…and it starts again

I dream quite often that I am onboard a crowded airplane. Sometimes we are just cruising along. The speed is high and I understand that we are on our way to Somewhere or to Something, but I have no idea where or what it is. Looking out through the windows does not give me any clue. And it is not I, myself, who am the acting pilot. I am just the common passenger, being one in the number of people, a follower.
Sometimes we dive and I can sense that we are descending to a landing place. Am I to get off? Is this the final destination? No clear answer, and suddenly…up and go again.
But I have a growing feeling that we are closing in towards the ultimate goal.
This is Life.
We, all of us, are passengers.
We have recently landed on Christmas airport, where we exchanged gifts. The reasons for doing that are not specially clear. We are just doing it.
2009 rushes to its end. We will make a short stop at New Years Eve’s airport. At that place we are going to enjoy a dinner and at midnight we are going to have a glass of champagne and we are going to say Cheers and Happy New Year. The reasons for doing that is also unclear. We are just doing it.
Then it starts again.
To the final destination?
I do not know.
No one knows.
But we are on our way. We are closing in.

It is all over

It usually starts in November. It accelerates during early December. From mid December almost everything is focused towards the X-mas holiday. No, not for me personally. But I have still ears and my sight is not too bad. At least 90 % of all around me have also this year made clear that they are in such a hurry, they have no time for anything else but…there are so many preparations prior to Christmas.
But I stick to the rest, the 10 % that have time. Among those are some of my close friends.
And then, suddenly…it is equal to light a match: a fast and very shortlived fire, then there is just something burnt and some ashes.
I do like the Christmas ceremonies. I do like the family gathering, the food, even the Christmas presents.
But I like my life space even better on the other side – when it is all over.
And now…it is all over.
And a new beginning – planning for the Great New Years Eve!
I will be back about that.

Christmas is here – cheers!

Once upon a time a shortbuilt young man with almost no teeth left stood out from all other hundreds of prophets in the mixed lands of Philistine, Juda and so on, lecturing, preaching. He belonged to the Jewish congregation and he was followed by a special group, also Jews, who admired his speeches immensely. They made him to his leader and they told a lot of astonishing stories about him, among other things that he supposedly was the Messiah, the one people really had longed for during year after year, the one that the Father in Heaven had sent to Earth to bless all those believing in Him – and perhaps some others too.
All the tales about this man, who was known as Joshua or Jesu from the small village Nazarea, were later on collected in the book that was called as – The Book, or the bible.
Christianity had been born and became widely spread over the Western hemisphere, and soon people learned how to say that they loved every Human Being and if they were hit they just had to turn the other cheek to their opponents. And this was said over and over again, but it really did not have any effects at all: soon there were warheads and knights all over, spreading their so called Christian messages with swords in their hands, hurting, demolishing, killing thousands of those that they percieved as their enemies.
Today the tales are still there, but beside and taking over the tales from The Book, are even stronger powers, those stemming from the new churches, may they be called IKEA of Sweden or something else. And they have for sure put the legends of Jesu aside, instead bring forward a more happy figure named Santa Claus. And people spend an obscene amount of money on all Santa gifts, and we gather around the tables to eat ham (strictly forbidden for Jews, Jesu included) or turkey and other stuff that are not so very healthy to your body. And people drink beer and schnapps and proclaim that everything is fine and the wisdom flies out through the doors and the windows and….
By the way…cheers and Merry Christmas!

