In a few days it will be time. A soccer world championship. "Der Ball ist rund und ein Spiel dauert 90 Minuten" - with or without beer. We don't care about that. Who would have actually believed that it would be about soccer. Whereas the ball, as a symbol of a globe, of a whole sphere, has of course deep mythological significance. So, after these lines, it is easy to conclude that any criticism of a possible betrayal of one's own people can be classified as trivialization. Why Holland? This question remains open. But what does this little photo show, created by my Buddy, a little edited for clarity. It is him, a little graying- recognizable by his hair and beard. The transience reveals itself. A color key makes it possible to show certain objects in color and others in gray. First, the top. It is a soccer jersey. We like to remember the day when we bought this plagiarism in a border store, the "threshold" between Germany and the Czech Republic. It was on a summer day in 2010. A mountain bike tour along the border Bavarian Forest and Bohemian Forest (Sumava). Start of the tour was Ludwigsthal cycled up to the cross-border Ferdinandsthal - and here I gave him the intuition: "Go to such a store on the border and buy yourself a Nederland jersey". It was one of the most beautiful tours we did, border route along the "threshold" on the Czech side, some small beautiful Bohemian villages like Stubenbach were passed through and also we visited the Vltava spring with the Nicolai Helius CC MTB- so he could refresh himself at the spring water. Water and electrolytes. The newly acquired jersey, a simple copy, was carried in the backpack. After all, the tour was over 100km long. The jersey was fortunately light.
The question "Why Dutch?" remains as unanswered as the question "Why are the leaves on the table colored?" It is these simple philosophical questions that need to be answered one by one. So the two questions above fit the same pattern as "Why doesn't Laocoon cry?" Let him be crying out loud!
So now we have told a little our own story about this jersey, like a personal fairy tale, the personal myth. So it is quite clear and logical that this jersey is closely associated with one beautiful cycling experiences. So it's no longer about soccer. It's about cycling. And also about rowing on the ergometer. Together and at the same time. When it comes to transience and not forgetting names. So that there is a contrast, a counterpart. The striving of the will for permanence. Some names do not want to be forgotten. So we bring in 2 Dutch heroes. Mathieu van der Poel and Annemiek van Vleuten. Two gifted, talented Dutch cyclists. Is this the answer to the question "Why Dutch?" Because Holland is such a great cycling nation? Why did the me in this equation choose to be Dutch?
That was to be promised. It will be about art. Art is in the eye of the beholder. It is for everyone to argue for themselves. It has already been mentioned that the art of music is such a great and exceedingly noble art. This chapter is about another art. This picture above was taken with a digital camera. Nowadays, an easy job. A few hundred years ago, it was not possible. People did it with a lot of work and skill. The art of painting. It is the art of visual objectification.
Time has changed. Since the 17th and 19th centuries, we can enjoy art differently in our time. We have not only paintings of still life. In which, as our friend Arthur says, pure contemplation was easier because of the sublimity of still life. We have stunning photographs of fantastic landscapes. Modern technologies have made it possible for us to enjoy a drama, a scene of an act, or a whole story of a myth in a relaxed way with our resting heart rate on the sofa at home. The phenomenon of visual objectification of a fantasy story is called "moving pictures". In short: a movie.
For example, these introductory words:
Kevin Flynn: The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see. And then, one day...
Sam Flynn: You got in.
Kevin Flynn: That's right, man. I got in...and the world was more beautiful than I ever dreamed and also more dangerous than I ever imagined.
A moving picture : Tron Legacy, 2010
This is from the movie Tron Legacy. Lightcycles. A battle.
Furthermore, with the availability of high rating processor units, one as a central or core processor unit (cpu) and maybe, because this is about a visual experience, we also bring in game the graphic processor unit (gpu) - for this it is possible to have an interactive visible experience inside of moving pictures. It is a game. The magic of art inside a gameplay. Our advanced technology offers different possibilities to enjoy art, enjoy life, for that to objectify the very much own creativity due to its unique interactive pattern of a gameplay. It is once again about the Illusion of choice. Because the very profound origin of the interactivity of a gameplay is about choices. When it comes to computer games we remember “resident evil”, we played the first story on a playstation (the first edition). Years ago. It was 1997. Choice. What Character do you want to play ? Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield ? What will be your choice ? This is something like the blue or the red pill. Is it not ? The gameplay will be different with each of these characters. Will you choose the right hand path or the left hand path ?
