I love YouTube

If nothing else is, this should be enough;

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Today

Today I smell like sunshine, I'm blinded by the heat and the birds will need a speech therapist if they keep this up. With all that, this comes to mind



Don't worry, love, I get the irony. Especially as irony is the love of my life.

The pen is mighter than the sword - an example.

Hello. I am writing this, but not using a pen. Tip tap on keys and instant results in perfectly shaped letters in an order Gutenberg could only have hoped for. Zoom, zoom. Either way, I'll tell you about the first time I heard the expression of that the pen is mighter than the sword. I was just a child and totally misunderstood it. I looked at my pen and noting how small it must be compared to a sword. How could it be mighter than hard clinging steel? Needless to say someone kindly explained it to me to mean that words can be more powerful than violence. Thank you! This post will have several layers to it, I actually considered putting a label on it to be Watch out for subtext, but I figured that clearly signal for subtext would give the ironic result of there not really being any subtext. Sidenote. Always with the sidenotes.

Now, this expression is actually kind of, sort of in a way the perfect example of that we don't always say what we mean and that language isn't as logical as we'd like it to be (what on earth was that flying past my window I wonder if it'll rain today I really wish it'd rain and scare everyone inside but it'd be sad for those getting married today why's today supposed to be so romantic anyway funny how I pick the words I know how to spell like back in the day where I only used really short words because I was afraid of misspelling still kind of am I suppose yeah those bushes are really growing wild I need to do something about that it'll be later though I have to finish what I started here why am I not writing that guy on tv really needs a haircut not that longer hair is bad but that just looks uncomfortable I have to add conditioner to the shoppinglist by the way I forgot last time good God I hate this commercial) We don't actually mean that that little pen can beat a sword, what we mean is that worlds will live on and can argue better. Just as you say you're starving when you have skipped lunch.

Language is all about uncertainties, and we're reminded of it often. All those vague expressions we toss out there "I'll be there in a little bit", "that's beautiful", "it's late". They don't really mean anything do they, but at the same time they mean pretty much everything. If you have at one point put your heart in the hands of someone else you have also let yourself succumb to it. An often tossed around phase is "I love you", but we never really know what others mean by love. It's impossible to feel what others feel. So maybe it'd be more honest to say "I feel something for you that I personally identify as love." The more generic the phrase the more we're expected to take it at face value and expected to know what it means.

Over time I've also learned that not everyone has the same perception of words at all. Not all weigh them back and forth to at least attempt to find the perfect mix, the same tint to match the blue moods, the red and the green. What do you mean when you say "It's green"?

Another level of it is, just that, what I said in the beginning. We don't really use pens anymore to write something and when's the last time you saw someone walking around with a sword. Those expressions remain while the world changes. It must be impossible to learn it all, all those things we intend to say when we say everything else.

Ha.

Horton hears a who

Love this movie. Love some of the things said.

Katie: In my world everyone is a pony, and they all eat rainbows, and poop butterflies.

Morton: Horton, the kangaroo has sent Vlad!
Horton: Vlad? Vlad, Vlad... I know two Vlads. There's the bad Vlad... And then there's bunny Vlad, the one that makes cookies!
Morton: ...Yeah, Horton, she's sending you a bunny with cookies. I think it's safe to say it's the bad Vlad.
Horton: Yeah, good call.

Horton: [thanking people] And Morton, for being the only one who stood by me. Well not right by me; he hid in the bushes sending me good thoughts. He's small.
Morton: Dude, you are a warrior poet.

Narrator: [epilogue] And so, all ended well for both Horton and Who's, and for all in the jungle, even kangaroos. So let that be a lesson to one and to all; a person is a person, no matter how small

View of a woman

I'm a big believer that every thought of the present has been thought in the past, sometimes it just takes time to develop the ideas and make them mainstream. A very easy example of this is how women are viewed. I'm a bit conflicted, all great philosophers, from Aristotele, Plato, Darwin and Martin Luther all thought that women weren't quite people at all. How did that idea even come about? Western history is written by straight, white males from higher classes. We know that much and there's really no point in discussing the structures behind it, even if it'd be a giving discussion indeed.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around the thinking. Did they think a dog could give birth to a cat? Or a lion to a donkey? Could a woman, if not human, give birth to a human that later turned into a man? If a woman was an animal what does that make the man that desires her? Maybe children weren't human either, perhaps one became a person only when he became physically a man. But still, how did that come about? Magic? Also, did the men love women? Or did they love them in the way I love my cats? That's kind of strange too, I have no lustful feelings for them at all.

