Second chances

A quick session with google teaches me that "Instant success" provides me with 8,240,000 results while as "Instant failure" gives me 6,370,000 results. That must by logic mean that instant success is more common that instant failure. Not really. It doesn't give away how many times something else has been tried without the wanted result. Simple example. Ads for any kind of weightloss related item such as drugs, diets or excerise. We're often fed the line of "I had tried every diet, from eating cardboard to drinking gasoline, but with this I have insant results". I wouldn't call it instant if you had tried something similar, but it's the idea of succeeding at something right away that holds a certain lure. The fact that there is an answer out there that will take the worry out, and sometimes even the hard work. But the question remains, can we have success without failing?

Yes, of course we can, but they're not failures until after the fact. Before you start the game you're still winning, it's not until it's over that you have lost. But then you can play again, and maybe that time you will win. For myself I can't say I've done anything that didn't take a few attempts. Sure, I've had success in details, but in the bigger picture I've always failed. I choose not to see them as failures, but only finding a way that didn't work. A trail and error kind of thing. It's how I generally get by. Like the one in a relationship is successful at it, but not counting the amount of exes, they just didn't work out. Simple.

There's really nothing in life that doesn't offer second chances. Only death. You can't change the way you die, because you are after all dead and then you don't have anything to do with life anyway. This also goes with making mistakes, obviously. They're never mistakes until after the fact, when you have to face the consequences (59,400,000 results), the fallout of what you've done. But they're fixable too, everything's fixable. When it comes to people that's only half true, you can't go back in time and start things over, same with job interviews, if you didn't get the job you just didn't get it. Does it mean it's a waste of time to try and risk failure, risk making a mistake? No. Everything you do builds on to who you are, it makes you even greater than you were before. So the bigger mistake would have been to not try at all.

At times it's as easy as deciding between fixing your make up because you smudge the eyeliner, or wash it all off and start over? Depends on the error. Some people you let go of, some jobs you let go of, some ideals you let go of but there'll always be something to fill the void, it can be hard to see, but not impossible. Sometimes you just say "I'm sorry" and mean it, sometimes you work a bit harder to get to where you want to be, sometimes you find that maybe something else suited you better, something else was more convincing and true. When you've been in those situations a couple of times you know what to do. Ha! Making the same so called mistakes over and over is good for you!

Habits change over time with the smallest quakes, it occasionally rumbles and storms when it all falls apart for you to build anew, either way you come out the other side. And if you don't, you're dead, and if you're dead you can't read this, so you know I'm right.

So, to sum it up, you'll always get a second chance in life, one way or the other. Everything will be just fine. I promise. And honestly, has anything ever turned out exactly the way you planned?

(You can only change what you do to yourself and others, you can't change what others have done to you, only make sure it doesn't happen again)

Sometimes

Sometimes it's more about wanting to impress someone than wanting to be impressed by the same.

It’s only wrong when it’s done to you, not by you

I had the pleasure of watching the traffic going by, and I couldn’t help by re-noticing the amount of honking horns. Cars getting honked at for being too slow, or taking a shot at the car going straight wouldn’t make it to the crossing before they turned themselves. Then I thought, my goodness isn’t it self-righteous to get annoyed by that? It’s hardly like you’ve never done it yourself! I suppose we all do it when we drive, those little things we’re not really supposed to do, just because we don’t want to wait, and that other car seems to be slowing down so gogogogo. Occasionally there’s some poutyhead that’ll honk about it, but meh. Also, I noticed that cars tended to speed up only so that the car in the wrong would notice it fully, then of course the sound of that horn. The likelihood of the one in the right having at some point doing exactly the same is pretty high. I know I've been on both sides. But I can guarantee you, I have never honked just because someone wanted out of the street in order to not have to wait for the next green light. So, why is it that something’s only wrong when it’s done to us, not by us?

It’s fine when you don’t call your friends, you’re busy after all, but if your friends don’t call you they’re being selfish. It’s fine when you go on vacation and leave your workload to your co-workers, but you whine when you have to do theirs when they’re away. It’s unfair when the store won’t take your expired coupon, but it serves anyone else right, they should have checked the date better. It’s horrible to have your own heart broken, but breaking someone else’s is just part of life, you didn’t intend to be mean did you? Of course the clerk should stay at work for an extra 10 minutes so that you can get your stuff, but you’re out the door a minute before your shift ends.

In a way I suppose that’s the core of things again, how selfish we are. We want it simple and beneficial. Perhaps we could be as generous as we are selfish and let others get those things we want for ourselves. What does it really matter if you show up a minute later because someone was driving too slowly, or what does it matter if you have to wait ‘til the next day to shop for the things you don’t really need in the first place? Those things with strangers surely even out in the long run. Sometimes you’re the one in the wrong, sometimes you’re the one in the right. Sometimes you’re the one that gets the benefit, sometimes you’re not. Plain and simple.