Resident Evil scene in an old mansion, 1996 this was “great graphics”
“To be” everything one is not. What will be your choice ? The gameplay objectification of a character remains what it is: just an Avatar out of bits and bytes. All the wonder magic happens in our brain. The world as an idea - in this case - encrypted and decrypted as a gameplay. A huge component of the creative work of a gameplay is done by the creators of the game. The fantasy world. The paintings of a game are the graphics of a game. It is the grid of a game. Fantasy art. Whether there are spiders or not. In Resident Evil it is an old mansion. With all kinds of underworld stuff one could imagine. Zombies, Monsters, and a beautiful moonlight piano sonata as well (Jill is playing it). In every darkness one could find light. Moonlight - the Yin.
Imagine one could combine much more. One does not want to sit on sofas watching a movie or playing a game. One can ride on a bike trainer and “to be” inside a game. Just mention here obviously Zwift in first place, but also Rouvy or RGT cycling. Did we forget one game or training software ? It is a big market. Anything is possible. One could also row and “to be” on a virtual water with a virtual rowing avatar in a virtual skiff in “Empacher gelb” - this game is called row pro (existed for years long before the others) and unfortunately this pioneer idea of a very much interactive training simulation doesn’t evolve much. EXR and other newer software do exists for rowing, it seems that compared to cycling there is “not to be” much market. Why ? We do not want to be encumbered by details.
Row Pro by Digital Rowing, a training simulation software. My Buddy with his own rowing Avatar. (I am afraid it is not exactly “Empacher gelb”)
We are playing now a very much evolved sophisticated game or training software - we say it is the highest objectification of the possibility to enhance one’s endurance, fitness, for “to be fit” and also “to be” inside an interactive simulation simultaneously.
The very much me in this equation of the >us< can choose, and I chose “to be” some kind of a Jill Valentine. For that it is everything the other part of the >us< is not. To bring the whole upside down constellation into a dynamic evolving process. The subject, the “him” of the >us<, the in real life “to be” in this equation, is rowing on a machine, a RowErg. While I choose - and for me , the “not to be” chosen “to be”, for this to have an Avatar, a cyclist riding on a virtual bike. To have a big glitch. For glitches let us see the Illusion. ”A glitch in the matrix.” It is a big one. So much more than just a pussycat. If one played a game and grabbed batches for fulfilling a mission or simply riding a route - and do it one more time again, grasping a 2nd time that bike with its lightning wheels - this is also some kind of a Deja Vu.
“It is thus a great injustice to the excellent painters of the dutch school, to prize merely their technical skill, and to look down upon them in other respects, because, for the most part, they represent objects of common life, whereas it is assumed that only the events of the history of the world, or the incidents of biblical story, have significance. We ought first to bethink ourselves that the inward significance of an action is quite different from its outward significance, and that these are often separated from each other. The outward significance is the importance of an action in relation to its result for and in the actual world; thus according to the principle of sufficient reason. The inward significance is the depth of the insight into the Idea of man which it reveals, in that it brings to light sides of that Idea which rarely appear, by making individuals who assert themselves distinctly and decidedly, disclose their peculiar characteristics by means of appropriately arranged circumstances.
Only the inward significance concerns art; the outward belongs to history.
They are both completely independent of each other; they may appear together, but may each appear alone. An action which is of the highest significance for history may in inward significance be a very ordinary and common one; and conversely, a scene of ordinary daily life may be of great inward significance, if human individuals, and the inmost recesses of human action and will, appear in it in a clear and distinct light.”
(our friend Arthur, WWR)
Because every of our chapters could be seen as a short story of its own- with this explanation we made it very clear what is going on. We reveal a lot. This chapter “why dutch ?” should make something visible. Like a painting. Which is art. Art objectifies this striving will inside of us. When it comes to our friend Arthur, whom we personally consider as the most talented shadow hunter ever born - or to say it in other words: one of the most intelligent humans ever lived. An incredible mind of strong logical reason. If one is lost in the underworld - it will be the philosophy of this strong thinker which will help to bring the own mind back to reason. It is following our own bliss back home. For a wonderful homecoming. The logos will help. It is not only that our friend Arthur had Dutch ancestors. It is about his notions, his interpretations about paintings. Once upon a time…there were talented Painters. It was a memorable time. A time full of art. It was the time of the Dutch Golden Age painting.
