I have spent most of my life thinking about things. Dreaming about living THE life. Getting tears in my eyes when watching movies about people who do “grand” things. A longing in my heart to just do something completely crazy.
I have spent my whole life thinking about living instead of actually living it.
Intellecualizing about things instead of being in it brings little satisfaction.
If I don’t do this Now. When will I do it?
There is a great benefit to play by the rules and hold yourself within the politically correct. The box of normality.
But there is also a price to pay to stay within those limits. Often that price can be very high.
There is often the question in the air why some people just can’t seem to be normal. I have thought about that too, why I can’t seem to be like everyone else, or why some other people seem to have the need to be different.
A while ago I started thinking about this from a new perspective; This question is asked from the point of the many. And all the normal people are per definition the bigger group that often gets to set the standards of what that normal is. But instead of asking why some people just don’t seem to be able to be normal, maybe you could ask the reverse, why do you have the need to be normal? Why do you want to be like everyone else?
It is easy to think about different people like they are slightly crazy or strange in that they don’t seem to be able to stay within what is considered normal behaviour but in this strange world we live in, isn’t it even more strange that so many can do just that?
Like I said, there is a price to pay for being normal, and whenever I have tried in order to reap the benefits of it, it more or less drives me insane (or more insane depending on how you like to see it). I have started to realize that being normal is not up to me, and trying to would be like fighting gravity.
Maybe it rather is so that a minority of all the people in this world just don’t seem to be able to hide the pain and suffering. Or maybe they are willing to live in that pain because the price of closing up is to high? Maybe it is the “normal” people who has an abnormal ability to suppress that pain deep inside them and just look the other way?
However things are, two questions are important to keep in mind: Do you really have a choice to be normal or different, and what exactly is normal anyway?
I’m currently on the train on my way to the Way out west festival on the west coast of Sweden. It is taking place in one of the parks in the city of Gothenburg, Swedens second largest city (after Stockholm).
The festival is packed with great bands playing, so I’m sure I will have a great time. Main bands I’m going to see is the Arctic Monkeys, Beirut and maybe Bon Iver and Anthony & the Johnsons. I don’t have any links yet, but you can most likely find them on Myspace. I will send in some links when I get home.
When I get there I will meet up with Veronica and Erik and a friend of theirs, Anna.
The other day I was surfing around the internet (don’t have much else to do at work) when I happened on a site called the ”Rickshaw run”. It is a charity race where a group of people get a rickshaw each and then drives from one end of the Indian subcontinent to another end about 4000km away.
It usually takes about two weeks and it is complete madness to drive a rickshaw built for short, in the city distances on a trip through the rough landscape of India. The idea is basically that you get a rickshaw, a destination and then you get there on your own. No help from any organisation or anything. When (not if) the rickshaw breaks down, you find ways to repair it and any kind of mess you get in, you solve yourself.
The purpose for the run, is that every person must raise at least €1500 that is given to charity, but I guess that is just an excuse for people that wants to go crazy for a while.
Allthough the website clearly states that this is not a simple task or tourist thing, there is a slight risk that you might die, and a good chance that you will be injured in some way or another, I thought it sounded like a really great challenge! It sounded so insane that it could be just the greatest adventure I know of, and I usually never really like this kind of things!
So, who knows, maybe to combine this with a backpacking experience in India/South east asia for 6-12 months would be a really nice thing to do. I’m putting it all out here and we will see what happens.
I have now been home for about a week. First few days was a bit troublesome because of the jet lag, making it hard to sleep. I woke up very early in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep again. A few days later though, I’m sleeping well again.
In one way, it’s been a bit hectic since my return. Bought a new guitar, new shoes, been sorting out all the pictures I took, getting used to my new iPhone, trying to assimilate myself into work (luckily it’s been a slow week since most of our customers are still on vacation).
In another way, it’s been very relaxing too. I haven’t really done much during the evenings after work, just hanging out in my apartment and plucking on the guitar and stuff.
It feels good. Very good.
Despite that it feels a bit strange going from hanging out with 15 people every day for two weeks to being all alone in a silent apartment it only took me a few hours to get back to being alone.
I notice a relaxation around this and I really enjoy it. I guess it was time for me to spend a bit of time on my own.
So all in all, things are moving on smoothly.
Yesterday I went for a beer (or a few beers) with some of my collegues at Medis.
Jonathan
Sussie
Linda and Marie
Afterwards I met up with Erik and went to a mini festival in Vinterviken called “En ljummen i grästet” (a not so cold one, in the grass). We missed the first guy performing but we did get to see Cocoanut Groove, a guy with some nice tunes and also, later in the night Hajen. A woman who turned out to have one of the best voices I have heard! Her songs was so good it was almost magical. I had never heard any of these guys before so it was a nice surprise to find something this good. Don’t think she has released an album yet, but you can listen to some of her stuff on her myspace page.
I tried out the video mode on my iPhone when Cocoanut Groove was playing, and I must say it was really good. You can listen to some of his really nice songs on his myspace page with better sound than on my video. http://www.myspace.com/cocoanutgroove
For some it takes time to make the transition from the old to the new. Leaving old habits, reasons and beliefs behind and embracing the present moment with open arms whatever it is.
It is impossible to force these things to happen, rather they will eventually just drop away. Fading into precious memories of things of the past. Things that has served their purpose, yet did it well.
I notice at times how my mind like to kick in and present these old ideas and habits like new ones. Afterwards I notice that it was just a flashback from times that has long been over. But meeting the future holding on to the past is no way to live in the present.
I see no reasons for what is happening at the moment. No cause and effect as far as I can see, just change. Even though my mind likes to fill in the blanks and come up with a cause and a reason after the event has occured, I see that life has no cause, it is just a continueous movement right now.
I don’t know why, but I have decided to stop calling myself a vegetarian.
I have been thinking and I can’t come up with a reason to be vegetarian, allthough I can’t come up with a reason not to be one either. It’s not like I have missed eating meat the past 13 years of my life. For some reason I feel that this wasn’t up to me anyway, it was just something that dropped from me like rain on a goose.
So, who knows, I will still eat a lot of vegetarian food, because I really love it, but why put a concept around it? There are no rules to this game…
Very cool, right???
