“We basically were famous before you were born.”

“How old are you?”
“What do you think?”
“67?”
“No, put those numbers in a different order, 76”
“Really? What have you been doing all your life?”
“I have been a sailor, I traveled the world multiple times. But my dear let me tell you a secret. It is my smile that makes me look like a young man. I carry it with me wherever I go.”

“What are you reading?”
“I am reading synchronicity by Carl Gustav Jung.
What’s Synchronicity?”
“Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events as meaningfully related, whereas they are unlikely to be causally related. The subject sees it as a meaningful coincidence, although the events need not be exactly simultaneous in time. The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be connected by a causal line, they may also be connected by meaning. A grouping of events by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.* So the fact that we met today, was supposed to happen and has a meaning according to Jung’s theory.”

*Source: wikipedia.

Meet Mukti Dhatri a Hari Krishna priest.
I asked her where she was from, she answered; “I come from Japan, well at least in this life”

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” At oudemanhuispoort

Let me introduce you to a genuine “Amsterdammer”. Marc de Hond, someone I truly admire. He used to be a DJ, owner of a very succesful internet company and a fervent soccer player. That was 10 years ago Marc got diagnosed with a tumor in his spinal cord. The tumor got succesfully removed but due to medical errors Marc ended up in a wheelchair.
Somehow he found the strength to pick up his life again. And these days he is a motivational speaker, a TV host and plays wheelchairbasketbal for the national Dutch team. He also wrote a book about his journey.
When I asked what kept him going all these years he simply answered;
“You only live once so you better make something of your life.”

For a more detailed version of Marc’s story you can check out his motivational speech that he did for TEDxAmsterdam:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wCLIfdsmpE