Warning: include_once(/www/webvol8/7u/8cg4lvqgp9cc1xl/ladislaushoratius.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/wp-cache-phase1.php): Failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /www/webvol29/06/en16crj248qcyuh/ladislaushoratius.com/public_html/wp-content/advanced-cache.php on line 8
Warning: include_once(): Failed opening '/www/webvol8/7u/8cg4lvqgp9cc1xl/ladislaushoratius.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/wp-cache-phase1.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/share/pear') in /www/webvol29/06/en16crj248qcyuh/ladislaushoratius.com/public_html/wp-content/advanced-cache.php on line 8
Deprecated: str_replace(): Passing null to parameter #3 ($subject) of type array|string is deprecated in /www/webvol29/06/en16crj248qcyuh/ladislaushoratius.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/wp-cache-phase2.php on line 28
Deprecated: realpath(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($path) of type string is deprecated in /www/webvol29/06/en16crj248qcyuh/ladislaushoratius.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/wp-cache-phase2.php on line 614
Deprecated: strtolower(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /www/webvol29/06/en16crj248qcyuh/ladislaushoratius.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/wp-cache-phase2.php on line 570
Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /www/webvol29/06/en16crj248qcyuh/ladislaushoratius.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-super-cache/wp-cache.php on line 3484 4 DIARIUM ("blog") | Ladislaus Horatius - Part 3
The title of this entry is not really understandable unless you know the royal motto of the current Swedish king: För Sverige, i tiden — For Sweden, with the times.. (I am also working on a book titled “Ur Sverige, i tid”, which is another story.)
But let´s forget about Sweden and think about food. My close friends know that I have a somewhat peculiar relationship with it. Some people are almost religious about food, and most at least see it as one of life´s great enjoyments. (I have it from a trusted source.)
My personal thoughts about the subject is “What goes up, must come down” and “What goes in, must come out”. That´s an irreligious attitude.
But I really do enjoy food from time to time, at least a couple of times a year. Especially when there is a rich palette of taste involved. And when it moves in time.
Some food is very still, it just sits there on the plate, like a meditating monk. You take one or two bites and you know the whole story: how it starts, continues and ends. Easy: it ends just as it started, because there is no development and definitely no surprise involved.
It´s like entering a city and already having the entire map of it operated into your head on a microchip. Wherever you turn you meet the already known, the already expected. Just more of the same, nothing else.
BORING!
Anyway, this is poached eggs à la Café Vian, one of the dishes that have found favor with me. At least on Sundays, which happens to be today.
I have eaten it on enough occasions for the surprise effect to wear off. But it still moves in time. And it almost talks to me:
“Don´t just sit there on your chair, you sluggard. Show some development, surprise us! Don´t let the end be like the beginning…”
Sometimes when our minds (or is it mouths?) relax, word order gets mixed up. Not a big problem, it can create funny situations.
The other day an acquaintance said to me: Jag hoppas du söker det du finner (I hope that you seek what you find). She caught herself and immediately corrected herself. We both laughed a bit and that was that.
Talk about unintentional Taoism.
I hope you find what you are seeking, the usual hackneyed phrase, presupposes that we seek something worth seeking, which is not necessarily the case. The thought contains both more wisdom and humour when turned on its head.
Philosophical minded folks (like me) often forget that Big is not better. The Big Questions can be anything but good, they are often pretentious and also impossible to answer (which is one reason for their perennial popularity; we will be able to argue about them for many more long winter evenings…).
I recently talked with the wife of a very good and important friend who passed away in cancer. How do you cope, I asked her.
Fine, she said, and then – Do you know the hardest bit, what I miss the most? Coming home and there is somebody who says: How are you? How has you day been? Tell me about it!
These are the small but oh so important questions. Forget the meaning of life and the universe. Forget Truth. All you want to do is to tell somebody you love that your day has been gray and monotonous. Or that you have been at the dentist and she carved around in your face for two hours, with no anaesthetic (your choice), and now your skull feels like a war zone.
How wonderful to be able to recount unimportant details about your life to an interested listener!
I don´t subscribe to a newspaper, still I get it most every morning. It is called The Daily Lie. Others call it by other names, fine.
Here is one of the articles:
“I see, that your website needs fresh & unique articles. I know it’s hard to write articles manually everyday, but there is solution for this.”
