The man next to me took his phone from his shirt pocket and aimed it at the sun, which was setting into Mumbai’s bay. It was of no use; the sun, red and bright in front of our faces, was barely noticeable on his phone’s screen, reduced to a mere pixel. He threw his hands in […]
There’s an increasing amount of stuff that makes our lives easier, all of it increasingly within hands reach. We get taught how to write essays, how to use hashtags, how to get your crush to like you. All within minutes and digestible steps. The risk of this is that we tend to focus on the easy […]
An answer to this question on Reddit. This was twenty years ago, I was seven. At school, the teacher asked whether any of us knew someone with an email address, I was the only kid in class who did. The next day I brought my dad’s email address on a piece of paper, and the […]
(Written on Quora). My best decision was to leave the advertising industry, back in 2014. I worked at an international agency back then, and it struck me how weird the industry was when our first television campaign went live on national television, for vitamin supplements. Instead of feeling proud, I felt confused: “Are this pills […]
An answer to this question on Quora. What I would like to see is more positivity. Right now, we see melting ice caps, drowning polar bears, factories blowing plumes of smoke into the atmosphere. And the more you read about the climate problem, the more distressful you get. We hear that the economy must shrink, […]
Christianity, Islam and Hinduism occupy the minds of nearly two thirds of the world population. It’s easy to bash them, but are vegans, motorcyclists or foodies — in all their fanaticism and fantasy— any different? Atheists’ preaches are no different than the proverbial Jehovah’s foot in the door. Merriam-Webster defines religion as ‘an organised system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used […]
There is such a video from 1999, in which people are asked if they would like a mobile phone: “No, I don’t see the point,” says a gentleman, and a lady replies: “I have a paper, that’s enough.” We were all there and yet it happened: in 2005, 91% of Dutch households had a mobile […]
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“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” was the slogan used by the Clinton presidency in 1994, to resolve the issue of gay acceptance in the United States military. It seemingly solved the problem, precisely by leaving it unresolved. It’s exemplary for the past decades. In an unprecedented way we’ve seen social, environmental and political problems succeed each other in rapid succession, as […]
This was written two years ago as a answer to the question, ‘What is your favorite scent?’, on Quora, and it still rings true to this day. My favorite smell is that of the Veluwe, the area which I think of as my home ground. I don’t live there anymore now, but every time I […]