Great! The only thoughts that are currently on my mind, I probably shouldn’t share…
We’re experiencing a second (or is it third?) heatwave of the year. I was gonna go hiking, but it’s too hot. So I painted and painted some more.
Then I tried to watch one football game, but I got too annoyed and went to bed. I wanted Norway to win. They didn’t.
What got to me? It’s always the same thing. All the acting. All those dying players, rolling around on the ground and then you see the replay and it was NOTHING.
A good moment was Kane sitting on the ground complaining about a non-existing foul while Norway scored.
Peak ridiculousness.
Of course, later on in the Switzerland-Argentina quarterfinal a Swiss player was sent off for diving very theatrically.
I like diving – as in an actual diving competition. On the football field it’s just weird. I’d love it if they gave every single player a yellow card for diving. We’d be left with just a handful of players who actually want to play.
That might be cool.
But I think I’ll just stick to women’s football. Much less drama. And more love stories.
Not observing a minute of silence
If I’d supported Argentina, their fans refusing to observe a minute of silence for a young player from South Africa, who died aged 25, would have made me switch to the other team.
What is wrong with those fans? No human decency in sight. That was truly appalling!
Content note: suicide, mental health
The young South African player died by suicide shortly after returning from the World Cup. I don’t know his story. I don’t know what happened.
But I do know that mental health concerns are still largely dismissed.
I try to call it out when I see it.
I try, and sometimes fail, not to be dismissive myself.
Somehow telling people that “everybody has their struggles” and to basically suck it up is very much ingrained in us.
It takes courage to be vulnerable and talk about your struggles. That kind of dismissal and invalidation isn’t helpful.
It leads to people pretending everything’s fine and stop talking. Stop reaching out.
What was that quote again?
“Remember that people don’t fake depression, they fake being okay”.
And why do we fake being fine? Think about that. It’s not a coincidence. It’s societal. It’s structural.
I realize that people might struggle with someone else’s vulnerability and feel helpless. It might trigger something we don’t want to deal with. In such a case, dismissal is an easy way out.
But at what cost?
There is so much work that still needs to be done when it comes to mental health. And things are gonna get so much worse. Time to take it seriously. Time to work on our own mental health.
It matters.
You matter.
Remember that.
And from personal experience, the person who saves your life could be a stranger on the internet - you just never know.
Kindness matters.
And B-R-E-A-T-H-E.
There is no easy transition out of this topic, so let me share what happened this weekend on the painting front.
Reframing the past
I’m painting over some of my paintings. It’s all pretty random. I started with top left. I then thought I wanted to keep some of it alive, so I put tape over parts of it. That ended up looking stupid. So I abandoned the idea. Then there were about 5 different steps between bottom left and bottom right.
I forgot to document them. Rolling my eyes at myself.
But I remember that at some point the entire canvas turned pink.
That’s what inner turmoil can look like. Mine wanted to be expressed – every step of the way.
Not only are there many layers of color but also different layers of structural paste on this canvas.
It really tells the story well. I don’t know if this is a story I can and want to tell.
That’s all I got for today. I was gonna talk about the names of countries, different languages on the same team and such but my brain just went on strike.
So, I’m sharing a picture from the Gotthard Pass from roughly two years ago.
Have a lovely Sunday everyone and take good care of yourselves.
If you like what you read, consider becoming a paying subscriber. Or support my writing with a one-off donation.
Since you can no longer access all my newsletters by going to my profile on the Substack App, I’m posting them here. You also can no longer just look at the notes I posted, it’s all mixed under “activity”. Very unhelpful, but there you go.
If you open my profile on a web browser, it’s all still there. Makes no sense to me.
Also check out my notes 😊
And then there’s my You Tube Channel
I love the 12 stepper acronym “F.I.N.E.”= F***ed Up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.
I’m totally with you on the unnecessary drama in men’s football. I think it is unsportsmanlike and really cheapens the quality of the game. And “boo” on the Argentine fans for their pathetic behaviour during the moment of silence.
Have a great Sunday (what’s left of it, anyway)!