Just joking! I would never get rid of this beautiful snout.
You can guess the rest of the article. It comes from the section Commentaries.
Here is another one, in Swedish, from the section Personals:
“Hur mar du? Jag ar valdigt glad for att skriva ett meddelande till dig! Och jag ska vara glad om du svarar mig. 🙂
Mitt namn ar Marina. Jag ar en stor oberoende kvinna. Jag ar 34 ar. Jag arbetar som forsakringsagent. Jag har aldrig varit gift. Jag skulle garna traffa dig. Jag har lange funnit din e-post pa dejtingsajt. Men hur lange har beslutat att skriva till dig. 🙂
Jag skulle vara glad att lasa ditt svar. Jag ser fram emot!”
Marina, forsakringsagent och stor oberoende kvinna.
Where do I unsubscribe? You say I can´t? That´s too bad, because I start to feel marinated, steeped in lies. My eyebrow no longer goes up when they arrive. It has tired… become listless…. I fear it will start to droop and fall down to my knees.
No, that was a lie, a big exaggeration. I am infected.
Why do women waste the time of men? If I were Esther Vilar I might have many harsh words to say about this. But I am not Vilar, I just want to mention something that goes on all the time, and that steals our (mens´) time.
Suppose that I am courting a woman, or just showing her a general interest. “Would you like to drink a cup of herbal tea with me, visit a lecture or go to the cinema?”
She answers: “I don´t know, let me think about it.”
You feel generous so you say: “Sure, give it a think.”
Next time you meet the lady you ask her again, and she gives the same reply: “I haven´t really given it a thought, been very busy. Let me think about it.”
Sure, you say again, feeling somewhat less generous this time. But you are a gentleman after all, and you don´t want to put pressure on the weaker sex, right?
And we don´t have to talk about courting either. “Could I take some portraits of you, I need to practice on people?” the amateur photographer asks.
Same reply: “Let me think about it.”
What is it with women, why is their cerebral tempo so damned slow?
The answer is, very probably, that it isn´t. They just — for some reason — avoid the straightforward “no”. They don´t want to answer in the negative.
Why not?
I don´t know, probably it has to do with many factors. Upbringing, mothers´ advice, maybe the word “no” sounds too harsh (I feel myself that there is something very negative about it).
And maybe, heaven forbid, they like to control men, keep them on tenterhooks. I guess it feels good to receive sustained male attention without having to give anything back, more than “”I don´t know, let me think about it…”
Actually the lady is not slow at all; in very many cases she knows the answer right away, the very second the question is put to her. No, she is not going to drink herbal tea with us, go to a lecture with us or be photographed by us.
But by not saying so she wastes our time, and also gets some kind of feminine power out of the situation.
— It is not always thus. Some years ago when I was arranging a lot of musical salons I asked Lina, a very charming and slightly “trulsig” school girl, if she wanted to come and listen to my concert.
The female component in the audience is and always was very important.
No, she said, without blinking, but also without frowning or grimacing. It was a totally honest, simple answer. She wasn´t coming to my salon and that was that. “Straight tubes” as they say in Sweden.
Of course I regretted this and even felt a bit hurt. But mainly I was charmed by her girlish honesty; the answer was “no” and she wasn´t going to waste my time by asking for extra time to think it over.
Why I am retelling this? Because it is so unusual, so against the grain!
Maybe, possibly, she will grow up to be a woman who wastes the time of men, but hopefully not. Of course a cynic might say that she probably has a diagnosis.
Well, what a charming one in that case!
The answer “I don´t know, let me think about it” is given to a whole spectrum of questions, from “Would you like a chewing gum?” to “Do you love me?”.
And many of us men haven´t figured out that that answer really means “No, but I like your attention, so just keep it coming”. We are rigorously told that a “no” means no, but are kept in the dark about “maybe” also meaning no. (I guess we should feel lucky that sometime, somewhere there is a “yes”.)
And to answer nothing — neither yes or no –to the second question (Do you love me?) has about the same meaning: “I don´t think so, probably not… But don´t give up, keep hoping!”
As I said, Esther Vilar doubtless has a much harsher analysis. I dare not think about it. Being somewhat of a troubadour I want to retain a bit of my innocent, foolish, courtly attitude vis a vis women, at least a little longer.
