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.