…

outsider looking at the country’s news must think. Or not?

There is a small – I would say otherwise rahter meaningless – municipality in south west Sweden called Vellinge. They refuse, under the leadership of the moderate party, to accept refugee children. They claim these children should be sent somewhere northern. Maybe north pole?

Refugee children come from abroad, of course. There are no refugees in Sweden because everything works so well here. Nobody has to flee from terror at home or at school or at the workplace or in the local handball team; nobody has to flee from drunken perverts in Sweden.

Refugees come from abroad. Unfortunately there are spots in the world – bigger and even more dangerous than some of Swedens class rooms, appartments, public places – where people have to flee from.

If I remember correctly Bosnia, on the Balkan, used to be such a place some 15 years ago. Among those refugees who were scattered all over the world was also a guy called Zlatan. That’s not a Swedish name but Zlatan still had to grow up in Sweden because his parents stranded there. The Ibrahimovics.

Zlatan is today the biggest star in Sweden. Not a day passes by without him being on the front page of a newspaper, magazine, newsshow in Sweden. Zlatan is Swedish. And I am pretty sure that the newspapers and nationalteams games (Zlatan is a football player) are being watched and celebrated also in Vellinge.

Isn’t that schizophrenic?

Who knows if among these kids there is another brilliant mind or sportswoman the next nobel peace prize winner or nationalteam striker? Who knows?

Vellinge is not the only part in Sweden and in the rich part of the world where people from the poorer parts of the world really are not welcome. What we people in the rich part of the world forget is that it is our fault in the first place that the people in the poorer parts “want to” come here. It is us who pais the industries that exploit “their” homes; it is us who finance their childrens’ labour instead of their children’ school; it is us who bomb their neighbourhood so that we can drive by car to the next grocery store; it is us who are responsible for global warming and the catastrophes it brings to “them”. It is our leaders who wage war while we sit on the sofa and eat nachos. Isn’t it schizophrenic that we raise us from the sofa to go and demonstrate against the arrivel of a coupel of children from the places in the world we continue to exploit (read destroy)?

Schizophrenic rich people…

…

is a statement I have met and am meeting a lot.

We must care! No matter how frustrating the process (politics) is that leads to political decisions; no matter how disappointing the content (policy) of the decision is; We must care!

There is a fundamental problem with and within the political processes today: they are so complex. Nobody gets them. I would even doubt that all the parlamentarians get them all the time. Now that may be so (and make no mistake, it will…). But we all still have to care. We must!

We cannot turn our backs to “politics” because we must be the judge of the decisions. Morality is not complex at all. And often it is easy to decide whether the process that lead to decision was right; whether this decision, its content and consequences, are what we want for our society.

Of course, to be able to evaluate it needs education and information. That is why we need to care. We need to care for education and for information.

In the end, “I don’t care for politics…” means, I don’t care for the world. Our jackets we can leave at the reception when we enter the theatre. Our responsibilty for this world, for this society, we simply can’t. We can ignore it and say: “I don’t care…” but we cannot leave it. It is born with each and every human into this world.

…?

Sometimes it feels that every human being in this world is walking, time and again, through a hallway, across a yard, along a street, running on a football pitch, sitting in a class room or seminar, sweating at the workplace, dancing on a party, where she has a label on the forehead and a spotlight on them cast by the million eyes staring, doubting, judging. Sometimes it feels that no human being can be free, can be herself, no matter which refuge she searches. And why is that? What is it that we base our actions on?

Are there inviolable values? Those that are true on the pitch, in the classroom, in the streets and hallways, the gyms and busstops. The world of the pitches and hallways, classrooms and train stations, market and workplaces poses questions to us everyday. And there surely are different ways to rationalize over the answers we can give. Nothing is as simple and clear as the first glance suggests and that is the problem with the labels on our foreheads: they seem to give clearity, simplicity. Every day we have to make up our minds and decide if something is good or bad, right or wrong. Do I accept money from someone who does wrong? Do I accept alcohol as a “thank you” as part of NGO etikett. Do I buy from industries that exploit? Do I speak up to stereotypes? Do I buy a ticket for the metro or pay some cent for the public toilet? Do I taste a grape in the shop? Do I leave the shit of my dog when none is around? Those are few of the questions the world holds ready time and again. And then there are even more complex ones, involving the behavior and actions of other human beings.

