Cuma 2 Haz 2006, 18:32
I grew up in a village, next to the dunes and it did have a forest with a history (a ritual druids hill, called the 'Kattenberg' which translates to 'Cat's mountain', but which was more like a bump over which you raced with your bike).
There were lots of nature resorts around as well.
In the summer we used to go adventuring; build rafts and cross oceans of imagination, make treehuts and were castaways, go fishing and catching Moby Dick.
In the winter we went ice-skating for enormous distances, often leaving before light and returning after dark.
We often 'trespassed' on farmers land or government reserves, but we always did so with respect to nature, as our dad has taught us.
That gave me the feeling that 'the world is as much mine as I want it to be'.
Somebody somewhere might have some papers saying that such-and-so property is owned by him-or-her, but nothing can stop me enjoying that piece of land.
Maybe from a distance, maybe on a picture, but the memories and joy are mine and can not be sold and can not be impounded.
And though we were not wealthy back then, my parents gave me quite a treasure for later years by just living in a sleepy village (which won 'Europe's greenest Village' once or twice).
Today, I am doing pretty well, but I have not forgotten that basic wisdom about enjoyment.
I live in a 'city' that is, in square kilometers, the largest city in the country, but in inhabitants it is somewhere in the lower middle of the list. That is because it has large nature resorts all around it.
There's a dyke, of which I love to go to the middle of.
Then I get out of the car and just look to all sides and feel the wind in my hair.
I love to go to the windmill parks and make quixotic remarks to the tall slender silent towers with their enormous arms.
Watching their silhouettes at sunset is almost watching a shadowplay with an everchanging backdrop.
Most likely I could be quite rich at this moment if I did not give away so much of my things to other people who can use them and/or enjoy them.
But how can I be any wealthier than now? I already have inherited the world, no matter what any cadastral paper says, no matter who's army occupies whatever spot.