Yesterday I came across a nice quote from on of my favourite authors: Haruki Murakami. It’s from the superb ‘A Wild Sheep Chase‘. Although phylosophical reflections can be interesting, there are also more of than not pretty useless. Thoughts that arise sitting on a sofa drinking whiskey.

Not that is matters much. It’s like doughnut holes. Whether you take a doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.

The question arises whether a philosophical view on the world changes your perception and experience…does philosophy add anything to the world?

There is a great tv series on Dutch public TV right now: Rembrandt and I. It’s a tv series in four parts about one of the greatest Dutch painters. In each episode we see Rembrandt through the eyes of someone in his environment. Yesterday part three was on with Govert Flinck’s view on Rembrandt. There are some great quotes in this series, but there is one I wanten to share because it’s so true. It captures the essence of being an artist for me:

People think that a painter depicts things that he likes. The opposite is true. An artist paints because by looking and recreating he starts to like his subject. [Govert Flinck]

The tv series’ website: www.eo.nl/rembrandtenik