Contradicting what my extraterrestrials friends from the Groovy Galaxy told me the other day, I DO think that writing matters, that it changes something, that is has some small value at least — the value of digestion.
Impressions can be raw, un-chewed, can pass right through your system without any nourishment being taken up. Or they can be reflected upon, considered, pondered, digested. That end product, digested experience, is somehow what I bring to the world (apart from my music, which is on another plane).
But how is this digested product of value to the world? I don´t know, but I guess by being read and heard by others, who thereby carry it in THEIR consciousness, who somehow make it part of their being.
This is rather clear to me when it comes to music. If it has touched me deeply it leaves a mark, gets to have a special place in my heart. A great photograph (or painting) can have the same effect. It “impresses” (itself on) me, I am touched, I remember it and carry it with(in) me.
Thoughts I am less sure about. You read a book, sure, it can make a big impression on you. but even then you might forget it in a week. Poems can be stronger in this respect. Many a poem helps to establish and keep alive national identity, insights about different subjects, can create contact with elevated energies, feelings of thankfulness, humility, love or pride.
My own ditty “All you need is broadband” might have had some such effect. (Many people don´t even know that I wrote it, which gives the whole thing an old-fashioned Anon-feeling.)
Anyway, I am a scribe and think, and definitely hope, that my reflections on life, myself, you and the universe are somehow of some value to humanity. If not humanity, then the Cosmos (“no energy, be it ever so mental or aristocratic, is ever lost”).
Postscript: I can definitely say that being a scribe is a gift to myself: while writing, at least my own energies are vivified and strengthened. Presently I find it very hard to imagine life without the possibility to write down my thoughts.
“What?” Isn´t that a bit rude, to call us a something and not a someone?
Beg your pardon, I thought you were a talking washing machine. I mean, that´s how they look on our planet.
(in chorus) Happy Unbirthday to you, Happy Unbirthday to you, Happy Unbirthday dear Whjker79RHjk/YuTY6, happy unbirthday to you!
Thank you. What did you just call me? Whjker79RHjk/YuTY6…?
Yes, that is what we call you in our galaxy.
And what galaxy might that be? No, don´t tell me. It probably has a long, complicated name.
No at all. We come from the Groovy Galaxy.
I seem to have admirers all over the place. Groovy? Still live in the sixties, do you?
Actually it is a shortening for…
Don´t tell me! I am just fine. So, welcome Wjle789ajkseyuiweYuYu from the Groovy Galaxy.
But Wjle789ajkseyuiweYuYu is not our name!
No?
No, it just means “it is us”. You can almost hear it: Wjle-789-ajks-eyui-we-YuYu.
Yes, I am beginning to hear it. Anyway, how did you know it was my birthday, I mean unbirthday?
We know all about you, so that is nothing strange. And we thought it was a fitting day to visit you. Traveling to your remote planet does take some time, you know. We´ve been at it for — what is it, pals? — 20 light years.
Well, I do feel honored, Wjle789ajkseyuiweYuYu. I mean, sorry, that wasn´t your real name…
That´s okay. Since the word evidently sticks, and you already have memorized it, it can be our n i c k n a m e. But enough of us and our names. How are you doing? It took some time to find you, since you are not in your usual habitat. We visited your regular watering holes and people just told us “He has moved, no further info”.
I am in a kind of monastery, in the last house…
in the village of Sárkányháza. How symbolic.
Of what?
You yourself are feeling it, the quietness of not being in the middle of things but outside them, removed. That´s why you called it monastery. Actually it looks like a big, nice guesthouse sort of thing. All this apart from killing dragons, of course.
Of course. Yes, you are right. I am here to get away from things and people and getting close to myself.
We know all about it. Still it is good to hear it from the horse´s mouth, so to speak.
Yes, as a Saggi I know about horses and blinkers. But I have also taken up archery. Becoming human, slowly…
Yes, yes. (long silence) We see you have become friends with silence. That is good.
Sometimes I run out of words. And since so many words have run out of me in this lifetime, I thought I´d give them a rest.
Good move!
Words mean so little sometimes. And so much at other times. Sometimes they are premature, sometimes they come too late…
It is never too late.
For what?
There´s always another tram or bus coming.
Yes, but I see now how foolish it was to miss some trams.
