July.

Originally posted on September 13 2003 (In a place where September was like July)

It smells like home. With no other air than the one that has touched me life smells like my skin, my shampoo, my deodorant and my detergent.

It smells like summer. Air heated up by the sun, almost as if it was once shy, resting over grass who wishes to sleep and trees not realizing how short the life of their leaves is.

It smells like memories. What has been floats by just as quickly as the toughts of the future. It always feels the same when summer ends, something new is expected. Brush strokes over my mind leave traces of me on everything I've touched.

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.

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.

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?

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.)

Finally the explaination

I can't give anything other than my words, so that is what I was trying to give. To sum up a year's worth of thoughts, in a a bite sized snack. Time has changed things, and time is about to change again. Hold on to your seats and enjoy the ride.

Reruns, part seven

Originally posted March 18 2009

Love in the morning sunlight

A morning sun of the spring shining through the cracks of the blinds, there's no stopping it once it started, I'm a bit afraid to open my eyes, a bit scared to drown and see the imperfections of my world coming rushing towards me.

The warm body breathing next to me, in such peace showing me I should just sleep, dream away the day I'm about to encounter. In blind I kiss an arm, a cheek, run my hand over a chest raising and lowering. I don't need to see, the image is etched in me, I know each outline and every detail.

It's not the first body to keep me warm, and surely won't be the last, but it can't possibly take away or make the love smaller. It's grand and full. One to only be ended by the breaths stopping, ending, ceasing. I dread that day when I have to give this creature up, when time has run it's course.

Perhaps if you've loved and lost you choose your objects more carefully. But I feel no losing. I feel no slipping away, all I feel is the fullfillment of being this close to the exention, the personification of my inner need of being perfect alive next to me. I have no fears left in this world, not at this moment, and I wish this morning'd last forever.

I wrap my arm around the cells that are my peace and pull it closer. It's simply not time yet. Not time to let go.

For now, all I can do is enjoy the electric sparks his soft fur transmits to my heart

Reruns, part six

Originally posted on March 27 2009

Speaking of my last post
(which was entitled "Creator and creations")

Someone turn my brain off so I'll stop wondering about things and coming to conclutions. Most of the time the questions are way more interesting than the answers, yet it's answers we need.

What I was wondering about this time is what you can get for free, and what free is. Is anything ever free. And the answer is, in my opinion, suprisingly, yes. But truly free is only one thing; being born. That's the one thing you can't ask for and if you don't ask for it you're not being offered a favour or gift. It just is. Nothing more or nothing less.

Don't get me wrong, I'm rather grateful for being born, and to my parents for going through the trouble of (hrm) raising me, clothing me and feeding me. But I didn't ask for it. So that's free. Being born is free.

The rest costs not all in money of course, but in time effort and hard work. But you pretty much start on either plus or minus. If you were a planned child you start on plus, because you're something your parents asked for. If you were an unwanted child, shame on your parents, you start on minus as chances are you have quietly been cursed. I hope they gave you up for adoption to live with people who can understand just how wonderful you are, or that your parents came to their senses and realised you were a blessing in disguise.

Either way, the rest is all about plus and minus and money is the shortcut to getting what you want. But money isn't free, as we all know. I was very disapointed when I was about 4 or 5 and planted my 10 kr bill allowance in a pot and expected a money tree to grow. And it didn't. I'm still not sure how it had the nerve to disapoint me in such manner! My grandfather found it all very amusing and gave me 20 kr instead. See how this works? I made an effort and got money for it. Yes I'm trying to prove a point here. Work hard and get rewarded for it. The most commonly accepted under the term "transaction" includes money. But everything is counted in plus and minus.

Then it's the emotional part, but dear god, I'm so torn about that. Relationships are a give and take sort of thing, and hopefully you end up on +/- 0 so that noone feels neglected. That's also hard work. So basically for that hard work you want it to end up on 0. The most rewarding transaction includes people and relationships.

About good deeds then. In an utopian world you do one good thing and get one good thing back. Not sure if I've lived long enough to know if the score evens out eventually. But I do try to be kind, friendly and warmhearted. Some days failing miserably. So I have to compensate the next day and be supernice to the clerk at the gasstation or pay extra attention in class or return a lost wallet. Well maybe I'd like a little extra in the good deeds account. If I fall down I'd like someone to hold me until it stops hurting. Literally and metaphorically.

