Wake-up Call

I think some of the most important tasks for mankind today is to delve into themselves in order to know who you are so that you cannot be tricked or hoodwinked to believe what others may want you to believe -- like staying alert and not being blinded by the mass media, TV programmes, commercials and other propagandic offspring.

The critical, awakened mind is pivotal to the individual's staying exactly that -- an individual. Every society needs its alert and independent people. If we all took what our leaders say for granted, 1984 would soon be upon us.

What do you say to the constructed dicotomies in the US, for example. How "real" is the world view that G.W. Bush presents? How many people actually believe in the "axis of evil", in the compartmentalizing of people into either being good or evil? How many actually think that this is our reality?

The same goes for all kinds of commercial behaviour. Through ads and commercials in every shape&form imaginable, needs are created in people. The need to buy a certain kind of product, itself produced to "fill a gap" in people's lives; "gaps" they never thought they had. Movies, TV series and books produced - not necessarily with the awake intention of doing so - to dull people's minds, to lull them into a technicolour dreamworld; to create an ILLUSION in which we are supposed to LIVE.

I believe people can think for themselves, but that many persons of today are too lazy, or too used to be living in an overly commercialized society to recognize in just how many ways we are heading towards the Orwellian 1984-scenario.

The world-wide "War on Terrorism" for example. This global, black-and-white war is alarmingly stupid, alarmingly lethal, and gaining an alarmingly lot of support in the public here in the West. What might this turn into? Perhaps a West vs East/Orient war? Is this wholly unthinkable? Isn't this the dicotomized world a certain president Bush is trying to make us believe is going to happen, if "we" won't attack "the others" first? Is this not what we are supposed to believe? And is this not the reason why many people will agree to set aside their individual and constitutional rights, and let their leaders equally set aside their nation's constitution in order to protect them against "terrorist attacks"?

Well, the military state might not be as dead as we thought it was.

The Annotated Pride and Prejudice

I bought this copy of the annotated version of Pride and Prejudice this Saturday. I have read the book several times, but this version with commentaries is so satisfyingly fat and with delicate colours (nicer than the picture shows, and with a smooth, yet textureful surface) that I just had to have it. 5 - 6 comments on each page gives you a more profound knowledge of Jane Austen's own times than by just reading the text.

It is interesting to see how words and phrases have twisted just a notch and today having a sligtly different meaning than back then. As English is not my first language, this is particularly helpful and makes me learn a lot. At the same time, not being a native English speaker, I notice that I am more open to what words might mean, and tend to bend the phrases to what they are supposed to mean. Also, being a Norwegian, I can easily see how many of the words in English stem from the Nordic languages - old Norse, as it is called. Even the syntax of old English resembles our syntax more than the modern English. So being an outsider can be quite helpful in some ways.

Every foreign language will always lead to discoveries. That is what makes it so interesting studying other languages. And I have to say, English is one of my favourites. It is flowing and musical and soft. My major lingua-love might be Latin. There is something so satisfying about that almost mathematical, seamless language. I wish I knew Greek, and Sanskrit, and I would really like to be able to read Chinese and Japanese ---

Well. That's never going to happen. But still...

I am such a dreamer.

My English Dream

For a long time I nurtured a dream of studying at Cambridge or Oxford University in England. From the age of 14, I believe, I really wanted to go there and study literature.


I mean, look at this place:
How could you not want to walk amongst those stony streets, breathing the learned gusts of ancient stone and dusty books?

My sad story is that I never quite believed that I could do it. My English would have to need a serious brushing up. I would have to read a lot more books (even though I love reading, there are SO many books I haven't read, and I am afraid my list of read books aren't quite up to scratch as to what is required in these institutions). The unconscious mantra I have nurtured sounds something as follows: "I am just a Norwegian girl, a tiny dot on this planet, how am I ever to rise up into any position of influence or interest to others."


This is such a self-subvertive view of life! It really bothers me that I have believed in this for so long! And even though I may come round to viewing life different now, at the age of 26, much is too late! I am never going to go into any of those great institutions, I am hanging around here in Norway, University of Oslo, because that is what seemed more safe at the time I started my "academic carreer" (I haven't finished my MA yet, so there you go. "Carreer" my bleep).


Anyway. Thinking back, now, it is sort of sad to see in just how many ways I have hindered myself in doing just what I would like to do. If I could, I would like to time-travel back to my 14-year old self, giving out wise advise and telling me that I can actually do what I want to. I can pursue my burning interests to the other side of the planet, if that is what would pay off most.

To any other young girl out there (yes, "girl", because there are mostly girls who don't have enough self esteem) I would like to say: Believe in what you've got. Trust that instinct telling you what you are good at. Follow your gut.

And. I know: Easy to say now, hard to believe then. Nevertheless. It is true.

Believe in yourself, girls!

Confessions from a Chocolate Connoisseur

I am, despite the headline for this post, quite a sucker for healthy food. My diet consists mostly of clean meat (fish, chicken, turkey etc - organic if possible), vegetables, olives, nuts, green&white teas, water, herbs (parsley, basil, thyme - you name it).

BUT: I am also quite fond of the dark-brown realm of the cocoa bean. if you can manage to control your intake of this substance, not allowing it to exceed 40 g a day (...), I see no reason why you shouldn't enjoy your melting, brown friend.

To the left is one of the chocolates I usually have a small stock of in my cupboard. This is a good blend of 85% cocoa and real vanilla, but the main reason I keep exactly this brand of chocolate in a cupboard or purse near me, is due to the grocery store's politics of what they choose to put on their shelves. This Swiss chocolate is nice, though, so there's no complaints there.

If in reciprocal nearness to this endazzling little friend, however, I generally go for the darkest of this brand. Their chocolates are organic, and if I remember correctly, real vanilla is used here as well. (The taste of vanillin is such a disappointment once you have bent your tongue to the real stuff.)