It's fairly easy to point out how the opinions were, but those opinions must have been part of a larger system of thoughts. You can't know anything without context. We need context to have things make sense. And this part I simply don't understand.

Or maybe, love is a modern feeling. But I doubt that too, Sappho wrote about love. But she was a woman after all. Was the idea that women are capable of feelings of love and men of lust? Did noone love their women?

Or maybe we're just kidding ourselves, perhaps there is no love at all. Maybe we look for other things. Maybe a relationship is a physical convinience, as dull as that sounds. Someone to feed and be fed by, to please and be pleased by. You catch my drift, I'm sure. Perhaps love is just the extention of ourselves. I really don't think so, although the idea of a woman not being a person does lead to a series of other questions.

I'm not going to get all feminist here. There's no point at all. Only when we no longer have a use for the word feminist will this be an equal world, and I doubt that'll ever happen

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

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

Potential space

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.

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!

Whose misery can we laugh at?

Sometimes the only option we have is to laugh at things no matter how tragic they 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

The humanist

"Meaning is an inescapable notion because it is not something simple or simply determined. It is simultaneously an experience of a subject and a property of a text. It is both what we understand and what in the text we try to understand. Arguments about meaning are always possible, and in that sense meaning is undecided, always to be decided, subject to decisions which are never irrevocable. If we must adopt some overall principle or formula, we might say that meaning is determined by context, since context includes rules of language, the situation of the author and the reader, and anything else that might conceivably be relevant. But if we say that meaning is context-bound, then we must add that context is boundless: there is no determining in advance what might count as relevant, what enlarging of context might be able to shift what we regard as the meaning of a text. Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless."

I think the previous quote is actually something to live by. We can apply it to all areas of life. Especially in conflict, and by conflict I don't mean arguments you have with your neighbour about your morning paper that always seems to vanish, I also mean the conflicts you have with yourself as in how to set your behaviour for a particular situation. Even though the quote comes from a literary theory textbook, I must widen what I believe that literature is. I won't go into detail as to what literature actually is, it it's not as straight forward as the general idea might have you thinking. So, if I in this context mean literature as something created by the human mind my interpretation might seem a bit more adequate.

What is the meaning of the things we say, do and think and how can we put that into perspective - how do we put ourselves into a context in which we can exist? Or, who are we, depending on the same?

Personally, I have a vauge idea of how I want to be perceived, even though at times it seems hard to mask those bits of me that don't fit into that picture. I'm hardly as mysterious as I seem to come off, I'm hardly mysterious at all! In the perfect context I'm in a surrounding with people matching my views and values, and in the presence of beauty, physically, a constant autumn with cats and deep windows. But there is no such perfect place. People will be who they are and I'm not taken into concideration, nor should I be. So why is it that I try to take others into concideration? The most loving way I can interpret that is that I am my very own Tintomara. I'm a statue that changes apperance depending on the angle from which you view her. The statue itself doesn't change, it's only so many different things depending on how you look at it.

This could possibly be the explaination as to why I feel exhausted after being around people, I read too much into everything, like a true humanist. A humanist is never quite satisfied, a humanist will always ask "Why is that?" and I will continue to do so, for the good of my own sanity. I'll always have more questions than answers, and I'm satisfied, to an extent, with that. There's no judgement of those with a different view of life even if I might as myself "Why do they have a different view of life?" and then I'll ponder that and come to absolutley no conclusion other than a list and five philosophical essays as to why it could possibly be so.

So, when I take a little too long to say Hello when greeted, don't get discouraged, I'm simply asking myself "Why is your head tilted in such a way?" like the true humanist I am.

The hidden track

Remember, back in the day when we bought CDs and sometimes they had hidden tracks which you only found when you left the album playing without paying proper attention so that it ended without you really noticing and enjoyed the silence. Then out of the blue there were new sounds and you weren't quite sure of where it came from. I'm assuming you do.

What if life has a hidden track and we'll only find it if we stop paying attention and that hidden track is the best song you've ever heard, and by that I mean the best place and time of your life. I hope so. I'd put it on repeat and stay in it forever.

Unfortunatly there is no freezespray of reality. You can't spray something on your life and make it stay the same until you wash it the way you do with hairspray. It would be handy sometimes though. Someone should invent it. It should also work on those moments where you're speechless, and then put them in a folder somewhere so that you can go back when you have that snassy reply. Then you can let the scenario disappear into a past and a memory of how quick of the mind you are.

Or, what if life was handed out to us on the day we were born with all our days on little cards so we could freely arrange them as we pleased, and trade cards with others if we weren't happy with the ones we got, or maybe you could just play the same card over and over. It'd be comforting to know how many cards one had though, and knowing that this too shall pass.

