My first tiny red pill

I should’ve known better. That’s a thought I hold against myself every now and then. On the other hand I shouldn’t blame myself. It happened, even though I should’ve known better. I wish I knew better, back then. But at least I know now. I don’t forget to be grateful for that: I know a bit better know.

Let me clarify what I’m talking about. In the Netherlands there’s an old man and his name is Sinterklaas. It’s the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus. Sinterklaas and Santa Claus are more alike than they differ from each other.

Now that I let go my mind over this phenomenon it strikes me as one of those cultural blind spots. Something we cannot see clearly because we’re in the middle of it. Is that why only afterwards it’s so easy to say that we could have known better?

History makes a lot more sense from retrospective. But it’s likely that the people who were living during that history had absolutely no idea what path they were on.

Back to Sinterklaas. I was raised to not question his existence when I was growing up. Sinterklaas is a man with truly unique features. They are not seen in any other existing person. Nobody knows exactly how old he is, but they told me he was over five hundred years old. Every year in the fall he travels by ship from Spain to the Netherlands, to stay here for a couple of weeks. During that time he gives gifts. He gifts all children and some grown ups too. It’s an incredible busy time for him. He has helpers of course. Somehow they manage to deliver the presents during the night, when everybody’s asleep. They enter your house.

It was a wonderful thing, Sinterklaas. It was comforting to know that at least one thing that seemed to good to be true was actually true. My father had told me that God didn’t exist. Neither did the Easter Bunny or the Santa Claus from America. There was a tooth fairy though.

There were other inconsistencies as well. But a lot of those were solved by the fact that Sinterklaas and his helpers appeared to know everything about everyone. Until I found out they didn’t.

On the surface it’s mostly a fairy tale of joy, but there is also a dark part. For what will happen to children who have not been good? They see all, you know. When you’re bad, they will take you with them. I heard more scary stories about them. I had no problem with them coming to our house in the middle of the night, dropping some gifts. But I had no desire to have direct contact with them.

One time, they came to our house during the day. It was supposed to be fun, I think. Everybody was excited. I was also excited, but in a different way. I was afraid. So I hid in the toilet for a while and they couldn’t find me. I remember well: waiting for them in that toilet while I heard my parents calling my name, wondering where I had gone. A part of me was surprised that they did not know where I was, as I was told that they knew what you were doing all the time.

Once Sinterklaas gave me a doll house. The wallpaper in that tiny house was the same wallpaper as the shelves in the cupboard in my bedroom.

Then a peer told me Sinterklaas doesn’t exist for real.

This was the first time my world view shattered. The wobbly house of cards collapsed. My first tiny red pill.

I should have known better. After all: there were clues all over the place.

So I moved to the other side. But then I experienced the gap it caused. Now the world was divided by believers and nonbelievers. How would I know who was on which side? I can’t just ask peers if they know Sinterklaas is fake? I remembered a certain type of question peers asked me before. ‘Have you heard? About Sinterklaas?’ someone would ask me. And I would answer, ‘I don’t know, what about him?’ They would look at me as if they were waiting for something. And then they would say something funny about his beard or something.

After my disappointment about this huge lie I was excited to be on the other side. It made me feel better and smarter and wiser. And now I could also ask peers if they already knew about Sinterklaas? And their reaction told me what I needed to know. If I had to keep the lie real or could talk openly about this adult scam.

The fairy tale of Sinterklaas is presented as a gift to the children. A swell phantasy to believe in. To make them feel special and unique and valuable maybe. By giving them sugar and toys. Won’t the children soon enough find out how cruel the world is? It’s just a happy time and it ends mostly with a family gathering on the fifth of December. It’s an innocent tradition. Some aspects change over time, but in essence it appears to stay the same.

With Sinterklaas I was also taught to ignore inconsistencies. If everyone else believes it, it must be true. All of society is in on this giant scam. Almost everybody who has something to do with children partakes in it some way. Even if it’s only by not telling the children it’s fake news.

Keep the lie real. At all costs.

I see a parallel with what happened to me a little over a year ago. When it hit me in the face. That what is so obvious to me now, in retrospective.

I was living a zombie life, ignoring all kinds of signs that something was wrong. I was utterly confused all the time and feeling depressed and powerless. I was not living in a fairy tale dream such as the Sinterklaas holiday, but in a cruel meaningless dream close to a nightmare. And it didn’t even concern me, because I was in a comfortable chair, watching this movie in a theater. A horrible story unfolds itself in front of my eyes, but I can’t do anything to change what’s happening on the screen.

You see, that’s kind of how I saw it for a long time. Me, watching myself and the world without being able to make a difference. It makes one feel disconnected. I did not feel any responsibility. I was separated from the world. I tried to be no part of it.

From that point of view it’s impossible to see I’m part of the problem. Let alone part of the solution. I did not see that the solution for the problem lies within each of us.

Then, certain things happened which led to me leaving the theater and entering the reality.

And for that action are so many more metaphors. Waking up, taking the red pill, the allegory of Plato’s cave.

Again, I know something that not everybody seems to know. Again, the world is divided. By those who are asleep and those who are awake. The distinction between the sleeping and the awake is vague. I guess it’s more of a scale. From a comatose sleep to wide-awake. And in between there’s people who are dozing and people that are snoozing and people that are as awake as the sun itself.

Where would you say you are on this scale? I think I’m at the point where I got used to the dazzling light. My eyes don’t hurt as much anymore and I can see more than only vague shapes now.

Thank you so much for reading!

ps. all the pictures are made by me in my back yard