Essentials of object relation theory – in a few lines

You are not a camera. When looking around, sensing all millions of information bits streaming towards you: colours, louds from different sources, movements, smells, all sorts of particles hitting your body all the time – it is absolutely necessary to screen out everything that is of less interest, no threats, no special excitements…blocking all that out, just focusing the specific, special things (people, animals, cars, trains, buildings or whatever is of your interest just then). This screening out process is going on all day and all night long. What is left is something that you may relate to – in the specific moment or somewhat later. The relationship is a complex, dynamic process as it involves a series of emotions, bringing parts of what you sense to quite a sharp picture, while other parts become blurred or repressed and denied.
During your early years of life you perhaps liked parts of your mother and parts of your dad and parts of your brother etc., while other parts were immediately repressed as you disliked them or even hated them. The relation became a relation between you, yourself, and the parts that you really wanted to relate to. And speaking of your mom and your dad those parts were in fact not reflecting the whole persons around; they were parts only.
Now, as you really wanted to deepen the relations, keeping them, preserving them, you managed to gradually introject them into your own, internal fantasy life. The parts became parts of you and your own mind.
Changing the word “part” to the concept “object” leads to the following conclusion: You are not a camera. You are always searching and trying to find objects around you that are good enough for your dreams and imaginations. Some objects are love objects, others are hate objects. Hate objects could also be very fun and productive for your imaginations.
As a matter of fact: you are all your life producing and relating to different objects.
Some objects become reality figures, but they are still objects.
So, when the man is taking his car, running into the street where he knows that he could find a prostitute for the night he is not searching any real love relation to another human being; he is trying to re-establish an object, a living object to play with.
And when the pedophile is trying to find a young child for his or her sexual pleasure he or she is not looking for a living child; he or she is looking for an object representing some part of the past. And so on; the examples could be an almost never ending stream of examples.
You are not a camera.

Abilities for creative actions

I would not say that we, the humans, have a great and valuable ability for creative thoughts. Well, some people have it, but not that many. There are for sure wonderful authors, movie makers, scientists, social workers and technicians around the world, but I would not sign any statement proclaiming there are a lot of creative thinkers among us. But most people have abilities for creative actions, meaning that we are equipped with a variety of very rich impulses, making us prepared to take actions in most situations appearing in front of us. There are very short linkages between what we experience – and what we want to achieve or do. That is the reason why so many of us willingly run into the consumer behavior. Someone just tickles a lust to own this very Thing, may it be a new shirt, a tie, a flat screen TV, a new CD, a new book or whatever, and we are there, immediately responding in the expected creative way – fixing money enough to buy, buy, buy, even if we can not afford it.
And these kind of creative reaction patterns are also the roots for all criminal and destructive actions, because if we do not find ways that are clear, pure and within the limits of good enough behavior we, all of us, could easily find the roads behind and beyond and become – anything – just to get our hands on…the Things.
Merry Christmas!

Is the issue of climate change of any concern for you?

The top meeting in Copenhagen is soon ended and at this very moment it does not seem as a global agreement will be reached.
But even if such an agreement would have been made and signed – is it possibly already too late?
Quite a few professional and serious researchers are very worried indeed.
One of the most worrying, or horrifying, hypothesis is that we will have a considerable increase of the surfaces of the oceans, leading to the destructions of several coast lines around the globe, drowning islands here and there.
Together with a severe restriction of drinking water in the countries that are dependent of the fresh water from the mountains it will lead to hundreds of millions of people that will become refugees in order to survive somewhere. This will of course cause social chaos and political problems on a level never seen before.
And all this concerns all of us.
So, what are you going to do about it?
What exactly will become your contributions to save the humanity and our planet?
This is for you to start discussing and thinking about – right now.

Dancing the political polka dance

Some politicians try to make as many people happy as possible. This is of course a hopeless mission. Making some happy makes others unhappy because we are all very different and we are all living in such a complex world with such a complex society that there are lots of obstacles along the road; some of them are impossible to pass without hurting or offending quite many. Such as this: The politicians do like to make life somewhat better for those who are able to work and thus have any kind of employment. So they try their best to figure out how to reduce the taxes and such things for those workable ones. The main theory behind this is about the reinforcement of the consumer behavior. More money in your wallet – and the more you like to spend in shops, at restaurants, theatres, travels and so on…and some money comes back to the Governmental run State Enterprise that way. OK, so far so good.
But then we have an increasing number of people who are not that suitable for work, at least not any advanced, hard work. They are perhaps suffering from some dysfunctions or diseases or whatever. They want the politicians to guard and protect them – preferably with money. And wise politicians have created a general insurance model that – in the best of worlds – will satisfy the non-workable ones – with money so they can survive. But what is a satisfactory level of money? Everyone wants to have more…and more…as the prices in the shops and at all other places are going up, and up, and up.
Reducing the taxes means limitations and reductions also for the non-workable ones. So, not so much more money to you who are disabled or are suffering from…whatever.
So, why not increase the taxes in a way that stimulates the government to pay more for the sick ones?
Oh, no…this will make the workable ones disappointed and angry.
The equation is not easy to solve. In fact, it is impossible to solve. At least during present conditions in the society.
Some politicians disappear from this kind of scenery and this kind of very troublesome questions. Instead they become technical servants to those Up There who seem to be the Overall Managers of Almost Everything. They stop listening to the ongoing conflicting elements in between different groups of people and act mostly to please those Up There. After some years they could receive their medals or the Golden Watch and they are completely satisfied with that.
But irrespective of what they are doing – all are dancing the polka dance, trying their best to have a look-out of being amused. And we are the onlookers, now and then providing them with an applause.

