues and familymembers. I hope you can lift this burden from my shoulders. Karl, I hope I will know what to do when that time comes.

I search for allies, friends, experts in my field of work, comrades, women and girls who enrich my life, and for true liberals, conservatives, patriots, libertarians, independent people, authentic people, real people (not fake people), creative, artistic people, Human beings, people with guts, people who dare to be different, people with clear opinions who dare to defend these ideas of theirs. I love authentic independent minds, and dislike collective, obedient souls.

I hope that I am the intuitive person with the sensibilities of an artist, the trained TV and Radio technician in my work and that I contribute to my TV-Radio station, to Arnhem, the Netherlands, Europe and the world. I hope that I am one good person as part of the family of 7.6 billion people.

I hope that others see me as a guiding light as of a light house with fail safe to guide others from going a ground and being torn asunder. I am very humble, normal, and totally different in the every day life in the Netherlands than I am on this Forum. I am just one of these 17,170,000 Dutch people in the Netherlands.

I sometimes doubt if I am a person that is both a friend, advisor, working partner and a man to look up to as what they would wish for them selves to be. If I was I would have had more girlfriends, and would be more popular and known in Arnhem. Due to my introvert being in the Dutch reality I am very visible in my job and very unvisible and private in my private life. That's why I can participate in this Forum. If I had a very active and busy social life I wouldn't be in this Forum. But I shouldn't complain, I have a roof above my head, a bed to sleep in, food and water, family, a few friends and colleagues.

I like the saying of the Black African man, and the benefit of our time, international culture, internet and documentaries, movies and encyclopedia is that I learned the wisdom of Africans, native Americans and Asians next to our own European knowledge.

For instance the Wakan of the Native Indians of North-America, the power or the sacredness that resides in everything, resembling some animistic and pantheistic beliefs.

I hope that you are right Karl and that this world is what God made for us. I have many things I still have to experience and many things I still have to learn.

Cheers,
Pieter

[karl]

Pieter

You have traveled so far, so fast in life, it is normal and natural at some point, to stop and consolidate all that you have experienced as occuring at present. There is not a thing wrong with you, just nature taking her course of action with your system. Or more exact, I think the word is: Change of life. You are aging and as normal and natural, a very disturbing experience that has never happened to you before. In biology, remember that our body cells die and are replaced as a normal and natural experience. Once every seven years, our body has completed the cycle of complete change out of all our body cells, and this is the process of aging. Then the process continues as before.
then

To better understand this process of aging, take in consideration of a womens life cycle as she enters in to menopause. This is a time in a womens life that is most upheaval in her life, but this is natures way in the process of aging.

Best check with a better trained person then what I am saying, for I do not have a degree of any sort in this matter and do not by any manner attempt to pass on what I am not trained for. Just simply discussing as an exchange with you.

What is common information though is,,,we are a very complex biological machine that is completely out of sorts with the natural world around us. We are as best described, beings placed upon this earth out of natural order as an alien form of life with the world as our domain.

Karl