{"id":47010,"date":"2022-06-08T07:51:17","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T07:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=47010"},"modified":"2022-06-08T08:35:16","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T08:35:16","slug":"my-dads-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/06\/08\/my-dads-world\/","title":{"rendered":"My dad’s world."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cIt\u2019s essential to know what\u2019s going on in the world\u201d, my dad used to say.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt defines who you are as a human being!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So he taught us to read multiple newspapers, watch the news, and be interested in politics, culture, and history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Study, remember, reflect, and discuss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Know shit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Always use your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was his thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For most of his life, he was the erudite man, the smart and politically engaged citizen of the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An educated stage actor, well-read, and a teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He loved discussions, he loved reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was always up to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now he has Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s pretty ironic, because all the stuff he knew about everything, all the things that were so important to him and seemed to define him, are mostly shattered or dissolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He doesn\u2019t read newspapers anymore, and he doesn\u2019t watch the news (and if he does, he doesn\u2019t remember).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has no clue what\u2019s going on at present, because most of the time he has no idea in what year he\u2019s living, or even where he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad\u2019s all over the place, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes he talks about what happened 60 years ago in great detail and with a lot of passion, and then he seamlessly connects that to something that is going on right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His memories are like floating pieces, connecting in no specific order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He talks about my mom, how we\u2019re all going to have dinner together that evening, only to remember that she died almost two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he cries for 5 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time has become fluid, abstract, and most of the things he talks about are ancient history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A world of hiccups and randomness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fragmented, unreliable, and vague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s losing it, slowly, his revered human package of personality and history and physicality, and it looks like he\u2019s unlearning what was once so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, he\u2019s not really aware of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He forgets that he’s forgetting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As time goes by he becomes naughty and mischievous again, like a little boy, without any regard for social norms and good behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man he used to be, a proud and stubborn self-proclaimed intellectual, a colorful and outspoken artistic male, is now mostly a tired human being with a big belly in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s numbed out by medication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His eyes look dull and tired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His intellect is fucked, and his amazing memory, that cherished treasure chest of knowledge, is severely broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s no longer who he used to be, but in a way, he\u2019s going back to how he was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a machine slowly shutting down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A circle that’s gently closing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes I wonder what his world looks like now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @brunus, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s essential to know what\u2019s going on in the world\u201d, my dad used to say. \u201cIt defines who you are as a human being!\u201d So he taught us to read multiple newspapers, watch the news, and be interested in politics, culture, and history. Study, remember, reflect, and discuss. Know shit. Always use your mind. That […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[117,100,105,115,116,113,107,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47010"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47020,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47010\/revisions\/47020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}