What do we stand on to find and give answers?

Some don’t even given answers, don’t make up their mind, ignore, forget. Others try to blur the lines. For those who try to get away i silence and with bowed head there are two quotes: 

Poem attributed to Martin Niemöller:

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

NOFX:

“First they put away the dealers,
keep our kids safe and off the street.
Then they put away the prostitutes,
keep married men cloistered at home.

Then they shooed away the bums,
then they beat and bashed the queers,
turned away asylum-seekers,
fed us suspicions and fears.
We didn’t raise our voice,
we didn’t make a fuss.
It’s funny there was no one left to notice
when they came for us.”

For those who blurr the lines there is another one:

The Perishers

“One may think we’re alright
But we need pills to sleep at night
We need lies to make it through the day
We’re not okay…

One may think we’re doing fine
But if I had to lay it on the line
We’re losing ground with every passing day
We’re not okay…”

A lie is still a lie. In all the hallways, gyms, NGOs, classrooms busstops, petrol stations, in all those streets of life there is and always will be “the right thing to do”.

…

what actually is dangerous or “irresponsible” alcohol consumption? I wonder every time when I hear the alcohol industry trying to set the agenda concerning alcohol.

The alcohol industry and linked industries are trying with all means to spread the message that the consumption of alcohol is good (in what way so ever) or healthy or positively charged – as long as it is consumed “responsibly” (which the industry ONLY adds in Europe).

But what actually is “responsible consumption”? The alcohol industry even promotes the slogan “enjoy responsibly”? I wonder where dangerous alcohol consumption starts?

Well, it is actually the case that healthy reason already makes sound of the answer in our consciousness – sober people hear it and even drinkers become aware of that noise sometimes. However it seems that healthy reason, the reflection of our own experiences in the course of life, is not sufficient to decide politically where “dangerous alcohol consumption” starts. Politics has rubbed itself of its normative dimension and power and whorships only populistic phrases, as well as short sited political gifts and cosmetic corrections. Only for that reason can a term like “dangerous alcohol consumption” flourish in debates.

However, nurses and doctors in the emergency rooms across Europe know how wrong the term of “enjoy responsibly” really is. Employers know it, too. They know the consequences of bad work performences under the influence of hangovers. And every single one of us has felt the fear, the hide-away and trying-to-be-invisible when we walk through a street at night and hae to encounter a stumbling, loudly mumbling drunkard. These three examples narrate alcohol consumption that does not necessarily make it into the accident, death case, injured and violence statistics. Dangerous it is all the same.

The heavily blooding man had “just drunk a glass” and his senses failed him when he wanted to go down the stairs. So he fell them down. He landed in the emergency room accompanied by his girlfriend and her panic attacks. Who counts her fear? Can one glass be dangerous?

Or a friend who wanted to celebrate after the football match, with alcohol; he had to work the next morning. That day became a mere transportation road till he finally could go home. Who counts his alcohol consumption?

It is wrong that alcohol only starts being loked at as dangerous when something happens.

Nobody should be forced to walk in fear through the streets of a summer night. Alcohol consumption confines the individual freedom – that is constitutionally anchored all over Europe. And everywhere in Europe there are Millions who do not dare to go out alone when the sun has gone to bed. Is this violation of fundamental freedoms kept in the statistics?

It is not. But is is written in our souls. And so are the experiences of children when they see their parents being drunk. Children can sense the subtle changes of behaviour in their parents’ language and gestures. They cannot understand it, which leads to agonizing experiences that remain saved in their souls. And although nine million children, in Europe,have to grow up in families with at least one addicted parent, most of the parents I referred to here are said to drink “responsibly”. They are just not aware that their offspring can in deed feel this “one glass”  – in their breath, their voices, their eyes. Children see with different eyes than adults, we know that. They do not need statistics to recognize dangerous alcohol consumption.

Now, don’t mistake me, this is no accusation of statistics. Just to be clear. But some things simply cannot be measured and filed as data – and yet those things are real, too.

Alcohol is dangerous – from the first drop. For the individual. It is a drug, a cell toxic.

But alcohol is never consumed in a social vaccuum. Therefor it is dangerous – from the first drop. For the world around the consumer. There is no such thing as responsible drug consumption.

…

at least it should.