Everything in these products are organic, from the vanilla to the raw cane sugar (of which I would actually like some replacement, as I avoid sugar at all costs, exept for this, let's call it - aristocratic, habit).

If you like, you can check out their website here.

Now for the crown of the chocolate God-head; the best of the sumptious brown stuff I have ever tasted. Probably not a shock for most cooks or choco-connoisseurs: Valrhona chocolates.

Well, what can I say. I tasted this brand in a chocolate mousse (containing only chocolate and water) at a rather famous food-scribe's home about a year and a half ago. You know, I never really believed in the aphrodisiac effect of chocolate, but right there I nearly fell out of my pants. What a total experience of heavenly sumptiousness! I didn't just taste with my mouth; my whole body was in on the tasting. I remember feeling a sort of slow, still whirlwind spiralling around my head, heading down through my stomach, down to under my feet and then up again - all in a split second. Mind you, this split second lasted through the small (though sufficiently sized) portion of cocoa bliss. If I had had no self-control, the maker of this mousse could have had me, right there and then. (Only with the slight drawback of his beautiful girlfriend being in the room...)

I believe cooks mostly used their products earlier, but as the taste is so unbelievably --Mmmh-- more and more people seem to have discovered this brand.

Writing about this surely makes the level of saliva rise... I realize that I am actually quite capable of writing myself into a choc-craving state. Ah, well. Why not.

Healthy interests anyone? Anyone?

So hard to concentrate!

Menstrual cramps should be forbidden. How am I supposed to concentrate about my Baudelaire-thesis when it is difficult and painful to sit still, and my belly seems empty even though I just had an avocado, or a handfull of walnuts, or some olives...? True, the thinking centre is not situated in the lower belly, but trust me; your body has enough influence on your thinking as it is.

"Free your mind" - not so easy when your body drags you back down!

It usually helps drinking som nice, white tea. But today that just propels me into a spiral of "now I need something salty, because the tea washed all my minerals out", or, "this detox and purification thing happening when drinking white or green tea surely means I can now have some more olives", and... Blaargh, you get my drift.

Get Up&Out&Walking seems the only solution to this. Or, perhaps, viewing another episode of the BBC Pride and Prejudice?

Well, venting my frustration also seems a good idea.
But that doesn't make the pain go away.

Enough complaining for today.

Tower of Song

Leonard Cohen

Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent everyday
In the Tower of Song

I said to Hank Williams: How lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn't answered yet.
But I hear him coughing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the Tower of Song

I was born like this, I had no choice.
I was born with the gift of a golden voice.
And twenty-seven angels from the Great beyond
They tied me to this table right here
In the Tower of Song

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll ---
I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all
I'm standing by the window where the light is strong
They don't let a woman kill you, not
In the Tower of Song

Now you can say that I've grown bitter, but of this you may be sure:
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there's a mighty judgment coming
But I may be wrong ---
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song

I see you standing on the other side
I don't know how the river got so wide
I loved you, baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We'll never have to lose it again

I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back
They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But You'll be hearing from me, baby
Long after I'm gone
I'll be speaking to you sweetly from a window
In the Tower of Song


Listen to this song on the album I'm your Man. I like it a lot. Perhaps you'd also like to see the documentary from 2005, I think it is called Leonard Cohen - I'm your Man. Made himself quite a catch-phrase there...

Jonathan Culler at play

Today I went to a doctoral dissertation or whatever the English term is - an oral dissertation for the doctoral degree, at the University of Oslo, Norway in this case. It was my brilliant teacher in short prose and prose poems who defended her written doctoral dissertation in order to become a Ph. D. in comparative literature.

While the content of her dissertation was&is highly interesting, the first opponent, Jonathan Culler (professor at Cornell University, US) spent most of his time babbling away about his own reflections on literature as a whole, and posed only three questions at the doctoree (again: whatever you call it in English). Three questions during an hour and a half's worth of speaking, this might give you a clear view of just how much Mr. Culler enjoyed listening to his own voice.

As he himself proclaimed, this was his first ever time as first opponent in this kind of environment, but that does not explain why he spent most of the time elaborating his own views of literature and quoting French authors in loud, well-articulated French (my guess is that he wanted to show off his good knowledge and practice of the language).

I am shocked!
I had hoped that one of the celebrities within literary studies would prove more interesting, and more sharp than this.
Not too brilliant, I have to say.

Akademia - humaniora

Noen ganger skjønner man ting. Man skjønner dem på en slik måte at de griper rett inn i livet ditt, i ditt livs midt. Når man er litteraturstudent synes man i begynnelsen at det er veldig spennende, og at man får holde på med noe som for mange bare er en hobby. Men spesielt innenfor litteraturvitenskap skjønner man raskt at liv og lesing er to forskjellige ting. Man kan analysere dikt og noveller, lese teori og baske med abstrakte problemstillinger - dem går det aldri slutt på. Og det er gøy, bevares, lenge er det det. Men når man holder på med noe over lang tid, er det uomgjengelig at det man har viet seg til spiser seg inn til eksistenskornet som alt spinner seg rundt. Om noe ikke er helt riktig, viser det seg etter hvert - og ofte har man hatt en anelse om det lenge.

Litteraturvitenskap er fremdeles interessant og gøy, men det slår meg stadig vekk hvordan akademia alltid ligger ett skritt bak det som skjer, og at det tar jobben med å forklare og teoretisere og sette inn i historisk rammeverk.

Det dannet seg med en gang et slagord for dette: Fra lecteur til aktør! For hva er det vi driver med her vi sitter bøyd over bøkene? Analyse, spalting, forsøke å se hva andre har ment og tenkt og hvordan de har gjort det, mens de som har skrevet bøkene faktisk gjør noe. De lever gjennom ordene. Vi gjenopplever, gjenskaper, sekundærproduserer. Ikke rart at jeg noen ganger føler meg som en parasitt. Og et hakk fjernet fra eget liv. Det går nok fint an å leve et helt liv i hodet, noe sier meg at det er mer normalen enn unntaket. Men det er ikke bra nok for meg. Jeg må være her når jeg er her, for å si det sånn. Så får vi se om denne måten er den beste å gjøre det på.