But as there are no such cards I'm still waiting for my hidden track so that I can freeze time.

Wordchoke

I rarely have the problem of not having anything to say, instead, I often find myself stumbling over words because so many of them want to come out at once and they end up in a mess and without any sense. This happens when I take notes as well. I want to take notes of singificance, but they get twirled into my own ideas and the questions raised. Even though I don't concidider "I feel" a point in an argument I'm sure there are times where I want to resort to it. Not because I'm actually out of arguments, but because the whole concept is pissing me off and I feel unheard and belittled. See, there I went! But there has to be something behind that. Why do certain opinions raise feelings and others don't?

I can feel strongly for some things, but they basically boil down to one thing - injustice. The hate flares up in me and I become spiteful and pitiful. I can apply this to a lot of areas, but I have the core opinion that things should be somewhat fair and if we all tried to make things a bit more even the world would be a better place. What we concider right and wrong isn't as much our opinion as we'd like to think, it often has more to do with social structures and the ever feared tradition. I might not hate violence and war with such a passion had I ever faced it and felt my survival depended on my ability to defend myself. It's fairly easy being a pacifist in Sweden. There's so much pride and identity involved in military services and I do understand it's not as easy as saying "Lay down your weapons and embrace" as it's all part of a bigger system.

But isn't it true, at some level at least, that if no country had an army it would be harder to justify the building of one? If we were to just stop there'd naturally be economic consequences as those in the business of strategically killing others for their own benefit would be unemployed, but maybe a better world would emerge. I've been called naive, and yes I can see the point, but giving up the security blanket or violence would also include a reevaluation of possessions, freedom of belief and speech.

As I stated before I understand that what be believe is a product of factors surrounding us at the point in time where we formed our opinions, so what I'd like to happen is for those factors to be positive. I'm not naive enough (sorry) to think this would happen overnight, nor am I proclaiming a complete union of the world, what I'm simply asking for is an open mind and a basic respect for others.

We can't undo the mistakes of the past generations so it'd be a hard task to let go of a lot of the anger, but little by little as the injustices fade into a historic past we could begin to bridge the gaps. People should be about the same no matter where they are, we all have the basic needs, as explained by Abraham Maslow and that stairthing. Though, I don't agree completely (do I ever) as I wouldn't put safety as being more basic than love and belonging. But then again, that might be easy for me to say. Perhaps I should conduct a survey among homeless people and ask them what they'd rather want, a place to live or to be loved.

But it is in the second step we run into problems, especially if it clatches with the very top of beliefs, and we go completely off track if we forget the part of respect. I personally think that respect should be included in love. We can't love everyone, but we should strive to respect all. It's hard to deliberatly injure someone you respect. Respect needs to be earned however, and part of that is taking responsibility, so as long as we try to shift blame there can be no proper respect. Take reponsibility for your own actions and apologize when and apology is needed and your counterpart won't feel as unheard and belittled and can grow into a confident and secure person/nation/area/group, without the need to hurt someone physically.

Perhaps I'm just kidding myself. Maybe the human race doesn't deserve what's best for them and maybe we don't really want to listen to be others to be heard ourselves, at the same time as we have two ears and only one mouth. "I hear what you're saying, but I don't agree and I have no intrest in discussing it any further".

An ever shifting world

There's a running campain here for a travel agency with the stereotypical slogan of "Life isn't the days that pass but the moments we remember". Of course they're suggesting that every moment spent with what they're selling is worth remembering. Sounds fair I suppose. But it's not true! I'll leave their prepackaged non-thinking get skincancer on a beach type holidays to the side.

Life is those moments we don't remember. Stating otherwise would be saying that the lightbulb is the room, as it brings light to the space and makes it visible. But staring at the lighbulb itself just makes your eyes hurt. It's all the same idea as wanting something is usually a lot more satisfying than actually having it.

It comes with being human to be limited, we can't experiance everything there is at once so our world is very small in comparison to how big the world is in all



Kind of like this, I suppose. You're the center of your own world and you're surrounded by familiarity and in that context it's easy to overestimate just how important we are. Please misunderstand me correctly, of course you're important, and of course you matter, but you matter mainly to yourself, just like I matter mainly to myself. If I'm taken out of this place it will continue without me. It's a humbling realization. Some get it early on, some later, and it seems that some never quite get it.

Occationally I wish I was one of those people who seemingly can only see the world from their own perspective, a smaller piece of the world must, after all, be easier to overlook and control. But with that comes that it's so much easier to rumble. A storm in a waterglass. Yes, the storm in the waterglass analogy works pretty good. Every small disturbance becomes a big deal. I'm not saying my world is bigger than anyone elses, I'm just stating that I've worked rather hard on being able to understand the worlds of others, and I'm growing less and less patient with those who can't shift perspective.

