i was reading a saatchi book by phaidon and charles said a nice thing, i think angela told him: do not try to be charming but allow yourself to be charmed.

as much as i agree and try to follow this advice i wanted to take a moment and be charmed by myself. it helps me out to remember what i did and where i have been. if i suddenly confront death tomorrow i know i have done something interesting.

here goes (i ordered it how i remember it, not by importance or anything):

1 ) thanks to lisette smits who gave me the incentive, i took two months to write nakitu minayashi, a 10.000 verse poem published in a nice big book in holland. book is limited edition and expensive at 150 EUR but you can read it for free online at nakituminayashi.com. i especially like i spent december in paris writing it. that was a great experiment.

2 ) i raced in ironman triathlons and even came close to actually being competitive. i never had any professional sports interest and i see competitive sports, again, as an interesting arsty experiment, but it is fun to be physically fit and able.

3 ) i lost 30kg of fat (i had about 50% body fat) and started a network of running and triathlon clubs to hopefully inspire few others to take the same path. sometimes the clubs do succeed in this and it is amazing to see people getting active. it is like helping people discover sex for the first time. so great! if someone would have told me ten years ago i would initiate sports clubs in three different countries i would have laughed. i was not able to run 1km back then.

4 ) i helped a friend’s company find work in italy and they profited greatly. out of gratitude they gave me a % of the business which paid for couple of years of writing poetry and getting fat and day dreaming. this company grew and recently i was a guest at their expansion party. was great to be there and that i was a small part in someone’s 12 year process. i remember them when they worked in one little room and now they are big and important.

5 ) made a team of triathletes which started by helping a guy i met after a race. somehow this team grew and i got to know these athletes personally. every day i am amazed that i work with them even though sometimes it is a lot of work and its stressful. an amazing project! i truly surprised myself i ended up doing. i have no idea how it happened, i always try to go backwards step by step but i can not see it, it just happened and it is great. every one of them is amazing!

6 ) being part of neen, probably the most beautiful and interesting art of today. not that there is competition to compare whats beautiful or interesting, its silly to compare art like that, but this is how i feel. it is art that is loved by millions yet it almost does not exist. it is like graffiti, just standing there, yet it has the most sophisticated sentiments. it is amazing. truly at awe at what miltos manetas initiated and mai, angelo, andreas, rafael… have created.

7 ) spending seven winters in south africa! this decision was pure genius. south africa is my second home. again i have no idea how i came to this idea to actually go to cape town and to keep coming back, but i just did and a big part of my life for past decade is there. great decision. many wonderful moments there, it made my life wonderful in every aspect.

8 ) organizing meet in a nice restaurant and something new events. again – no clue how this happened but very cool it did happen. meet had 50+ people from all over the world and something new had 40+ artworks. all the people i met, all the places i experienced. i did try to jump the fence to dracula’s castle at midnight, i did play in sand on a french beach half drunk, i did drive on 2000 year old street in rome, i did smuggle hashish by car over the turkish border (thank you isabelle!)… so many strange moments. priceless.

9 ) 12 years together with martina. its not a competition in duration but it is wonderful we are together so long yet i feel we just met yesterday (and i do not have alzheimers)

there must be so many other things.

live is such a surprise!

did i have enough? don’t think so…