Til slutt må jeg si: Jeg elsker litteratur, jeg elsker å lese, lære, reise gjennom andres ord. Det kommer jeg alltid til å gjøre. Men leser som livsvei er jeg ikke like sikker på om er holdbart i lengden. For meg.

Bibliotek!

Dette er biblioteket i Oslo slik det ser ut nå, i hovedhallen. Alt som står oppetter veggene er vanskelig å komme til, de færreste går helt oppe under taket for å finne bøkene de vil ha. Det er vel ca 20% av alle bøkene som står framme i dette "hovedbiblioteket" i Oslo - tegn på plassmangel, mon tro ---. Vi trenger virkelig et nytt, større, mer inspirerende sted å gå for å låne og lese bøker! Gleder meg altså veldig til det nye biblioteket skal stå ferdig, men jeg kan tenke meg at det ikke er ferdig før om ca 10 år... Hvorfor må man alltid vente på gode ting?

Her er noen biblioteker jeg gjerne skulle sittet og lest i!

Og drømmestedet? Det originale biblioteket i Alexandria! Ingen vet hvordan det så ut. . .

Men Escher har bedre fantasi enn de fleste.

Det øverste av disse andre bibliotekene har jeg faktisk vært i: Det er fra Trinity College i Dublin. Bøker er tunge tilstedeværelser, og atmosfæren er sumptuous (den ordlyden er bedre beskrivende enn de norske ord jeg kunne komme på).

For å se flere fantastiske bibliotek er det verdt å sjekke ut boka til Candida Höfer, med intro av Umberto Eco. Den heter rett og slett Libraries og har ISBN 0500543143.

Trivia Game Harry Potter 7

Get this and other HP countdowns at LeakyNews.com

Litt skuffende filmopplevelse

Ok, oppdatering på ting jeg sa man burde glede seg til denne våren/sommeren:

Nå har jeg sett Spider-Man 3. Den var ok, men de to forrige var langt mer interessante. Bilkræsj og tjue meter høye sandmenn klarer ikke holde på min oppmerksomhet særlig lenge. Denne filmen utfordrer svært lite. Og blir i overmål moralsk på slutten - så uttalt rett og riktig moralsk sett at man skulle tro det var en Disney-film. Amerikansk til de grader.

Firer på terningen er passende for denne filmen.

Predictions HP7

Had to do this prediction exam at The Leaky Cauldron - my fauvourite Harry Potter website (except from J.K. Rowling's own, of course). Good fun.

Wallace Stevens: The Plain Sense of Things

The Plain Sense of Things

After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things. It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir.

It is difficult even to choose the adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
The great structure has become a minor house.
No turban walks across the lessened floors.

The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.
The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.
A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition
In a repetitiousness of men and flies.

Yet the absence of the imagination had
Itself to be imagined. The great pond,
The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves,
Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence

Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see,
The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this
Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge,
Required, as necessity requires.



As the previously posted poem by Nagarjuna (which, incidentally, is not a poem in the traditional way of thinking - rather like philosophical learning in the form of verse) is, by definition, Eastern in origin and form, this poem by Wallace Stevens seems to me to hold a reflection of the Eastern simplicity - within which is contained a profound complexity. It is rather revealing to the Western mind and way of expressing itself that this poem probably would have been put as a three-stanza haiku, had the author been, say, Japanese.

This way of expressing oneself, however, seems to be easier to grasp for our Eurocentric/westbent minds. As I myself belong to the Western camp, I couldn't really tell you the difference in the way of thinking between these two traditions. But I do believe that poems and written Eastern philosophy hints at how different the view of existence in different cultures can be.

At the same time: The direct experience of being human is something every person on this planet shares. So any difference in thinking, acting or organizing one's life and society will never be completely unintelligible. This is something more than one politician and other people of power might want to ponder. Before you go to war, of any kind, search within yourself to see whether there might be some understanding of the "opponent"'s point of view. Most of the time, you will find that there is.

Don't be afraid to look deeper into yourself that you normally allow yourself to do. Whatever you find will not be lethal to you. You might even find that you get to know a person that has longed to be recognized by you: Yourself.

Te!

Litt reklame synes jeg man kan bedrive, i hvert fall når det gjelder en butikk og folk som er så gode til det de driver med: Le Palais des thes er en svært god teforretning som har en filial i Oslo; i Vibesgt 10 på Majorstua.

Ta en tur dit hvis du er glad i te. Du finner garantert noe du liker, og noe du ikke har smakt eller luktet før. Prøv en av de hvite teene, de har en subtil og rund smak. Og hvis du er tekanne-elsker, som jeg, kan du se noen tradisjonelle kinesiske og japanske utgaver (se på, for de er relativt dyre), i tillegg til nyere design. Riktig en forretning etter mitt hjerte!

Bibliotekets magi

Jeg måtte bare legge inn et par bilder av Universitetsbiblioteket i Oslo. Det gir deg lyst til å lese. Det er moderne, lyst, svært høyt under taket, og alle bøkene som er samlet der (dvs alle tanker folk før deg har tenkt) gir hele stedet en magisk glød. Bibliotekene er virkelig gode plasser å være. Jeg gleder meg til vi får et nytt hoved-Deichman her i Oslo. Det har gått meget tregt, så vidt jeg har skjønt, men nå har Oslo kommune skrevet under på tomtekjøp på Vestbanen (...), så sneglen har i hvert fall satt seg i bevegelse. Jeg gleder meg også til det nye Litteraturhuset står ferdig, det er visst allerede senere i år. Norli skal åpne butikk der, i første etasje, og jeg er spent på hva slags profil den får.

