Surin province in Thailand. Rural, relaxed, simple and attractive.

Last week we went out for a few days in our own province. It's just great fun to explore and get to know your own environment a little bit better.
 
Many people have an opinion about it. And yes, something for everyone of course and… luckily tastes differ. “Hot”, “nothing to do”, “far from everything”, “end of the world”, and more of those mostly negative stories. And it is not because we are now building here, but my experiences of the past days were completely different.
 
We left the small provincial capital of the same name, with many influences from student life, for what it is. Surin actually offers a wide range of possibilities and I don't really understand why tourism lingers in the famous Elephant Roundup, the ruined temple Prasat Sikhoraphum, the monument of Phraya Surin Phakdi Si Narong Changwang and the handicraft village.
 
Surin is rural and that translates into the appearance of agriculture and animal farming. Mainly in the cultivation of rice, sugar cane and rubber. Also in cows, water buffalos and elephants. And mainly in the south, near the border with Cambodia, some forestry on the hills.
 
No burning / smoke season. I was surprised to see how sugar cane was harvested by hand and with machines. Rice fields are barely burned. It gives the cattle something to eat.
Fantastic Isaan food wherever you want along the streets, and prices more than reasonable.
 
If you want to experience the real rural life of Thailand, this is the place certainly attractive to experience. And as a Dutchman, from the cycling country par excellence, I think this largely flat area is fantastically attractive to discover by bicycle, scooter and motorbike. Especially in the cool dry season at the end and beginning of every year.
And if it is too hot… then you stop at one of the beautiful reservoirs or small waterfalls to relax or cool off in the water.
 
I think there will never be mass tourism to get to Surin. How wonderful isn’t that actually. Just face to face contact with interested locals enjoying a simple lifestyle, and rural nature.
 
Surin, not such a crazy idea to discover.

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

Conscious Being

Last week, in the early evening in our village and with dog Kadhow on the scooter, I came across this image. I stopped for a moment and took this picture.

It brought me to the thought of Conscious Being. In the rat-race many people live it seems that there is only one thing left in the world and in the news (which actually is always old) that is being talked about.
This moment was once again enjoyable just by stopping and watching.
 
To be aware of how beautiful the world is and how happy I am. The beating of my heart, my breathing in and out, the coming and going of my thoughts, the movements of my mind.
 
Fantastic to be able and allowed to live and enjoy things that, at least in my opinion, really matter.
 
Maybe some different and especially positive news in the present world.

 

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

On the way to ten years in Thailand

The road is clear to make it to my tenth consecutive year in Thailand.
 
Always on my late father's birthday. As a kind of present;). I go for extension of my visa. Yesterday it happened again. He would have turned 106.
So, I again for the grant of my annual visa went to the immigration bureau. This time for the first time in Surin. A cozy office, smaller than in Chiang Mai, and super friendly and helpful staff.
 
First as a third visitor early yesterday morning I had to visit the bank to get a bank letter and a bank statement and after that to the immigration department.
Fortunately for me, it was not busy. Very fresh at a little after nine when we got there. A few staff members tried to warm themselves up outside in the sun. A warm welcome when I arrived with Phatsamon. We were helped right away. Fill out all paperwork and have it checked, checked and checked again by the staff, take a photo and wait ...
 
After about two hours of waiting, I got my passport back with visa extension until the end of February 2022/2565.
 
Nice to be able to move forward another year. On the way to ten years in Thailand by 2022.

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

The beauty of (sometimes) not standing out.

A few days ago, my friend called me when she was working in the garden. She asked me to look at a branch of a bush. I tried to do my best but (at first glance) didn't see anything special.

I had to look deeper and then, all of a sudden, I saw the beauty of a moth that was not noticeable on that branch at all. The photo gives you the impression.
In the culture in which I now live, not being outstanding is the standard. It is the group, the family, the team in which the value resides. And to be honest, it does have something.

On the other hand, from Western culture, attention is paid to the uniqueness of the individual. Something in which I myself still believe.
It is wonderful not to be noticed. Just do normal, you'll be crazy enough. It doesn't work for me and I have also conveyed that to my kids.

With the unique set of talents, you have a mission to fulfill in your life. One of my slogans. And that is why you should not try to pursue talents that you see in others, but rather live your own talents and thereby contribute in a group to achieve the best result, together and individually.