They painted:
Landscapes. We want to remember some names, let’s take Jacob van Ruisdael. Because Jacob painted a lot of waterfalls. We love waterfalls and bridges.
Jacob van Ruisdael, Landscape with Waterfall
Zwift Training Simulation: a running Avatar with a Waterfall and a Bridge
Jacob van Ruisdael, The Jewish Cemetery (c. 1650s)
May one's path be accompanied by lights even in dark caverns. A cave with lights in the latest Urukazi release.
Men and women. Human beings in the painting of portraits. We present a female artist, Judith Jans Leyster, a portrait picture of a boy and a girl.
A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel, 1635, source: wikipedia.org
A Boy and a Girl on a bike and … my Avatar in this equation. Zwift game, Baseline ride 2021
This is an interesting screenshot. No numbers. No names. Just 3 cyclists. Does anyone see the difference? It's almost imperceptible. The boy on the left versus the girl in the middle. You can see quite well into their faces. That's what a portrait should do. Does anyone recognize the differences. Is there one at all. I think the boy looks a little bit more exhausted. The mouth seems to be open a little bit more. Because the boy is pedaling at a cadence of less than 70 on an incline of over 3%. He gets out of the saddle a little bit. He climbs the small hill with a lower cadence and just like in the real world, the avatar stands up. A realistic feature to create a fantasy world as an excellent simulation, an illusion.
Portrait painting has a subcategory that we will look at in more detail. It is about an exaggerated or characteristic facial expression. It is called Tronie. The Name of the Artist is Frans Hals.
Peeckelhaeringh, source Wikipedia
A “Tronie on the Tron”
A bridge over troubled water. A waterfall. A ligthbike ridden by bright eyes. An exaggerated facial expression in the neuromuscular zone. Fire on the wooden planks. All in one image.
The Zwift Concept Z1 Bike. A Bike full of light. Everyone calls it “Tron-bike”.
All about the “Tron-bike”.
The facial expressions in this game are a special feature. Because it is the only significant situation in which the user, the athlete on a trainer or ergometer in the real world, can influence a change in the avatar's facial expression. No matter what intensity you train, race or sprint at, as long as you don't output and input wattage numbers into the game that double your FTP, the avatar's face will remain cool as dry ice. FTP doubling is not a weekend trip. It literally means FTP 200%. For most of us, that's at the end of anaerobic capacity or already within the neuromuscular zone. It means getting everything out of your stolen fire. Exaggerated emotions of a real battle feeling. The cold as dry ice face gives way to an angerfull Race-Face expression. Not only that. It's about the whole body. It's obvious that cycling is primarily a leg workout. On the contrary, if you look at the whole body dynamics of a full sprint in the highest 2 intensity zones, anaerobic and neuromuscular, you can feel the agility, the wide range of all the muscles used in the process, feel the power, the adrenaline of the lust for life. So it doesn't have to be a terrible feeling, this agony, as long as it's just a sprint in a game, for example. The very limited time in these zones is about one minute. Do what you want to do. There are other workouts that involve more of the upper body, like swimming - or more specifically to our story, what my body, the Buddy, does while I am cycling: indoor rowing.
From a specific facial epression to the general, the whole body workout. We all doing it indoor- playing the game. Doing it outdoor is a beautiful exception for the most of us. Do what you want to do in your time. Some things are more effective when it comes to the time crunched athlete. I am so sorry. It is not only about cycling.
We didn’t hit the ground already. Like a deer which is hit by a car and it’s fate decided that it had to fall to the ground forever. It is so zoon time to hit the bottom. We already dived deep into this graphicaly-pictury-wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey-liney-combiney thing by drawing a line out of nothingness from the dutch golden age painters to the “tron bike” and a “tronie face expression” of a well known computer game or training simulation. Do what you want - now the line is there, out of nothingness.