Ellers: Akkurat nå gleder jeg meg til en del ting som kommer til å skje i løpet av våren/ sommeren:

• Først og fremst den siste Harry Potter-boka: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! Filmen til bok 5 er sikkert også verdt å få med seg, men man trenger nok bare se den én gang (i motsetning til Ringenes Herre-filmene, som jeg måtte se tre ganger hver på kino).
• Snart kommer det også en ny Spider Man-film, som jeg, tross mine 26 år, faktisk tror kommer til å bli ganske så bra. Ser mørk og problemfylt ut, akkurat noe for meg.
• The Simpsons kommer også på film. Har en anelse om at den ikke blir fantastisk, men siden de første sesongene av TV-serien var så god, er det verdt å prøve.
• Gleder meg til å skrive ferdig en oppgave om Baudelaires prosadikt, som skal leveres om en måned.
• Gleder meg til å trappe opp masterskriving (dvs idéutvikling og prosjektplanlegging, deretter skriving) utover sommeren og høsten.
• Og: gleder meg til den nordiske sommeren.
  

Akkurat nå gleder jeg meg mest til å spise et egg.

Thekla

Failing and Flying

This poem, and poet, was posted as a commentary to one of my previous posts. I like the poem so much that I wanted to post it in my own blog as well. billyhowl, if you are out there (could only find your profile, not your blog or any contact details) - I would like to send you a poem in return, by a Scandinavian poet. If I can't find you, I'll just post it here.

Love,
Thekla

Failing and Flying
by Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph

Snirkelen

Hun har tatt opp i seg en snirkel
Den styrer hennes handlingsbaner
og fungerer som pekere for de som følger
Fingeren peker gjerne i forvirrende retninger
og alle de som følger i hennes spor blir forvillet.
Skogene lukker seg rundt dem.
Måltrostene lokker og humlene surrer mystiske
beskjeder som de ikke kan skjønne før de har
vandret stien til ende og snur seg og ser
at det ikke var noe å skjønne.

Marmorens grunntone er det de har søkt.
De vil aldri finne den.

Examination of Time

Examination of Time

If the present and the future
Depend on the past,
Then the present and the future
would have existed in the past.

If the present and the future
did not exist there,
How could the present and the future
Be dependent upon it?

If they are not dependent upon the past,
Neither of the two would be established.
Therefore neither the present
Nor the future would exist.

By the same method,
The other two divisions -- past and future,
Upper, lower, middle, etc.,
Unity, etc., should be understood.

A nonstatic time is not grasped.
Nothing one could grasp as
Stationary time exists.
If time is not grasped, how is it known?

If time depends on an entity,
Then without an entity how could time exist?
There is no existent entity.
So how can time exist?


Nagarjuna

Dangerous political tendency in Scandinavia

Last day of the year. Not much to tell, really. Have been working a lot this christmas, in the book store as usual. Working, eating, living, reading. A good life, I feel, simple and centered.

The political situation is slightly worrying in Norway these days. A populist party, masters of denial and playing up to "the ordinary man's" rather unreal and unhealthy wishes: Cheaper petrol, cutting the taxes, spending more money from the oil fund (our country's financial security, used as support for every new, wild idea that would need a lot of money - but the so called huge size of the oil savings really isn't that big, it's just that the Norwegian population is rather modest - so NOK per capita is high, but seen in a global perspective, there really isn't that much money in there). In short, this party (FrP, or The Progress Party, in translation (stupid, stupid, misleading name)) plays at people's stupidity, nourishes theyr egotism and whips up nationalistic feelings. They are dangerous, because so many seem to follow their tune, believing that we are the best nation in the world and that we don't need ideals or a moral base in our personal and political lives - which, incindentally, is the same thing.

So my plea to the Norwegian people in 2007 is: Please, do NOT vote for FrP in the election the forthcoming September! They are more dangerous than they seem! I am warning you. The costs of their politics are yet to see, but the tendency is clear: Everything is based on profit and gain, in every single thing one is supposed to gain something, preferably money. Money, money, money. These three words (...) are really the centre of this party's thinking. Our country's soul is at stake if these people get to rule.

Again, I am warning you. We cannot let this happen.

Adjagas - great Sámi music

Follow this link to listen to and read about the Norwegian/Sámi band called Adjagas - their music is a combination between electronica and folk, with the traditional Sámi yoik as the pivotal point. I have little knowledge about their traditional music, but their music is breathtakingly beautiful, quiet, manylayered, and makes an impression on every listener.

http://www.myspace.com/adjagas

Adjagas is a Sámi word for the state between being awake and sleeping, when your senses are more open to the dream-state than in your normal awaken state.

By the way, the Sámis are the rural people in the North of Scandinavia - Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. They call their land Sápmi.

somewhere never travelled

I have to share this poem. With someone.

Even the one who knows me most intimately doesn't know that this is how I feel I come across to the world. That this would be the best interpretation of me.

The scent of flowers emanating from this poem
is the same I feel flowing from beneath my skin.



somehwere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands


e.e.cummings

Tro

Hvem sier at vi ikke tror på noe lenger?

Vi tror på alt for mye!

Vi har en hel rekke forestillinger som vi går rundt og tror på, en hel del hodeskapte konsepter som vi tror eksisterer. Som vi tror er manifest i verden.

Jeg oppdager hele tiden ting jeg tror på. Fullt og fast. Det er en maske som jeg har klistret over ansiktet mitt. Over ett av ansiktene. Lagene innover er uendelige, virker det som. Bakenfor en hver tro, bak hver overbevisning som ikke er fullt ut kjent, erfart, sett, ligger det en delforståelse av noe som igjen føder en ny delforståelse. Lag på lag av halvsannheter bygger et etterhvert forkvaklet virkelighetsbilde. Og dette er den verden de fleste tror eksisterer. Jeg er en av dem, men prøver hver dag å se sannheten i øynene.

Two of me

This is how I feel - ready to take on the world.

