You’re someone else tomorrow night, doesn’t matter to me

The Walkmen – Juveniles from Daniel Arthur on Vimeo.

I sometimes wake up feeling like I am making a difference

As I’ve tried to catch up on the internet, and the 1000+ articles in my Google Reader, I’ve come across the issue of identity a lot. Two of my favourite Swedish authors, Bodil Malmsten and Jonas Hassen Khemiri, both brought it up in the magnificent literature program Babel (only in Swedish). Bodil Malmsten admitted that her blog-self was a more direct, angrier and bitshier version of herself and that she “in real life” is a coward.

Jonas explained that he often feels that he is three different characters at the same  time, and that these are always with him. This is one reason why his novels often make use of numerous main characters. “No one is one person” he argued. This is important for me in order to accept my inconsistent nature to myself and others. I am a blog person (hello reader), a reader, a boyfriend, a co-worker, a Chelsea-fan, I am childish and old, and I am positive and negative, I sometimes wake up feeling that there is no point in anything, I sometimes wake up feeling like I am making a difference, that I can, in my own small way, contribute to making things, life, better.

And sometimes I just go to work, read the paper, act like you are suppose to in the office, walk home with tired eyes, watch some TV and fall asleep. At least one of my characters finds this despicable. No wonder I often am accused of spending too much time in my own head, but you guys should hear the conversations that goes on in there, wicked.

Being human

Being human also means to be a part of other people’s destinies, to realise the importance of other people, so that they no longer become “others”.

My translation of a sentence in this review  (Swedish) of Mattian Alkberg’s new poetry collection. I kept re-reading it over and over again as if it was telling me something very important. It is very important.

The eight kindes of dunkennes

THE EIGHT KINDES OF DRUNKENNES

The first is ape drunke; and he leapes, and singes, and hollowes, and danceth for the heavens;

The second is lion drunke; and he flings the pots about the house, calls his hostesse whore, breakes the glasse windowes with his dagger, and is apt to quarrell with anie man that speaks to him;

The third is swine drunke; heavie, lumpish, and sleepie, and cries for a little more drinke, and a fewe more cloathes;

The fourth is sheepe drunk; wise in his conceipt, when he cannot bring foorth a right word;

The fifth is mawdlen drunke; when a fellowe will weepe for kindnes in the midst of ale, and kisse you, saying, “By God, captaine, I love thee. Goe thy wayes; thou dost not thinke so often of me as I doo thee; I would (if it pleased God) I could not love thee as well as I doo;” and then he puts his finger in his eye, and cryes;

The sixt is Martin drunke; when a man is drunke, and drinkes himselfe sober ere he stirre;

The seventh is goate drunke; when, in his drunkennes, he hath no minde but on lecherie;

The eighth is fox drunke—when he is craftie drunke, as manie of the Dutchmen bee, that will never bargaine but when they are drunke.

From via List Of Note

Where do we go now?

A modest way of trying to show some style

What people seem to be losing in big cities is perspective. Although generally the most educated, globally minded and forward thinking part of a country’s population. Strange things occur in these places. In London, where I now live, the rush and stress is the most significant aspect of it. The amount of people running after tube trains that depart every three minutes is astounding. Likewise the constant hammering on Blackberries by the business people. I myself walk quite fast, or I thought I did before I moved here. Now I’ve given up, I read my paper, stroll down the street in a leisurely pace. Perhaps its age, or a modest way of trying to show some style, but I refuse to run after trains if I am in work clothes. As The Economist recently pointed out in an excellent column, constant connectivity come with responsibility and problems. Nowhere is that more visible, and concerning, as in the morning commute.

Bodil Malmsten did it

I recently wrote that working, structure and even meetings got my brain going. But what I really meant was that Bodil Malmsten did it. Having finished an ok book about Italian culture I brought Bodil Malmstens De Från Norr Kommande Snöleoparderna with me on my work commute. Reading Bodil Malmstens direct and structural prose is like seeing the world through a magnifying glass. She has a strange ability to cut right to the bone of things, twist the language and put question marks where people normally take something for granted. And I don’t like taking things for granted. Anyhow, I just wanted to clarify my previous statement and retract the fact that a structural working life is what has causes a slight increase in blog postings and instead attribute it to Bodil Malmsten. And perhaps those short lunch time walks I’ve been taking in St. James’s Park.

Very few same streets

I started a new job in a new city. A new job in a new city is a new life, a new side of the same streets. Having been here for seven weeks, I have very few same streets, but the ones I thought I knew look different at eight in the morning. I had time when I was waiting to start work, but my brain was hibernating. My brain needs structure to function, it needs to be told to wake up and go out. Perhaps it even needs some meetings. The ride to work is one filled with people rushing. My new city is full and people are trying to get ahead. I wonder what they all rush for, even the typing on Blackberries is erratic, caffeine doping seems rife and I can tell that even the people sleeping on the tube are not merely sleeping, they are power napping. To get ahead. It’s a new city and my brain is slowly jumping into gear, slowly seeing new things, slowly thinking new thoughts. Or old ones that I stole.

A constant mover-around-the-place-er

For someone like me, a constant mover-around-the-place-er (I know that is not correct English but leave it to me to describe myself please), the-grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side writing is always appealing. In a recent column in a big Swedish newspaper a writer reviewed new TV-series. The topic: people talking about their relationships and how difficult married life turned out to be. The columnists assertion, and I am aware that this perhaps is no novel insight, is that people have built up ideas of a relationship as something almost magical that is supposed to be surrounded by a shimmer of, I don’t know, a Hollywood romance?

According to the reviewer people in the TV-show struggle to handle the lack of this kind of shimmer. He concludes that the detailed lists of attributes that people are looking for cause unhappiness because they creates a sense that something is missing, when perhaps all that is missing is a sense of how reality functions. I’m not necessarily agreeing with this assertion, but having lived and worked in a few different countries, all I know is that relationship issues seem to be pretty global. As is of course, the idealised view of the perfect life.

ENFP

ENFP – “Journalist”. Uncanny sense of the motivations of others. Life is an exciting drama. 8.1% of total population.

Take Free Jung Personality Test
Personality Test by SimilarMinds.com