Let’s face the center. The core reason of my decision to be dutch. For it is the me in our equation who can choose. We have saved for this moment a very important art of the golden Dutch age of painting. It is the art that our friend Arthur praises so highly. It will be about painting several things of daily living - some still and quiet motifs. We approach the heart of “Why I have chosen to be dutch”. The still life.
In still life artists painted causal things of everyday life. Inanimate things. Objects. So in this case one sees rarely a person. It is this peculiar art that is or was classified by society or so-called experts as one of the lower arts. In the quotation of our friend Arthur everybody recognizes his appeal to this matter. For Arthur Schopenhauer, to call him once by his full name, the painters of the Dutch golden age were gifted to objectify the will as a sublime art in causal things of life. (Also the opposite of the sublime, the charming and attractice in the painting of food, marked as Arthur’s personal opinion).
Still lifes were a great opportunity to show the ability to paint textures and surfaces in great detail and with realistic lighting effects. Food of all kinds arranged on a table, silverware, intricate patterns and subtle folds in tablecloths and flowers - all challenged the painters. Now another line will be drawn. From the glorious Dutch painters, who used all their skill, their attention to detail, whether in practice or as a serious competitive work of art, the painting of still life is an art that must have taken place primarily in the interior of a building. Indoor. So that as in the past as well as today, then the artists, here and today in the confronting comparison the athletes, independent of the weather and long journeys (e.g. to scandinavia for waterfalls) did what the will in them decided to do. Doing a workout or painting with all the benefits of indoor training. This place is often called paincave and one can find numerous photos under the #paincave of proud athletes showing their place to be while working out.
First some pictures of ‘still life’.
Willem van Aelst, Bloemen en een vlinder op een marmeren blad, 1677, wikipedia.org
Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten, Tromp-l'oeil Still-Life, 1664
Inward disposition, the predominance of knowing over willing, can produce this state under any circumstances. This is shown by those admirable Dutch artists who directed this purely objective perception to the most insignificant objects, and established a lasting monument of their objectivity and spiritual peace in their pictures of ‘still life’, which the æsthetic beholder does not look on without emotion; for they present to him the peaceful, still, frame of mind of the artist, free from will, which was needed to contemplate such insignificant things so objectively, to observe them so attentively, and to repeat this perception so intelligently...All this is accomplished by the inner power of an artistic nature alone; but that purely objective disposition is facilitated and assisted from without by suitable objects, by the abundance of natural beauty which invites contemplation, and even presses itself upon us. Whenever it discloses itself suddenly to our view, it almost always succeeds in delivering us, though it may be only for a moment, from subjectivity, from the slavery of the will, and in raising us to the state of pure knowing.
This is why the man who is tormented by passion, or want, or care, is so suddenly revived, cheered, and restored by a single free glance into nature: the storm of passion, the pressure of desire and fear, and all the miseries of willing are then at once, and in a marvellous manner, calmed and appeased. For at the moment at which, freed from the will, we give ourselves up to pure will-less knowing, we pass into a world from which everything is absent that influenced our will and moved us so violently through it. This freeing of knowledge lifts us as wholly and entirely away from all that, as do sleep and dreams; happiness and unhappiness have disappeared; we are no longer individual; the individual is forgotten; we are only pure subject of knowledge; we are only that ‘one eye’ of the world which looks out from all knowing creatures, but which can become perfectly free from the service of will in man alone. Thus all difference of individuality so entirely disappears, that it is all the same whether the perceiving eye belongs to a mighty king or to a wretched beggar…As soon as any single relation to our will, to our person, even of these objects of our pure contemplation, comes again into consciousness, the magic is at an end; we fall back into the knowledge which is governed by the principle of sufficient reason; we know no longer the Idea, but the particular thing, the link of a chain to which we also belong, and we are again abandoned to all our woe.
(our friend Arthur, WWR)
Now we are already very close to the ground. A picture makes something visible. It not only answers the question of why the me in our equation is Dutch. It is also to be answered the question of who I am. As in portrait painting, still life painting also has a special subcategory. We show some special pictures. What catches the eye ?
Maria van Oosterwijck, 1664 Still Life Vanitas
Pieter Claesz, Vanitas with Violin and Glass Ball, 1625
A vanitas is a symbolic work of art depicting the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often juxtaposing symbols of wealth with symbols of transience and death.