Don´t fret. You are still here; there comes a tram; just hop on, as they say in Budapest.
Ah, Budapest! One could be happy there. I felt it at Keleti the other day. But how typical — I felt it just as I was about to leave the city.
At moments of separation we feel things stronger, are more “alive”. Unless we are alive every second.
What a cliché that is. But still, a good aim. And I suppose we are separating every second, from the second before it. This moment is different, from any before it.
(Sings, out of tune) “is different, it is now.” Just watch out so that the next moment — which doesn´t exist — steals you from THIS moment — which most definitely exists. By the way, do you mind if we smoke?
Just go ahead, I have a gas mask. What brand?
Djarum. We got the idea from your blog.
You really are readers.
We read it from your mind before you published it. So don´t look for our IP number in your statistics.
What else did you read there?
“Don´t be a clown”. We strongly suggest that you follow your own advice. Leave the clowning and get down to serious business.
Yes… serious showbusiness.
Or just business. Have you given yourself any new year´s promises this year, by the way?
No, I seldom do that.
Do it now.
Why not, my unbirthday is a new year in a sense. Let me see. I promise to myself that I will…
Yes…?
I have it, but I will keep it to myself.
Good. Many ears are listening in the ether. Just remember that you are still clowning, still entertaining. That´s great when you have a party at home, but don´t try to entertain the World.
Why not?
First, you can´t do it, second, you are doing it for the wrong reason. If you did it for the right reason, you could do it.
Today´s Koan.
Well, time flies when one enjoys oneself. Is there something special you would like to have as unbirthday present?
Let me think…. Birthdays is something that have melted away in my life, and as to unbirthdays, I am not used to getting presents then. That would be an awful lot of presents!
Well, 364 presents are not that many.
You are right, that´s a small number in an enormous Universe. I have it! An indirect present. Make A.P. Montata happy!
That was an unusual wish. We really are in no position to make anybody “happy”, but we promise to forward your wish to the Great Wizard. Now remember, writer: writing changes nothing, or almost nothing. That is a hard lesson for writers, we know. And don´t entertain, or, only entertain at home. And please, don´t end every one of your posts with a video!
You mean like this one?
That was actually very funny. And quite fitting for this day. Once again we wish you, our hero, a very happy unbirthday. We have to hop on our intergalactic bus now and be on our way. But, just like Arnold, we will be back!
I hope so, dear admirers. You came, and you made my day. Thank you.
S7e89rwklcyuqw! That means “Auf Wiedersehen” in our language.
Honey rum from the airport (tax-free).Stone collection from the beach (totally free).
I know which will last longer.
This wasn´t just a geographic journey but almost time travel, a trip to a different season.
If one equates (as I do) sun and warmth with summer than I left my old, cold season behind and jumped almost half a year forward. And now, backward.
The stones tell an interesting story about time, and the meeting between mineral and water. And about waves. And about repetition. Droppen urholkar stenen — the dripping wears away the stone, the waves lick and polish it.
(Written after having eaten slightly too much at a rich breakfast buffet..)
Sometimes I find myself in situations with unlimited free food. At Swedish Christmas dinners for example, but also other occasions.
In such situations my inner Stone Age Person — an old, atavistic guy who feels absolutely no trust in there being food at the table tomorrow — kicks in. He wants to eat EVERYTHING offered. Which of course would result in paltkoma as the Swedes say.
“Koma” means coma and “palt” is a nauseating Swedish dish made out of blood. (Paltkoma = eating so much you can´t keep awake.) Real cave man food, I think it would put me in coma even without eating much of it.
The Vikings and historic man very probably knew a thing or two about over- and under-eating. Much less about regular, square meals.
Anyway, something similar happens with children of very rich families when they enter a toy shop. You can have anything you want, anything you point at, says the parent. Wow, what a feast!
Sometimes these children grow up to be bibliophiles. A story tells of one entering an antiquarian bookshop, looking around, thinking for a minute, and finally deciding: “I´ll buy that wall.”
Not many of us have had this kind of childhood, or such a frivolously bookish life.
But there´s another example of You can have anything you point at-situation, much closer to us. The Internet.
With the Internet you can go to, visit, save, i.e. download, i.e. take with you, millions and millions of texts, pictures, mp3-s, YouTube videos. From certain sites you can download entire movies, CD-s, books, free (cracked) programs, etc..
