This month, I want to present a few short pieces of writing. I am generally happy with the drawings and paintings that I have managed to produce over the years, but now want to work on some writing about things that I feel are important to present to others. This is mainly because of the death of my life partner and wife, Marianne Vanderklugt, last year on 2nd May. Her death has made me re-evaluate many aspects of my life, and the general nature of living in particular. Unfortunately, doing more writing makes me miss Marianne more, because she would usually help me a lot with my writing - she would help with suggestions for improvements and check it for errors; she had amazing skills and speed with her checking of any writing.

With the writing this month, I want to also present some small reproductions of some of my drawings done in my sketchbooks, etc. They are not directly connected with the writing. They are presented mainly just to add a little visual interest.

Aloe Vera Plants above the Beach. 29.5 cm x 21 cm, black biro on acid-free cartridge paper.
Main theme: Interesting arrangements of form in the landscape.
Produced while living at North Brighton (1999-2000).

Being Alive

Written in 2012:

I don’t want to die.

I enjoy living.

I don’t want to feel pain or get sick, because I have been sick, and I’ve experienced a lot of pain over the years, and I’ve not wanted to experience those things at all. But I know that I will probably experience a lot more pain in the future.

And I will die.

I want to be healthy and happy, and experience many amazing things, and go on unchanged forever. And I don’t want Marianne, my life partner, to be unhappy or experience pain, or die; or my family, or my friends, or anyone that I know. But we all get older, time marches on, and eventually, we will all die. Life is a temporary thing. But life is also an amazingly special thing!

What does it mean to have ‘life’, to be alive? And what is really important in life?

Written in May 2025:

I have looked at those questions for many years (not just since 2012), and now want to record some of my current observations, after experiencing the traumatic death of my life partner, Marianne, in May 2024, and after observing Kattie, our pet cat, for several years.

Marianne’s death certainly made several things very clear for me. Number one is that things in life can happen very quickly. I was so lucky to have met Marianne and had the times together with her that we had. One needs to do things they feel are important!

I have also seen that the ‘society’ in which I live (western white ‘culture’ in Adelaide, South Australia) has little real regard for important aspects of life, and death. The ‘society’ in which I live seems to be mainly concerned with short-term economic growth, and projecting some sports (Australian-Rules Football, Rugby League, Cricket, Super Netball, Basketball, Soccer, Swimming Championships, The Olympic Games, etc.), as being very important in the scheme of everyday living in Australia. However, I can see that racism, and disrespecting women are major problems of my society not being properly addressed. Other big social problems are alcohol addiction, drug addiction, sports gambling addiction, gambling addiction, mismanagement of finances, mismanagement of food consumption, and too much involvement in projecting lies, conspiracy theories and falsehoods on social media, and on mainstream media. Where are the similar efforts in my society to promote the essential importance of education, important knowledge, genuine scientific investigation, removal of child sex offending, etc.

It has been very interesting observing Kattie, our pet cat, for a number of years. Kattie offers a fresh perspective on matters of looking at life. When I look at Kattie, I see a living animal that seems to live well, without much of the knowledge and language that humans have. Throughout most of the times that I had spent with Kattie, I found myself reflecting on questions about the nature of life, from his reactions to things. I wondered whether he had a notion of “the nature of life”? He doesn’t share our sophisticated human language, so we will never really know. Over the years, he has shown himself to be quite a smart cat, with affection for us, but with a raw energy for doing things he feels compelled to do.

It is hard to come up with a definition of life. Something is either alive (such as humans, ants, cats, bacteria, trees, flowers), or it is not alive (such as paper, rocks, air, water, tables, chairs, etc.). What makes something alive? There seem to be processes being performed by things that are alive – things like converting consumed products into energy or ‘basic building materials’ for developing the body of the living organism. Living things tend to be extremely complex and highly organised. Living things seem to have a ‘machine-like engine’, or many ‘machine-like engines’, driving the processes required for sustaining life, usually in circulatory systems. All life forms that I am aware of have the ability to reproduce a new generation of extremely similar life forms.

Below are small reproductions taken from the images added to each page in this month’s display.

Click on an image, or its page title, below each image, to go to a page with the written piece relating to the title, with one or more sketchbook images.

Once you are looking at the pages/images in more detail, you can use the ‘prev’ and ‘next’ links (at the top and bottom of each details page) to go to the previous or next pages in the monthly display, or return to this monthly display overview page.