E-scapegoat
I tend to mention "blame" a lot. I have the firm opinion that we all need something, or someone to blame, like a natural urge. It goes with having things explained. When the plain explaination isn't enough we need to blame something, make something the scapegoat. I'm speaking in rather general terms as using examples would give away too much of my innner self.
There is something handy in this. To get out of trouble you can take the blame for things which you know aren't your fault and by being the bad person you can get away with other things. By simply saying "It's all my fault" you get power from negativity. Negative forces can be quite strong Fear lives in that and it's amazing what fear can make us do. By claiming the blame we can also try to raise ourselves over that fear and become the things we run from.
Alright, some kind of example, my fear of the dark makes me a night owl. At least that's how I would like to see it as explained. There's no point in me trying to hide from the dark, it's better to just embrace it and make it mine and a part of the things others identify me with. I can't be afraid of something that defines me, right?
So, with that in mind I also find an escape in taking the blame, plus I make myself feel better by knowing I'm misjudged, it seperates me and creates that distance I'm oh so fond of. Knowing this, why don't more people, nations, organizations or groups take the blame?
Sometimes it's all we need. Looking at the bigger pictures, or well the political aspect, what if countries that have invaded other simply said "We were wrong, we're sorry" or if a big company said "We didn't think ahead, we did you wrong" how would the climate change? I'm sure it would. Being stubborn and claiming your own right gets tideous after a while. You tend to be better liked if you don't come off as the fraud pretending to have no faults.
So use the e-scapegoat pattern to get your way. Being forgiven for things you didn't do is divine.
There is something handy in this. To get out of trouble you can take the blame for things which you know aren't your fault and by being the bad person you can get away with other things. By simply saying "It's all my fault" you get power from negativity. Negative forces can be quite strong Fear lives in that and it's amazing what fear can make us do. By claiming the blame we can also try to raise ourselves over that fear and become the things we run from.
Alright, some kind of example, my fear of the dark makes me a night owl. At least that's how I would like to see it as explained. There's no point in me trying to hide from the dark, it's better to just embrace it and make it mine and a part of the things others identify me with. I can't be afraid of something that defines me, right?
So, with that in mind I also find an escape in taking the blame, plus I make myself feel better by knowing I'm misjudged, it seperates me and creates that distance I'm oh so fond of. Knowing this, why don't more people, nations, organizations or groups take the blame?
Sometimes it's all we need. Looking at the bigger pictures, or well the political aspect, what if countries that have invaded other simply said "We were wrong, we're sorry" or if a big company said "We didn't think ahead, we did you wrong" how would the climate change? I'm sure it would. Being stubborn and claiming your own right gets tideous after a while. You tend to be better liked if you don't come off as the fraud pretending to have no faults.
So use the e-scapegoat pattern to get your way. Being forgiven for things you didn't do is divine.
The insanity road to destination common sense
When the idea that it was the earth that circled the sun was presented it wasn't exactly taken in with open arms. Niether was the idea of the planet we inhabit being round. It seems a bit like lunacy these days, because it's proven to be right. But the matter of fact is that when an idea is presented we're rather hasty to toss it because it doesn't fit into the pattern of life we know to be true at the moment.
Putting science aside (for someone that can't understand how she managed to pass physics, chemistry or biology in school I do write about science an awful lot) we can apply this to ideas of ourselves. I think we become aware of our own individual at rather individual ages. But i can't be the only one that remembers the moment where I realized what I look like and that I have ideas of my own. Those first impressions of myself tend to last, and I have to work really hard to change my mind about them.
Then every once in a while life changes paths and the surroundings ask something new and differently from us and we have to reevaluate how we view ourselves. Others act in different ways and we put emphasis on new angles of our personality. Though I've learned, over time, that not everyone has what I'd like to call a flexible personality. They go on as steamrollers, not being bothered to apply social lubrication. Take it or leave it people. I both envy and hate them, it's because of them I have to be flexible. How would things turn out if we were all steamrollers? Also, I don't think that being flexible washes out who you are, it accentuates it. I suppose the key, for me personally, is to be around people who bring out the best in me.
What do we see as being true today that will be laughable in 300 years, and what do I think of myself this evening that I'll find amusing in 5?
Putting science aside (for someone that can't understand how she managed to pass physics, chemistry or biology in school I do write about science an awful lot) we can apply this to ideas of ourselves. I think we become aware of our own individual at rather individual ages. But i can't be the only one that remembers the moment where I realized what I look like and that I have ideas of my own. Those first impressions of myself tend to last, and I have to work really hard to change my mind about them.
Then every once in a while life changes paths and the surroundings ask something new and differently from us and we have to reevaluate how we view ourselves. Others act in different ways and we put emphasis on new angles of our personality. Though I've learned, over time, that not everyone has what I'd like to call a flexible personality. They go on as steamrollers, not being bothered to apply social lubrication. Take it or leave it people. I both envy and hate them, it's because of them I have to be flexible. How would things turn out if we were all steamrollers? Also, I don't think that being flexible washes out who you are, it accentuates it. I suppose the key, for me personally, is to be around people who bring out the best in me.
What do we see as being true today that will be laughable in 300 years, and what do I think of myself this evening that I'll find amusing in 5?
I had something else planned
...but I'll let my spirit soar with this
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Perhaps if we're cute enough we'll be feared.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Perhaps if we're cute enough we'll be feared.
I have a question for you
Well, not really. I'm done asking questions for today. (Yes I know that's a lie) It's back to work for me in a week. Yep, yep. No reactions? No pity? Not even a little peep? Oh yeah, I like what I do.
Is it too early to start panicing about my research paper? It's due in four months. Am I done? Nope. WIll it be done? By golly, yes it will. I'm beginning to think I like panicing. It's a familiar feeling. I've spent the evening composing a list for myself of things I should have kept in mind 20 years ago. The thing is had I had the chance to go back in time and tell 8 year old me these things I wouldn't have listened anyway.
- Learn to play an instrument
- Never worry about matching your socks. It's just a hassle
- Troubles will haunt you, but they'll go away to leave room for new troubles, so chill.
- Cookies are good for you.
- Don't sell yourself short, you might be short, but you don't have to sell yourself accordingly.
- True friends will love you even if you cry.
- Just because you really want it doesn't mean you'll get it, not even as an adult.
- Don't be afraid of the dark, the light's just resting.
- Not being a morning person doesn't make you bad.
- Airplanes are kind of cool.
- Orange juice will give you a stomach ache, enjoy it while you can.
- Always keep a cat, it'll hold the light for you while it's resting.
- Form as many addictions as you can and keep them secret to preserve a sense of privacy.
- You are fine just the way you are darling.
Maybe not much of an effort for a night, but you'd have to understand every thing on the list has a story, or several which I've enjoyed thinking about, no matter how much heartache the lesson cost me at the time. In fact, some of them are still a struggle.
Oh my, isn't this a generic post.