In a way Internet IS a toy shop where you can have (“save”) anything you point at, or a Swedish Christmas dinner where you can eat as much as you want.
So Mr Caveman hasn´t really left the building. He is just hiding behind a new mask, a new identity — lurking, waiting for the next chance to overindulge and totally pig out.
Unless you are one, a real clown, that is. Today many of us are amateur clowns, amateur entertainers.
I have seen this in myself, how I take on the role and costume of The Entertainer of My Friends. On Facebook and similar places.
“Yes! I need to post a great video now, or a fantastic article. This will raise my value in others´ eyes. Isn´t that what the “attention economy” is about…?”
Not only that, also the Attention Begging and Attention Whoring.
I am not condemning anybody since I see this impulse in myself. But I try to step back from it and reason with myself: Who gave me the role of entertaining my friends?
I will certainly try to do that when they come home to me or if I´ve invited them to a party. Without a doubt, and with much pleasure! But now I speak of digital entertainment at a distance (tele). There´s a great difference between the two.
In the analog world entertainment-energy is flowing to and fro, there´s conversation, instant responses, nobody is hiding their face or voice or body behind a computer screen.
In digital “entertainment” most everything is hidden, masked, non-obvious. Nothing is really flowing; the energy moves like an old car on a bumpy road, sometimes totally still, sometimes jumping madly like a locust: most of the information (tone of voice, the face with its myriad muscles, our gestures, etc) is lacking and is replaced with primitive utterances like LOL, ROFL, LLAH, PITA and inchoate symbols (smileys) that try desperately but without success to make up for the colossal lack of nonverbal information.
The stage if set for misunderstanding, confusion and stealth. “Entertainment” on that stage is a muddy, unclear affair, hiding all kinds of unobserved motives, like seeking (sometimes desperately seeking) popularity, wanting to show off, wanting to put other people down, wanting to steal other people´s time and attention, and so on.
With that kind of entertainment, who needs neurosis?
But who am I, diarist, to talk? Blogging has the same temptations and dangers. “Aren´t you going to write a new post soon? The last one came, let´s see… fifteen hours ago! Your readership is WAITING!”
And there we are again… in the Delivering Entertainment-business.
So how to get out of it? One way is to change audience. Horatius Flaccus wrote, wisely: satis est equitem mihi plaudere – it is enough if the Knights applaud me. The Knights can be our excarnated friends and mentors, our invisible consortium. Let THEM — not the Facebook-crowd or anonymous readers/ browsers of your blog — nod if they approve of what you do.
The rest should not concern you. As for the clowning, the pros´ do it SO much better.
A wonderful evening with M & M. Interligence in action, which always makes you understand things better, or more fully. For example, it becomes more and more clear to me that music as a domain is going down the drain. Theater, film and literature thrives, by and large – and that is what counts in the long run – while music is extreme and lost in two ways: In popular music we have too much populism; the former songwriters and, yes, composers, like Lennon-McCartney are being replaced by a new animal of a different color, the “hit-maker”. He cannot write a good melody or a really memorable strophe, but he knows what sells, what “hits”.
The other extreme is the so called serious composer. He is too serious, takes himself too seriously. His attitude towards the audience is typified by his back. He looks away from the audience, which in turn makes the audience turn their back on HIM. There is some great music written today, and some sad attempts at populism, but generally the dynamic thread running between audience and creator has been severed. The lifeline is gone.
Other things that came at the not breakfast but evening snack table had to do with tasting. Of course. M really enjoys wine, and has knowledge to go with it. And my experience with music tasting matches his. We tasted a bit of Franz Schreker and a Petrarca sonnet by Liszt, played by the eminent Miroslav Langer.
I am still fascinated by the carefulness and the dedication that goes into wine tasting, the passion, the enthusiasm, the nuanced attitude. One could say that broadly there are two kinds of tasters. The barbarians who only count to two: They either like or don´t like the wine, or the music. With dedicated tasters liking is really not that important. The music or the wine doesn´t has to be “good” or “likeable”. Of course it shouldn´t be trash either, but the important thing is not the division into black or white but to really experience it.
