Category: Harteveld 2025*

I guess things were already set in motion for my re-toxification, when I wrote about becoming an early riser and didn’t even try to hide my repulsion for productivity culture, into which – in my opinion – early rising had found fertile soil to root and pull us into the darkest corners of capitalism.

That even in that post, although set up to share my early rising experience in a neutral way, it had unexpectedly ended on the thought:
“Do I really want to be a part of this?”

And that the blogpost had already answered that question for me.
No, I do not want my life to mirror the capitalist value of productivity.

So exit early rising, including daily writing and compulsive creativity and in with-
What exactly?

Without late night restrictions and without an agenda – or at least not one I was emotionally invested in – a sense of excitement and adventure soon seemed to lit me up from the inside out.

A tantalizing feeling that everything was possible, now that I had unchained myself from the trap of becoming an early riser.
As if I could see clearly for the very first time, and in all areas of life!
It was mindboggling, but also intimidating, because, well, first off let’s establish that the only area of life that interests me is the same one that has fascinated me for as long as I can remember, which is my love life and relationships with men in general. 
And writing second.
But writing is something that happens automatically, and in co-creation with my love life.

So this does not mean my other relationships are not deeply nourishing and meaningful, because they are!
But if we’re talking what’s on top of my mind, I’m very singular in my preference for men and art.
But the two are entirely symbiotic.
Sex and art.
And with only the first regularly sparking new ideas, theories, plans, goals, well truly anything and everything that makes life worth living.

So it was here!
I could feel my mind opening up, limitlessly, when the early rising thing went out the window.

And I closed the windows.
The heavy velvet curtains.
Lit a candle and incense.
Heavy smoke and the first Doors album filled the room and I let myself get carried away by the question;

Now what?

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Harteveld 2025*
Are 2200 characters, or less.
The name is inspired by the book Fretz 2025 by Johan Fretz and asterisk by the  2025 movie Thunderbolts*

What surprised me most, after I’d seen him a few times and I was finally ready to admit I had fallen in love, after that;
Is how, if I tuned in, I knew he was taken. Taken as in, in a relationship.

In the moment however I had felt full connection.
Which at the time I had translated to availability.
Wrongly.

Now I trust my experience enough to fill in the blanks that would take months of casual conversation, before he’d feel it was appropriate to reveal them.

Seeing him also taught me my stance on this being my Virgin Years, where I was no longer available to emotionally invest in anything other than friendships something which in all probability would compute to me not having sex;
That this stance was still viable.

Despite the incredible welcoming warmth I felt, as if his words were cloaking me, shielding me, protecting me, holding me for the first time in years in the way we all want to be held, even though they said nothing of great import and their weight would have been missed by anyone witnessing;
Despite all that.
No.
I’m not going to budge.

But it changed me forever. That warm voice. To be seen in that way every time our paths crossed.
This was as close to intimacy I would come in this new era.

And if my newfound clarity in these matters is to be trusted, I’d say it has hit him harder because he is not in a position to be able to act on it without failing someone he has committed to.

“It’s not her,” I could say, in another universe.
“This is capitalism you’re feeling.”
Shortages are making codependents of us all.

Capitalism is not a big cloak, but a giant oak, as big as the world itself;
Nothing grows underneath.

Without true growth and expansion, the best we can still do is to change. 

And the butterfly has already flapped its wings.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Harteveld 2025*
Are 2200 characters, or less.
The name is inspired by the book Fretz 2025 by Johan Fretz and asterisk by the  2025 movie Thunderbolts*

Turns out I had mixed up two movies;
Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Elizabeth (1998).
And with that two actresses (Cate Blanchet and Gwyneth Paltrow).

But the movies were related: Both are situated in the 16th century and Shakespeare in Love’s Violet lives under the rule of the older Queen Elizabeth the first, from the other movie.

And, which in itself explains why I got the two mixed up, the love interest to both women is played by the same actor, Joseph Fiennes.
Even in 1998 this must have been cause of confusion, although costume drama was not exactly my territory and I am pretty sure I never saw either of these movies in cinema.
Did see Fallen and Starship Troopers in the theaters though!
There is nothing wrong with my memory.
But the two confusingly similar movies about the British court as well as actor Joseph Fiennes (I was a Brad Pitt-only fan) were outside of my area of interest, at the time.

Yet I am now feeling such affinity to the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth. Who gave up her courtship to Ralph Fiennes and declared herself to be married to England, thereby becoming her work.
Her humanity was no longer of concern, as she would serve the work she was called to do.

About 10 days ago I also wrote a post, The Updated Rules of Engagement, on what would happen if I would start dating again.
And I think that post set something in motion.

I know there is a procedure, there is clarity of how my writing, privacy, consent, friendship and sex, are all just steps in a predictable and tried and tested arrangement.
It’s how I’ve been doing it for the past 10 years, and it’s what works for me.

And that post gave so much peace.
I gave up being responsible for meeting new men or having a sex life, and can clearly see my only responsibility has ever been to create the framework that brought it all together.
And that’s done.

Meanwhile I look back on 15 years of Lauren Harteveld writing, the majority still unpublished. The stories were blogged, but there’s also work still on my computer and even on paper.
My work now is to publish it, and to not be distracted by a desire to be loved nor to belong. 

I am a virgin writer.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Harteveld 2025*
Are 2200 characters, or less.
The name is inspired by the book Fretz 2025 by Johan Fretz and asterisk by the  2025 movie Thunderbolts*