But in a world where people are exposed to thousands of commercials daily, it somehow dosn’t seem to work according to the headline. Content does not matter. But status does, clothes do, labels and appearance and all too often the words you say, instead of the deeds you perform.

It is somehow part of the system we live in – it is so fast that you have to convince in the first chance you get; it is so short living that today is forgotten in an instant; tomorrow has become the ever promising horizon. But if today no longer matters, if every moment is overtaken by the next one, faster, higher, better, more, more, more, we loose the ability to be, just be in the now. It is only in the now where we can find out about ourselves, where we can find out about our relations to others and the things of the world around us. But the now is destroyed by rining mobile phones, blackberrys, portable computers – the next e-mail has replaced the thought of the self and its relation to the world. In the absence of the now, there has been established a dictatorship of the surface, the first impression. There is no time anymore for the second impression.

What does that do to us? Is it a problem?

It is because we are drowning our awareness – the most precious ability evolution gave us – in the quantity of possibilities, desires, needs, noises. Restlessness is the result. Restlessness without peace makes sick – or in the least, unhappy. And this is what every society all across the industrialized countries is experiencing. People are not happy.

Content matters?

We all have a feeling for this; that there should be witnesses to our life, someone who cares – longer than the first impression. There is a feeling inside all of us, I think, telling of the wish that content should matter more. It is the stomach ache that we feel after a delicious meal in a fancy restaurant; the headache we have a nice talk on the mobile phone; the aching back after an hour in the world wide web of distance. Physical pain tells about soul ache. And it is there in those feelings that we can find understanding: this world has become too restless. There is only time for a first impression and thus we feel that the moment in the nice restaurant has vanished even before we have eaten our plate empty; the words from the phonecall have lost the meaning right after we have hung up.

In the dictatorship of the first impression we have forgotten to feed our souls.

It is content that matters. It matters what you invest into your soul – and sometimes this might be an hour of waiting, just sitting at the train station listening to the sound of your thoughts. Sometimes the best music comes from inside the head – if you let content matter.

…

Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote: “You cannot run away from a weakness, you must fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?”

…

a human being.

Cogito ergo sum?

Do you ever wonder about your soul? What it is? Where it is? Why it is?

Descartes said that I think and thus I am. But this is not, it cannot be the trademark quality, characteristic of a human being.

Each soul is here, to experience. Each soul, like my soul is here to go through, to feel through a certain experience.

What is my soul? Where is it?

The soul is not a substance – it cannot be named and it cannot be located. But when you feel a battle inside you; when you feel you don’t live up to what you once wanted, still want, can, should live – then you feel your soul. It is in these moments that human beings are in touch, literally in touch with their souls. And yet, just as we are not aware of everything we touch during a day, we don’t become aware of this moment when our souls vibrated.

We have to answer a call, click on a link, buy milk, concentrate on the traffic lights, argue with others, earn money, spend money, relax from doing all that…

But there are those battles, reminding us of the times when we were kids, when we were late because we were immersed in the football game we played, in the horse riding, in watching butterflies, in painting something, anything.

Who is winning the battles inside you? The complex life with its screaming commercials and alarming rush all around or the silent soul, somewhere?

I have heard the sound of a battle inside me. And this time I had time to listen to it. I listened – ears turned inwards. And what I heard was music…

Ich höre, also bin ich…

…

for a better world;

or: less normative – for survival;

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

“Look around you. Get involved.”

If you want to lose weight, there are a few things you HAVE to do. Just like there are a few things you HAVE to do, if you want to get clean; or if you want to feel well fed;

There are a few things you HAVE to do, if you want to have and keep a job; or if you want to have friends; There are a few things you have to do, if you want to be part of a team; or of a society.

Now it is outright obvious that along this reasoning the things you “have” to do become increasingly disputeable.

But when we talk about something like being a democratic citizen, one cannot say: you HAVE to do… When we talk about decreasing/ stopping (depends on you) climate change, one cannot tell: you HAVE to do…

Why is it like that?

You HAVE to watch that video =))

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

You have to get involved. As I wrote before: “you are a part of it… so get to the heart of it…”

…

Invincible

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

…

there’s always been you

…

there’ll always be you

TaTaTaraNKa

You fly with your own wings,

you prophet of a better time.

And no phoenix who flies with her own wings,

can ever soar too high…

tataranka