Is it too early to start panicing about my research paper? It's due in four months. Am I done? Nope. WIll it be done? By golly, yes it will. I'm beginning to think I like panicing. It's a familiar feeling. I've spent the evening composing a list for myself of things I should have kept in mind 20 years ago. The thing is had I had the chance to go back in time and tell 8 year old me these things I wouldn't have listened anyway.
- Learn to play an instrument
- Never worry about matching your socks. It's just a hassle
- Troubles will haunt you, but they'll go away to leave room for new troubles, so chill.
- Cookies are good for you.
- Don't sell yourself short, you might be short, but you don't have to sell yourself accordingly.
- True friends will love you even if you cry.
- Just because you really want it doesn't mean you'll get it, not even as an adult.
- Don't be afraid of the dark, the light's just resting.
- Not being a morning person doesn't make you bad.
- Airplanes are kind of cool.
- Orange juice will give you a stomach ache, enjoy it while you can.
- Always keep a cat, it'll hold the light for you while it's resting.
- Form as many addictions as you can and keep them secret to preserve a sense of privacy.
- You are fine just the way you are darling.
Maybe not much of an effort for a night, but you'd have to understand every thing on the list has a story, or several which I've enjoyed thinking about, no matter how much heartache the lesson cost me at the time. In fact, some of them are still a struggle.
Oh my, isn't this a generic post.
Musical interlude
Spongebob as an indicator for what children can expect
I love Spongebob, the show makes me laugh. The idea that you can take a bus out of rock bottom as long as you can get hold of a ticket is quite soothing. But what is he? Well, a sponge obviously, but he's a total antihero. He doesn't set out to save the world or make everyone happy, like the cartoon characters of my childhood. I mean the Care Bears had their work cut out for them for sure!
Spongebob on the other hand works as a frycook at a fastfood place with a moneyhorny crab for a boss. His semi-intellectual coworker hates him for his happiness, and well first and foremost Spongebob is a happy yellow square. I'd like to say he's a good rolemodel! He has low standards as far as work and friends and happiness goes. He applies no further pressure than to make a living and he's happy with a job that's usually looked down upon.
He constantly fails and messes things up, but he still holds on to the good mood. That's what I want for the generation growing up now. To be pleased and happy with the hand dealt. No silly idea of having to be the best and rule the world. But perhaps it's making them expect too little, a pet snail and a pineapple and tada there's happiness?
I'm not concerned with that really. I think it's a good thing that the focus is on the little things as simply making a living and be happy with what you have. There's nothing wrong with dreaming, but when you are constantly feeling unsatisfied because you always want more you know there's something wrong. So more power to all the Spongebobs of the world. I envy your lowkey view of life!
Spongebob on the other hand works as a frycook at a fastfood place with a moneyhorny crab for a boss. His semi-intellectual coworker hates him for his happiness, and well first and foremost Spongebob is a happy yellow square. I'd like to say he's a good rolemodel! He has low standards as far as work and friends and happiness goes. He applies no further pressure than to make a living and he's happy with a job that's usually looked down upon.
He constantly fails and messes things up, but he still holds on to the good mood. That's what I want for the generation growing up now. To be pleased and happy with the hand dealt. No silly idea of having to be the best and rule the world. But perhaps it's making them expect too little, a pet snail and a pineapple and tada there's happiness?
I'm not concerned with that really. I think it's a good thing that the focus is on the little things as simply making a living and be happy with what you have. There's nothing wrong with dreaming, but when you are constantly feeling unsatisfied because you always want more you know there's something wrong. So more power to all the Spongebobs of the world. I envy your lowkey view of life!
The image of a life
When's the last time you snapped a picture of a loved one in the middle of an argument or while standing in the checkout line waiting to pay for the milk? Life consists mainly of these uneventful events, yet we're unwilling to capture them. We take pictures of the special times and then put them in albums as a representation of who we are.
According to my albums I'm always dressed up, always smiling, always in happy company. I don't see that as having much to do with my person at all. I hate doing my hair and make up. I like to wear ill-fitting clothes and I rarely wear socks. The pictures represent a different me, the official me I suppose.
Though, me in class is an official me too pictures aren't taken there. When I graduated högstadiet and we sat in our homeclassroom, all dressed up with flowers in our hair I took some pictures of my classmates. We were all sitting in our regular seats but it still seemed like a fraud. I'm glad those pictures came out blurry, as they somehow are a blurred reality. We didn't have our usual arguments not the nit-picking of our teenage boredom. Still I put it in an album to be something to me, as the fake reality being worth preserving.
Perhaps it's the mere presence of a camera that makes the occation worth saving. The camera itself makes it a special occation. I've toyed with the thought to always have one with me, to look at the world through a camera lens. But that way, would I even experiance it, or would people, out of habit always smile at me?
In a way the camera phones have shifted this whole piece a bit. We always have a camera with us. Not always a good quality one. But at the same time the censorship has increased. We easily delete the pictures where we look odd because of the angle or our heads are half chopped off. My högstadiegraduation pictures wouldn't have came out blurry but maybe if I had had a cameraphone back then I would have taken random pictures of my classmates tossing chairs over our lockers or desperately screaming they need a pencil during the three years prior to that.
A picture says more than a thousand words, it's said. I don't believe that for one second! I can suck my gut in and smile for a picture, but I can't remain quiet forever. I'm not suggesting we should stop taking pictures, not at all, maybe just that we should be less selective of what we actually capture. I remember the big events fairly well while as all the unevents kind of melt together to make that blurr a nondigital camera has made of the greater memories.
According to my albums I'm always dressed up, always smiling, always in happy company. I don't see that as having much to do with my person at all. I hate doing my hair and make up. I like to wear ill-fitting clothes and I rarely wear socks. The pictures represent a different me, the official me I suppose.
Though, me in class is an official me too pictures aren't taken there. When I graduated högstadiet and we sat in our homeclassroom, all dressed up with flowers in our hair I took some pictures of my classmates. We were all sitting in our regular seats but it still seemed like a fraud. I'm glad those pictures came out blurry, as they somehow are a blurred reality. We didn't have our usual arguments not the nit-picking of our teenage boredom. Still I put it in an album to be something to me, as the fake reality being worth preserving.
Perhaps it's the mere presence of a camera that makes the occation worth saving. The camera itself makes it a special occation. I've toyed with the thought to always have one with me, to look at the world through a camera lens. But that way, would I even experiance it, or would people, out of habit always smile at me?
In a way the camera phones have shifted this whole piece a bit. We always have a camera with us. Not always a good quality one. But at the same time the censorship has increased. We easily delete the pictures where we look odd because of the angle or our heads are half chopped off. My högstadiegraduation pictures wouldn't have came out blurry but maybe if I had had a cameraphone back then I would have taken random pictures of my classmates tossing chairs over our lockers or desperately screaming they need a pencil during the three years prior to that.
A picture says more than a thousand words, it's said. I don't believe that for one second! I can suck my gut in and smile for a picture, but I can't remain quiet forever. I'm not suggesting we should stop taking pictures, not at all, maybe just that we should be less selective of what we actually capture. I remember the big events fairly well while as all the unevents kind of melt together to make that blurr a nondigital camera has made of the greater memories.