Same thing in a way with photography. When I first started pestering my photo friends it was with the question “What is a good picture?”. I am not that interested in what is “good” nowadays. Lots of my favorite hate, the snazzy, postcard-like, soft porno pictures, can be called “good”, but they don´t deserve a second look. How do you take a picture that stops the viewer in his track, that captures and draws you in? That is a better, more relevant question.
And we must remember the quote from Francis Bacon: “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” Beauty is not enough, we need excellent beauty, and don´t forget the strangeness. Take away the strange and you end up with predictable, bland beauty. So, a good picture is not enough. What makes a picture strangely good? is now the question.
Same thing with music. If you listen in the right way, not just listen with your memories and associations, many Beatles songs have strange proportions. The output of the hit-makers on the other hand is very much about taking away all that is strange, all that is “excellently beautiful”. The serious composers on the other hand are only strange. In their case one could paraphrase Francis Bacon and say “There is no excellent strangeness that hath not some beauty in the proportion.” To these people one wants to say, Don´t forget beauty, and by all means, write a melody or two from time to time. That is, if you can, for it is not given to everyone to be a melodist.
One more thing about tasting. With blind tasting, whether of wine, perfume or music, you are actually moving towards higher faculties. When you turn off your past-conditioned memories and associations you are more or less forced to live in the present. You listen to what is, instead of what was or what you remember. Music an sich. This is actually, I believe, done in wine / chocolate / cheese tasting, but definitely not in music, where associative and culturally conditioned trash is overshadowing the simple present.
En text på svenska, till viss del för att återknyta till det som nu är lämnat. Språk är som kläder, man kryper ur vissa, kryper in i andra. Man inte bara ser annorlunda ut, man tänker och känner sig annorlunda också.
Jag har skrivit så många ord på svenska, inte minst som kåsör, så jag har skaffat mig svenska “språkvanor”, vilka alltså inte bara handlar om språk utan om attityder och beteende.
Så vad säga om det gångna året? Och varför? Massmedia älskar den här slutliga utvärderingen, att göra kavalkad av årets händelser. Ett visst underhållningsvärde, viss hjälp för oss med dåligt minne (fast värdet i att erinra sig katastrofer och kriser kan ifrågasättas), ett visst perspektiv på mänsklighetens utvecklingsnivå. Därför.
Allt detta kan appliceras på mitt år. För det första kan man säga att det varit ett år av inåtvändande. Det där var ett fint ord, för det indikerar samtidigt riktning, svängning och resa. Man vänder inåt, man vänder åter.
Mitt intresse för “världen” och dess förehavanden, inte minst dess dumheter och problem — som jag förr älskatt att kattlikt observera, syna och kritisera — har krympt till en tummetott. Jag har kanske inte blivit världsfrånvänd, snarare omdefinierat “värld”. Medan världen förr var stor och global (och handfast materiell) har den nu blivit mer en liten täppa med grönsaksodling. Detta kan låta som ett krympande, det är också samtidigt ett växande, för den stora, globala världen är i själva verket mest en tanke, så länge som man främst läser och hör talas om den. Inte en realitet. Mina egna grönsaker är en realitet, och de sträcker sig på sätt och vis mycket längre bort, och högre upp, än alla nyheter om “världshändelser”.
Det där var ett långt stycke. Den kan kort sammanfattas till “mind your own business”. Det är det jag börjat göra, bättre sent än aldrig.
Rollen som samhällskritiker, något som jag mycket aktivt påtog mig med start i boken “Offensiv nostalgi”, känns dammig. Nytt rollhäfte behövs, nya repliker behöver skrivas eller bara improviseras.
En mycket konkret sak som hänt i världen (sic) 2015 är att jag blivit på sätt och vis hemlös. Sverige är inget hem längre. Dels har jag ingen bostad där, men jag har inte heller någon hemkänsla där.
Detta behöver inte vara något dramatiskt, så blir det ibland. Man tröttnar, sliter ut skon, och går vidare. Kanske barfota ett tag, eller så tröttnar man helt på skor, vill inte längre ha något med dem att skaffa utan nynnar på Povel Ramels melodi.
Att skriva denna text på svenska är därmed en märklig upplevelse. Svenska är ju mitt bästa språk, den jag behärskar bäst, den sjö jag simmat längst i. Men nu tar jag mitt upp ur vattnet och övergår till engelska, ett språk där jag har mindre erfarenhet, färre språkvanor, större fräschör, mer möjlighet att skapa något nytt, där jag inte dras tillbaka av mitt förflutna, min offensiva nostalgi.