And sometimes "hiding" is a good option at a time when you cannot share your talents. No problem, because the time on your life path that you need them again will come.

And that camouflage, that temporary survival strategy in situations in which you are sometimes not or less wanted, can be beautifully discovered in nature (and also in this photo).

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

How do your body and mind get energy again with these continuous negative influences?

I still remember very well how my daughter Carlien regularly became ecstatic during her internship with us in Thailand after our weekly campfire on top of the hill of the health resort where I worked. Dog Kadhow, and often owl Otus, were also present. Deep conversations, beautiful music, silence (only the crackling wood fire and the nature sounds of the night), sometimes even dance and also the large wish balloons that took to the skies every week. A ceremony regularly enclosed with emotions.
 

Carlien's ecstasy came later. Sometimes alone, sometimes with guests, she lay on a mat in the grass next to the fire that faded out slowly. Do nothing, just only looking at the clear sky filled with planets and stars. A heaven that brought her into that ecstasy, yes, a superlative degree of wondering. A sky that seemed to be filled with more and more stars, sometimes the moon, and that became increasingly visible.
 
Doing nothing and becoming ecstatic. It ensures that you feel bliss and that you will see things in life in a different (not so heavy and rational) order. And that happiness does not lasts only the evening and night, but also the following day you feel more energetic.
And as for that ratio ... What are you actually proposing? Even less than a pinprick in that gigantic universe. What the hell are you all bothered and worried about, you wonder at those moments. During such a moment of ecstasy you realize that you are alive, what a fantastic experience, and that you are part of that immense universe.
 
Every day, if you are open to it and want to keep following everything from the world around you, nowadays you are overloaded with almost only negative energy, fear and guilt feelings. More and more people are feeling down and exhausted. Do you think it's crazy? Isn’t there anything else than talking about that "negative vitamin" "C" and his or her mutations.
 
Ecstasy, music & singing, as well as more laughing and fun are proven things that energize your body and mind. You might think not that difficult. Maybe kicking in an open door, but are you really doing it or is your focus solely on all that negative?
 
You have a choice. Maybe it is time to give your own world a big clean-up, to create space and to organize it in a more positive way. A way in which you care less about everything that is poured over you from outside.
 
Good luck with it in this new year.

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

What do I want from life? (2)

A sequel to the blog from two weeks ago. What do you really want from life? You deprive yourself if you allow yourself to be limited in that question by what the world around you might think of you. By the way, do you really know that, or are these thoughts just and only the performances you make in your head?
 
If you go deeply into that question, really take the time for it, then you can discover that people individually may answer that question different, but that the essence is the same for everyone.
You cannot find the answer in worldly things or in outer conditions. You cannot find absolute fulfillment of your life in the things of this world. Not even in status, position or fame. Life is not, not for anyone at all, only positive and fun. Only "social" media allow you to see this false world of people. A delusional world that is misleading and actually reflects ego gratification. The earth is a school of life, I once read. In my eyes true. And you can only experience positive things if you also know the negative sides. It is the duality in life.
 
Those same essences that you will find are; You want to live (you don't want to die), and you want happiness (bliss, no worry or suffering).
 
In many cases you have your own "free" choice as far as that happiness is concerned. And yes, that entails the "risk" that you may fall outside of "the group" as I actually wrote at the beginning of this second blog part. Do you have the courage and guts to deviate, to be different, to make choices that matter to you personally (it is your life after all). And no, that's not selfish. If you are not good about yourself, in your life, how can you be there optimally for others?
 
And as for that dying. We prefer not to talk about it knowing that it is part of our life package. Nobody can escape it. We have divorced ourselves from the process of death and see it as an end point or disappearance. Cemeteries and urns help us to soften that feeling of disappearance. Generations after us have less and less with those former situations, and with those cemeteries and urns. I remember several cemeteries that are still "deserted" and completely unkempt.
 
And for that fight against death, we have created quite a lot. I just heard an IC doctor say that the IC units in our hospitals are the most expensive units to fight against death (and disease).
By the way, I don't really like the term "fighting" (diseases) and all the medications and energy consumption that come with it. A kind of at war with yourself. Our body has enormous self-healing energy that you can stimulate in many other ways than with medicines, radiation treatments and certainly not by fighting.
 
