— Hello, friends. I feel all mixed up and I start out by mentioning this here. Does this mean that I whine over my state of internal affairs? No, I do not think so. Instead, I am interpreting this as a relevant state of my mind.
— In the world around me many odd things are happening. They take place on all levels. Ticks that infects my wife with borrelia. And strange characters that want the people to elect them as leaders. Even for one of the strongest nations on this planet. Not to mention those Englishmen that seem to believe they will be better off outside the European Union. They may even believe they would be better off disconnecting completely from Europe. Do they want to return to the time when their wealth was based in the colonies? Are we witnessing ”a collapse from the middle”?
— Or have I suffered too many years of naive trust in the society in which I lived? Am I presently awakening with a hangover? I believe so. A major part of my years I have lived that way. I did let others handle politics, philosophy and human values. I played along as an engineer and scientist for a large part of my professional life. I did mind my own business. Then I encountered a personal crisis. I felt something was seriously wrong. I could not go on and I changed my area of work. But the grass wasn’t greener on the other side. At least not yet. This change took place near to a quarter of a century ago.
— People may blame other phenomena as the root of their feelings of being mixed up. Some mention digitalization, the internet, globalization, advertising and the speed of living as possible sources. One thing each of us could grasp is to take responsibility for ourselves. One way is to assure that we shield and ground the sensitive element of our souls. Or at least that we train to do so.
— I am trying to do something about my situation. Some call my process a journey of self-discovery as if there is some self to be found. I can’t support that interpretation nor can I sopport the opposite one. I have engaged in writing. I have signed in to ”the 500 words a day” – group on Facebook. Today I am approaching 700 days of writing. In the back mirror I see a lot of text samples. I have not yet been able to identify a common thread in them. They are my reflections over what happened each day and over what my free writing reveals.
— When it comes to technology I have used Scrivener as basic tool with Gramarly and the Hemingway.app to polish my language. My mothers language was Swedish so I am brought up with that tongue. I have used Evernote for research but until today the life of that software has been rather layback. Beginning today I am trying out a new strategy. I the near future I will do my writing in terms of attempt to dialogues, scenes, characters and plots. Until I know anything better I will call them research for a coming novel. I will use Evernote to accumulate these elementary attempts and to sort them. Hopefully these piles of text will get warm, interact and give birth to some real writing.
Göran Stille 