It has nothing to do with intelligence, it has oh so much more to do with understanding. I'm quite willing to start marking words. Sometimes it's enough to understand that there's a difference than understanding what the difference consists of.

We only have the luxury of worrying about what to wear when we're wealthy enough to own more than one garment.

Change your life

When it comes to make over shows, no matter if it has to do with your finances, your looks your home or any other bad habit you might have the key is to have a bad starting product or else it won't get any effect when it's changed.

Is this becoming an issue? Do people think that it's all good, I'll make over my life later. I don't know. But I'm beginning to think so. Where else would all these people on tv come from? I never even knew people could collect (literally!) 10 tons of garbage in their house and maybe not that much excess weight, but still. It scares me a bit.

Take this reasoning and apply it to the current world economy. Seems the same thinking is behind it. "We all know this is going down the crapper, but we'll fix it later". If this is called fixing it, I don't think so.

But the truth is that it's easier to blitz through your house for 6 hours every three months or so than it is to clean a little bit every day. The problem is to do those things every day, we crash diet instead of eating healthy every day. We chop all our hair off because we haven't used conditioner.

Perhaps it's becoming a need to see that utter change, we're not happy with the flow of every day life anymore. I know myself well enough to admit I do it too. I won't tell you which things I fail to do, and then try to cover up by looking for easy fixes.

Also it has to do with responsibility. Always looking for something or someone to blame for your problems. An easy way to get out of responsibility is to pay someone else to do it for you. But the truth is we're all responsible for ourselves and our own actions and what our life boils down to. Don't make yourself a victim, make yourself satisfied.

Quote of the day

Source will remain unnamed: "She likes funny guys with a sense of humor."

Yep. I like edible foods by the way.

You set yourself up for disappointment

High hopes is the work of the devil. Perhaps it's better if we never expect anything good, nice, beautiful and sweet, but instead are ready for the worst things at all times. It seems rather tedious to me, but at least that way one never gets disappointed.

Similar values are very important in any kind of relationship, professional or personal. It gives us an understand of what motivates others and it makes it easier to see where they're coming from and easier to follow their moods and actions. But what if you find you rarely share these values?

As I've said plenty of times I pride myself on my ability to read people and see what makes them tick or tock. But the downside is that I expect others to do the same. To put it plain and simple - they don't.

It's a shame when the world becomes so small that you can never take a bigger perspective and you fail to see all possible angles, seems some confuse being able to see it differently means to change your mind. It doesn't. It simply means you're aware of other possibilities. If life consisted of only one angle we wouldn't get very far.

But it's also a double edged sword. Knowing that your angle is just as valuable as anyone else’s might make you a bit flimsy to others, they can't seem to grasp you. And, yes, they do have a tendency to confuse flexibility with weakness. Please don't make that mistake.

What snaps first when bent, the twig or the rubber band?

E-mail

Question via email: "Why are you posting random rubbish at the speed of light on your blog this morning?"

Answer via blogpost: "Why are you clicking update at the speed of light on my blog this morning?"

Additional comment: "Don't you hate when someone answers a question with a question?"

Just because I remember it so fondly

No clips have decent sounds. Doesn't matter. It was still nice. No it wasn't. It was better than nice.

From Crave by Sarah Kane

And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand and go for a meal and not mind when you eat my food and meet you at Rudy's and talk about the day and type your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and give you tapes you don't listen to and watch great films and watch terrible films and complain about the radio and take pictures of you when you're sleeping and get up to fetch you coffee and bagels and Danish and go to Florent and drink coffee at midnight and have you steal my cigarettes and never be able to find a match and tell you about the the programme I saw the night before and take you to the eye hospital and not laugh at your jokes and want you in the morning but let you sleep for a while and kiss your back and stroke your skin and tell you how much I love your hair your eyes your lips your neck your breasts your arse your

