I didn’t go to Brad Pitt’s new movie F1 with the idea I was going to be transformed.
And maybe I wasn’t, but that it was something far more existential;
That I finally understood who I was.
And what my life was about.
Because when Brad Pitt’s character explains why he still drives, even though his F1 career stranded at an early stage – and it all went downhill from there – he knows crystal clear what he hopes to find every time he steps into a vehicle: The feeling of flying.
As long as he has the occasional car to race, it does not matter that he is alone, has no job or financial security that we know of (he’s a hustler accepting only one-off deals) and is living from his van, which carries everything he owns in this world. This man is on a chase for a feeling few of us will ever know, let alone comprehend. And yet? It was the first time I realized what I chase when I write. And why I keep coming back to it, unswayed and relentless, and at any cost.
The feeling of flying.
I finally understand why I do not chase fame with my writing, under any of my accounts, any more than Brad Pitt’s character Sonny Hayes chases fame. But that this does not mean that our passion is less fervent, or that our ambition has gotten soft around the edges. Thanks to the movie F1, I now understand how much I want “it”!
Even when “it” does not come with anything impressive, but I now know: – I live to write (like he lives to drive) – I will do it to my dying day – I will choose it even if it comes with extreme consequences
So now for the first time in my life, I have started rising early to write before breakfast.
When Sonny is told how dangerous it is to get back into the car again and race, he answers if he has to choose between life and driving, he will still choose driving a million times.
Driving is what he lives for.
None of us know how our story will end.
But some of us?
Are pushing mid-flight.
~Suzanne Beenackers
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The world no one sees, the history no one knows, the shapeshifting of identities like quicksilver.
Comforting emptiness where your truth once stood. A curious fox sniffing out the ruins.
A rustling sound; Incoming ideas!
—
Nine times out of ten, when I want to tell someone about all the exciting things that happened, I hold back and realize there’s nothing to tell. Because nothing actually happened. It was all internal, or what also happens frequently, it was incredibly small.
Like I already rescued three bumblebees this year, with a nectar filled keychain I got for my birthday (beevive). I stick a little twig in the bottle, then hold it in front of the disoriented bumblebee running around on the bike lane. And then as they start licking it off as if their life depends on it (and it probably does) I get them to climb the twig and transport them, twig and all, to a green spot in the shade.
Even if Axl Rose from Guns N’ Roses then ran into us, blocking the lane, that day would still be more emotionally charged because of the bumblebee. But Axl Rose would make the better story.
Recently someone asked how my life was now that I had less time for my writing. I said it was completely doable, but being productive does knock all the creativity out of you.
Which wasn’t totally true, it was more like a worst-case scenario. IF, I would still invest in Instagram worthy activities that actually “are something” and are cool to tell people about? THEN my creativity would have died.
But I no longer do that. Yet I look forward to the weekend! It means I get to spend copious amounts of time in my inner-world.
Your gift, your creativity, your art, is the tangible, visible thing you create. Yes! But your real creative work, is so much vaster;
It is ALL, of what you carry inside of you.
And just showing up there and engaging, alone or with a friend or friends who share it; That, is your work.
.
~Suzanne Beenackers
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There isn’t anything you need to learn, acquire, get into your life, stumble upon or get past, in order to reach your goal.
You need to embody it. —
I took a look if I could find a quote, I think it is from Zig Ziglar – someone I do not know anything about other than that I frequently run into their (20th century?) legacy in the form of quotes.
I remember one of the quotes being about 3 areas of life: To be. To have. And to do. But instead of Zig Ziglar the Google search brought me to an incredibly complicated (to the point of frightening) concept of: “Auxiliary verbs” Verbs which apparently were be, do and have.
It reminded me of why English class always made me feel my English was somewhere between poor and rudimentary. I can only imagine how the kids who had not grown up bilingual must have felt.
However, this does unexpectedly prove my exact point in the matter! Because auxiliary verbs? They don’t actually do anything.
I do remember when to use have, and I HAVE USED it daily. Or is it AM USING it daily? Either way it’s not the simple past tense of “I used it daily” because then it means I no longer use it.
What I also do every day is find errors like this in my writing. In particular on Substack, where the whole post is sent out to readers.
Not just a link.
Whereas my regular blogs and posts on Instagram are very forgiving, because I can still adjust the text and the post-with-errors is not still visible in people’s Inbox.