Det känns naturligtvis (också) härligt att falla tillbaka på språket man väl behärskar, där man får till de rätta nyanserna och valörerna. Men så skönt ska vi inte ha det. Ett fall är ett fall, om än ett skönt fall.
Det gångna året har varit som en sträng men rättvis lärare. Den gamla sorten, den som slår en med linjal, eller något ännu vassare. Först blir man förbannad “Vad gör du, ska du slåss…!!?”. Sen, när sveda och ursinne lagt sig, börjar man fundera på om man kanske förtjänade stryk. Och vad “stryk” egentligen är. Vad “lidande” är. Vad man själv är, och varit.
Och då börjar svedan kännas nästan som kärlek. Åtminstone om man med kärlek menar något som knuffar (sparkar, om man är motsträvig) en vidare till nästa steg. Ett steg som man varit mogen för ett längre tag, men som man förhalat och skjutit framför sig.
En vishetslärare sa: Alla opponerar sig mot lidande, ingen protesterar mot ignorans. Det kanske borde vara tvärtom. Att vi inte accepterade vår ignorans, våra dumheter, vårt oklara tänkande och grumliga synfält, däremot var beredda att bära den smärta som är en konsekvens av ignorans och dåligt tänkande.
Låt mig också tillägga oärlighet.
Ärlighet, syns det mig, är något av det högsta en människa kan prestera. Vi prisar ofta sanningen, hela discipliner och domäner skriver SANNING på sina banér. Men yttre sanning kan vilken som helst idiot med ett bra uppslagsverk skaffa sig. Få av oss mäktar däremot med att vara riktigt, totalt ärliga. Inte nödvändigtvis offentligt, i en blogg eller TV-soffa, utan inför oss själva.
Förresten, hur vet jag att det är få? Ett antagande bara, en misstanke. Egentligen angår det mig inte hur många eller få som är ärliga; med min mindre (större) värld är det bara MIN ärlighet som är essentiell. Vad andra gör är inte min sak, vad samhället ägnar sig åt… jovars, jag tycker nog fortfarande att det är min sak att inkomma med rapport om vad jag ser, men inte på bekostnad av vad jag ser inuti mig.
Jag kommer nu på mig med att skriva alltför flyhänt. Det svenska språket rinner alldeles för lätt, jag fyller sidan med svenskismer utan att behöva verkligen tänka. Inte bra.
Så det gångna året avslutas nu. Ett år av lidande, skapat av ignorans och högmod. Men vänta… det är ju flera dagar kvar på året! Än kan det få ett riktigt happy end .-)
Det önskar jag er som läser detta. Happy inte i betydelse fri från lidande utan krympande av ignorans, och “gott nytt år” inte i betydelsen nya händelser och ting utan nya insikter.
I pass a shop window and what do I espy there? A warning against keeping a diary. Apparently it can kill you!
Well, almost. I thought it said “Diarium” but when I look more closely it says “Djarum”. Which is a cigarette.
I don´t smoke, haven´t been able to start the habit (tried for years), but I sure would have bought this package if it really was called “Diarium”.
I might buy it anyhow. Seems this is a clove cigarette, perhaps easier to get addicted to than the regular ones.
And when I find the following on YouTube, I, avid for tasting — wine, cheese, perfumes and especially music — realize that there is such a thing as cigarette tasting.
But I only give him 3 of 10 for smoking in a car.
So, keeping a diary still seems to be a non-lethal pleasure. I´ll continue for a while, trying to keep it short to get a tasting (not eating) effect. As our cigarette reviewer says: “That cinnamon one, I didn´t really like it but it was a great experience.”
Thus speaks a real taster!
But of course there are dangers with keeping a diary.
A tempting illusion: there is some intrinsic value in writing things — almost anything, an association or flimsy reflection — down. Actually it can be a way of losing values.
Writing something down is often a way of getting rid of it. Like going to the toilet. That explains the pleasantly surprised reaction to older texts. “Did I really write that…? I am impressed.”
Maybe you shouldn´t be: you managed to forget all about it. Retaining all small and large insights one has had, now that would be impressive.