The 0 returns. When I die I hope to be on 0. To not owe anyone anything and not be owed anything back. Today I believe that's where my peace of mind is. Knowing I've done all I could and everything is at a perfect level. Perhaps life is nothing else that finding that balance. Anything else is just greed.

Reruns, part five

Originally posted April 22 2009

The generation debate

Gustav Fridolin has written a book called "Blåsta - nedskärningsåren som skapade en generation" (loosly translated as "Screwed - the cutdown years that shaped a generation".)

In Sweden, don't know how it is in the rest of the western world really, the children of the 80s have been called spoiled, demaning and hard to please. This critique usually comes from the babyboomers, the ones that are recently retired or about to be retired. The ones that are slightly too young to be our grandparents and slightly too old to be our parents. (oh yeah, in Sweden we don't generally pop out kids until we're about 30, or after)

Either way. Amelia Adamo, a magazine queen here is one of the loud voices in our generation debate. I've had nothing but respect for her, up until, well about now. Her opinions have been nothing but stupid and full of self pity. Is it bitterness? Is it jealousy? I don't know.

But what I do know is that in the early 90s when Sweden had one of the biggest recessions we've ever had, actually worse than the one we're in now. Everything had to be slashed. Teachers, day cares, libraries, hospitals, buses, you name it it got to a point where you should be glad if your book in school had most of the pages. The outlook for the future was bleak. I was living in a small town, and the majority of the parents of my classmates lost their jobs, and basically we were told that we should be lucky if we ever managed to find a job, or a place to live. As the well known Swedish public housing buldings were being sold off as well.

What we learn when we're becoming aware of the world shapes us, and for the ones born about the same year as I we learned that the world doesn't need us and we have to take a step back and let our elders get the things we want. We shouldn't ask for anything, it's not ours to have.

This is where the thing Amelia Adamo critizises the most comes in, the individuality and "underground" values come in. She claims we're a selfish generation. Well, what choice is there, when you're shut out of society you have to create your own cliques. It's a human need to belong, Where can you belong when you're not allowed on the conventional arenas? She also has not so nice things to say about the children of the 80s seeing other parts of the world and refusing and grow up. See the previous sentences... It's all explained there.

Actually I feel a bit offended. I've always worked hard. I've worked like a dog just so I could get to work at all, waiting tables, substitute teaching, running my own business, telemarketer, cashier, clerk, all those jobs, except businessowner that people of Amelia Adamos generation wouldn't touch with a stick but still rely on. Who will give her her coctails when she goes out and spends her money if it's not for the masses clinging to every paycheck to pay their subleased apartments?

I'm well aware of the fact that we always have greater sympathies for our "own kind", but I can't shake the feeling of that there is no room for me, and people like me, and in just a few years the people born in the 90s will pass us by and we'll be left behind only because we were too individual to form a common voice to scream at the top of our lungs "we deserve better and we're worthy of a humane life".

Reruns, part four

Originally posted April 27 2009

Selling your virginity

The weather is so nice, everything's turning green. I had to come inside and watch TV for a bit before the cats think we're never gonna bum around under a roof again.

So, that girl that's selling her virginity is on. Everyone's speaking for her, she hasn't said a word, and I'm probably about to do the same. I'm more fascinating with the whole idea of virginity. It's the one thing we're all expected to do at one point, it's in a way a step towards becoming an adult. I suspect not everyone's first time turned out the way they wanted or expected. That's the thing about our bodies, they don't always react the way we think, there's mechanisms in us which we can't quite control. And it's that control that can be hard to give up.

As far as making someone pay for your virginity, you're only a virgin once, and that experiance should be mainly yours. You're not only selling your body, you're selling part of yourself and you're denying yourself that experiance. Fast money I suspect is the thing she's looking for, but what will the price be long term? How will she tell her daughters when they start dating to stay chaste? "No darling, you should wait until someone pays a million dollars for it"

I don't know, I don't want to be judgemental and a prude, but it just doesn't ryhme well. You should get something more than money for your virginity and for your body in general. Don't become only a virgin or a sexobject. Become a person with needs and wishes, and feel powerful enough to choose who you want to share that with. Sharing it with noone is too few, sharing it with everyone makes you a sellout. For everytime you let your body be enjoyed by someone you don't know, they walk away with a part of you you can't afford to be without.

Now sharing it with someone you love and respect and loves and respects you back is heaven. And there's no highest number of how many you can love in a lifetime.