and sit on the steps smoking till your neighbour comes home and sit on the steps smoking till you come home and worry when you're late and be amazed when you're early and give you sunflowers and go to your party and dance till I'm black and be sorry when I'm wrong and happy when you forgive me and look at your photos and wish I'd known you forever and hear your voice in my ear and feel your skin on my skin and get scared when you're angry and your eye has gone red and the other eye blue and your hair to the left and your face oriental and tell you you're gorgeous and hug you when you're anxious and hold you when you hurt and want you when I smell you and offend you when I touch you and whimper when I'm next to you and whimper when I'm not and dribble on your breast and smother you in the night and get cold when you take the blanket and hot when you don't and melt when you smile and dissolve when you laugh and not understand why you think I'm rejecting you when I'm not rejecting you and wonder how you could think I'd ever reject you and wonder who you are but accept you anyway and tell you about the tree angel enchanted forest boy who flew across the ocean because he loved you and write poems for you and wonder why you don't believe me and have a feeling so deep I can't find words for it and want to buy you a kitten I'd get jealous of because it would get more attention than me and keep you in bed when you have to go and cry like a baby when you finally do and get rid of the roaches and buy you presents you don't want and take them away again and ask you to marry me and you say no again but keep on asking because though you think I don't mean it I do always have from the first time I asked you and wander the city thinking it's empty without you and want want you want and think I'm losing myself but know I'm safe with you and tell you the worst of me and try to give you the best of me because you don't deserve any less and answer your questions when I'd rather not and tell you the truth when I really dont' want to and try to be honest because I know you prefer it and think it's all over but hang on in for just ten more minutes before you throw me out of your life and forget who I am and try to get closer to you because it's a beautiful learning to know you and well worth the effort and speak German to you badly and Hebrew to you worse and make love with you at three in the morning and somehow somehow somehow communicate some of the overwhelming undying overpowering unconditional all-encompassing heart-enriching mind-expanding on-going never-ending love I have for you.

The secrets we keep

I think secrets add depth to a person, we don't need to know everything. And the thing also is that our personalities aren't static, we change a little bit with the events we're part of and the experiences we gather.

But there are several layers to this (just like with everything else). Sharing a secret with someone creates a bond. Normal people don't want to break trusts, at least not if they care for the person who shared the secret with them.

This bond also creates issues. Too many secrets shared in a too tight of a relationship also creates a shut door syndrome. You feel trapped and limited. You might even feel as if you're betraying someone who doesn't share the same secrets, or you betray the person you share them with. Either way you're pretty much fucked.

It might feel good to get something off your chest. But what are the drawbacks? You become dependent on someone to protect the things you protect yourself. Sometimes we should ask ourselves what motivates us to share this particular piece with this particular person. Is it a way to come closer or is it just to ease yourself.

If you're telling me a secret to ease your own mind. Please don't. If you just want my views on something that's been on your mind, please tell me. I don't talk next to my mouth, but don't ask me to carry your burdens or protect you from yourself

The usual fragile summer nostalgia (rerun)

It's that time a year when everything slows down, after a high pitched peak of speeded energy. Schools are out soon and I tend to get a bit nostaligic. The summer break was an endless stretch of road in a barren country. I worked during summers, and travelled. I didn't have any contact with my classmates and when we came back in fall I always felt further away from them than I did when we left.

That feeling kind of comes back, especially this year when the semester's coming to an end. It's all been so fast! It feels like it's only been a couple of weeks since it was winter. I guess that's what happens when I get trapped in one of my bubbles, I don't tend to see what's been going on until something pokes it and makes it explode, then I stand naked to the world with nothing to protect my soul. Don't get me wrong, it's not that bad of a feeling, I just feel a bit exposed. The past six summers have been a chaotic mess of stress and long hours. Well, technically most of my summers have been like that for the past twelve years, and now this...I don't have to struggle to support myself, i can do as I please, well with some reservations.

But it's still there, that sense of a chapter ending, and even though most parts of it have been nice and made be grow it's a bit, not sad, but, well maybe, yeah, it is a bit sad. I'll miss it. I'll miss this year. Perhaps the very fact that I'm grieving a bit means it was good. What I just don't understand is why all good things always end. The bad bits have a tendency to stick around longer don't they?

I see myself as the girl I was with the end of the school year, when we got dressed up and listened to speeches and sang, and someone'd talk about all the possibilities of life, and it was so hard to picture it then, to make it realistic. It still is. Always caught in limbo... I loved the dress I wore when first grade was over, I still have it actually, although it doesn't fit all that well.

It's hard to let go of the scheduled times, the fact that someone tells you what to do and what you're supposed to accomplish, to set your own goals is oh so much harder. The mere goal of "enjoy yourself and be happy doing so" isn't sufficient enough, but I'm going to try. I'm going to try to not worry about what everyone else is doing, and stop comparing myself to others and be satisfied with myself as I am, because after all, I am pretty amazing in myself.

(I think you might have to be Swedish to fully understand the Swedish summer obsession.)