When it comes to people you know, you just have to make sure you like them enough to give something up for them and allow them the time to be a bit odd and forgive them for their shortcomings. Noone’s perfect, not even you. Again, it’s all in being considerate, not even if our behaviour towards others is flawless can we expect the same in return. Not even if there are proper rules to follow can we expect everyone to follow them. Think of it as a game where your kindness should always have more boxes checked than when you were given the benefit.

So, dear drivers I watched, those who honked, please untwist your knickers and smile, it’ll all come out fine in the end.

Things my mother told me

Breakfast is the most important meal.

Well, I kind of suppose it is. But what's more interesting is looking at beginnings. They're fascinating. Is there a way of telling how things will progress by how they start? For instance, if you have more energy and feel better when you go into the day full of muesli and herbal tea does that mean that you will succeed with anything if you have proper preparations? Let me advice you as to what to do. Sit up, stretch your back, put one foot down on the floor at a time. Rinse the glasses before you put them in the dishwasher. Wait by the mailbox. Never run low on gas, you might have to take a long trip. Best is to be prepared. Maybe so. I still like to be suprised. Hunger doesn't suprise me. An occasional urge to devour pleases me in a suprising way.

That's bad for you.
I know, but I love it.

Always listening to music wearing headphones is bad for your hearing.

What came first, the chicken or the egg? At times we find ourselves in situations where the only logical response could possibly be "What the hell?". Go for it! Enjoy it. I promise you didn't get there because you're a little on the deaf side, you got there due to interesting choices and you now have the chance to make the most of it. Doing so with music makes it even better. A bonus is that it drowns out all those things you don't really want to hear, hence the headphones are glued to my head, they always have been. (Amazing that I've heard her say anything at all.)

It's important to be regular.

Not as important as being kind and consistent.

I need you to listen to me now, daughter of mine.

I need you to hear me. We all have a need to be heard. You shouldn't take advantage of the respect you're given by those who care by forcing them to listen to you. We have two ears and one mouth for a reason and that is that we should listen twice as much as we speak. There's also a difference between hearing something and actually listening to it. Don't be fooled by fake attention and don't be seduced by those who pay you mind for their own benefit.

You look like a turk. You look like your dad. You look like me. You look like the both of us. You look like neither of us.

A lot of things are bigger than the sum of their parts. As time goes by new things are added to a person, event or phenomenon. You should be grateful to be allowed to see the marvel of it.

Men are not to be trusted.

"The only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust" - In active service in peace and war by Henry L. Stinson. I generally don't like expressing myself with quotes, but there are two truths laying just beneath the surface here, the first one being that everything that could possibly be said has already been said. The second one is that every person must learn their own lessons. Advice is nice. Support when you're learning those lessons by your own heart is better.

I wish she had said I would like more people to be like you, you're perfect the way you are.

Beating a dead horse.

We all know what Kodak is. Some also know who George Eastman is. There we have it the Eastman Kodak Company. He was a very successful man. He never married and he donated oodles of money to charity. Good for karma, tell me how you're enjoying Nirvana mr Eastman? The story of his death is also worth a mention. He was getting caught up, so he wrote a note saying "My work is done. Why wait?" and shot himself. Productive in life and in death. Very impressive if you ask me. Now, it does make me wonder.

No perfect way to end anything. Like that song I posted months and months ago holding the line of "I always cry at endings", most things look better in retrospect. But sometimes the fear of what we stand to lose is overshadowed by what we stand to gain. Yes! I know! I'm slowly but surely becoming an optimist like the happy customers in infomercials or the after picture in a poorly written article in Amelia. Does being an optimist even rhyme with being a cynic?

It doesn't make you shallow to want to be happy. It doesn't mean you don't try even if you were to fail. Sometimes what you want isn't what you're ment to have. At times it's simply not worth the fight just so that you can say "at least I didn't quit". We all quit, everything ends, it's how much you enjoy yourself during that counts. In 40 years your children won't remember that toy they never got, they'll remember how you picked them up and spun them until they were wheezing with laughter. Your lovers won't remember the diamonds, they'll remember how you smiled when you said good morning.

Think like a cat. If you're hungry, eat. If you're tired, sleep. If you're snuggly, curl up next to someone. When you love someone look them in the eyes. If we take more pictures, like I'm sure George Eastman intended us to do, take pictures of those things you want to remember instead of what you think others want to see. Those tiny moments that make up a life.

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!

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.

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.