But habits of hiding are hard to end.

I love life but constantly tell myself to live it differently.

These few lines seem moody and glum, yet I feel perfectly fine - this is a paradox I often run into! I feel schizofrenic somehow, like I'm parted in two: One who is thinking, weighing pros and cons and inventing problems and concerns - and one who is acting, dealing with situations and people and being a part of this world.

I really feel split in two here! I don't see how these two can be united.

Blargh.

I would so like to immerse myself in beauty. To bathe in Bach, to fall into the depths of Rembrandt, to drink the seagreen of Tranströmer and Dickinson, to envelop all the greens and blues of nature! To ignite on the reds and yellows! Bring life along and I'll swallow it whole.

I thirst for all things beautiful, expressive and truehearted.

Augustine & me

I read a few paragraphs of Augustine's Confessions and felt my heart crack open. With a painful pang, veils who had been clouding my presence/existence, were drawn away.

I felt my own heart in its raw, unprotected state, quivering, pulsating, flowing with incredibly tender, liquid/vapour-like substance. All too intensely alive and potentially painful for me to be able to stay with, as I am at work. Surrounded by books (which are probably my best friends), but also by people. And I just couldn't break down or merge completely with the text. Or - the text is not really what I would say is what reached me today. It is the imprint of the soul behind it. Augustine flowed through his own words, from the well which he himself had contact with in order to write and see and feel and think what he did.

Meeting myself heart to heart like this made me realise, yet again, that the one you fear the most is yourself.

There is so much life in me, and you, that you do everything in your power to suppress it. It is painful to see and more painful to feel.

I needed a reminder of who I am.

As to who I can become, I dare not think. But am trying to just allow myself to be filled with true nature when it arises.

Love to all, always.

What is a historian?

This is something I have been pondering lately: "what is a historian?".

Why this question formulated itself now has to do with a radio programme I listened to earlier this week. In it there was a historian working as a researcher of the future, a scientist who dealt with hypotheses about how future technology will affect the work and lives of people. It came to me, then, that just as much as delving into the past and getting lost in details and different times' different habits and ways of life, a historian acquires knowledge about the structure of human life.

People of all times have put their thoughts and ideas into action, into a pattern of life, have poured their thoughts about what life is and how it should be lived, into systems, into some kind of organisation. Often this has been done consciously, but I believe that just as often a "world order" (locally as well as globally) has been derived out of a set of ideas living in the people at that time. That a powerful current of ideas actually materializes itself through the people thinking, imagining and seeing them, that these people actually work as an instrument for the prominent ideas of their time.

A historian, who sits at a distance from these events, has the power to see the long lines and developments in human nature and how we execute our insights and powers.

So a historian can, by use of his imagination and comparative intelligence, transfer this knowledge about old times to how we might behave in the future.

Therefore, the term "historian" might not be the best to describe the real function he fills - or can fill.

Human systems scientist, perhaps? Not as catchy, though.. I admit that!

Any better suggestions?

T

Harry Potter and the Longest Story on Earth

There is no hiding it: I am a Harry Potter fan.

And although I love the books by themselves, just the way they are, isolated from other literature, there is no way you can avoid the fact that these books express the newest version of the long, long story that has probably lived as long as people have inhabited the earth. You have it expressed in The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien (where Frodo and Sam explicitly refer to themselves as taking part in an overall story, far outliving them), fairytales throughout the world, in lore and popular fiction, ballads, songs and so on. Where it all comes from is of course the next question, but the answer to that is still a bit beyond where I have tread. (Although I think it has something to do with where psychology comes from - what shapes us as humans, why we realize our Being in the shape of humans.)

There is the obvious "good vs bad" theme in the Potter books. There is also a demonstration of the human ability to create - to flesh out the web of ideas and deeply rooted images we all take part in. Rowling is brilliant in the way she uses fantasy, in creating a fully inhabited universe that we want to live in and explore on our own. She presents us with mystery, interesting characters, intelligent storylines, tragedy, comedy, solid friendships and a fight for life. The story she produces is as many-layered as expressed by the great variety of people who love her books (her tale, her long story). I think every reader meets her text with his or her own backdrop of ideas, feelings, memories, preferences etc, factors that make a person that particular person. And despite of this, nearly everyone reading her story gets engulfed. In a good way! I take it as a mark of her genius.

This story incorporates all the stories that went before it, and takes it a few steps further, into our own time - or, rather, the author is one step ahead of us, sketching out a newer, fresher world order. Something we feel it is worth reaching out for, something we feel as being the natural next step in the world as we know it.

Everything that is made and put forth in this world leaves an imprint of itself. Everything existent is always coloured by everything else. The Harry Potter saga (still in the making, that is one of the things that is so fantastic about it! that we get to share the long process from beginning to end, not knowing how the story ends) is without question the biggest, most successful story of our time.

One of the reasons, I think, is because Rowling is exactly one or more steps ahead of us all of the time. She made this universe and, more important still, she made the plot, which every good story springs from and moves towards. The plot is not yet revealed to us so the saga of the saga is also unfinished. (The saga of the saga might never finish, as I am sure you are very well aware). The real size and quality of the story, then, is yet to be unfolded. But the quality of the six books we already know leave us with no doubt that the last and concluding chapter (book 7) will live up to the expectations. Probably it will even transcend the previous ones, perhaps leaving some behind, dissatisfied. But more people are going to love it and see that this was the only way the story could be concluded, this was what the population of the world needed to read in the beginning of the 21st century. I believe that.

That is how much trust I place in J. K. Rowling.

T

Goodbye melancholy

After having made the discovery about choice and being the leader of my own life, I sensed that something slipped away from my experience of life. I realized that the ties that has kept me clinging to my childhood and my then experience of the world (easy and light, problem free - in a superficial way) were cut. Through the "revelation" I had about my set of beliefs rooted in my mother's view of the world, I at the same time let go of a major part of my melancholy - which, again, has made up a major part of my view of the world. Through easing up, through seeing more clearly the subjectivities of the world views that we are all indoctrinated with one way or another, I let go of a lot of melancholy feelings about childhood states - and seeing nostalgia as being a subtype of melancholy.

