Time, again

On my usual hunt for something to read I came across this, an article about the time passing between death and the funeral. I can honestly say it's not something I think about daily. Apperantly, in Sweden, the average time is 20.2 days. Both Norway and Denmark have an 8 day limit. How the compliance in relation to this is, I don't know. But in time of grief one day can seem long enough and the funeral is a way to say goodbye. It's not for the dead but for the living.

My intention is not to sound morbid at all, I just found it fascinating. After some googling about how it is in the US it's my understanding that it's also about a week. So why is Sweden so slow? Does this have something to do with us being so slow in general? Waiting for three months to see a specialist at the hospital, 9 months for your decision from Migrationsverket, a month to find out how you did on your exam. All wheels turn so slowly here, and it can be utterly frustrating.

The suggestion of making a law on how long one has to wait to be put in the ground is out on remittance from the government to effected instances. God only knows how long it'll take for a decision to actually be made in the matter. My guess is three years.

Sweden is a lot about rules as well, there's usually only one way to go about things. Handy in one way, frustrating in another. For instance you can't apply directly to a college, you have to do it through the Department of higher education. It's fair, everyone's judged equally, on your previous grades, and you don't get extra credit for being the child of the professor. Trouble is that there are no shortcuts, and we become mainstreamed and it's easy to fall off the wagon on the way to success. We're all expected to go in the same direction and have the same ideals. There's no room to shake around and do it your way. There's only one place to buy alcohol, and very few movie theatres that aren't connected to SF. Are all Swedes exactly the same?

I'm sure you already know the answer to that is no. We're all just as different as any other nationality is, we just appriciate our vacation time, coffee breaks and klämdagar. This is however not reflected in the face of Moder Svea. To her we're all the same.

It goes nicely with the idea of every single person's worth. We're all worth the same no matter who you are, what you've done, didn't do or cried about in the park. Sometimes I just wish that we could see the greatness in the individual. But Jante law does not permit such disgusting behaviour, so here we are waiting to be buried because by golly, one musn't think your death is important enough to make someone change their schedual.