Reasons to cry

Baby animals
Big animals
Diamonds
Mountains
Dragons
Tales and stories
Having no soul
You not having a soul
Trying and failing
Falling rocks
Lack of control
Lack of caffine
Lack of nictotine
Bad music
Good music
Poets who can't write
Cake batter
Broken glass
Broken cookies
Broken hearts
My broken heart
Your broken heart
Their broken hearts
The sun shining brightly
The clouds covering the sun
The sun recovering the clouds
Body odor
Bad manners
Templets
When the shuffle button doesn't work
When the repeat button doesn't work
Lack of sleep
Lack of nutritions
Busy streets
Quiet streets
When the leaves turn yellow
Swinging in the park
Cats playing
Dogs barking
Butterflies crashing
Buildings being demolished
Bowls
Glasses
Drinks
Buffétables
A kiss not being returned
Not having a place to go
Being expected
Being unexpected
Expecting
Spoons
Tarts
Concrete
Russian literature
Cities
Cities like Paris
Like London
Like Moscow
Like New York
Like Tokyo
Like Copenhagen
Being poked in the eye
Losing
Winning
Paying the devil
Being the devil
Selling the angels
Being the angel
Being sellout
Being a rebel
Commercial breaks
Buying what's announced
Buying into you
Sweaty palms
Not knowing
Knowing too much
Dancing
Twirling
Trumpets
Guitars
Stained tables
Rugs
Ugly children
Ugly adults
Ugly ugly me
Ugly ugly ugly you
The word ugly
Not having anything to do
Having too much to do
Drummers
Stars
The last present under the tree
Talking on the phone
My empty glass
Your empty mind
School cafeterias
Bad hairdays
That sound I make when I'm almost asleep

Question of the day

Now, if we have to involve reality can we not do so in an unrealistic way?

Vänner på hyllor

Som barn är det enkelt att svara på frågan om vem du är. En hel introduktion till någons liv som ett ifyllande av mina vänner bok; favoritfärg, favoritdjur, favoritdjur och favoritlek.

Allt eftersom tiden flyter förbi blir vi inte vara fysiskt större, utan även mentalt. Förhoppningsvis blir det mentala spelfältet tusenfalt större än det fysiska. Så vad händer när frågorna byts ut mot sociala indikationer av status och framgång? De flyttas till hur tiden används och i vilkas sällskap, vad jobbar du med, är du med någon, Åh?, vad ska ni göra på semestern? Allt paketerat behändigt och lättförståeligt. Precis som sidor i en vänbok i spretig nyfunnen handstil.

Lika bräcklig kan vår identitet och individualism vara, helt enkelt för att frågorna ställs och vi ställer dem själva. Som de sociala varelser vi är lär vi oss snabbt hur man svarar på dem för att kunna hitta andra samtalsämnen, nu när vi är identifierade.

Men det finns ett annat sätt. För att underlätta resonemanget, låt oss föreställa oss ett hem med inbjudna gäster. Ett trevligt hem, ett sådant vi känner igen som efterbilden eller slutsekvenserna i Simon och Thomas. Lite extravagant smakfullt. Människorna i samma stil, trendigt eleganta. Som en evig inredningsdetalj, ibland ditplacerad med flit för att den ger en distinkt känsla av intellekt. En passande image för ett hem som följer strömmen och läser tidningens kultursidor som ett måste inte och av genuint intresse. Sedan, den andra varianten, där den är ett nödvändigt ting i samma anda som att kläder genererar garderober. Bokhyllan.

Påkalla igen minnet av vänboken, hur du innan du skrev dina svar läste vad de andra hade skrivit, på samma vis som du hindrar dina ord om du fått svaret ”vi har precis flyttat isär” när du på ett flyktigt vis frågat om familjeförhållanden och inte ger ditt inövade tal om kärlekens oövervinnerliga kraft. Redan när du fattade pennan för att markera häst visste du hur du skulle bli sedd av de som varit före dig. Inte alltid så att hästar var ditt favoritdjur, men du orkade inte riktigt förklara att du egentligen föredrog grisar.

Så, bokhyllan, ståendes i allas vardagsrum med uppradade ryggar. Vissa lästa, men precis som tystnad också är svar på en fråga säger de olästa titlarna också något om innehavaren. En levande identitet, ett bibliotek av saker som har tänkts och passerat. Är det pocketböcker eller läderbundna klassiker? Är det kokböcker eller Nationalencyklopedins alla band? Kanske hittar du, när du drar ut ett par av dem lite vid sand som den egentliga souveniren från en lat semester långt härifrån.
Har du några idoler? Blädder, blädder i vänboken, vilka idoler hade du, vilka kända namn kunde du med gott samvete säga att du delade din beundran för?

