On stream of unconsciousness

"Not to be confused with stream of consciousness." Though it is rather confusing. I am confusing. And confused. Now the music stopped. Now I started it again. But one of my ear plugs are broken. The set is broken. It's mono. That is not related to the music stopping (again!), because my speakers are stereo or no-o-at-all, alternatively. I got an invitation yesterday. I already rsvp-ed.

I think it's lunch time but I feel like having breakfast. Second breakfast. I already had one. But I think I was asleep. I think I still am.

I really do have ice cream in the freezer. Having it anywhere else would be strange.

It's like this: I could have coffee. But I already did. Besides, quote from a fridge magnet in the coffee place I visited today (the guy working there is real nice, by the way, but you can't go there too often, because then he'll start making you "the regular", and then you feel obliged to always have that and always come there. I can't be tied down like that) - quote (with picture - piquote?)

Except I have no energy. Maybe this is a dream? In which case I'd like to not wake up. I probably need the sleep. Besides I'm not doing stupid things. Yes. That. I'm not doing them. That's stupid. Blinds. The blinds are stupid. And automatic. Like the blinds in front of my eyes. I should eat. Lunchfast. Breakunch. Brunch. Second breakfast. I'm not that found of LOTR, actually. But I do like a good second breakfast. Don't tell my friends I said that. The first thing. About the rings. I like rings. But it's difficult for me to wear them, because my fingers vary greatly in size according to my general body temperature, which also varies, apparently.

Paragraph.

One more.

Interesteling playlist. I didn't make it. I borrowed it from an old coworker. It's very nice, but I am very sleepy. I don't normally talk in my sleep. As far as I know, I don't have any parasomnias. Unless you count that I turn into a blabbering maniac when in lack of sleep. But you shouldn't. Count it. It doesn't fall under the right definition- I forgot full stop- Paragraph-

Foods and animals are really random.

And shampoo.

Whenever someone says "think of something random!" I think of shampoo. Which of course makes it not random at all. Random very rarely is random. Panda. Not random at all. You might think it is. But you would be wrong. Do pandas drink coffee? Probably not. Probably because they are so busy with eating bamboo and not procreate. I sometimes mix up the words procreate and procrastinate.

The curtains here are ugly. They are meant to be decorative, since the blinds take care of light regulation. But the curtains don't decorate. They undecorate. Dedecorate. Disdecorate. "Go, won't you?" I said that. And I meant it. But for entirely different reasons. ...it would be the first time.

Airplane. Swallowed by a cloud. Chewed and spit out again on the other side. The cloud didn't like the taste of metal. The passengers never knew what almost hit (or, rather, digested) them.

It's not really so that random is funny because it is random.

Fridge.

Not random.

Not funny.

But still possible to laugh at, if in the right state of mind. "Arms racing is a state of mind" vs "Arms racing is intense military competition" vs "Arms racing inevitably leads to war". The latter is wrong. Cold War case in point. Besides/ monocausal explanations to excuse personal blame for what later was to be known as the First World War (they didn't know that in the beginning, though, which is a more valid excuse)/

</fedora>

Teh food. I nneedd to go downstairs. Knife. Not of the slaughtering kind. But to eat. With. By. For. Over. Under. Around. Of. There are more. It's not important.

I'll be right back.

It took three minutes. I brought my key but forgot to lock the door.

Jack Malone is actually not the same man,
as,
he,
once was.

His wife left, or so he told everyone. In reality? He knows exactly where to find her. Six feet under a pile of dung. He planted a rosebush on top of it, to cover the smell. The rosebush has thorns.

Jack Malone is not the kind of man,
you,
want,
to get too close to.
As a narrator, then, you assign him a name, to create some distance. To keep yourself out of his head.
But Jack's name isn't Jack. And as you admit that, you feel him creeping into your head after all, speading his darkness through your veins and arteries, like a bottle of ink streaming (unconsciously) into every crease in a wooden floor, after having broken upon impact. From a desk. You are the desk. You are the floor. You are the ink. You. You are the narrator.

You thought it was me. You thought I was the one facing the problem. But you were wrong. Jack infuses you, now,


It's all very obvious. The cards are dealt. The chess board set. With the instructions in a foreign language. Someone draws a gun. Then colours it pink with half-broken crayons.

I have to go. I'm awake now. Asleep. Almost. Always. After all.

On Osama

I feel like I'm the only one in the world who is not happy that Osama bin Laden has been tracked down and killed. Well, I'm not entirely alone. I'm pretty sure there are some terrorists around the world who are sad. Not al Qaeda, though, because they claim he is not dead. Duh. He's dead. There is absolutely no way Obama would risk announcing Osama's death if he wasn't sure it was true. Pending a zombie invasion, Osama is as dead as a doornail.

