A blob has no sense of self. All it knows is that it must become bigger. Our world is full of self-centered blobs.

The blob is in pain. The movie Spirited Away features a character similar to a blob: No-Face. No-Face wants attention, so he swallows the bathhouse employees. In the process, he adopts all the negative traits of those he consumes. No-Face becomes an arrogant, disgruntled, and selfish monster.

The amorphous blobs of this world — large organizations and individuals — want our attention. And there is never enough of it. Driven by attention mania and the temporary satisfaction that these blob gets from power and prestige, the blob keeps eating. It clings to everything around it in a meaningless and frenetic way.

The blob doesn’t like being told not to eat just anything. This gets the blob angry and mean because the blob needs to grow. Then, the blob deploys his soldiers. An army of dependents, frightened to the bone followers, is deployed to ensure that the blob can continue to grow. All work for the benefit of the blob.

In Spirited Away, No-Face offers gold to make the creatures around him like him. The creatures accept the gold and obey the blob. But when Chihiro refuses the gold yet is kind to him anyway, No-Face becomes so upset and confused, and sick of himself, that he vomits up everything he has swallowed. Only then does he find a balance in his existence—an existence in which he does not always want to devour others. No-Face turns into a humble being.

Let’s feel sorry for the No-Faces of this world. The pitiable CEOs are morbidly seeking attention. These No-Faces use their money, business, wives, and children—everything to get attention.

But no one likes them. No-Face is a nasty, selfish creature that lives a terrible life of eternal dissatisfaction. They can’t be helped. They can only help themselves and puke out everything they have swallowed.

This is an awesome source of great blogs by the people from Creative Mornings.

https://creativemornings.com/blog/blog-roll

Creative Mornings is an initiative of Tina Roth Eisenberg, a.k.a. SwissMiss, who has an interesting blog herself, called swissmiss.

Een paar dagen geleden sprak ik hier mijn onbegrip uit over NSC-leden die een kabinet blijven steunen dat racisme tolereert. Ik noemde specifiek Rosanne Hertzberger, iemand die ik hoog had zitten en waarvan ik niet begreep hoe zij de gang van zaken konden tolereren zonder met zichzelf in conflict te komen.
Vandaag hebben Femke Zeedijk en Rosanne Hertzberger hun kamerlidmaatschap voor NSC opgezegd omdat ze niet langer hun steun aan deze regering kunnen geven. Respect.

Van Vroonhoven zegt: “We zitten in een moeilijke samenwerking”, erkende ze, “maar er is een goede mood” (nos.nl).

Op 23 november is het ledencongres van deze partij. Ik verwacht dat de leden minder in een goede mood zullen zijn en de overgebleven kamerleden zullen aansporen ook hun medewerking aan een racistisch kabinet op te zeggen. Zelfs als dat betekent dat er verkiezingen kunnen komen waarbij de partij een groot deel van haar zetels zal verliezen. Want belangrijker dan de omvang van een zichzelf respecterende partij is haar integriteit.

I am currently reading Uncommon Knowledge, a publication from The Economist. Apparently, I have a weakness for unusual facts. Time for a brief egocentric list of my nerdy interests.

In my browser, I have a bookmark with a link to a random Wikipedia article (or I use Wikiroulette). I regularly read Cory Doctorow’s This Day In History posts on his Pluralistic blog.

I also enjoy podcasts that share unexpected knowledge. Examples include No Such Thing As A Fish, Today in History, Tell Me Something I Don’t Know, and Oh What A Time. This American Life and Revisionist History also fit well in this category.

I love books that pull me down the rabbit hole. Some favorites include At Home and A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I also enjoy the books of Dutch writer Boudewijn Büch, which are full of facts about all kinds of things, such as small islands, The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green and the non-fiction works of Cees Nooteboom. A starter kit for enthusiasts.