Quotes from Erik Pevernagie

Our memory consists of bits and pieces which have made their imprint on our dreams and our life. All those fragments have enlightened or darkened the sky and the horizon of our existence. They are all instances that we don't want to forget or splinters that we can't obliterate. The mind collects them and by recalling, interpreting or idealizing them, the actuality very often becomes corroded. We experience then a "mutilated memory".--

Our world has definitely not learned from past mistakes. Communities have disappeared by mismanagement and by rampant destructions of flora and fauna. "Short time vision" made us irretrievably step out of nature. (Why step out of nature )

Perception is interpretation.

Perhaps life is an art, an enchantment, a fairy tale, an adventurous story trimmed with alluring episodes, an act with players who seem to be what they are actually not. We cannot, however, expect people to accept the make belief which some actors try to fool into believing. ( " He did not know that she knew " )

Rather than constantly grumbling about "owning", "not owning" or "not possessing enough", why not delight in the healing enchantment of the little moments of every day. ( "Keeping up with the Joneses" )

Ready-to-wear thinking means absence of critical awareness and lack of ground-breaking judgments. ("Prêt-à-penser")

Real friends are rare pearls which glitter when they are needed. Pigs should not make friends with butchers.

Remembering our past can be a healthy exercise. We should yet beware of manipulations of our memory. By sticking to things that torment us, we can be tempted to brood over what should have, could have or would have been done.(no shoulda,coulda,woulda). When we walk down the memory lane, we learn from the past and pick for the present the fundamentals, which can be brought into play for the future. ("Walking down the memory lane" )

Since consumption is seen as a promising way to fulfillment and happiness, it has become an essential manner to impress the world around. Thus, financial status and outward appearance have become a required proof of self accomplishment and success. Sorry, insufficient funds, goodbye!

Some abandon everything for the outward shell, in the interest of "glitter and looks", let freeze themselves in artificial postures and renounce realness and sense of self, for the sake of fake appearances, which do not belong to their personality. They live through the eyes of others and cannot enjoy an individual life. Their pathetic fate is an impressive lack of authenticity, spontaneity, candidness, which is a unique key to an open-minded existence. ("Like a frozen image")

Some day we feel the overall picture has slipped away. Only the details of life may help to find the whole ensemble. Our worldview does not comprehend the daily events anymore. Our conception of life is no longer a key for understanding, but is, on the contrary, blocking off our insight. We can, however, create space and time for an uplifting reflection and acquire an "Identity". ("Man without Qualities" )

Some will buy things, which they don't really need, with money they don't have, for people they don't actually care for. In the end however, they find their financial assets and, even more so, their corporeal capacity, completely undermined. ( "Keeping up with the Joneses" )

Sometimes life turns its back to people. A misfortune, a physical accident or a mental emergency can take them by surprise. Similar to the unexpected assault on Pearl Harbor and the Twin Towers in New York, which took a whole nation by surprise , the lives of individuals can be suddenly disrupted.

Sometimes, we have to find out : do we engage ourselves or are we embarked upon. Do we act willingly or are we naively manipulated. If it is our free choice, anyhow, we have to put "skin in the game." ( "A glimpse of the future" )

Speaking' and 'Saying' are two different languages. Speaking discharges resonance. Saying emanates ideas. ( "Words flew away like birds" )

The bigger we are, the harder we fall. Despite its hazards some keep on raising their narcissistic profile, wishing to be in the picture all the time, everywhere and at any cost. (Low profile)

The brain absorbs all the phenomena of our daily life, constructs a maze of countless corridors that run through our mind and opens numerous unconscious wishes and subdued desires, which are processed in the labyrinths of our subconscious. ( " Labyrinth of the mind " )

The excessive speed of mundialization, the exacting demands of the God of consumerism and the to-and-fro swinging, from one period to another and from one domain to another, cause inner heartaches. People feel like individuals "with no sense of belonging" and characters "without qualities". ( "The church was no longer in the middle" )

The invulnerable, matchless and exclusive live a life like dazzling fish in a scintillating seascape behind glass. Everybody may admire them, nobody can touch them and there is no fear or guilt in overexposing opulence and fortune.( "Keeping up with the Joneses")

The more we are attentive and mindful, the more we can understand and show empathy. We need not, so therefore, bother about regret and remorse, later on. . ( "Island of regret. Island of remorse" )

The past becomes our second personality. It is our intrinsic safety code, irrespective of a potential love-hate relationship. It may become our guardian angel and protect us from a bleak blind alley, since it knows that "we" know and we know the colors of its cards. Experience is a tough master and knows the tricks of the trade. It teaches us how to play. ( " Not without the past" )

The upper lip must never tremble. Some fear to be abused and have their identity destroyed, if they make an aperture in the curtain of their emotions. ("The upper lip must never tremble")

The whole wire system of the brain could be disconnected in a spark of a second by a sometimes unsignificant detail. An unexpected incident or an innocuous phone call may provoke an ethereal distress that might plunge one's life into chaos and like a sudden twist of fate overturn everything, ransacking the assembled experiences of our history. ("Alors, tout a basculé")

Time' can be pitiless. Time is able to convert the flame of love into a mood of restraint. A paradise of adulation can become a setting of animosity and ecstasy can change into indifference. Mutual complicity can become a balance of power and heaven can turn into hell. Eventually only a best friend remains ? ' Me, myself and I' . -Erik Pevernagie