However! Does it matter?
Is the quality of my writing defined by my ability to correct every auxiliary verb before I post? No.
It’s in the person I am, the ideas I have, and in the relentless drive that pushes me to my computer every day.
Just looked up Zig Ziglar. The Be, Do, Have philosophy is indeed his core message.
You have to BE the right kind of person first. Then DO the right things. And then you will HAVE what you want.
BE. Do. Have. And in that very specific order.
.
~Suzanne Beenackers
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When I heard about the CIA model of four different roles for high-performance teams, I already had the blueprint of having three separate identities. And initially I thought they matched up really nicely to the CIA model.
I had a Bear personality for socially demanding situations. My choice of words clearly revealing this was not a role I considered my core identity.
And my Fox personality was the one able to solve highly complex problems. She was the one who would be able to see opportunities, understand power dynamics, and be able to bend situations in her advantage. Life was a game to her.
And then there was a third personality, who was there simply because that was who I had been since the past decade or so.
I have long suspected this third version of me to have come into being around 2012, with the rise of business coaching for women, on the internet. But in hindsight, I think “she” was older, and was conceived (or split off) the moment I had started writing, which was in the 2000s/zeros.
Problem was I am in a career switch and didn’t see where she’d fit in. But then I found the four different roles from the CIA, and suddenly saw what had happened! Because this third personality? Cheetah!
I’m still not a hundred percent sure where she (my inner Cheetah) originated from; The writing or the new wave of female entrepreneurs? But what was clear, was that I had not experienced that type of energy prior to that.
And the moment I did, I was hooked. It was irresistible to move at her speed!
And now I finally knew who she was! Or what: A Cheetah.
And I made a radical and of course very fast choice 😁 I gave it ALL to her.
All the work hours, I will ever have, and for the rest of my entire life; HERS.
No more analysis. No more contemplation. No more strategies that take months or years to unfold.
She has 90 minutes. But if there’s only 90s seconds? She’ll take it.
~Suzanne Beenackers
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Noah built the ark before the rain. He was warned by God about the impending flood.
Imagine! How many other emergencies and people he must have walled off to do so.
—
I don’t consider myself a particularly good friend. Or, without sounding self-critizising because it is a conscious choice and not a personal flaw; I know I’m not what most people look for in a friendship. Let’s put it like that.
Because my friendship does not include in-between communication nor any emotional labor or support unless you are specifically asking for it. But if you ask for it? Then I clear my schedule and we’re actually going to SOLVE the problem. Not the emotions or feelings, but we’re going to setup whatever is required for you to tackle this.
“But” to me friendship means you make an effort to show up in good spirits, to ask for consent if you have to or want to change plans or have a proposal. Friendship is giving each other a lot of space, and to choose your topics of conversation with care. Whether you’re laughing together or going for depth, it’s the quality that matters.
So obviously I gave this a lot of thought, and yes, it came with sacrifices but I didn’t realize until recently that it was not so much my friendship style where I was being perhaps overly picky and fussy; It is everything.
That concentrating on the goals you want to achieve, or like I do in my case on creating ample time to write and be creative in other ways, means you have to know precisely what is going to be on your plate. And what isn’t.
For many people being available for their loved ones to offer ongoing support and connection, or to respond happily when an invitation comes to hang out NOW immediately, is not a problem at all. But the spice of life.
So no judgement.
But choose.
What is so important to you, that it’s allowed to take over your life?
The very thing you’re actually here for.
.
~Suzanne Beenackers
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Last weekend I had the unpleasant, expensive and time-consuming pleasure of needing to replace my phone and using the service of a store where I bought a new phone, to transfer all phone related data.
When I went back in on Sunday, to finish the process of transferring the data between the two phones, I had decided to transfer the photos myself, so that’s still going on as I am typing this.
But all in all the whole process still took two shops, two days, and several hours when my phone, or phones, were handled by other people.
And having my data going through other people’s wifis, cables and close to other people’s computers while being completely unlocked, brought up quite the assortment of unpleasant feelings with regard to privacy and online vulnerability.
That I am “beyond” the point where I trust other people with my phone or computer. I assume thinking about cranking up the safety versus convenience and versus the risk of losing access to your own vaults, will be a lifelong assignment. And not one with easy answers.
