Let’s talk about the word dandelion
Did you know there are dozens of old regional names for the word dandelion?
SEVENTEEN, at least!
Names like:
Piss-a-bed.
Swine’s snout.
Priest’s crown.
Irish daisy.
Blowball.
Milk witch.
Dozens of ways to name the same yellow sun that turns into a puffball of wishes. And just like our local dialects, these old plant names are fading fast — slipping quietly out of our language, one by one.
They call it a fading dialect
Same goes for our meadow birds — the godwit, the oystercatcher, the lapwing. They used to be our national morning choir. The fewer there are, the quieter our fields sound.
Or take stamps!
I designed twenty-two of them for the Dutch government —
I kid you not.
Now only two remain: the pink heart (my design, thank you very much) and the blue head of our king, Willem-Alexander. They hang there, side by side on a lonely metal hook at the post office. Not exactly making letter-writing any more irresistible, if you ask me.
Everything’s starting to look the same.
(Except chocolate and wine — those come in more and more varieties, apparently.)
Nuance is evaporating. A universal beige is spreading across the world.
Which sounds… pretty damn boring.
Alright, enough whining.
What this planet desperately needs are
creative minds!
That’s why it’s vital — as a maker — that you remember this:
Behind your ribcage, where it’s dark and warm, something precious flows:
your inner sea
Let it be unruly, foamy, sensitive, unpredictable. It’s your primal sound. Feed it with rituals, love, fragments, sketches, words.
Because one day, when the last godwits all sound the same, the stamps have been retired, and every dandelion has just one name left—you, keeper of imagination, will still be singing your own wildly beautiful soul-song. Together with all the other creative birds.
Bottom line?
Creatives pave the future. Not in fifteen years. Way, way sooner.
Bet you a bar of chocolate.
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