Nostalgia is almost exclusively connected with childhood, or the childhood you think you have had. Many of my melancholic moods have been triggered by a feeling that so much has changed for the worse since I was a child. That the world I lived in and experienced then never will be seen again. That all you can have is the remembrance of things past... This melancholy-nostalgia has been a huge part of my "identity", of the images and thoughts and memories I have pieced together to represent something I have called "me".

I also found that I have connected this state with the colour blue, or blue-grey, and that my sense of this particular colour has been very strong. So strong that it has actually rubbed off or melted into other parts of my life-experience. Another part of this identity-thing of mine has been being a serious, wide-eyed, observing girl. This part, too, has the taste and feeling of blue-grey to me. And I can't help but wonder, now, whether these two different expressions of my persona may flow from the same well. Whether they have the same root in me, so to speak. The state of being serious, which I easily slip into, and the melancholy state, which expresses itself with a more overall heavy and gloomy presence, stonelike and overwhelming, seem to share source.

Seeing this helps me distance from these two prominant features of my shell-like personality. But not identifying with them is another step. Distancing is one thing, ridding oneself of something completely is a more painful affair. It is painful to part with deeply rooted beliefs one has about oneself. Sometimes these beliefs can be so deeply rooted that you actually think they are part of you, that they make you you. Nevertheless, seeing these things about myself certainly lightens the familiar feeling of heaviness connected to melancholy or seriousness.

Hm.
Thoughtful, yet lighter and calmer "good nights" from me.

T

You can actually choose

Right now, today, reading the newspaper in the still rather quiet bookstore that I work in, something struck me: I have a choice.

I was reading along in the weekend magazine that accompanies one of the larger Norwegian newspapers when I felt saturated and suffocated by the never ending messages about how to have a good time. How to dress the table in order to have the best summer party, how to decorate your home in the coziest fashion, how to dress for late, light summer nights, what to cook for your ten dinner guests for the garden party (that evereyone seemingly desperately longs to throw), in short: How to live life best.

Well, I have to protest. I have to take a moment and feel into my own chest - is this right for me? Do I believe in this popular mythology? It is so easy to be swept away and into a set of thoughts and mental images about how one is supposed to live one's life. And I realized now, more than ever before, how easy it is to just follow the lights in the aisle, to trot down the trodden path. I realized that in some dimension I had actually started believing in the most prominent ideas and images about how life is best led.

I have to mention, here, that my country lies so far north that when summer arrives, we all run outside and try to spend as much time there as we possibly can, and when fall comes we can hopefully say that we haven't stayed in more than what is strictly necessary for sleeping and other natural reasons... Or is this just a national myth as well? Can it be that the people who are living this myth are the most boisterous and loud and therefore the most visible, making their truths the most "real" truths, also for the rest of the population? I don't have the answer to that. But in my case, the shipper of the easy, rosy, lace-lined way of living was my mother. So I have been indoctrinated with this view for a long time. And, you know, she believes it; her way of having a good time is making a good meal, meeting friends for light, unchallenging chats, doing a little work around the house, tending her flowers and generally having a good time. And it works for her, it is enough. But - and this is something I sensed during childhood, this doesn't do it for me! I like to investigate things, to delve into the depths, to figure out why things are as they are, to understand the principle of just anything, be it human interaction, why this novel is better than that, what this author is actually saying, what happens when we think, what do we believe in and why, and so forth (for ever more).

It was such a revelation to see this! A relief! To just understand that I can actually live the life I would like to, without having to feel guilty that I am not living up to the flower-patterned "ideal" that penetrates the public set of ideals in this country.

I am sure my husband will be pleased to hear me say this. He has hinted, I now undersand, about this for some time. For as long as we have known each other, I believe. Hmm. Some catch things slower than others.

And, again, I feel I have to say that my mother's interpretation of what is a good life certainly is a good one, and I can understand why that is what she chooses for herself. But it isn't what I am searching for in this life. It is as simple as that.

Have a good Saturday!
(And choose to live it the way you like.)

T

Situation: Here. Now.

Ok, this is me: I am sitting at work, on a desk in a large book store in Oslo, Norway. Outside there is sun. Inside it is quiet. You can hear the squeeking in the floor as people stroll around and the buzz of the air conditioning. Everything seems so.. quiet, almost deserted! And I find myself thinking, What am I doing here? You know those times when you see yourself from the outside, as if you are just looking at some stranger and wondering - how did I get there? How on earth can that be "me"? This is one of those times.

You have a sudden rush of seeing things a they are, looking at the world in a more objective way than usual, and you find that you are a miniscule entity in a large web - or rather, that although you are small and seemingly unimportant, you are actually a part of a living organism. You are part of Life. A holographic expression of the rest of the world.

From this perspective, every problem you think you have suddenly seems rather trivial. Your petty worries about everyday life seem small and unimportant. Well, in this perspective such worries are small and unsignificant. And in glimpses like these, I think you actually see things more as they are than you normally do. I think that this perspective is more real, more cosmic. Yeah, I think cosmic is the term here. You look at yourself with the eyes of the cosmos. With the stuff that you are made of, came from and (if logic can be used here, and why shouldn't it?) what you will return to when you no longer live in the shape you now have.

This is weird, seeing myself write these things. But I honestly believe that what I have said here is true.

Only half an hour left before we close tonight. I like being surrounded by books, but I also like seeing the sun while it is up. Well, nowadays it doesn't set until around midnight, but anyway...

This is me, again. Good night.