Consume – and make someone happy?

Feverish actions prior to the Very Big Holiday on December 24-25. All shops, from the small ones to the magnificient shopping malls, scream out the message: Come on – shop, shop, shop, until you (almost) drop, drop, drop. And all commercial powers have also moved into the broad public sector: Come on – buy your power of electricity from me! Come on – what kind of telephone agreement have you got – I can help you change it to a cheaper one! Come on – shop – more, and just something more, and a little more! Don´t forget the Xmas presents also to your mother-in-law and your cousins and your sisters’ small bastards! Come on!
And we are running around in the city and the markets, stressing, sweating. Because we are trained to act as consumers, buying things that we or the others do not really need.
But what the heck! My money will perhaps make someone somewhat more happy.
Or whould it perhaps be better to give something to Unicef or the Red Cross or Greenpeace or Amnesty International, or buy some tree plants for Africa?
Yeah, now I know exactly what I will chose to do this December.

Security actions – then and now

I was quite young when the Swedish king’s grandfather was the Head of State. King Gustaf VI Adolf. (When I was even younger the king’s grand grandfather ruled – King Gustav V.) My memories still vivid. King Gustav VI Adolf liked to take long walks in Stockholm city. All by himself. No policemen around. No security guys. You could suddenly meet him at any street. He used to walk fast. I, myself, saw him now and then. Grey coat, a hat. People he met saluted him, women made a curtsey, men bowed politely. The king most often bowed in return, lifting his hat. Very gently while walking along.
This is of course completely impossible today. Our king and his family could never walk around in any Swedish city without being surrounded and supervised by a lot of armored security guys. Presumably they just do not walk around at all – if they are not dressed up in a way that makes them totally changed and thus not recognized. But even then they have to be under surveillance by security folks.

President Barack Obama is at this very moment in Oslo, Norway. He has to be guarded by thousands of policemen and at least 200 of his own, personal US security guard.

These kind of security measurements are of course telling us a story about the differences between then and now. During the last decades all sorts of warning signals have increased. One US President has been ruthlessly killed and so has one of our own Prime ministers. There are a lof conclusions to be drawn about what is happening in our societies during modern times. If you really want to understand and learn more about this – you can start discussing it with your friends already today. You can also start a discussion with me. Please feel free to write a comment if you so wish.

Science and truth

Truth is a concept made for the art of philosophy. What truth is could and should always be debated. Truth for you does not mean that I agree, at least not in every, specific corner of what you tell me. Oh, yes, it is true that our planet is built as a globe and that it rushes through the space, circulating around the sun and around itself. Round and round we go. That is true. But we have so far not knowledge enough to understand why this specific circular path is there. It might be by chance, or it might be by something else that we don´t understand. Not yet.
Science is the area for the creations of theories and hypothesis, among other things also of macro- and microcosmos. By scientific studies and results we have very good ideas about the interaction in betweeen the amount of carbon dioxide in the athmosphere and the rising temperature on the surface of our planet. Those very good ideas are indeed very good ideas, or theories. Perhaps they reflect the real truth. But we are not completely there yet.
Psychologists make fairly good assessments of peoples’ capacities and personalities, mostly based upon psychological theories and hypothesis, and from those assessments are now and then drawn conclusions about how individuals are going to succeed with some practical work performances in the future. But are such predictions equal to truth, the real truth and nothing but the truth?
The answer is no. The predictions are still a layer in the ongoing constructions of theories about the mind of the human being.
It is nothing odd about that. Scientifically based work is what is it: stepstones along the road, which may or may not lead to another window of the real truth. And that is good enough for me. But is it good enough for you?