The author was born in 1943, during the war, in a village in the eastern part of the Netherlands where his father was a pastor. As a child he fantasized about a cosmic system of colors and numbers. He attended art school for several years, but as a landscape painter, he had problems with the education where only still lifes were painted. In the 1960s, he made big hitchhike trips, practically without money, to Greece, Turkey, Morocco and in 1964 to Afghanistan, India, and Nepal. He had always been interested in different cultures, especially in terms of landscape, music, and lifestyles. He was also interested in politics, but there he made a wrong choice in the 1960s. Despite that, years later that choice was miraculously made good again. Partly because of that personal experience he considers making a good choice so important. Later in life he went to study psychology. His final paper was on ethnic culture and happiness. Then he worked for about 15 years as a researcher in happiness at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He has been an enthusiastic folk dancer until the corona era.
