A) To be the one that does not now, therefor does not care, thus does not do anything about it?

B) To be the one that knows, just does not care, thus not do anything about it?

C) To be the one that knows, cares, but still does not do anything about it?

Or: is the biggest vice ignorance, arrogance or apathy?

I guess a lot of people, at one time, once thought “what’s the point to it all?”. I mean, to me that just goes to prove that you’re a normal, intelligent human being. You get aware of the fact that you’re just an incredibly tiny speck in this big universe, living for merely a micromoment in eternity. And if you think about how amazingly unimportant your entire existence seems to be… how much of a big deal should you make out of being on time for that appointment? Or trying your best at that assignment your boss or your teacher gave you? What does it all matter? Some people might think that those questions are just residue from puberty, but I don’t think so. I think it is a good thing to relativate your role in the grand scheme of things. Which is an entirely different thing than getting ‘bummed out’ by it and decide to not bother with anything ever again because.. “well, there’s no point, is there?”.

There is another reason to try your best at something than because it is ‘important’. And by that I do not mean anything religious; the whole idea of the existence of a personal God seems completely inplausible to me. What I mean is; trying your best is good for yourself. If you look around you, you only see things that are constantly developping. Plants grow stronger, animals learn, and -it seems- even the universe itself is still growing. And on a timescale larger than our lifetime; changing and evolving is the very heart or existence,reproduction and evolution itself.

I guess it could very well be that there is, in fact, no point to our existence. Then again; there is no point to a rollercoaster either. Which does not mean that it isn’t fun. It gets even more fun when you go for it with the right attitude; hands up in the air, screaming and not throwing up on any of the other people who just want to enjoy their ride as well. And as for the ultimate question about ‘why do we exist’, I’m sure there’s a reason, not so sure that there’s a purpose but it shouldn’t change your attitude in life. Just be the best you can, don’t bother others and leave the rollercoaster a bit cleaner than it wsa when you got in. (how soppy is that?)

In 2002 the architect William McDonough and the chemist Micheal Braungart published a book entitled ‘Cradle to cradle’. Now, a little over five years later their ideas about environmental friendly production and consumption are taking over the world. Why is their philosophy so popular? Because yo get all the benefits the ‘old school’ environmentalists promise, but give you none of the scary doom-scenarios. Cradle to cradle is no about reducing our pollution of this planet, it’s a non-polluting philosophy. Actually; it’s not jut a philosophy at all. All their ideas work in practice too as a growing number of governments and multinational companies such as GM, Herman Miller, and Phillips are finding out right now.

The central ideas of the cradle to cradle concept:
- No company will produce waste on purpose; waste has no monetary value (a lot of times it actually costs money) so if you can reduce all the waste to zero; companies will benefit financially straight away. A VP of the Ford company said that it takes 50K pounds of materials to build a 3K pound car. They are no working on building a 3K car out of 3K of materials. That would definitely save a lot of money.
- Waste = food: all the by-products as well as the product itself will eventually have to be taken up into the ecosystem, where it should be non-polluting at least and even adding food to the ecosystem at best. In the latter case: the more waste you produce, the better it is for the environment. Think of cars that run on compressed oxygen: the more you drive around, the cleaner the air gets
- Traditional ‘recycling’ is actually down-cycling; discarded products get turn in to lesser quality products before it eventually gets burned anyway. At the design stage you should consider how you can use all the different parts of the product when the product itself has reached the end of its life-cycle. Reusing the soles of your sneakers as a gym-court floor is not recycling the stuff, that’s down cycling, taking of the sole and building a new shoe on top of it; that’s recycling.

Obviously, there’s only so much that McDonough and Braungart can do themselves. The main part of the work has to be done by the producers and governments… and by -erm- … ‘us’. Anyone got a thought on how we can create cradle to cradle art pieces?

Tits don’t go to heaven

(even thought it’s funnier to say they do)

How many blogs are out there on the www, you think? a million? Ten million? A hundred million? i guess the stats are out there somewhere, but, in all honestly, I can’t be bothered to go and search for it. I’m no professional blogger, just a well meaning amateur so I need to make efficient use of my blogging time. So when something can safely being assumed (like: the correct number of blogs out there is ‘a f#*ing lot’) I will safely assume it. Should some reader out there have the correct information; please leave a comment. I will not hesitate to post it, no matter how obscure the source.

Anyway; considering the vast number of blogs out there, it is ridiculous to assume that writing a blog is your ticket to fame. After browsing through a lot of blogs out there, I somehow get the idea that the majority of bloggers out there seem to assume that they are addressing a world audience (indeed, guilty as charged, I myself am not innocent to that crime). Why, god why? I think it is the ‘pop-idol’ gene at work. -Should you not be aware of that dreadful television show where mostly untalented wannabe popstars sing awfull songs for even less adequate jury members, consider yourself blessed- Everybody wants to be famous. And we’ve all heard stories about how people accidently got naked in front of their webcam and shot to instant, yet dubious, international stardom. Sometimes reaching an audience of millions.

Well, my fellow bloggers, the key to such an audience lies in the ‘getting naked’ part. In your blog you only reveal yourself intellectually and on purpose. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Some of your blogs (unlike mine perhaps) are actually quite good.However, ‘a good read’ is not what people are after while surfing the world’s electronic waves. The want controversy, cheap thrills, that sort of stuff. (they also want games, movies and downloads, all of which cost a helluva lot of bandwith, which -face it- you cannot afford) So please do not get disappointed by the seemingly low amount of page views you get on your blog. Just write as well and enjoyable as you can, promote it when applicable and enjoy the, perhaps, couple of hundred of pageviews you get monthly.

Don’t give up, just because you’re not shooting up to stardom. The world belongs to us. Hell yeah!

If it ever was: grafitti artists are the salt of the earth no more. These mainly self-taught artists bring a whole new energy, vibe and social relevance into white cubes all over our planet. A new name (at least: new for me, a little research shows he’s already quite a household name in the artworld.) : Conor Harrington.

Conor started doing grafitti when he was fourteen. And even though he is an exception to the ’self-taught’ rule (Conor attended an art college), the other qualifications, energy, vibe and social relevance apply to him too. He mainly paints the male figure, which is something to be noted nowadays. In his works he mixes the academic fine art techniques and materials with the rugged aerosol style. His male figures are often agressors, or at least military figures. Fitting for the fine art education, but if you mix in the streetart ingredients it suddenly becomes extra exciting and you can almost feel a protest against modern day superpowers. It’s exciting stuff and if you’re nowhere near, for example the Lazarides Gallery or the Stolen Space, both in London (which as I’ve seen , also on his website have regularly featured his works), I defintiely recommend you check out his webspace.