I have often written in my blogs about my experiences with death during my previous work in crises and disaster management. In very visual terms, when someone is dead, you still see the empty shell, the packaging, in which that person once lived. The soul is out, gone.
The death notice of my oldest brother Fons had the, for me touching, headline:

“If they tell you I'm dead, don't believe them.

If they show you my dead body

then know that you are looking at an illusion. ”

 
The same IC doctor told from his practical experiences that death is only a moment of transformation. An expansion outside that cover, that packaging. A situation in which people, from a kind of deeper personal loneliness, for the first time in their lives feel totally accepted in the universe that embraces us. Far from an end point.
 
And based on those experiences and this philosophy, in light of the primary question of these two blogs, wouldn't it be great if we didn't wait for that transformation point? Why not start now? After all, we are already part of the universe.
 
Be totally accepted as you are and totally accept others as they are in true love.
 
Not many reasons anymore to worry much about everything that is happening with and around us and to be more aware of feeling and accepting accepted.

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

End-of-year wish

We are in December of the year again.
 
A month of even more stress and (online)buying temporary happiness?
Or just a month, just as nature shows us in the West, to take a rest, perhaps to reflect, learn, get closer to yourself and prepare for a new year that is coming again in which you may and can share the best of yourself?
 
We hope, in the coming year, that you can choose things in your life that will make you sustainable happiest and create long term bliss, and that you will not be led by feelings of guilt, panic and fear created by the world around us.
 
Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
 
Frans Captijn, Phatsamon
&
Kadhow

What do I want from life? (1)

We have taken a break in our building process for the past two weeks. Enjoying the beautiful nature in Chiang Mai and surroundings again. And automatically more time for other things and some personal deepening.

For example, I listened to a presentation that resonated and invited you to go deeper into it. The key question in it was: “What do I want from life?”.

I have long since discovered that it has nothing to do with money, position, reputation, an expensive car, etc .. Regardless of what you achieve in life, it is never enough. I laugh more and more about it. These are the worldly things that when you look deeply at them may sometimes make you temporarily happy.

For example, Christmas is nearby again. The essence of that celebration can be sought further and further. It is a period that has degenerated into mainly buying and the cultivation of desires for things that you actually do not need at all. Do those gadgets really make you happy for a long time? A drone in the sky that kindly asks you to go home because it is too busy in the city with shopping people is actually telling you, you need to stop for a while from your continuous temporary happiness satisfaction.

But back to that important question. To answer that question for yourself, you have to go further and deeper than all those superficial things in which we all usually get stuck. It is good to think about, maybe especially at the end of this year again, not having a mouth full of teeth at the end of your life if you wonder whether you actually lived or whether you may have missed something essential.

To be continued.

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

We have lost our way and reason a bit in this time of fear hypnosis

The last ten months enough distance between people has been created, working from home has been sufficiently introduced and the economy of online services and ordering has grown faster than ever predictably. The street scene has changed with scooters that bring food to your home and we are told from the air via drones that it is getting a bit too busy in the city and the shops are closing. Kind request to return home peacefully. You might think it is going well. We are making progress.

For over ten months already, not a day goes by or fear and guilt feelings are instilled against a virus through several channels. And as marketing teaches, the power of the message is in repetition. Especially if you bring it the way it is ongoing presented. A way and word choice (superlative) that has a huge impact on people. Anxious and fierce concepts that cause stress, anxiety, depression and also anger. Practices that exhaust mentally, emotionally and physically. We are increasingly accepting all kinds of suggestions as "truth" and that is hypnosis. And, do not think conspiracy, I can no longer imagine that all this happens "by coincidence".
And the worst part is, we will not be able to resolve it for the time being because we are no longer (or cannot be) open to other points of view, ideas and reason.

We have lost the way and the ratio, at least in my opinion. Every now and then I get to hear that someone in the street of friends or acquaintances has died of the virus. And, mind you, that is terrible. But why does this continue to be in the spotlight and does it seem that death from Cancer (which we as I recently saw very nicely call "New Formations") or from cardiovascular disease with death rates dozens of times higher is accepted without much attention?

Wake up, become curious and discover the true values ​​in your life more deeply. Do all of today's stories serve your personal emotional life or confuse you? You still have a personal choice.