I det där hemmet så är inte allt valt med precision. Elementen borde kanske ha bytts ut för några år sedan, fönstret på långväggen kunde gott ha varit lite mer till höger, det skulle se så mycket bättre ut. Visserligen går det att justera till en viss gräns, större gardiner för att dölja elementen, soffan placerad lite snett för att få plats. Men böckerna – de är valda. Som skivorna där i skänken bredvid. De flesta är gamla nu, som de vänner som bjudits in till hemmet. Alla laddar väl ner sin musik nu för tiden. I goda vänners lag skrattas det en del åt minnen från den där sandsemestern och musiken som hördes då. Samma ljud om och om igen på radion.
Själva poängen är att det är lätt att identifiera, på samma vis som vi på en enkelt vis önskar identifiera dem omkring oss, med de enkla frågorna, med de enkla svaren. Böckerna passar inte in. Du kanske inte fick en gris, men du har i alla fall möjlighet att välja vilka böcker som ska stå i din bokhylla. Eller? Månne tar det längre tid att hitta en bok och ställa den rakt och i någon slags ordning beblandad med de andra än det gör att hitta en låt i otaliga versioner på YouTube, men är det egentligen någon skillnad i tillämpningen? ”Du bara måste höra den här!”, ”Du bara måste läsa den här!”. Hur många böcker äger du som du bara måste läsa på någon annans rekommendation, som du fått i present för den passar dig så väl? Det måste väl vännerna som besöker hemmet veta, de vet ju allt om dig, vad du jobbar med, vem du är med och Åh?, vad ni ska göra på semestern.

Att äga samma saker i olika exemplar skapar en känsla av samhörighet, en ytlig sådan. Du har likadan Billybokhylla som jag har, vi måste ha så mycket gemensamt! Nämen titta, samma reproducerade bild av Munchs Skriet. Vi delar säkert vedermödor och livssyn, annars skulle du haft en gul orkidé medan jag har en rosa.

Jag föreslår helt sonika att vi gör så här när vi är i ett hem eller har ett hem och placerar potentiella vänner där tillsammans med oss själva att vi tar fram en illa sliten idé om en vänbok och börjar från början. Men inifrån, som när vi var barn och ställer samma frågor och väntar på längre svar, stående framför bokhyllan. Ta fram en i taget, vänd och vrid. ”Har du läst den, varifrån kommer den, varför står den här, där alla kan se den och inte nedpackad i en kartong?”. Som när din vän klädd i sval elegans håller upp Svindlande höjder och du ler åt andra minnen än de boken i sig håller. Låt orden snubbla förbi vem som satt i receptionen förra tisdagen och ge er hän i en virvlande fantasi om längtan och saknad. Om ni måste blanda in verkligheten så gör det med finess, känn igen dem genom gestalter ni läst om. Vi använder fraserna redan nu. Moment 22, att vara fast i en mardröm av Kafka, kvinnosyn som förordet till Giftas. Böckerna är skapade med samma mänsklighet som vi lever, så istället för att kyligt gå förbi dem på väg till den sneda soffan, stanna och fråga.

Inte sagt att du måste pressa dig igenom Krig och fred innan nästa middagsbjudning, men ge dig själv en chans att inte bläddra tillbaka och se vilka idoler du borde ha utan inspirera med din entusiasm över den nyupptäckta värld. Hur du än vänder och vrider på det så blir det din värld. Där filmen levs i samma takt oavsett vem som ser den, så är boken, hur generisk hyllan den står på än är en individuell upplevelse i en individuell takt. Och vad skulle vi prata om ifall alla tyckte likadant och tänkte på samma sak?

Vilket var det andra sättet, om man inte alls önskade fråga? Jo, se till att ha läst allt som finns i den där bokhyllan, studera sedan vederbörandes exemplar noga så vet du nog vad denna tycker om det mesta. En helt annan sorts vänskapsböcker

Kleptomania

I stole some words
knowing they'd get stolen
That way
you're the theif, not I

Colouring books

One morning I stood by
your bed and saw
how you stabbed my
face in the pillow

Confessional sacrifice

Forgive me Father for I have sinned
My thoughts have been impure
and my body disobedient
I blame you.

I stormens öga var jag

stiltje med vilje.

Water reflection

In a pool the world smells like chlorine.

Me ♥ Them

Milomess

Knitshines

Knitsniff

Miloking

Not quite awake

Thank you.