Ready for the impact? We are on the way to work. With a car. This morning. Twilight, fog and drizzle. Truly poor visibility. We drive through a landscape of forests, small hills and fields. A dream landscape for all cyclists. The possible perceived sublimity of this landscape invites melancholy. We are so close. Close your eyes just for a second. The impact. A deer has been abruptly hit head by the car in front of us. Wreckage. Full braking. Get out of the car, Buddy, you can't just drive past it here. Of course, on the way to work he does not have a gun for a possible catch shot. In such a lonesome landscape a deer is often seized by a 170 hp supremacy. This poor deer had no chance to escape from the last agony of life, so it died with torn abdominal wall, the internal organs distributed on road surface, clearly to identify a crushed liver, the lung, torn spleen and the last pumping actions of the heart. The agony of life, here not as an excitement lust for life in an all out sprint of a gameplay, whether man or animal, the real final agony of life is the hell on earth. It is not death. To differentiate also here once again clearly the terms, the final agony of life is the "why have you forsaken me". In contrast to death and the transcendence into the one light, the "it is finished" and "I give my spirit into your hands". So it is pure reason and logic to fear the final agonies of life. Not transience or death.
Now, if a gifted painter or photographer had painted or photographed this poor openly distorted deer with all its innards shredded - it could by no means be a vanitas - for the former demonstrates the agony of life, while the latter gently in soothing harmony but still demanding let us see symbols of transience and life together in one picture. The art of living and dying, together, as a team. As in the interplay of light and darkness, where even in the darkness there is always some light to be found.
In German, transience gets an associated feminine definite article: "die” [she] - in contrast to death, which as a masculine gets the definite article "der” [he]. Little play on words. A distinction of the actual ideas, let's call it platonic or even much better the thing in itself, whereas in this world in time and space and the associated dualism it just has to be called: The 2 things in themselves. So a distinction from this very simple perspective, the perspective of the other thing in itself, between the transience and the death is not possible. Two things in itself. Let's combine it with another Philosophy. The moonlight. The yin in a man. The transience inside a man. Sorry, my buddy is just a man. So I am some kind of a Yin inside of him. The Anima according to our friend Carl Gustav. As the transience in its final development.
The transience. Depicted in the vanitas. These are the really powerful images of still life. A kind of Western equivalent of yin and yang in an incredible work of art. You could also depict them as gray hair and beard or colorful autumn leaves - because that's the characteristic and the beauty of just this season, of autumn - the variety of color in the falling leaves. To depict them gray, mourning, would be a failure of their essence. At least for the detail on the table. For the transience, a beauty of it’s own kind, with the insight and acceptance of their irrefutable power to lead us into the one light, that is what these leaves show.
Transience invites one to join the most inclusive club. Because inclusivity and equality are key features of this club. Therefore, Transience likes colorful jerseys. Transience, as transcendence, will bridge to unity, to the whole. Because everything that one is not combined with what one is makes a whole. The Quietiv.
May life on earth be an equation. An equation in time and space with a sticky bottle filled with all possible relativities. What is transience in this equation? It is the force that removes all relativity from the equation. To join the philosophy of two different movies. If one wants to escape from the matrix, one has to remove oneself from the equation. For this is only possible if one accepts one's own transience. The living and dying in the moment. To be and not to be in the same time.
It's like combining the great effectiveness of one sport with the dynamism and fun of the other.
With the alignment of the golden Dutch age of painting to a current training software - a game - and its often controversial graphics (user opinions), this whole post should definitely be considered one of the greatest compliments you can ever make to thank for the game.
Now let's continue playing the game. What game ? A training software ? Maybe as well. Our game is called communication based on intuition and active imaginations of the conscious mind with unconsciousness.
One last "picture". It is a preview for the final round. Just a circle. There will be a lot of circles. It should show the simplicity. This circle. Is it a circle ? Or is it a square ? Or a sphere or a cube? What's in the middle ? It is one pixel - for that it can't be a circle or a sphere. Can the human mind do things that computers can't - or does AI already have its own consciousness - with contact to that mysterious unconscious - whose complexity no one understands - because it is not complex. It is the simplicity that is so far away from our complex thinking.
Tip: in the Covid crisis, it was and is advisable to mark your face mask. I always played with my cards on the table. You just have to know where to look.