Then why am I not happy? Did I naively hope the US soldiers would capture bin Laden and put him on trial? Hah! No. That would never have happened. And I'm not sure I'd have wanted it to. But I think I'd liked to have lived in a world where that at least was a possibility.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not sad that Osama bin Laden is dead. He was one of this world's fanatics, so involved in his own loony cause that he observed absolutely no respect for human life. Osama's world must have been a black and white one, where most of the patches were very, very black. The things he was willing to do, and capable of making others do, are really, truly horrible. I hate - HATE - the things he did.

Despite this, I am not sure his death is a good thing. There are two reasons I am not celebrating. First, I don't like the fact that the world has come to this - celebration of someone's death, regardless of who it is. People I have the utmost respect for, Americans and non-Americans, people I usually agree with (politically and otherwise), and people I don't usually agree with - they all seem to have no problem being happy about this death. It saddens me that Osama has done that to them - created hate in them. I understand it - a part of me feel like celebrating too - but I don't like it. To me, Osama is still spreading terror by making the hate many of us felt for him blossom into celebrations at his death.

Secondly, and far more important, I don't think there is very much to celebrate. Sure, he got what was coming. Had he been captured and put on trial, he would still have been sentenced to death. Punished. Since I am no fan of torture, there isn't any sentence I could have suggested that would have been more appropriate. I am no fan of the death penalty either, but even I would have had to accept that this was the only possible solution in this particular case. Still, I'm not so sure Osama's death - one way or other - will help. Sure, the families of those who died on 9/11 and several other terror actions the last decades might feel some consolation. They deserve that. But - will this put an end to future terror actions, an end to the future grief of families? I am afraid that it will not.

The experts are in disagreement, and none seem sure. This might lead to violent responses. Retaliation is likely. The war on terror is not won yet. In a long-term perspective this could mean a more peaceful world.

I hope the latter is the case. If this - in any perspective - leads to the end of terrorism, the end of the war in Afghanistan, a more peaceful world; then I'm out there celebrating with you. If it does, I'd gladly have killed him myself. But I am not so optimistic. Osama was not alone. Until yesterday the terrorists had a leader in hiding, somewhere, in a cave (which turned out to be a mansion). Today they have a martyr killed by the enemy.

Thus I'm not so sure the world is a better place today than it was yesterday.












And yes, I am aware that you probably don't agree with me in this. As I said, it seems the entire world disagrees. Whether you think I am naive, stupid, "just not American", wrong, misguided, or even despicable/evil/terrorist-friendly; you are entitled to disagree with me. You might even be right. I just think it will be a while before we know for sure the effect this will have had, and I guess I am saving my celebration until I know if this really means a better world.

On nihilism

I once wanted to be a nihilist, but then I realized I don't believe in it.

The above is an unintentional (and unknowing, until I realized I probably wouldn't be the first to think of this and thus googled it) paraphrased quote, from a movie I had neither seen nor heard about until five minutes ago. I have, however, heard about Charlie Chaplin. It's his birthday today, which would have made him 122 years old. This in turn - had he still been alive - would have made him the world's oldest man. I know that, because I recently read that the world's oldest man died at 114. It's rubbish, of course. The world's oldest man is still alive, somewhere, at some age. You cease to be oldest when you die. But the man who until he died a few days ago was the world's oldest is now dead. The world's oldest person remains the same - a lady also at 114, and 26 days older than the aforementioned man (not Charlie Chaplin).

These people (both the elderly and Charlie Chaplin) have lived in a world where religion and belief systems have changed a lot. Entire religions have been born and died. Wars, or at least warlike fighting, have been fought with (helpless? Careless? Nonexistent?) gods on each side. "God is dead", said Nietzsche.* "Nietzsche is dead," said God.** Charlie Chaplin is said to have been an agnostic. I don't know if the world's oldest man, or the world's oldest lady/person, believed or believes in anything or anyone. The man formerly known as the world's oldest man might be finding out whether he was right in his beliefs (or non-beliefs) as we speak.

Personally, I do believe in things. Ironically (or perfectly logically?), this is what makes me not believe in nihilism. I cannot see how it is possible, to not believe in anything at all. One of the things I don't believe in - deities - probably makes a lot of people wonder how I get by. I can imagine that if you do believe in a god (or several), knowing others that don't might make you as skeptic as I am towards nihilism. For instance, how do I process all the things humans cannot explain if I don't believe in God? The answer is twofold. First of all, lack of attention. I don't pay overly lot of attention to questions I cannot answer. I remember my teacher once said that people had gone mad over pondering what lies outside the universe. I empathize. I have thought about this. I have touched the border to madness, trying to understand what I cannot understand. By avoiding thinking about it, I solve a lot of problems.