Emily Dickinson

For some time now, I have been deeply fascinated by Emily Dickinson's strikingly original work. Her poems stand out as a unique chapter in the history of literature. Putting yourself in her shoes, in 1850-80 Amherst, MA, looking backwards and forwards at the line of poets and literates, you won't find many - if any - poets like her.

She is, of course, known as "The Queen Recluse" as she gradually withdrew from society and from the early sixties never set foot outside her house. You can have all sorts of opinions and interpretations of her choosing to act this way, but I dare say that had she been married and hence drawn into the normal busy life a family would demand, we certainly would not have the great amount of startling poetry from her hand that we now do.

Having of course a fine mind and the nature of questioning and searching and pondering, she would always have left an imprint of herself. But we would never have been able to take part in her originality and quality of mind.

As she so stands out in the landscape of literature, not merely picking up the thread left by some earlier poet, she also manages to be closer to us than many other writers whose work is coloured by the time in which they were written. Today, tomorrow - she will probably remain in the canon of the best poets in human history because of her sharpness, her direct approach to and expression of her thoughts/mental images and her original but enchanting and many-layered imagery. Her metaphors are quivering with life, leaving you with no doubt of her being in possession of her own language and that she is embodying it.

I would like to end this post with a poem I think is beautiful, strong and somewhat ethereal. And it is about poets!

I will probably return to Emily in the future. She is too marvellous to be left in the shadows.

Enjoy:


I reckon - when I count at all -
First - Poets - then the Sun -
Then Summer - Then the Heaven of God -
And then - the List is done -

But, looking back - the First so seems
to Comprehend the Whole -
The Others look a needless Show -
So I write - Poets - All -

Their Summer - lasts a Solid Year -
They can afford a Sun
The East - would deem extravagant -
And if the Further Heaven -

Be Beautiful as they prepare
For Those who worship Them -
It is too difficult a Grace -
To justify the Dream -


Emily Dickinson,
ca 1862

Den halvferdige himmelen

DEN HALVFERDIGE HIMMELEN

Oppgittheten avbryter sitt løp.
Angsten avbryter sitt løp.
Gribben avbryter sin flukt.

Det ivrige lyset veller fram,
selv spøkelsene tar seg en slurk.

Og maleriene våre kommer for en dag,
våre istidsatelierers røde dyr.

Allting begynner å se seg om.
Vi går i solen i hundrevis.

Hvert menneske en halvåpen dør
som leder til et rom for alle.

Den uendelige marken under oss.

Vannet lyser mellom trærne.

Innsjøen er et vindu mot jorden.

T. Tranströmer

Örnklippan

Örnklippan

Bakom terrariets glas
reptilerna
underligt orörliga.

En kvinna hänger tvätt
i tystnaden.
Döden är vindstilla.

I markens djup
glider min själ
tyst som en komet.

Tomas Tranströmer

For reading: Norwegian authors

The exams are over!

And now what?

There is always loads that I would like to do, read and accomplish while I am tied to the university. As the exams draw to an end and I find myself wonderfully freed from duties and deadlines, all the time on my hands seems to drown me - at least for a few days. I just don't know what to do with the blank days presented to me. But that usually doesn't last very long. Some days of the week I work in a large book store, check out its website: http://www.norli.no
To be surrounded by books gives a good feeling. Books can be better friends than many people.

I would like to recommend some Norwegian authors that probably aren't too famous in the rest of the world:

• A real writer, a truth-seeking novelist with a poet's pen is Knut Hamsun.
  Many of his books are translated to English, German and other languages. He even received the Nobel Prize of literature in 1920. The books Pan, Mysterier (Mysteries) and Markens grøde (Growth of the Soil) are amongst his very best. In addition to the clear, lyric language these books also express some sort of national "ground tone" - a sort of Norwegian voice, sea-blue and tree-green.

• Olav H. Hauge is a poet from Hardanger, the green garden of the west of Norway, dramatically situated between high mountains and narrow fjords. Most of his life he worked as a gardener, but at heart he truly was a poet. His often short, simple poems stretch out in your mind as they unfold. As simple as they may seem, there is depth and width beyond all oceans. In addition to this simpleness, he has an extensive knowledge of the world's literature, of Chinese poets and other authors. All of this shines through his poems. Visit www.norli.no or www.amazon.com to check out English and Norwegian books by this author.

• Henrik Ibsen is of course not to be forgotten. This playwrite is famous throughout most of the world - at least by people who take an interest to the scene. One of my favourites amongst his plays is Peer Gynt. Ibsen himself called this piece a "dramatic poem" and left it for the next centuries' public to discuss what this really means. Although Peer Gynt mostly is presented as a play on a stage of some kind, this piece is just as good recited, listened to or silently read by yourself. In this dramatic poem (it's all on rhyme!) Ibsen has captured some of the Norwegian people's soul, for good and for worse. The drama of the landscape is reflected in the minds and deeds of the characters, mostly so in Peer himself. He is a dreamer, a boaster and a storyteller, but soft-hearted and kind as well. His wild tales and infortunate actions lead him into some real trouble. At one point he has to flee into the mountains, and there he meets the Mountain King - a troll of some kind. Peer has to flee from this one too, as he has dishonoured the Mountain King's daughter and the way they live. From now on, Peer Gynt faces a wild trip around the world (or so it seems). This story is exciting, poetic, musical, mysterious, wondrous and sometimes breathtaking. It would absolutely be better to read this play in Norwegian, but as not many people speak Ibsen's own language, it is good to know that Peer Gynt has been translated into many, many languages. Go to the library and see if it exists in your language!

• A Swedish poet worth reading and rereading is Tomas Tranströmer. He is still alive and productive. Through him we meet blue and brown simplicity, the lucid joy of ordinary life. And the mysterious darkness we all carry in us. Somewhere in his poems you are bound to meet yourself.

Det er merkelig hvordan noe trigger en til å skrive. Det er merkelig hvordan stemmen forandrer seg når man skriver et annet språk. Å skrive på engelsk fører til et mer distansert forhold mellom meg og det skrevne og jeg innbiller meg at en engelskspråklig vil se dette like lett som jeg kjenner det.