It might seem antisocial to stare at a screen. But it's not. Not in the same way it is to put earbuds in and drown out the world (If anyone feels like buying me those ladybug earbuds, concider this your invitation to do so.) We're just getting more used to what the screen has to offer. I might even say that for once things are catching up with me as I've been doing it for a long time. In my teens I was begged to go offline, so I don't lose touch with reality. What reality? So I can spend time with my real friends. What real friends? Even if I'm worlds apart from some of them I still concider them my friends. What's the reasoning, if you're more than X amount of miles apart you can't be friends? Either way, that's not really worth discussing. Your friends are the ones you hold close to heart and enjoy talking to.

I'd just like to take a moment to raise a toast to the Internet today, for bringing me so many enjoyable things. I'll nod to Spotify especially and I will exemplify what brought this to mind this morning. I was talking to a friend about cats. Yes cats. I needed to illustrate a toy, so I simply used my phone to make a video, uploaded said video to YouTube and give my friend the link through an instant messenger program. All within 5 minutes of having started a textual conversation about it.

So at all those times you worry about the development into something superficial, where looks matter more than ever, keep in mind there is a place where you don't have much other than words. An occational picture, a few links, a couple of lols and being told how great you are even when you're wearing your reading glasses and unmatched socks. You're obviously there already if you're reading this.

All the downsides of the Internet are here. That's true, but it doesn't differ too much from that real world I was supposed to spend more time in as a teenager. People are people no matter where they go. There will be mean ones, shallow ones, stupid ones, pitiful ones. I suppose the difference is that you can't really tell your semi-bully of a coworker s/he's being a troll. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; The sky is full of stars, your bed is full of roses and the Internet's full of troll. Take care of yourself and enjoy it.

Time and status

Time and status seem to go hand in hand. The little path isn’t as straight forward as it appears to be at first glance however. It’s status to have lots of time to do exciting things like, I don’t know, rock climbing and overnight trips to Paris. The irony in that is that you have to work a lot in order to be able to afford that. If you don’t work as much surely you have more time on your hands, but you can’t do the extraordinary things. That example is however a tad extreme.

If you’re more down to earth and looking at it, you can boil it down to having time to spend with your kids/partner/hairdresser/that gay guy down the street but the things that enables you to have that extra hour a day is low status. Look at it. It’s high status to make your own slow cooked meal with special ingredients from twelve different very specialized stores and low status to eat take out. It doesn’t even have to have anything with the nutritional facts to do. You can order a salad from the pizzeria and make greasy whatevers at home. It’s the fact that you have time to go to those little tiny stores with clerks wearing green and white aprons helping you pick the perfect spice rather than calling a pizzeria on your way home from work.

It’s not high status to bum around, to watch bad movies on TV, to nap your Sunday away. It is high status to go out with your friends and pay 8 times the price for your drinks just because someone has to pay rent, salaries and insurance for a business. It’s high status to have weekend plans that are exciting to hear about on Friday and entertaining to hear the stories of on Monday. It’s simply status to fill that time you have with statusesque things.

There’s even status in bread! Easy to make things are low status, like scones and muffins. Sour dough bread and ratafias are high status. So basically, if you spend your time doing all these high status things you will have no time left to just chill. Maybe I should have included floral arrangements here. They can be complicated too. It’s kind of nice to just pick a tulip of daffodil from your not so well kept garden too. The flowers all die at the same rate anyway, don’t they? And so do we. I say eat falukorv and powdered mashed potatoes and tell stories of mushrooms instead of wearing high heels in the kitchen. Oh, how low status of me to say that. I don’t mind. I kind of like my garden messy too where it looks as if the flowers are sprung through the entwined souls of last years batch.

Summersummersommercomekomhere

It's a beautiful day, said like we all know exactly what beautiful is. I say it's that time a year when you can't hope for a last brush of winter to save you from submitting to the sun. Every year I go through the same process of not wanting it. Summer is the end. It's the wet stain on the sheet and the last breath before sleep. It's the eggclock reminding you dinner's burnt. It's the exploding tires on the interstate. It's the last shake of the ketchup bottle.

It's a vacuum of nothingness. Long bright days that all sink into each other where nothing happens and nothing's exciting. For it's supposed to be exciting in it's mere existance. Throwing a party with the best of guests but lacking a script or a room to be in. Standing under the open sky holding empty glasses, summer's supposed to fill them all you know. Fill us all with joy and misplaced understanding of the greatness of life.

But what happens to those of us who won't succumb to the beast of a queen summer is? We'll hide behind giant hats and sunglasses and pout with teapots beneath the great shade of oaktrees owned by the crown. Leaving all that not aside, it's always the same where I patiently wait for those sun addicts to have their time, I soak my toes in lukewarm lakewaters and wait. Wait. Wait. Wait for September where life can begin anew. Without all the distractions of clothes barely worn and memories soiled by disapointments.