Whose misery can we laugh at?
Sometimes the only option we have is to laugh at things no matter how tragic things are. But who can we safely laugh at? Perhaps the model of news can be useful. The more likely we are to read an article has to do with ho close the event is how close in time, how close phusically and how close to intrest. The relation should be opposite. We can laugh at things far away in time place and so on and so forth.
This isn't entiely true though, right after 9/11 there were jokes circling around the Internet, within days, perhaps even hours. Defensive sarcasm. The best humor is a bit evil. But do we say mean things in jokes just because we really think it's true? Stand up comedy is based on generalizations. We laugh even though we know it isn't exactly like that, but it's so great when someone's on a stage being judgemental and mean. It makes us feel better for laughing at "them".
Naturally "they" are so much less complex than "we" are. They're homogen, we're all different. The further away they are the larger these groups get. All the people from Huddinge are the same, all the people from Stockholm are the same, all the people from the coast are the same, all the people from Sweden are the same, all the people from Scandinavia are the same, all the people from Europe are the same. Again, it all depends on your perspective. I'm not denying that there are similarites, but at the same time I think we're more united in our differences than the things we have in common.
To get back to the original question, who is it ok to make jokes about. I tend to say "enough food to feed a small African village", and people laugh! Every time I do my stomach turns a little. I know it's wrong but I want those points of approval. You can't really have in depth conversations with someone when you don't know their values, can you? Is it ok to make jokes about Indians when you're in your safe house in Sweden? Is it ok to joke about judgemental Americans when you're really just being as judgemental yourself for joking about it?
Naturally, it's always ok to joke about the stupidity of Norwegians. They must deserve it, I can't think of any other reason why there'd be so many jokes to tell about them.
This isn't entiely true though, right after 9/11 there were jokes circling around the Internet, within days, perhaps even hours. Defensive sarcasm. The best humor is a bit evil. But do we say mean things in jokes just because we really think it's true? Stand up comedy is based on generalizations. We laugh even though we know it isn't exactly like that, but it's so great when someone's on a stage being judgemental and mean. It makes us feel better for laughing at "them".
Naturally "they" are so much less complex than "we" are. They're homogen, we're all different. The further away they are the larger these groups get. All the people from Huddinge are the same, all the people from Stockholm are the same, all the people from the coast are the same, all the people from Sweden are the same, all the people from Scandinavia are the same, all the people from Europe are the same. Again, it all depends on your perspective. I'm not denying that there are similarites, but at the same time I think we're more united in our differences than the things we have in common.
To get back to the original question, who is it ok to make jokes about. I tend to say "enough food to feed a small African village", and people laugh! Every time I do my stomach turns a little. I know it's wrong but I want those points of approval. You can't really have in depth conversations with someone when you don't know their values, can you? Is it ok to make jokes about Indians when you're in your safe house in Sweden? Is it ok to joke about judgemental Americans when you're really just being as judgemental yourself for joking about it?
Naturally, it's always ok to joke about the stupidity of Norwegians. They must deserve it, I can't think of any other reason why there'd be so many jokes to tell about them.
Clarifications
So speaking of my last post what I'm getting at are a few aspects of our western culture, really, not being allowed to grow up and old is just a symptom of the perfection. It has to do with what society values and what we put emphasis on. We're superficial!
We value youth too high a regard. I would never ever ever want to be a teenager again, so I'm having a hard time relating to someone missing times gone by. Instead I miss moments but those seem simliar no matter my age at the time.
Anyway that's what I wanted to say before the oldies bite my head off. But then again you're the creator of the current way we live. I just can't stop can I?
We value youth too high a regard. I would never ever ever want to be a teenager again, so I'm having a hard time relating to someone missing times gone by. Instead I miss moments but those seem simliar no matter my age at the time.
Anyway that's what I wanted to say before the oldies bite my head off. But then again you're the creator of the current way we live. I just can't stop can I?
The boy that didn't want to grow up
When I was a child with only two TV channels there used to be a cartoon about a man who didn't want to grow up. I think it was called Mannen som inte ville vara stor (The man that didn't want to be an adult) I tried googling it but didn't find anything about it. Instead I ended up on a bunch of crap blogs written by men who don't want to grow up. Amusing in itself I suppose. But anyway, they kind of illustrate what I'm about to illuminate, or well, comment on at least.
At the time I watched that cartoon I didn't understand it at all. Why wouldn't anyone want to grow up? Being an adult seemed great! You'd always get your way and you could buy what you wanted, decide what you'd eat and watch and when to be home and all that good stuff. Needless to say now I know better.
It's a sign of the time, being stuck in the middle generation. I do believe it's hard for a geneneration to claim their adulthood when the parentgeneration still conciders themselves to be somewhat young. They're most definatly overlapping now. My favorite example, Amelia Adamo thinks that the 60s is the new 30s. How can someone in their late 20's have anything to say about that? You can't rebel against something when they're basically trying to be you.
We can all individually rebel against our parents but we can't rebel against a part of the population. Anyway, this argument isn't leading anywhere, really, it's just facts. There are not as many little old ladies anymore, they're still buying expensive jeans and tanning in their 50s, so maybe I should just focus on why and perhaps even find something to blame.
Though I feel I should add that I don't blame them, if I had a chance to turn back time and remain myself at my best moments even when my body tells me those times are gone I would. Though that option is now being taken away from me. More power to those who claim the space that isn't theirs!
So, basically it must have something to do with health and for how long we can remain independent and the top generation. Even though the age for retiremnt here is 65 people live 30 or so years after that. That is a long time. Retirement doesn't mean you're going to sit in your chair and wait for death anymore. We're having kids at 45! The whole spectra of age has shifted due to the longlivity of the people in the rich west. Good healthcare, lack of disasters and wars make us safe and healthy.
Also it adds pressure. It's not ok to look and act your age. This goes with the post about beauty, really. If you look "old" it's your own fault as there's help out there to purchase. I silently wonder how many would have the old-lady-hairstyle and be happy with it if they weren't constantly fed the fountain of youth myth. So instead of sighing when I see them I should pity them for not being allowed to age gracefully.
I have a personal relationship with it, I feel harsh at times, but what am I to do when it's so ridicilous. Women in their 60's aren't as strong as those in their 20's and I had to point that out to someone in her late 50's about a week ago. The other side of the phone got quiet when I said "Well think about how the age 61 seemed to you when you were 28, the body breaks down eventually". I felt mean and coldhearted. But at the same time it's something I can say when it hasn't happened to me yet. Let me keep my youth and don't feed me your decay as I try really hard to not rub my unwrinkled hands in your face. I will get old myself, unless I get hit by a bus before that, but give me the chance to enjoy (as if I've ever enjoyed anything) every age I'm at without the double standard of being loyal to your body not bouncing as it once did.
Honestly I feel judged, belittled and headpetted by my parentgeneration. You're old, accept it. (When you start calling your own age the new XX's you're just in denial) Bones are going to break, hair is going to change colour, you're going to be tired, angry, worn out. It's perfectly normal. Don't make the mistake of worrying about the wrong things, and don't plan funerals just yet. There has to be a middle way.