But it did get me thinking why I believe my anxiety was more than just a knee jerk response to someone touching my phone. And that reason is consciousness.
Because in yoga, the aim is to bring the consciousness into the body. The ultimate goal is that consciousness and body are one. To experience body and consciousness as One.
Now this has never been easy but since 2013-ish, our consciousness is not just consumed by worldly affairs or external factors in general; But our consciousness is being hacked and drained by algorithms harvesting data and then feeding what we like back to us. And through our phones in particular!
Our phones are where our lifeforce, our consciousness, is being taken from us. Because we are trained to GIVE our consciousness to it.
Instead of our body and our consciousness becoming one, and reaching enlightenment, what we experience is the opposite.
My mind and my phone have become One. And I don’t want that.
~Suzanne Beenackers
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you can reverse a decision and for reasons no one needs to know
you don’t even need to apologize —
It was to be expected that I’d cut too deep. Even today, as I am still in this seemingly never-ending process of culling my remaining blogs, series, and YouTube channels, I am surprised that these processes can apparently go together;
Both cutting deeper. As well as being able to say:
“I need What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today back.”
One of the lessons I am learning is that you can base a decision on pretty dense criteria, which definitely try to defy the productivity cultus; And still get it wrong.
My criterium was: “Where am I making something high-risk with an unknown outcome, that challenges me and makes me think Oh God I can’t do this?”
And now a couple of weeks later, I’m like: “I miss What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today. And I’m going to pick it up, make way simpler Canva pictures and crunch it into one Instagram length post.”
So I seized back the one series from the recycle bin that had always come easy to me, and will turn them into a spoon-fed snack-size. The series has always come so easy to me, it has felt like cheating; And now I was going to make it even easier.
It reminds me about the men I fall in love with. And although I like to see myself as someone who likes a wide variety of men, this is not true at all. They are always men whom I would classify as:
Very easy to fall in love with. Only to then go in denial for months. It’s like I am immediately ashamed, to fall for such a man.
And this is a confession that has “so much to unpack”, but the reason I respond by drawing back immediately is because deep down I feel it means I am shallow.
When EVEN if that is true? I’m a full-grown adult.
It’s safe to assume I’m way past the point I would be able to correct on “shallow”.
So is an Instagram-length post called What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today, shallow?
Maybe!
But I’m gonna commit to them, stand by them;
And give them my heart.
.
~Suzanne Beenackers
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I will save you the details of my motivation to start a new career – although they would no doubt be relevant to the story – and instead just cut to the probably juiciest and definitely the darkest part of it so far.
I say “so far” because we cannot predict the future, right? But I’m pretty sure I passed the test, and that the light inside of me will never go out the way it had just few months ago. Regardless of what will happen.
So what was this dark moment? It was when I had chosen a path that was solely aimed at worldly success, in (almost) every way. Not counting my peace of mind and the eternal damnation of my soul, but I’m no expert on the latter. I have no idea how strikt the access code to the afterlife is, nowadays.
But it definitely included status and admiration within one or two years, and I would be building towards having a state of the art financial portfolio around my retirement, preferably sooner.
There was a catch though: I would probably make a significant contribution to destroying the world, both in terms of the human & earth resources globalized capitalism draws upon, as well as literally because my work would probably end up being used for military technology.
But I decided that it was about time I grew up and started to play with the big boys. Innocence and a clear conscience were luxuries an adult could not rely on.
So the decision was already made when a workgroup to help amphibians cross the street, was installed in the city where I live.
This spring, for the first time ever, a road that had hundreds of dead toads and frogs on it every spring, is clean. There are very few casualties this year, 99.9% was saved.
And I couldn’t go on with my plans to casually destroy the world. Not with 40 adults saving toads so nearby.
Two days ago, a hedgehog was in the house where I feed them. For 2.5 years I have not missed a day, in feeding them. But I rarely see one.
This was the biggest hedgehog I had ever seen in my life. Well fed.
.
~Suzanne Beenackers
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As a child, I remember the exhilaration of deciding I would start digging deep into our backyard sandbox.
It was located under the kitchen window, surrounded by a string of wood logs that separated the yellow sand sanctuary from the rest of the cottage garden, which my father had paved with old cobbler stones. Just like he had made us the sandbox.
He had even created a solid but smooth rectangle-shaped log, like a kitchen counter. While our mother was cooking, we were making sand cakes under her window.