Reruns, part three

Originally posted on May 11 2009

I hate rugs

In general rugs are so f-ing ugly. I mean seriously ugly! and also in general can't match their curtains or furniture with this ugly f-ck rug. It's a disgrace. Oh my god I'm boiling even thinking about it.

What's the purpose of rugs anyway? Do they have one? Besides from being ugly I mean. The patters are, once more in general, hideous. I can't stand it.

I've had rugs. Chosen very carefully. One was creme coloured with circular patterns. It was kinda hot. Another one was pink with white dots. It was kinda hot too. I think that a rug should be spiffy enough to hang on the wall as a piece of art. Wish more people would keep that in mind so I wouldn't have to get all torn up by the state of their homes.

I don't have any rugs in the house now. Not even in the bathroom. I don't see the point. I have floors right?

If you feel offended by this, and if you're looking at your rug thinking I'm wrong. By golly, you're ONE OF THOSE, one of those people with no taste. Not my fault. I bet you have ugly shoes too.

Reruns, part two

Originally posted July 15 2009

De-sexualisation

Having overheard a conversation about exposed bodies and sex on tv I began to wonder how that can be concidered sexual. I, personally, don't get turned on by half dressed people on posters by the busstop or a kiss on tv. I really think that the more expore to nudity we have the less of a deal it becomes. The censorship also has another side. It pushes morals on us which we don't really need. When did sex become such a big deal? Is the Victorian era still to blame? Why do men blush of guilt and women of innocence?

I suppose I'm jaded. I remember feeling almost as if sex wasn't real at all when I lived in the US. It was something you heard about, sometimes read about, but it wasn't really real. What I did had nothing incommon with the things not shown. Why is it that when the act itself is shown it's (almost) always concidered porn? People fake things for us to see all the time, why is it so bad to see actors fake sex? We don't get hurt by the fake words they speak so why would we by that?

Who is it that sets these rules of what's ok to see anyway? Do they have sex? And who are we protecting and why? When I took ethnology we went on a fieldtrip to see houses from different eras. Only in the modern ones were there spaces for privacy. Perhaps it's as simple as sex becomes a sin only when it's possible to do it in private. I find it hard to believe people did it less only because of the stable boy sleeping by the fire because the house only had four walls and no rooms. Were they imposed by the fake morals of today?

We are animals. We eat in front of people, something I would concider to be somewhat more barbaric than being touched by someone you love and that loves you back. Society's rules apply to all of us. Wether we like it or not. But the more foreplay I see the less sexual I feel. Because that's really all we see, isn't it? A constant foreplay and no climax. Maybe it's just the climax that's a problem, not the act. I don't know. But it's really starting to annoy me.

What's the difference between the postergirls and the real girls half naked on the street? That's what made the whole conversation overheard so ironic. The girls must have been, I don't know, in their teens, barely dressed at all, and they were going to complain about the buscube ads to the company for showing too much skin. Maybe it's their budding feminism speaking. But I don't see the exposed skin in public domains to have anything to do with what I do in my bed at night.

Then it's the whole whore and madonna complex. That's another chapter, really, but I think it connects to the desexualisation of the common space in all. The ones being watched are the whores and the ones watching are the madonnas. It's so easy to judge and say it's wrong. But in my opinion only an idiot would by a product because the girl is hot. (Oops, I forgot, the world is full of idiots...) If we base everything only on one aspect life gets dull and flat. But noone really wants the raw naked truth. The real sex has no place in advertisting and entertainment. Barely even in porn. It's sweat, unmatched underwear, untimed orgasms and someone always falls asleep too fast. It's not the well puttogether act it seems. I can see why that wouldn't sell as much as a jock strap. But, really, do we need the misconceptions and the mystery. Everyone gets to fuck eventually, even the poor children we're protecting from erections and premature ejactulations.

When reality tv is so hot, that's still blanked out. Hear me America? You're doing it wrong! You're not protecting anyone, if you did you wouldn't have the teenage pregnancy rate you do.

Hear me Sweden? You're doing it slightly wrong too. I don't want to have sex in cars, on picnic tables, in the café bathroom, and I don't want the filth or watching others doing it.

That's really the core isnt it, why we don't see it, they don't want us to feel excluded. We can't participate in something we're only capable of watching. Better to make us think we're in the middle of foreplay and then we go home and have real sex. Where's the paper towel?