Remember, as long as you keep the younger adults children in your eyes you can't expect us to carry your burdens and clean up after your childish mistakes.
Anyway to go back to the 60's being the new 30's. You can't take one age out of the whole spectra. See if that was to be true I'd be a toddler. So be careful, you don't want to incapacitate everyone that happens to be born after you because of your own fear of death. Every generation makes its own mistakes. Just like mother cat walks away from her litter we need a bigger gap between generations. Only now it seems that the children need to walk away from their parents because we share too much space.
An example of that is how the younger are beginning to leave Facebook now when their parents are finding their way there. We need privacy, some things shouldn't be shared between parents and children while in some aspects we should share everything with those who love us the most.
I don't even want to find my brother online which is why I blog in English under a penname and remain quiet when he talks about the communites he's a member of when I realize we go the same places. Hopefully I'll never run into my mother online, even now when she's finally coming to the conclusion there are still things out there she needs to learn, and I know she'll get all excited and make the mistake of joining them all.
Either way, that cartoon was made by people from my parentgeneration. That should have been my first clue to that I'll be kept a child forever so that they can still feel young. I'm not making an apology, the king is dead long live the king!
At the time I watched that cartoon I didn't understand it at all. Why wouldn't anyone want to grow up? Being an adult seemed great! You'd always get your way and you could buy what you wanted, decide what you'd eat and watch and when to be home and all that good stuff. Needless to say now I know better.
It's a sign of the time, being stuck in the middle generation. I do believe it's hard for a geneneration to claim their adulthood when the parentgeneration still conciders themselves to be somewhat young. They're most definatly overlapping now. My favorite example, Amelia Adamo thinks that the 60s is the new 30s. How can someone in their late 20's have anything to say about that? You can't rebel against something when they're basically trying to be you.
We can all individually rebel against our parents but we can't rebel against a part of the population. Anyway, this argument isn't leading anywhere, really, it's just facts. There are not as many little old ladies anymore, they're still buying expensive jeans and tanning in their 50s, so maybe I should just focus on why and perhaps even find something to blame.
Though I feel I should add that I don't blame them, if I had a chance to turn back time and remain myself at my best moments even when my body tells me those times are gone I would. Though that option is now being taken away from me. More power to those who claim the space that isn't theirs!
So, basically it must have something to do with health and for how long we can remain independent and the top generation. Even though the age for retiremnt here is 65 people live 30 or so years after that. That is a long time. Retirement doesn't mean you're going to sit in your chair and wait for death anymore. We're having kids at 45! The whole spectra of age has shifted due to the longlivity of the people in the rich west. Good healthcare, lack of disasters and wars make us safe and healthy.
Also it adds pressure. It's not ok to look and act your age. This goes with the post about beauty, really. If you look "old" it's your own fault as there's help out there to purchase. I silently wonder how many would have the old-lady-hairstyle and be happy with it if they weren't constantly fed the fountain of youth myth. So instead of sighing when I see them I should pity them for not being allowed to age gracefully.
I have a personal relationship with it, I feel harsh at times, but what am I to do when it's so ridicilous. Women in their 60's aren't as strong as those in their 20's and I had to point that out to someone in her late 50's about a week ago. The other side of the phone got quiet when I said "Well think about how the age 61 seemed to you when you were 28, the body breaks down eventually". I felt mean and coldhearted. But at the same time it's something I can say when it hasn't happened to me yet. Let me keep my youth and don't feed me your decay as I try really hard to not rub my unwrinkled hands in your face. I will get old myself, unless I get hit by a bus before that, but give me the chance to enjoy (as if I've ever enjoyed anything) every age I'm at without the double standard of being loyal to your body not bouncing as it once did.
Honestly I feel judged, belittled and headpetted by my parentgeneration. You're old, accept it. (When you start calling your own age the new XX's you're just in denial) Bones are going to break, hair is going to change colour, you're going to be tired, angry, worn out. It's perfectly normal. Don't make the mistake of worrying about the wrong things, and don't plan funerals just yet. There has to be a middle way.
Remember, as long as you keep the younger adults children in your eyes you can't expect us to carry your burdens and clean up after your childish mistakes.
Anyway to go back to the 60's being the new 30's. You can't take one age out of the whole spectra. See if that was to be true I'd be a toddler. So be careful, you don't want to incapacitate everyone that happens to be born after you because of your own fear of death. Every generation makes its own mistakes. Just like mother cat walks away from her litter we need a bigger gap between generations. Only now it seems that the children need to walk away from their parents because we share too much space.
An example of that is how the younger are beginning to leave Facebook now when their parents are finding their way there. We need privacy, some things shouldn't be shared between parents and children while in some aspects we should share everything with those who love us the most.
I don't even want to find my brother online which is why I blog in English under a penname and remain quiet when he talks about the communites he's a member of when I realize we go the same places. Hopefully I'll never run into my mother online, even now when she's finally coming to the conclusion there are still things out there she needs to learn, and I know she'll get all excited and make the mistake of joining them all.
Either way, that cartoon was made by people from my parentgeneration. That should have been my first clue to that I'll be kept a child forever so that they can still feel young. I'm not making an apology, the king is dead long live the king!
Potential space
In 2002 was the first time I heard of potential space. The definition was, well still is I suppose, a place where people don't know how to act and the social rules we obey on a daily basis don't exist yet. We know how to act in a store, at a party, at work, in traffic or at a trainstation. In a potential space we don't. We sort of wander aimlessly and try to figure it out, and usually have a pretty good time doing so. A bit like in a warzone when the people came back to find their home to be something completely different. Perhaps that's a bad example but it's the one I have at hand at the present.
What if we were to thow out the past. Completely. All of it. As if the whole population suffered memory loss. There's be no memories and we wouldn't know each other. The whole universe would be potential space. There'd be no history. I haven't decided on the exact details I would like, but I'm assuming we can't speak or read either. We'd be corrupted by that.
If the whole human race would have to reinvent itself, how would the world be, with that second chance to set everything straight. I'm pretty sure we'd grunt a lot, communication is a human need. Perhaps we'd all starve to death. At least here in the dark north we would. There'd be no food in the winter so we'd lack the nessecary skills to feed ourselves. In the long run perhaps that wouldn't be that much of a loss. All the knowledge would be gone.
Would we go through the same growing pains as humans already have? Would the same areas be the dominant ones? Would religion even exist?
Or! Something that would be easier to use for an example to get my point across. What if all the books disappeared, except the ones dealing with science. there'd be no Poe, no Shakespeare, no Almqvist, no Dostovkeskij, no Dante, no Marklund, no anything. And first and foremost, there'd be no Bible, no Koran, no Torah. All the imaginative stories would be gone and we'd have to start from scratch in that department. Yes, I think I like this example better, in the first one we'd all probably just die. How depressing.
