Bjorn Desmet

Orderly chaos yin-yang evolution of revolution

Traveling the human psyche

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

These are some weird times, man! Sometimes i wonder if we, "normal" people, ain't nothing more than playable characters in some strange, dystopian game designed by an evil mastermind, just for the rich men's amusement...

[Voltaire @VoltaireQuote]

“No opinion is worth burning your neighbor for.”

[Sophia Proneikos @Pergament_F]

Dear Ben,
One of the great comforts of reading old letters is discovering that neither genius nor history has ever managed to cure humanity of its fascination with sex and absurdity. Virginia Woolf interrupts literature to discuss copulation, while a diplomat in wartime Moscow interrupts geopolitics to laugh at a visiting card. Civilizations rise and fall, empires disappear, books become classics, and yet the human race remains remarkably consistent in its priorities.
Which, on balance, is rather reassuring.

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

Song of the day:

https://t.co/2XLmAGjdne

[Philosway @philosway]

“There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse.”

— David Hume

[Sophia Proneikos @Pergament_F]

Afternoon in my small Black Sea village.
I had set out for the village café with the noble intention of drinking my afternoon coffee and writing some deep philosophical text about human nature, fate, time, and all those other subjects people discuss when life has temporarily decided to leave them alone.
Life, apparently, had other plans.
I had barely stepped out of my gate when I encountered a young nose-horned viper.
One of those Balkan snakes that look as though they have taken the existence of humanity very personally from the moment they were born.

It stopped.

I stopped.

It looked at me.

I looked at it.

And for a while we remained like that.

Almost a full minute.

In complete silence.

At some point I began to wonder whether it was asking itself the same question I was asking about it.

Whether I was poisonous.

Or it was.

To be perfectly honest, after some of my social media posts, the answer is not entirely obvious.

While we were conducting this inter-Balkan diplomatic dialogue without words, my son appeared behind me.

And that was when the crisis began.

The viper, apparently having concluded that humanity was multiplying at an alarming rate, panicked and chose the only direction of escape it absolutely should not have chosen.

The direction of my child.

What followed will probably remain part of local history.

I produced a sound I have not produced since the day I gave birth.

Not a scream.

Not a shout.

Something halfway between an air-raid siren, a Sophoclean tragedy, and Mother Nature's final warning.

People began emerging from their houses.

First came my neighbour, who manages fate by throwing salt over his right shoulder.

Then the postman.

Then Baba Penka, still holding a jar of cherry preserve with such determination that she appeared fully prepared to participate personally in the battle.

Within seconds, half the village had been mobilized.

The viper surveyed the situation.

Surveyed the population.

Surveyed its prospects.

And wisely decided to retreat.

Which is more good judgment than I have observed in quite a number of people.

It escaped.

My son was unharmed.

I gradually stopped trembling.

And eventually arrived at the village café.

I sat down.

Ordered coffee.

My hands were still shaking slightly.

Then three elderly people at the next table, two gentlemen and one lady, began talking.

At first I assumed I had not fully recovered from the experience.

Then I listened more carefully.

It was not Bulgarian.

It was French.

Fast, elegant, airborne French.

The words merged into one another at such speed that they reminded me of vital signs on a hospital monitor.

After my encounter with the viper, this struck me as particularly symbolic.

I listened for a while.

Then I began to laugh.

I looked at them.

And drawing upon my entire French education, acquired primarily through panic, books, and unsuccessful attempts to sing Joe Dassin, I solemnly declared:

"Merci!"

The three of them smiled.

I smiled too.

And I thought that life is a remarkable thing.

You set out to write a philosophical essay.

You receive a viper.

Then a village mobilization.

Then French.

And finally coffee.

And perhaps that was the philosophical essay after all.

Simply written by life instead of by me.

[Søren Kierkegaard Club @Kierkegaarddd]

“A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.”

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

Song of the day:

https://t.co/ckWFkS6BxE

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

What's an Universal Truth no one can deny?

I'll start: the existence of gravity.

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

@VoltaireQuote And this includes the garden that is our good thoughts...

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

@Changedhandle1 Nofx: the Brews

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

We zijn misschien 2026, maar er wordt nog steeds druk gestenigd.

Niet meer op dorpspleinen (meestal), maar wel in de digitale arena.

Vitriool spuwen is niet moeilijk, het kan in alle anonimiteit.

Afbreken is immers makkelijker dan opbouwen; je hebt immers geen goed ondetbouwde redenering nodig.

Is dit echt waar we naartoe willen in onze maatschappij?

Over en weer katapulteren van onzin?

Kunnen we echt niet beter?

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

Upholding man to think perfectly 24/7 is like expecting a snail to win the marathon of New York.

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

Song of the day:

https://t.co/fHksYB36Uo

[Nonduality | Advaita @Nondual_]

The mind is a dream machine. It creates the world and all its illusions.

-Ramana Maharshi.

[Sophia Proneikos @Pergament_F]

I am reading an article which says that Norway is arriving at the World Cup in the United States with 300 kilograms of fish, 116 kilograms of cheese, and 6,000 oranges.

It turns out the Vikings have changed less than I had assumed.

They have merely replaced their longships with shipping containers.

And what I like most is the fact that they did exactly the same thing at the Paris Olympics in 2024.

This is a very northern form of philosophy.

While the rest of the world discusses globalization, multiculturalism, and universal values, the Norwegians arrive carrying their own fish.

Which, quite honestly, is a far more concrete civilizational position.

There is something deeply human about it.

The more we travel, the more we carry home with us.

Not the suitcases.

Not the clothes.

The tastes.

The habits.

The smells.

Those small details that quietly remind us who we are.

Because identity rarely dies in great historical catastrophes.

It usually survives in the cheese.

Sometimes in the fish.

And in particularly serious cases, in 6,000 oranges.

I suspect that if Diogenes were alive today, he would look at the entire shipment, sigh, and say:

"Man is the only creature capable of crossing an ocean in order to prove that he prefers his own cheese."

And the most uncomfortable thing is that he would probably be right.

[Friedrich Nietzsche Notebook @QuoteNietzsche]

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

[Bjorn Desmet @SolidAsARock79]

Upholding man to think perfectly 24/7 is like expecting a snail to win the marathon of New York.

[Voltaire @VoltaireQuote]

“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.”

[blue @bluewmist]

Sometimes I really think 2019 was the last normal year of our lives and ever since, it feels like we've slipped into some alternate reality where nothing makes sense, everyone is on the edge, time moves too fast yet too slow, and the world we knew just doesn't exist anymore.