Adventurous

I have more or less recovered from the flu now. Only small remnants that will eventually go away.
In total I was home from work Thursday and Friday, working a few hours every day. All in all, it wasn’t too bad.

It was some time ago since I last spent four days in a row in my apartment almost without going out. Working Thursday and Friday was rather easy, and by saturday I was feeling quite relaxed, both physically and mentally. When you are sick you are always a bit restless but during saturday I felt a surge of energy come back and I used it to clean the apartment.

I had plans for saturday to go to a concert arranged by Amnesty but thought it was wise to turn it down, allthough I wasn’t feeling too bad. I’m glad I did.
At around eight or nine, I started feeling very good, and I sat down in the chair in the doorway to the balcony and watched the rain falling outside.
Suddenly I felt so relaxed, I had some mellow and nice music on and a strange kind of happiness appeared. With it came the desire to write.

When I woke up Sunday, I had no real plans for the day. I still felt it would be wise to stay inside for most of the day so I continues what had started the night before. Some really nice mellow music (Peter Broderick (the youtube link I sent you) and Efterklang (a danish electronica band).
The music played, I was reading “on the road” by Jack Kerouac and just mooching around the apartment. Candles were lit, some incense was burning.
The hours went by. No rush, just me and everything.

I connected this feeling I had with something I was very familiar with when I was younger, around 16-17 or so. Spending day after day during summer holiday just mooching around, doing whatever I wanted. It was a wonderful feeling. I opened a bottle of wine and had a glass. Somehow everything seemed to be more real. More beautiful. I was dancing around in the living room. The wine tasted more. Every little detail around me was brought to attention. I am alive and in love with life.

Sunday night I went over to Ulrica and watched a few episodes of the TV-series True Blood.
Monday I went back to work, afterwards I went to the rock choir I have joined for the third time and afterwards another episode of True Blood with Ulrica.

Tonight I came home, made some food and now I have already gone to bed, writing, finishing that bottle of wine I opened on Sunday and listening to some music. It is like a great feeling of being alive, adventurous. Enjoying the most simple things in life. Tonight I thought about it, and realized that it is about a week since I finalized my temporary leave with my boss. Maybe it is because of this, finally dropping work and starting to live that brings this feeling about. Or maybe it’s just because that I got to spend quite a few days just on my own.
I remember when I was 18 years old and my mom said that I should get myself a job to make some extra money and I told her, that I value my freedom more than money. I don’t think she will ever understand me when I say something like that, but the happiest times in my life I can remember, are those when I could just waste my time completely, with no goals or a need for results. Me and my mother grew up and live completely different lives in many ways. So does my dad.

I love them both, very much.

The candles are lit

The candles are lit. Peter Broderick is playing.?Everything is so so silent.

It is past midnight. This time of the day which brings out feeling and creativity. That sparkles the heart to take command of the mind and bring out that which is hidden in broad daylight.
I am a vampire that needs it blood. Staying away from the rays of the sun, basking in the rays of darkness that can be hinted beyond the light of the candles.

It can easily be misunderstood for sadness or depression, but it’s not. It is a kind of beauty often overlooked by those who only look for the brightest of smiles used as a mask to hide the real pain within. This is an upside down world, where what looks like pain is a mellow happiness and that which looks so desirable is a mess of unknown depth.

I guess we all know both of them, more or less.

A silent September saturday (in Swedish)

Det har slutat regna.

Regnet kom från ingenstans. Hårda droppar som slog mot balkongräcket. Det gav en form av frid.

När det slutat regna öppnade jag balkongdörren, och så satt jag där i öppningen till världen utanför och luktade på den fuktiga luften. Tittade ut i mörkret denna tysta septemberlördag. Droppar hängde längs med räcket för att stundtals tappa fästet och falla nedåt. En tyst lördag.
Ikväll är allting lite extra. Regnet känns lite mer. Källaren tar mina tankar bort till alla källare jag har varit i, som en representant för alla jag har upplevt på olika platser där jag bott. De har alltid en speciell lukt och känsla. Torr, tyst luft. Stilla energi i förråden. De är alla desamma. Nytvättad tvätt på samma sätt som alla de där gångerna förrut, trots att det är nya kläder, ett nytt jag som blir beklädd.?Mina tankar för mig till många platser ikväll. En tyst stjärnklar natt i Californien, en varm natt på en madrass i ett litet rum i Indien. Utanför hör jag hundarna skälla i timmar. Friden att vakna upp i all enkelhet och duscha genom att hälla varmt vatten över mig med en hink. Timmar framför den öppna elden på läger när man var liten. Tillbaka här i min lägenhet nu, där varje liten del av oss människor känns extra vackert.

Vi människor kan verkligen vara de mest märkliga och förbannade varelser, men också så obeskrivligt vackra. Sorgset ignoranta, frustrerande förtvivlade när vi aldrig vet vad vi ska göra utan att skapa nya problem och konflikter av vårt agerande. Vi kan inte lösa våra egna problem, och ju mer vi försöker, desto mer insnöade blir vi.
Vi försöker ständigt fly undan alla dessa konflikter, utan att inse att vi vill ha dem där. Konflikterna ger oss en mening och ett mål. Ett syfte att leva. Det var aldrig meningen att vi skulle lösa våra problem. Vi drömmer om att vinna på lotto, för då blir allting enklare, men det var aldrig meningen att det skulle vara enkelt. Vi är bara så vana att fokusera på fel saker.
När vi försöker lösa våra problem, hitta en väg, finna kärleken, ett bättre jobb, vi längtar efter att få gå hem från jobbet, att det ska sluta regna så vi kan gå ut. Denna väntan, denna längtan efter något annat hela tiden.?Under hela den här tiden så lever vi. Vi är i levande. Allt som händer, dyker upp när vi lever. Allting som händer kommer in och ut ur detta enda enkla, våra liv. Men vi fokuserar så mycket på att lösa allting, längta någon annanstans och sträva efter mer och bättre att vi glömde bort att vi alltid lever. Just nu.

När jag sitter och lyssnar på regnets läte. När någon tittar upp mot en stjärnklar himmel på andra sidan jorden, så är jag bara här och nu, regnet och stjärnorna är alla en del av mitt liv. Precis som de är. Varje detalj får en annan lyster, varje detalj blir en självklar del av min egen helhet. Och i detta, så får dessa detaljer en märklig förmåga att kännas som mer äkta än annars.

Living

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?

Being normal

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?

Beirut

Way out west

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 rickshaw run madness

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.

Home again

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.

A not so cold one in the grass

Yesterday I went for a beer (or a few beers) with some of my collegues at Medis.

Jonathan

Jonathan

Sussie

Sussie

Linda and Marie

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