Month: March 2020

I am in love with words. They taste nicely on their way out when spoken. That same taste stays with me when my thoughts do their best to arrange words into sentences and samples of text. Eventually they arrive at the tips of my fingers and become delivered to the harddrive of my computer. So far they do not differ that much from the images I have in my mind. But watch out! When I print them on paper differences become vividly obvious. The statements I read from the printed paper do differ from those lingering in my mind. The difference becomes increasingly obvious when those words are printed in a new font and looked at 24 hours later or more. Not to mention a month later.

Suddenly something starts to itch in my mind. The basic bones of Internet is built with the genetic material of the art of advertising. The race for our attention is won by the ones shouting loudest, using the brightest colors, and the most nice-looking images. Our actions become controlled by rather shallow reactions from our unconscious.

How do I guard myself? How do I boost other parts of my brain activities to act and stay in control? This issue has been with me for at least forty years. Possibly even eighty years. During my upbringing I think my parents allowed me ample of space. Sorry to say, I counteracted their efforts by acting on a substantial urge for them to teach me how to live. The roots for my attitudes were feelings of being extremely lonely and abandoned. I state this in contrast with being overly cared for.

Back to me and my present digital environment. At this early morning hours I sense a slight fear of being in the process of flattening myself out. Immediate counteraction is on demand!

But, how to do that? How to nourish the ambiguity of being human.

I am interested
in the writings of an old author
Robert Musil is his name
Born back in Austria
November 1880.

He proposes building
your own individual sense
of being alive.
He tells me to abandon worshipping
those events, circumstances and causes
I think caused my feelings.

It’s a chilly morning outside. A few degrees below freezing point and a clear sky. In the kitchen a radio voice. I feel irritated. Where is the area of silence I long for? I put my earphones on and play a tune of my own selection.

Still another day in quarantine. Voluntary imposed on ourselves to minimize the risk of a premature death. Suppose these coming days are the last few of my living? The question is shouting in my head at high pitch and volume. What do I definitely need to do? Today this issue is hot, The state is gone when it is enough to use my intellect to speculate and prepare. What do I write? Whom do I communicate with? What do I say? What is real? What is imaginary?

My head spins fo a while and settle on giving myself a moment of silence. Complete silence. Even my words settle. The next surface of my diary stays untouched and white. I hold my ink…

A desire to write has hit me. Especially in the mornings seconds after breakfast. I could describe it as an impulse, a habit or an inner compulsion. But it wouldn’t be fun. Instead I call it a desire. It makes me want to create new texts every day. Since I am pushed by desire the texts will lack in precision and content. Technically, my writing is of mediocre quality. It has many weak points. Some are the attitude I have towards a reader, my language, my style, my word knowledge, and my referencing.

In terms of content, the texts spread in all possible directions. At least according to the analytical part of my mind. At the same time, I do not understand why I was hit by this desire and why it is constantly urging me to do what I do. But you can’t understand everything. As an adult, I have finally accepted that this is the case. But unconsciously I am frequently guided by a younger versions of myself. I then act as if it is required of me to understand everything. A concrete example is the following. For a long time I have avoided speaking up and telling anyone appealing to me: “Now I get confused, this I do not understand at all, explain until I understand”. These were words that I should have started to use years ago.

 

In my last blog entry, I used the word “gas-holder”. A few readers have urged me to clarify my imagery. In Stockholm we have a few old buildings housing gas-holders. To the left you see two of them made out of bricks. They are about 30 meters high.

My poem refers to an old dream and in that dream I see myself as a child inside one of them building made out of bricks. I find myself inside the hollow space of such a building. To my surprise this hollow space exists in the middle of a large homogenous block of large apartement houses. This block is about 400 by 400 meters. In the real world one of them apartment houses holds the flat rented by my parents. Each house contains about 30 such flats. This imagery is dated 1942-1954.

That is the base for my dream and I want to be truthful to my dream. Why my subconscious mind places this gas-holder in my dream is beyond me. I have a hard time not to allow my engineering mind to create interpretations.

 

I can’t stand this anymore
Being controlled by the logic of my inner infant.
I thought I had to take everything in,
skin, heat, sounds and being close.
Facial expressions as well as covered submessages.
I thought I needed to understand everything
I did grind my diamond accordingly.
Attempting an accurate fit to the setting offered.

While growing up I dreamed of
abandoning that gas-holder.
On its floor a cosy little cottage,
with a slightly opened door.
A narrow strip of warm light
shine over the rough floor of mud.

A bit up and along the wall
a narrow frieze.
There elderly humans move anxiously
and close to each other.

I climb up to that level
and find an opening to the outside world.
The first things I meet
are large scales
made out of wooden ribs,
moving and waving, back and forth.
However, I did manage to leave
that huge gas-holder.