So, if we had no concept of religion whatsoever, would we invent it or would we just carry on our merry way dropping different sized balls from a tower to see if they fell at the same speed? Perhaps we'd all just be really coldhearted if we only had science.
But what I really wonder about are the concepts of things like common sense and beauty. They seem to rest firmly on something we call tradition, something I've touched in a previous post. Tradition, and values are created by people but if we had to recreate those, out of nothing, how would they be. How would we decide what's polite and what's rude and well, would we ever agree on it? Would we even have them?
Actually the whole idea makes me a bit uneasy as I pride myself in being polite, friendly and nice. I don't always succeed, but I try. Sometimes I tie myself in a knot and develop a terrible migraine and throw up a couple of times because it feels like I have some kind of devilish creature stuck half digested in my midregion, but that's besides the point. I still try to obey by the rules, the unspoken rules of society.
I figure it'd go something like this, first off we'd all be really selfish and take what we need, as a law isn't sience. Then some brainiac would say "hey chum, this isn't working" and we'd have laws. Someone would take a stick or something and start beating people up who didn't agree and to avoid pain we'd obey. Most of us anyway.
Then there'd be riots, because we'd all get to talking you see, noticing not everyone agrees. That would in extention lead to nations. By then everyone would be rather comfortable and feeling a little bit easier, they would have found people that were similar to them and that they could grunt with, hm, or maybe the would have developed speeach. Wait, did we speak in this example. If I didn't say so we would by now.
Then it's the whole aspect of love and such activities. I'm sure that in the beginning, where we enjoyed anarchy we would have gone where our whim was taking us but that doesn't work in a longliving society does it? We have to be able to trust people, depend on others to help us out. So for the sake of that let's say we hook up all couple like, but without the tradition of who we're supposed to be with. We would at least get to keep that freedom, for a while, surely it'd change over time when some smartass gets the idea to decide who we can love, how much and why, and let's not forget, in which manner.
By then it'd pretty much be like now. Perhaps we simply need these rules to not have anarchy. We need to feel opressed and shameful for everyone to get a piece of the action. But at the same time I doubt that the areas we concider successful would be the one that did the best, nor the people who did the best. Remember, we had no memory of feminism, racism, colonialism or any other -ism, those are all inventions of the human mind.
Hopefully we'd start creating stories anyway, maybe Borges was on to something about rewriting Don Quixote. Ok, time for me to confess my colour, what I really want said is that I think that somewhere in our windling brains there's an absolute idea, and the world around us is just a result of the electric sparks over time, so with the potential of potential space worldwide, seems I'm cynical enough to think we'd end up pretty much where we are. Just with a lot of unemployed priests.
What if we were to thow out the past. Completely. All of it. As if the whole population suffered memory loss. There's be no memories and we wouldn't know each other. The whole universe would be potential space. There'd be no history. I haven't decided on the exact details I would like, but I'm assuming we can't speak or read either. We'd be corrupted by that.
If the whole human race would have to reinvent itself, how would the world be, with that second chance to set everything straight. I'm pretty sure we'd grunt a lot, communication is a human need. Perhaps we'd all starve to death. At least here in the dark north we would. There'd be no food in the winter so we'd lack the nessecary skills to feed ourselves. In the long run perhaps that wouldn't be that much of a loss. All the knowledge would be gone.
Would we go through the same growing pains as humans already have? Would the same areas be the dominant ones? Would religion even exist?
Or! Something that would be easier to use for an example to get my point across. What if all the books disappeared, except the ones dealing with science. there'd be no Poe, no Shakespeare, no Almqvist, no Dostovkeskij, no Dante, no Marklund, no anything. And first and foremost, there'd be no Bible, no Koran, no Torah. All the imaginative stories would be gone and we'd have to start from scratch in that department. Yes, I think I like this example better, in the first one we'd all probably just die. How depressing.
So, if we had no concept of religion whatsoever, would we invent it or would we just carry on our merry way dropping different sized balls from a tower to see if they fell at the same speed? Perhaps we'd all just be really coldhearted if we only had science.
But what I really wonder about are the concepts of things like common sense and beauty. They seem to rest firmly on something we call tradition, something I've touched in a previous post. Tradition, and values are created by people but if we had to recreate those, out of nothing, how would they be. How would we decide what's polite and what's rude and well, would we ever agree on it? Would we even have them?
Actually the whole idea makes me a bit uneasy as I pride myself in being polite, friendly and nice. I don't always succeed, but I try. Sometimes I tie myself in a knot and develop a terrible migraine and throw up a couple of times because it feels like I have some kind of devilish creature stuck half digested in my midregion, but that's besides the point. I still try to obey by the rules, the unspoken rules of society.
I figure it'd go something like this, first off we'd all be really selfish and take what we need, as a law isn't sience. Then some brainiac would say "hey chum, this isn't working" and we'd have laws. Someone would take a stick or something and start beating people up who didn't agree and to avoid pain we'd obey. Most of us anyway.
Then there'd be riots, because we'd all get to talking you see, noticing not everyone agrees. That would in extention lead to nations. By then everyone would be rather comfortable and feeling a little bit easier, they would have found people that were similar to them and that they could grunt with, hm, or maybe the would have developed speeach. Wait, did we speak in this example. If I didn't say so we would by now.
Then it's the whole aspect of love and such activities. I'm sure that in the beginning, where we enjoyed anarchy we would have gone where our whim was taking us but that doesn't work in a longliving society does it? We have to be able to trust people, depend on others to help us out. So for the sake of that let's say we hook up all couple like, but without the tradition of who we're supposed to be with. We would at least get to keep that freedom, for a while, surely it'd change over time when some smartass gets the idea to decide who we can love, how much and why, and let's not forget, in which manner.
By then it'd pretty much be like now. Perhaps we simply need these rules to not have anarchy. We need to feel opressed and shameful for everyone to get a piece of the action. But at the same time I doubt that the areas we concider successful would be the one that did the best, nor the people who did the best. Remember, we had no memory of feminism, racism, colonialism or any other -ism, those are all inventions of the human mind.
Hopefully we'd start creating stories anyway, maybe Borges was on to something about rewriting Don Quixote. Ok, time for me to confess my colour, what I really want said is that I think that somewhere in our windling brains there's an absolute idea, and the world around us is just a result of the electric sparks over time, so with the potential of potential space worldwide, seems I'm cynical enough to think we'd end up pretty much where we are. Just with a lot of unemployed priests.
The things we're told.
Even though it's basically ment to help us and improve our lives advice usually has the opposite effect. To take something rather down to earth as an example just think about all the wonderful things we read in magazines about hair cuts, colours and make up. "Which hairstyle fits your face?" Taste the question again. It implies that unless you have that particular style you're making yourself ugly.
It's about shaping a mainstream population. Your face can't be too wide or too slim, it has to be just perfect. Imagine how happy you'd be! All those articles are really telling us is that unless you follow their advice you become an unattractive loser. That's ok, I much rather be doughy pale than develop skin cancer.
