All we did in Tuzla was remain normal
During the bloody war in Bosnia one city kept its head: Tuzla. Luke Disney visited this 'role model for postwar developments' and discovered the will of a people who wish to get on with their lives and put the past behind them.Luke Disney | March 2004 issue A few days before my trip to Tuzla I had Read More...
Finally, a good talk
My father, free from the constraints of all those titles and roles. Tijn Touber | March 2004 issue I heard the news of your death in the dressing room of a television studio. The programme was over and I switched on my mobile telephone. Three messages. The first – and the last one recorded – Read More...
A necessary luxury
Is it selfish to spend time and energy on self-development while three-quarters of the world's population goes hungry? Tijn Touber asks and answers a painful question.Tijn Touber | January 2004 issue Is meditation a luxury? Is it a luxury to take time for yourself, to take yoga lessons and read Read More...
If you want to see the beginning of everything then you really have to leave out a lot
A new take on the story of creation. 'If God and I are not very much, far less than you think, then he is the most of us two.' Bart Moeyaert | January 2004 issue In the beginning there was nothing. This is hard to imagine. You have to wipe out everything so that it no longer exists. You have to Read More...
Creating coincidence
You can create coincidence. This is Paul Liekens' intriguing message. Anyone can make any wish come true. You just need to understand the laws of the universe. Jurriaan Kamp talked with him about allergies, phobias, rain and ... happiness. Jurriaan Kamp | December 2003 issue Paul Liekens’ life Read More...
Alternatives to war
Peace is possible, but is must be constantly won anew. Anita Roddick's last column for Ode. Anita Roddick | December 2003 issue The way things stand now war is just too easy. It’s too easy to send someone else’s children to fight and die. It is too easy to dehumanise the enemy, making people Read More...
The joy of what's fleeting
Truth and authenticity are relative terms in Japan. Imitation and reality intermingle. Are they in danger of losing sight of 'the truth'? Not as far as Pico Iyer is concerned. In fact, you appreciate your surroundings more once you grasp their transitory nature. Everything changes, except the Read More...
Becoming We
'We'-thinkers maintain their hard-won intellectual and emotional freedoms while connecting with the greater whole. Tijn Touber's column. Tijn Touber | December 2003 issue My friend Jaap has written a book about the transition that we, world citizens, are now facing: the transition to thinking in Read More...
Dare to love
From an evolutionary perspective sex is a relatively new phenomenon, which may be why we haven't quite yet mastered it. But the so loudly applauded advent of free sex appears to be undermining Western society. It is possible to bring together spirituality and love. Ode went in search of the love Read More...
Desire and love
Desire is the wish to consume. To imbibe, devour, ingest and digest -- annihilate. Desire needs no other prompt but the presence of alterity.Zygmunt Bauman | December 2003 issue Desire and love. Siblings. Sometimes born as twins; never, though, as identical (single egg) twins. Desire is the wish to Read More...