Today there are elections. Elections for Europe, for a new Europe? For a stronger Europe? For a weakened Europe? For further together or less further together… In my opinion, there is a lot at stake in these elections. The last general election saw a huge rise in right-wing politics. The intended coalition includes a party that has elevated discrimination to a political movement. That excludes people on the basis of their faith. That dismisses groups of people as undesirable, unwelcome. That dismisses groups of people as scapegoats for today’s problems. I was shocked by this and it makes me feel a bit…
I have written blogs about this such as “History repeats itself…”, “May 15…” and “One day…”. These are all about recent developments and events in the world. But I also wrote blogs about this earlier. Blogs about freedom and the responsibility that, in my eyes, entails. They can all be found on Ideas4life.blog and it would go too far to mention them all. I think it is worth it, but who am I to say that. These are my thoughts.
I have written blogs about that such as “History repeats itself…”, “May 15” en “One day…”. These are all about recent developments and events in the world. But I also wrote blogs about that before. Blogs about freedom and the responsibility that, in my eyes, entails. They can all be found on Ideas4life.blog and it would be too much to name them all. I think it’s worth it, but who am I to say. It’s my thoughts.
This morning in the shower another one of those kinks emerged. I often have some nice music on while showering, like this one too. Often a Spotify playlist of my Shazaam songs or songs that give me shivers, as beautiful as I find them. This last playlist was it this morning. It really has everything in it, from Ludovico Einaudi toJourney, fromTino Martin to Scorpions. In short, a real mix of a few hours with really everything. And today came Ramses Shaffy . A version with Liesbeth List and Alderliefste. The title is bilingual, the Dutch title is called “Laat me”,which means “let me be”, the French part “Vivre”. And “Vivre” is what I am most intreged by. This got me thinking… this morning. “Vivre” (“live” in English), what a beautiful word, where does it come from, what does it do to me and especially what can it teach me?
In these exciting times we want to live. We want to do it our own way. We want to be free, free from other people’s interference. This song expresses those emotions, I think, very beautifully. The Covid period has left deep scars. We were restricted in our freedom of movement, we were not allowed to do many things. For many, these restrictions were so severe that they felt restricted in their freedom. That the government had gone too far in restricting their freedoms. That movements even arose that, almost literally, challenged this. Political parties that claimed that the freedom we had regained in 1945 had been lost again with the Covid rules… You can read my views on this in my various blogs.
But this morning I suddenly saw something special. The words “Life”, “Freedom” and “Books”, what is going on with them? Do they have anything to do with each other? Would it only be possible to truly live if we read up on history, for example. Are books so important that they form the basis of our freedom? Or could it be a coincidence that in French the words for Books (Libre), Freedom (Livre) and Life (Vivre) are so similar?