The simple fact that these articles and ideas are around point only to one thing, you are not ok if you're not mainstream, and mainstream can be part of an underground culture, mind you. You can never be ok if you chose for youself.
Please don't buy into that.
It's about shaping a mainstream population. Your face can't be too wide or too slim, it has to be just perfect. Imagine how happy you'd be! All those articles are really telling us is that unless you follow their advice you become an unattractive loser. That's ok, I much rather be doughy pale than develop skin cancer.
The simple fact that these articles and ideas are around point only to one thing, you are not ok if you're not mainstream, and mainstream can be part of an underground culture, mind you. You can never be ok if you chose for youself.
Please don't buy into that.
What did I say..?
I came across this article http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/twitter-1.932751 about twitter. Service minded as I am I found an article in English as well http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/18/2658742.htm
I hate to say it...but I was right. I'm waiting for the re-revolution of the Internet.
The legacy of my father
It's been 8 months and 16 days since my father passed away. I have to say the least I have reevaluated him during that time. The immediate and constant pain, well, it's not there in the same manner it was in the beginning even though I had too much going on to even realize he was gone when that happened. I can look back now with a sense of pride. I did better than I could have expected of myself. I promise those who know me, I will not leave that much unfinished business behind me when I go.
I see a lot of him in me, and I find it amusing. It becomes more apperant in comparison to my mother and my brother too. When I touch twelve shirts to find the one who feels the best in my hand I say "Hello, Dad", when I only eat the corn on my plate and leave the rest because it doesn't have the right shade I say "Hello, Dad", when I laugh at a joke in my head too strange to explain I say "Hello, Dad". Perhaps I'm just making excuses for my sometimes odd behaviour but it's always nice to know his quirks live on in me.
I've made a conscious decision to let me keep his memory in my own way, not taking others into concideration. It has gotten a bit easier after that. When others speak of him they do it from their point of view, not from the one of his second daughter. I don't want to interfer with their ideas of him so I usually sit quietly, sometimes it might seem like I don't remember him at all because I don't talk about him that much, nothing could be further from the truth. I think about him every day, but I've stopped (well, pretty much) trying to make him make sense. He didn't when he was alive so why should he when he's dead? It could be as simple as the parts of me that i don't understand are the ones I got from him.
If I'm smiling when I pass by a mirror I see that I have his teeth, but I only see it when I catch myself a bit off guard, not when i smile to charm. That says something too, he didn't set out to charm people, he just did. Well, when he was up for it. Sometimes I even see his insecurites in me, the need to feel accepted but at the same time only wanting to be accepted for the person I truly am and the confusion of knowing exactly what people want from me - the constant conflict of pleasing others or myself.
Some memories still stab me like a rusty dagger full of bacteria and filth and then I just want to run and hide. When I can't do that I just wave it off even if I want to cry and scream. I wonder if that'll ever go away. In a way it's easier to love him when he's gone, the bad memories will fade as I choose not to keep them in mind as much and the good ones will remain close to my heart.
Comparing myself to him is good in a way, I can see where he went off track and caused more pain than was necessary. Hopefully bearing that in mind will keep me from making the same mistakes, even though I've already made some. It comes with the territory I suppose.
But, I would like to point out that I've let go of the general anger because I never have to seek his approval again and I have accepted him for the person he was and with that I have also accepted the parts of me that remind me of him, no matter how confusing they seem. And if our last conversations were as true as they felt he accepted me for me and he wouldn't have wanted me to be any differently, and with that I know that somewhere down the line I'll be able to please others as well as myself.
And thank you for the smile Dad, it always gives me what I want.
I see a lot of him in me, and I find it amusing. It becomes more apperant in comparison to my mother and my brother too. When I touch twelve shirts to find the one who feels the best in my hand I say "Hello, Dad", when I only eat the corn on my plate and leave the rest because it doesn't have the right shade I say "Hello, Dad", when I laugh at a joke in my head too strange to explain I say "Hello, Dad". Perhaps I'm just making excuses for my sometimes odd behaviour but it's always nice to know his quirks live on in me.
I've made a conscious decision to let me keep his memory in my own way, not taking others into concideration. It has gotten a bit easier after that. When others speak of him they do it from their point of view, not from the one of his second daughter. I don't want to interfer with their ideas of him so I usually sit quietly, sometimes it might seem like I don't remember him at all because I don't talk about him that much, nothing could be further from the truth. I think about him every day, but I've stopped (well, pretty much) trying to make him make sense. He didn't when he was alive so why should he when he's dead? It could be as simple as the parts of me that i don't understand are the ones I got from him.
If I'm smiling when I pass by a mirror I see that I have his teeth, but I only see it when I catch myself a bit off guard, not when i smile to charm. That says something too, he didn't set out to charm people, he just did. Well, when he was up for it. Sometimes I even see his insecurites in me, the need to feel accepted but at the same time only wanting to be accepted for the person I truly am and the confusion of knowing exactly what people want from me - the constant conflict of pleasing others or myself.
Some memories still stab me like a rusty dagger full of bacteria and filth and then I just want to run and hide. When I can't do that I just wave it off even if I want to cry and scream. I wonder if that'll ever go away. In a way it's easier to love him when he's gone, the bad memories will fade as I choose not to keep them in mind as much and the good ones will remain close to my heart.
Comparing myself to him is good in a way, I can see where he went off track and caused more pain than was necessary. Hopefully bearing that in mind will keep me from making the same mistakes, even though I've already made some. It comes with the territory I suppose.
But, I would like to point out that I've let go of the general anger because I never have to seek his approval again and I have accepted him for the person he was and with that I have also accepted the parts of me that remind me of him, no matter how confusing they seem. And if our last conversations were as true as they felt he accepted me for me and he wouldn't have wanted me to be any differently, and with that I know that somewhere down the line I'll be able to please others as well as myself.
And thank you for the smile Dad, it always gives me what I want.
Labeling with some help from Foucault
First off, I'd like to add a disclaimer - I might have misunderstood Michel Foucault completely to make it suit my own ideas better. Live with it. Secondly I'd like it noted that a blog isn't a paper, it's simply a rest from my academic life where I can freely associate my own mind with things I've read. Now. Let's get started (watch this post not being as long as I had intended it to be...)
Basically, things aren't anything until we label them and how we choose to label might have dire consequenses. Take mental illness as an example. What is a mental illness? Personally I'd like to say it's something that makes a person unable to participate in, and be satisfied with the society we live in. It's fairly general. We can all see the lalaing fool punching at imaginary elephants as being mentally ill. But what if we take a bigger perspective, if we were to take Sokrates out of his time and put him in modern day Göteborg for instance, would he be able to function? I doubt it. Does it prove that Sokrates was mentally ill? No it doesn't. Is a woman mentally ill for wanting to live a life without men? Is homosexuality a disease? It all seems to depend on context.
Mental unhealth is also a product of the time, place and ideas we live in and with. There are no bulletproof waters here. In my opinion it also has a lot to do with values. A sick person has just as much value as a healthy one simply for being human. Though we're limited, no matter how open and understanding we'd like to be we can't absorb everything and be accepting and happy with it. It seems to be a human need to seperate people into two groups - we and them.