Du trenger ikke gå så langt for å finne det rette, du trenger ikke søke land og strand verden rundt for å finne ut av mysteriet. Det eneste du trenger gjøre er å gå inn i deg selv. Der finner du utspringet til alt liv. Der finner du din ro, din rot, din trygghet og kilden til alt det du trodde du trengte å finne ut av på nytt. Har du kilden, trenger du ikke være redd for å gå tom.

Verden og meg

Jeg visste ikke når det skulle skje, men jeg håpet at det ville skje snart. Alt for lenge har jeg flakket omkring uten noe stødig holdepunkt ute i verden. I meg selv har jeg et sentrum så godt og sterkt som noens, men det er ikke alltid like fornøyelig å forholde seg til utenverdenen. Nå har jeg en ro og en stødig fremdrift. Jeg tør lene meg mot verden. Jeg vet at den vil ta meg i mot.

Essence, i guess

I believe one of the greatest challenges in life to be not running away. To not run away from unpleasantness, to stand up and stare life in the face when it comes to get you. Nothing should be more natural than this. But how many live by their ideals? There are times when you scratch the uneven surface of something essential, of something that is pure essence. This something you have to realise is a part of yourself, and that you yourself are a seed that can grow through asphalt, air and sky. That a part of the divine lives in you. Sometimes I can feel the soil in me, bits of earth and grass and leaves that bear witness of our very natural background, but sometimes I feel more like a machine or a hard metal something in a large mechanical device, like it's just a coincidence that we bear a resemblance to chimps and other large monkeys.

Almost just as hard as this is to head straight to the core of things. To be able to see through things rather than look at them, and then again to master the skill of dissecting the matter with language of some kind - words, music, colour etc. How many are able to look at a flower, let alone a tree or the idea "society", and then produce some drops of essence while explaining it? If anyone has the insight, can he then express it so that anyone understands what he has seen?Just look at this effort of describing the problem of describing things, it doesn't make matters very clear, does it? I'm trying to describe an abstract idea (which, by the way, is itself the definition of abstract), and find it difficult to succeed. I think it is important to make an effort. It is important to practice your humanity. It can be hard work, but all the more satisfying.

Good poets tend to point directly at the core of simple or difficult matters. That is one of the reasons why I like to read.


Vind fyker gjennom steinen
Insektet summer bladets fall
Fremdeles blinker fyret

Vinterklokken tikker i feil retning
Jeg har sendt fire båter til dadlene i Egypt
Min smerte er røkelse

Gresset hersker over mitt velkjente mørke
Døden retter tomheten opp med graner

Valgfrihet er valgtvang

Valgfrihet vil også si valgtvang. Vi tvinges til å foreta valg hele tiden, fordi vi tilbys så mange veier og valg til enhver tid. Vi er ikke langt fra scenene i "Minority Report" hvor Tom Cruise-karakteren går fram gjennom en skog av opp-poppende reklamer direkte henvendt til ham. Et slikt mylder av opplysninger vil nødvendigvis også gjenspeile seg på innsiden av folks hoder, den oppbrutte, oppjagede stilen setter sine metalltenner i svampaktig hjernefiber og etterlater seg dype spor. Overfør alt det du ser til hvordan tankene dine beveger seg på, alle trafikkmaskiner med over- og undergående biltrafikk med evig strømmende kjøretøy, alle menneskene som haster mot ett eller annet av større og mindre betydning, alle tog og tunnelbaner som kjører inn og ut av fjell, opp og ned åssider, alle flyene som suser i kryss og tråkler co2-mønstre over himmelen, og all larmen som stiger fra bevegelsene, fra mennesker og biler og fly og gravearbeider, når er det egentlig stille? Dette selvsagt med utgangspunkt i øyet som ser byen, men er det ikke i byen de fleste mennesker bor? Øyets kraft kan ikke undervurderes. Det visuelle senter opptar en stor plass i hjernen vår. For mange, underskrivende inkludert, spiller det visuelle direkte inn på hvordan de tenker, på tankenes baner.

Flere muligheter innebærer flere valg. Dette burde igjen føre til mer ettertanke, til loddende virksomhet, men DET viser seg ikke å stemme. Ikke for den store hopen, og jeg vet at dette er en generalisering, men det er ganske så opplagt at de aller fleste er mer opptatt å gjøre og ta del i mye enn å virkelig tenke på de valgene de gjør. Det finnes lettvintløsninger for alt, og det er fristende å velge dem. Vi tror gjerne vi sparer tid, men det vi taper er kan hende kvalitet?

Ett ubestridelig gode med alle disse mulighetene er nettopp det, at de fleste har en mulighet til å leve akkurat slik de ønsker. Men det er jo dette med at medaljen har to sider. Hvis man kan se begge sidene på en gang, og være bevisst hva man putter i seg (i form av inntrykk såvel som mat), har det aldri vært en bedre tid enn nå. At det kreves mer av oss enn tidligere er i grunnen bare bra. Det gjelder å skjerpe tanken og det vi sier, hva vi velger å utsette oss for bør gjennomgå en kritisk utsilingsprosess. Vi skal ikke gidde å tenke over alt som kommer rekende vår vei. Skap deg de muligheter du ønsker deg!

Det er så mye som er mulig, mer enn noen gang.


Thekla

Cocoa

I believe the cocoa bean to be vastly underestimated as a source of joy, happiness and everything positive in general. Is there a hole in your existence? Fill it with cocoa! Is there a hole in your stomach? Fill it with cocoa! Is there a whole in your wall, your ceiling or your love life? Stuff some cocoa in there!

Aaahh..

My sugar trip just ended.

Why is happiness such a short business.

TIP OF THE DAY

OK, forgot the Tip of the Day:

Drink loads of green tea, it really cleanses what's cleansable!