Turn off those channels as I called them in the beginning, such as "social" media and news, and choose the things in your life that make you happiest. And personal, face-to-face contact with people, touching each other, and that sincere hug are often part of that.
Time to be open (again) for them.

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

Sounds of the autumn.

The seasons in Thailand are different from, for example, Europe. Here we have the rainy season and the dry season. The dry season is divided into a cool and a hot period. And that actually brings three istead of four seasons; the rainy season (June-October), the cool dry season (November-February) and the hot dry season (March-May). And yet you can also find spring, summer, autumn and winter in those three.

Yesterday, autumn and the cool dry season, as every day I walked blissfully in the forest again. I try to change tracks many times with Kadhow. Yesterday it was at a place in Chiang Mai that feels great for me. The energy feels wonderful there. The sound of crispy leaves with every step he and I take.

Kadhow stopped and looked around. I followed his lead. Total silence or not. No not at all. A gentle breeze, beautiful colors, tremendous big leaves of teak trees and there was a sound that could be heard like rain in the forest or like a crackling wood fire. Birds singing different melodies in peace and in harmony. It was more than a beautiful meditation to be aware of the sounds of autumn.

The "rain" sound came from the tumbling dry leaves, in the sunlight, falling high from the trees to the bottom of dry predecessors, which formed a sort of drum.
Sounds from far, up close, soft and loud, from all directions around me, high and low tones, melody, harmony, a fantastic free "orchestra" that nature offered me as a kind of meditation.

It was another fantastic moment to enjoy far from a world that is running faster and faster…

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

Pushing doesn't help your kids in the right direction. Letting them follow their inner drive is the way.

When I was 17 years old, my dad gave me as a surprise a holiday to his beloved country Austria. Believe it or not, with a 10-day bus trip from De Jong Intratours (an organization that, I just saw, is still there). In the town of Auffach in the Wildshoenau we ended up in a class hotel (Platzl) with even a disco. A combined trip with both the elderly and the young. Lots of great experiences and impressions.

When we got back home, I finally knew what I wanted to be. Coach driver. Ever changing groups and contacts, exploring the world, accountability and above all a lot of fun. The image that I had from that trip, among other things.

By the way, if I had taken that path, I certainly would have had my own travel agency (FIT, Frans International Touring Service). That name has lasted a large part of my life. All my engineering projects carried that name and I also organized ski trips to Germany, Austria and Italy with rented Ford Transit vans.

When I received an application form at my request to become a driver from a bus company, my mother tore the letter up before my eyes. There were more qualities in me and I should continue studying, she thought. And yes, I did.

Now I know that my mother (and also father), from their thinking and background, actually wanted to push me towards something else. In their eyes, a better direction. And, mind you, that was from their best intentions. They wanted to do everything they could to ensure that their children had a good future. Hats off and I'm super grateful for it too.

What they actually didn't realize was that the road to achieving a good future is much easier if you allow the inner drive, I call it the soul, to freely deal with all the specific talents that someone has in them, to take on the path of life to go.

To push is to bring someone in the direction you want. Whether that makes that person happy and brings out all of his or her talents is still the question.

I too, towards my two children, took over that push behavior a bit. It actually led to nothing. Generational difference and different views also played a role in this. As parents, you often worry too much about your children's future. You rely too little on their own qualities to allow their future to emerge. After all, they come from you and you should trust that basis.

Stopping that pushing and letting them trust their own abilities yielded surprising results. For example, after her study oriental languages ​​(Chinese) my daughter chose not to see her future in that. She left for Australia, started working with horses and started a new training as a specialist car mechanic also for the mining industry.

And for my dear son it is mainly about having fun in his work and life. Don't sit still, but tackle things and be there for others (including animals).

Daughter, son and parents are happy. After all, it is their life. A matter of letting go on the path of life that is unfolding.

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

  

The beauty of something so "normal"

A few days ago, early in the morning, I passed a tree with Kadhow. I have walked past it many times. Nothing special, a tree. Maybe because of the position of the sun right now, I suddenly noticed the bark of the trunk. I stopped to look closely. Magnificent! An artist work in itself that has a lot to tell.

Sometimes standing still makes a, not even hidden, world visible. 

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

email: captijninsight@gmail.com 

Building blog:
https://pyramidhousethailand.blogspot.com 

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.