Which group we see ourselves as belonging to differs from time to time and even from situation to sitauation. It's all in the comparison. With that I come to the conclusion that there is no truth. There is no independent yardstick which we can use to measure life with. People consist of life, without that we're just matter similar to a plant. In comparison I can be old, young, big, small, happy, miserable, tall, short, intelligent, stupid, charming or a downer. So, which adjectives are actually me? The labels I claim for myself and use in my mind when I picture a "me"? Still that'd take a fair amount of confidence. There's only one of me telling myself something while as the world is full of other people that might be telling me I'm something else. This raises a whole other series of ideas and questions.
But if we are to stick for the labeling for a while, let's assume that in the beginning of time where didn't have contact in the manner we do now and we lived in isolated villages or tribes or whatever the window of what's normal could have gone two different ways, either everything was normal or nothing was normal. In connection to the previous idea of comparison it seems to me that city people think that small villages are accepting because everyone knows each other while as villagers seem to think that they can be accepted in a city because of the bigger diversity. Perhaps there's no real getting around the aspect of comparison after all, even if I'd like to leave that to the side. So, what I'd like to know is if there was a way of feeling normal, did they set the standard for normal by who they cared for? Was the king's son normal because he was the next in line for the throne even though he was that lalaing fool?
Which authorites do we have in what a good person is? Religion perhaps. But what if one bishop had a different idea than the one in the area next to his? Would he have labeled all other people but his "bad" just because he could? It seems difficult to reclaim a sense of being an acceptable person if you fall into a category which traditionally is seen as bad.
Another thing, this whole tradition bit. It can't be the absolute truth, after all. Society consists of people and it must have come with someone. A charming loudmouth more than likely. Seems the louder and more convincingly someone speaks the more followers succumb to the teachings. They don't even have to be rational and satisfying, a loud voice seems to keep the voice of reason quiet in all of us.
Foucault does the same with sex. Our modern idea of sex is something than the act itself. I read something by his about it a while ago. I wish I could remember exactly how it went. But the way I remember it now when it's been scrambled about my head along with my own understandings for a while is that gender is a construction of history, not a given fact. Of course I agree with that. Just look at the formation of the middle class. Given tasks for everyone, a wife to be a mother and the caregiver for a household, not necessarily a person. She was there to please her husband and make people out of their offspring.
More information isn't always the answer to a bigger understanding. Sometimes the understanding alone should be enough. When you get that sting in your gut and you feel like you're about to say something stupid and stereotypical you should probably listen to it. There is no truth in genders either, just tradition, and like I said before it's made by us. We're really the only ones that can change it by not using expressions like "It's always been like that" or "It's supposed to be like that". What is, has been and will be is under constant reevaluation.
Let's use Christmas for an example. It might seem that we have a set way of doing it, but it really evolves, constantly. Although we eat particular christmasfood, preform certain rituals, such as giftgiving or seeing relatives it's never quite the same. We can't recreate a certain event at a different point in time. It's impossible! Christmas in Sweden in the 21st century is different from Christmas in Sweden in the 19th century even though not that many generations have passed Every little shift creates a different outcome, similar to a branch which grows in different directions.
With this being said, we should use utter care when we label something, even though we might need them to make sense of the world and to remember who our true friends and values are we can't be stale and unwilling to change our minds.
Time changes and time changes us
How about that now...
What became of it
When Internet had it's big breakthrough of becoming mainstream in the mid 90's or so we were all lured here for different reasons, information, politics, nunity, communication, whatever. But what has the 21st century done with this goldrush? The focus has shifted to the users. It's all about US. (Or as I'd like to think ME, ME, ME)
You don't have to write well to be something big online. You don't have to tell the story about your trip. A fast update on Twitter such as "I'm on a train" is enough. A waterout of language if you wish. The focus on text was an issue when I was in high school and we were getting some rather basic information about how to use the Internet. It was discrimiating to those who didn't read an/or write well.
Well that has been taken care of for sure! There's no room for any length it seems. It's all statusmessages and small updates, you don't really learn much of anything, do you? I would have thought these short messages would have become way more popular earlier on when we paid by the minute for the time we spent online. Well, maybe that still holds as a lot of people seem to twitter and facebook through the browser on their phones.
But who are we kidding, really? WIth the endless possibilites of a masscommunication tool we are stuck updating people about sitting on a train, having breakfast, or going to the cornerstore for milk. Does anyone care? I don't. I don't care about different things online than I do offline. If you don't have anything of weight to tell me I don't want to hear it.
We upload videos of ourselves to YouTube and update strangers on our bathroom habits. I'm ashamed. I do it too. I want to be noticed in a medium everyone has access to. (Not everyone, but you know what I mean) I want to be heard, embraced and accepted. Though I'm fighting the same issues here as I do offline. My thoughts are too swirly, I prefer to call it trail of thoughts rather than a train of thoughts as a trail can lead you anywhere but a train has a set destination. Can you tell I just read an update about someone being on a train?
I like reading wellwritten posts that get my head going. So much for being an intellectual snob huh? If I can't be a snob where we had endless possibilites I might have to reinvent myself, so here we go.
What are you doing right now?
Waiting
You don't have to write well to be something big online. You don't have to tell the story about your trip. A fast update on Twitter such as "I'm on a train" is enough. A waterout of language if you wish. The focus on text was an issue when I was in high school and we were getting some rather basic information about how to use the Internet. It was discrimiating to those who didn't read an/or write well.
Well that has been taken care of for sure! There's no room for any length it seems. It's all statusmessages and small updates, you don't really learn much of anything, do you? I would have thought these short messages would have become way more popular earlier on when we paid by the minute for the time we spent online. Well, maybe that still holds as a lot of people seem to twitter and facebook through the browser on their phones.
But who are we kidding, really? WIth the endless possibilites of a masscommunication tool we are stuck updating people about sitting on a train, having breakfast, or going to the cornerstore for milk. Does anyone care? I don't. I don't care about different things online than I do offline. If you don't have anything of weight to tell me I don't want to hear it.
We upload videos of ourselves to YouTube and update strangers on our bathroom habits. I'm ashamed. I do it too. I want to be noticed in a medium everyone has access to. (Not everyone, but you know what I mean) I want to be heard, embraced and accepted. Though I'm fighting the same issues here as I do offline. My thoughts are too swirly, I prefer to call it trail of thoughts rather than a train of thoughts as a trail can lead you anywhere but a train has a set destination. Can you tell I just read an update about someone being on a train?
I like reading wellwritten posts that get my head going. So much for being an intellectual snob huh? If I can't be a snob where we had endless possibilites I might have to reinvent myself, so here we go.
What are you doing right now?