Then one day, and I still remember the excitement of this, I decided to start digging down into the sandbox, with my little plastic digger, and NOT STOP! And I have no idea what I hoped to find but I do remember being so curious. I couldn’t believe I had not thought of doing this earlier. But now I was on it!
Fiercely, I started digging.
Only to find out that at about half a meter, there were tiles. I could not go any deeper and was heavily disappointed.
Never again did an exploration end in facing boundaries this impermeable. But what I have discovered was even more shocking.
We are not just surrounded by invisible boundaries; We as a society are our own henchmen in enforcing them. And I’m talking about boundaries that date back to ancient Greece and Rome.
The philosophy of materialism, which would later evolve into capitalism.
In the real world we will always find a carefully, and not seldom lovingly, constructed barrier, designed to keep the world, such as dirty and possibly contaminated sand, out.
But inadvertently keeping you in just as you were about to have your breakthrough.
Our obsession with possessions means that when people talk about freedom, they mean financial freedom. Then freedom of time. Maybe body, although people who protect their physical sovereignty are extremely rare.
But if we’re not free in our minds we will never have freedom.
Our mind has become the floor of tiles at half a meter depth. Impermeable. And keeping us in.
.
~Suzanne Beenackers
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Ending 4 blogs and this channel + A Rock Star Take On ARTING | (for now?) final video
—
The New Rock Star Channel is here! Or was here….. Because although this week is only the ninth video, which through a stroke of luck ended up being the episode “A Rock Star Take On ARTING” exactly as I had announced this one would be, this video is most of all a sad realization that after 6 years of unlimited content creation, a new job is forcing me to let 90% of my international content go. Including this channel.
And including this blog Catacombe which has existed from December 2022 to April 2025
I will not make this any more difficult and lengthy than it already is, but if you want to keep following my content, subscribe to:
1. the Suzanne Beenackers channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXpNMsIFP2U34A0yBKk8PUQ For the video series Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs. And
2. to the Rock Star Writer Nijmegen blog https://rockstarwriternijmegen.com/ For Bon Jovi Concert Readings.
In this video;
1. Welcome to the last video on this channel 00:00 Or the last blogpost, if you are reading this on a blog.
3. The New Rock Star Channel 04:00 What it was about
4. FAN ART! yes, a controversial choice 04:18 Touching very briefly on why I choose to focus on fan art, instead of more respectful forms of art. Will get back to this later in the video.
5. All outlets that are ending 05:18 New Rock Star Channel; The Catacombe Nijmegen blog (where you’re currently on), incl What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today;
The World Between Worlds Nijmegen blog, popular culture; Spirit Raiders .com about being offline and regaining our consciousness; And the Daily Bon Jovi Yoga blog. This video will be posted on these 4 blogs and on the YouTube channel which I am ending.
6. Did I mention these things?! 06:57 Probably, but it’s already the 3rd time I recorded it, so I forgot. So either way I’m cutting 90% of my work, and the reason is because I’m starting a new career. And also: My blogs had multiplied to the point of being uncontrollable. So sooner or later I would have to start culling anyway. The demand of a new career simply dictates that it is now, and that it has to be vigorous.
7. Out of all options, why on earth did I pick to continue the Bon Jovi Fan Art?! 07:44 Good question! And here it gets interesting because there is a very good reason for that. And one that you may consider too, if you have to make difficult choices.
Listen to why out of all options, I ultimately chose the video series Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs and the blog series “Bon Jovi Concert Readings” to continue.
10. A Final Rock Star Take On 17:55 On choosing, on Art, on Arting, just like I announced in the previous video. This video has turned out to be a great illustration of what the Rock Star Take on “Arting” is!
Choose the projects that scare you, and at which you can fail. But that also excite you.
And with that we have reached quite unceremoniously reached our destination, hereby ending the New Rock Star Channel; The Catacombe Nijmegen blog (where you currently are); The World Between Worlds Nijmegen blog; Daily Bon Jovi Yoga; And Spirit Raiders .com.
I definitely do not exclude the idea of ever returning!
As I tried to explain it is mostly starting a new career that has forced my hand into making a very painful cull in my work. But if I ever see a way of combining it, or can otherwise center my life around art again, I will definitely pick up my work.
Including here, on Catacombe, with What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today.
For now, so long and take care!
~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe become the Rock Star you were born to be