Waiting
The historical disasters
History holds quite a few disasters. Wars, plauges, earthquakes, revolutions, tsunamies and social outcastness. Not forgetting something like the Titanic. To stick to that for an example for a bit. How long does the disasterness last? It's really sad all those people died, but by now they would all have been dead anyway. World war 2 is heading the same way, I suppose. Can it only remain a disaster while people are still around to carry on the legacy of it's horrors? In a way I think so. We can read about the black death wiping out a big part of the population, but without eyewitnesses it's kind of a dead story. A bit almost like a fairytale. Only to be remembered by words. Also the world was a very different place back then. That makes it even harder for us to relate to them. I have no direct relationship with any of these things. My life has been pretty safe when it comes to historical disasters, they haven't bothered me.
How does this relate to personal matters. Perhaps I let strange things bother me because I always get stuck in my own perspective. I haven't experianced wars. Not even any really nature disasters. Just a few storms with power black outs for a couple of weeks. Really no biggie if you compare. To me the personal disasters are the disasters. In a way I don't think it differs that much from the bigger picture. Even world war 2 was such a historical disaster because it consisted of a lot of personal ones. Every loved one taken away. That's something we can all relate to. It's only the way they went that differs really. The uncertainty of where life is heading might have been a bit overwhelming at times, but then again, there's safety in numbers right? Maybe it felt a bit better if you knew millions of other people were in the same shitsituation as you, you wouldn't feel so lonley.
It kind of reminds me of that book by Camus, The Plauge where one of the characters is concidering suicide before the town gets sick, and well, when they're all sick he finds some kind of peace of mind. Like they're all sharing his misery and that makes it easier to bear. I think that's why humanity keeps coming back and surviving these things. We do it together, we share the misery and we fight together to find a way forward how much we hurt individually.
In that context it's easier to understand the peaks of depression in a general population. When a society is doing well and things are good it's a double curse to be sad and empty. You don't have a place in that and you stick out even more. Karin Johannisson writes in her book Melakoliska rum that melancholy is a lack. Perhaps in a healthy society the lack that causes melancholy is a sense of belonging and being made abundant by the world you live in. Not saying that's the whole cause of it, and it also raises the question of what came first the melancholy or the sense of not belonging. I'm hardly qualified to answer that question! Though I think it's safe to say that there is a connection between mental unhealth and a lower position in society, shown for example as unemployment and/or lack of funds.
Will we look at the starvation in Africa the same way? A chance for the planet to get caught up and a new level to exist on. I doubt people 500 years from now will have a problem with that, no more than I have with villages being taken over by nature because all the inhabitants died in a disease I'll never risk contracting.
Perhaps it's a simple human need to have disasters. If they don't happen to us on a grander scale we create our own. Yeah, I really think so.
How does this relate to personal matters. Perhaps I let strange things bother me because I always get stuck in my own perspective. I haven't experianced wars. Not even any really nature disasters. Just a few storms with power black outs for a couple of weeks. Really no biggie if you compare. To me the personal disasters are the disasters. In a way I don't think it differs that much from the bigger picture. Even world war 2 was such a historical disaster because it consisted of a lot of personal ones. Every loved one taken away. That's something we can all relate to. It's only the way they went that differs really. The uncertainty of where life is heading might have been a bit overwhelming at times, but then again, there's safety in numbers right? Maybe it felt a bit better if you knew millions of other people were in the same shitsituation as you, you wouldn't feel so lonley.
It kind of reminds me of that book by Camus, The Plauge where one of the characters is concidering suicide before the town gets sick, and well, when they're all sick he finds some kind of peace of mind. Like they're all sharing his misery and that makes it easier to bear. I think that's why humanity keeps coming back and surviving these things. We do it together, we share the misery and we fight together to find a way forward how much we hurt individually.
In that context it's easier to understand the peaks of depression in a general population. When a society is doing well and things are good it's a double curse to be sad and empty. You don't have a place in that and you stick out even more. Karin Johannisson writes in her book Melakoliska rum that melancholy is a lack. Perhaps in a healthy society the lack that causes melancholy is a sense of belonging and being made abundant by the world you live in. Not saying that's the whole cause of it, and it also raises the question of what came first the melancholy or the sense of not belonging. I'm hardly qualified to answer that question! Though I think it's safe to say that there is a connection between mental unhealth and a lower position in society, shown for example as unemployment and/or lack of funds.
Will we look at the starvation in Africa the same way? A chance for the planet to get caught up and a new level to exist on. I doubt people 500 years from now will have a problem with that, no more than I have with villages being taken over by nature because all the inhabitants died in a disease I'll never risk contracting.
Perhaps it's a simple human need to have disasters. If they don't happen to us on a grander scale we create our own. Yeah, I really think so.
Pieces of gratitude
I love how you let me speak until I'm almost done, making me hold the final and last thoughts in, stroking my forehead with your fingertips to hold them still and let the storm settle even when the flood reaches my eyes you don't back away.
When the room of rest consists of nothing but dirty laundry, unfolded papers books I haven't finished and food I didn't eat I can still have you, you're the cool of the forest when I've been walking the blistering sun of deserts.
When the room of rest consists of nothing but dirty laundry, unfolded papers books I haven't finished and food I didn't eat I can still have you, you're the cool of the forest when I've been walking the blistering sun of deserts.
Falling patterns
No matter how much of a well put together adult I might seem to outsiders I occationally fall into the bad trap of old familiar habits. When something pushes a little too hard I close up and shut down. Lessons that have taken me a lifetime to learn are sometimes forgotten during just the course of an evening. But it's bliss! It's wonderful!
I'd say I only have a couple of more good years in me, then I have to surrender and be a more mature person, like um, actually do something with my life. I had a conversation about that last night. Not sure I exactly got any wiser, but it's amazing what comes to mind to say when you're laying down next to the warmth of another. Some minds never sieze to amaze me. And thank the nonexistant God for that!
Also, I was looking through a scrapbook I made for Snowball, quite a few years ago. I can see in the pictures just how sick he was, he looks like a ruffled baby bird on cocaine. I worked really hard for that creature, and I get paid back for it every single day. There's nothing that makes me more proud than knowing that there's a ball of fluff that loves me almost as much as I love him.
But anyway. about falling into old patterns. Some of them I'm a bit unaware of myself. But let's put it this way, I think there's a reason the Yellow wallpaper let's her get so absorbed by a wallpaper. There's something hypnotizing in looking at them for hours on end.
I'd say I only have a couple of more good years in me, then I have to surrender and be a more mature person, like um, actually do something with my life. I had a conversation about that last night. Not sure I exactly got any wiser, but it's amazing what comes to mind to say when you're laying down next to the warmth of another. Some minds never sieze to amaze me. And thank the nonexistant God for that!
Also, I was looking through a scrapbook I made for Snowball, quite a few years ago. I can see in the pictures just how sick he was, he looks like a ruffled baby bird on cocaine. I worked really hard for that creature, and I get paid back for it every single day. There's nothing that makes me more proud than knowing that there's a ball of fluff that loves me almost as much as I love him.
But anyway. about falling into old patterns. Some of them I'm a bit unaware of myself. But let's put it this way, I think there's a reason the Yellow wallpaper let's her get so absorbed by a wallpaper. There's something hypnotizing in looking at them for hours on end.