The other part of the answer, however, is that I accept that there are things I cannot explain or understand. This is similar to religion, actually, only that within most religions the believers assume the god(s) know the answer to the questions humans fail to understand. I simply assume there are things no one knows. Or I keep an open mind to the possibility that someone do understand it, or someone one day will, but it isn't necessarily a deity.

I avoid and I accept, but I don't not believe. In anything. Such as my own existence. I am pretty sure there is someone sitting here at my desk, in front of my laptop, typing with my fingers. I am pretty sure that someone is me. I am pretty sure that I, the desk, the laptop, the words, the ideas, the blog, the readers - these are not figments of my imagination (well, the readers might be). And even if they were, someone - me - would be having that imagination. I imagine, therefore I am - another paraphrase. Descartes was no nihilist, that's for sure.


*Yes, yes. Nietzsche said this in 1882. The older-than-everyone-else 114-year olds were born in 1897; Mr. Chaplin in 1889. Semantics. Or numerology.

**

On mizuko kuyo

 At first, it is almost a comical sight. 

The stone figures, dressed up with red hats and bibs, most of them holding colourful wind toys. The strange contrast between the hard surface of the stone, and the fabric of the hats. "Only in Japan," you think, and snap a picture of the scene. 

But then it hits you, the magnitude of these rows upon rows of sleeping stone dolls. You realize that they are not there for decoration. These figures have a function, and suddenly you suspect there is nothing comical about them at all. 

 I have seen similar - if less elaborate and fewer - statues before during my travels in Japan, and upon asking the guide I remember the vague answer "it is to help the souls of the children" or something similar. I think I took a picture of the statues then (in fact, I know, since I still have the picture), but I clearly didn't get the full explanation, or I wouldn't have forgotten.

Mizuko kuyō is a "fetus memorial service", performed monthly for (mainly) women who have had a miscarriage or abortion. 

It is a ritual surrounded by much skepticism, emotion and worry. Is it exploitation of women in an extremely vulnerable situation? After all, they pay to attend the ceremony, they buy or rent the stone figure, and certain of the dolls even have quite expensive accessories. Thus the ceremony has been criticized for being an abuse of the Japanese belief that spirits of the dead will retaliate mistreatment. The mizuko kuyō is partly intended to fend off any potential vengeance of the unborn child's spirit. But it appears that the ritual also has a number of other intentions, and that it varies from person to person what each choose to put into the ritual. Is it to comfort the grieving parents? To allow
those who are willingly performing abortions to apologize to the fetus? To help the soul transition to the next level? Or all of the above?

The ritual has been increasingly popular since the 1970s, and today both women and men participate (though the women are still in majority). It takes place at designated Buddhist temples in Japan, and the ceremony varies from place to place, though in each temple it remains relatively similar each time and many of the same participants show up each time. Not all of them have themselves lost a child - some are family members and some participate for the spirituality of the ceremony.

My initial reaction to the criticism of the ritual upon reading up on this topic was that perhaps it didn't matter if scholars thought the women were being exploited if they personally felt comforted by the ceremony. While I have no personal experience in the matter, I find it interesting to read that this reaction also seems to be the case with several Western women who has experienced loss of child and feel that there is a lack of such a ritual in their own religion and culture (one particularly moving example can be found on this blog). If dressing up a stone figure and participating in a monthly meeting helps the parents deal with their grief - or other emotions - then it should be continued.

However, recent studies show that comfort isn't the primary function of the ceremonies. The participants in one study explained that they rarely talked about their own feelings with regards to the loss - or in fact about why they chose to attend at all. The mizuko, unborn child, was not a common topic for conversation at the kuyō. It is also not necessarily immediately after the mizuko experience the women chose attend the ceremonies. Many of the study in question started attending decades after they had an abortion or miscarriage. Some of the women in question were pro-choice, some were not. Some regretted their decision, some did not. Some grieved their lost child, some did not.

Reading about the ritual didn't really make me all that much wiser. It appears to be a highly individual decision whether one decides to participate or not, and if they do participate, it seems equally individual why. In a way I guess that takes the edge off the criticism - if people don't feel forced to attend, but do so based on some personal reason or desire, it can hardly be argued that the temples are exploiting the participants.

Some of the mizuko dolls were clearly older than others.

 In the end I find it fascinating that a ritual that appears so personal, is manifested so publicly and visibly. Just another one of the many contrasts that make up modern Japan, I suppose. 

On Santa Lucia

I'm a day late. Saint Lucy's day was yesterday. On the 13th of December each year, this day is celebrated - mainly in Italy and in Scandinavia. The fact that this day is celebrated in Scandinavia is strange, actually. If  religious at all, most Scandinavians are Lutherans. We don't really do saints. But Lucy/Lucia - an Italian martyr who lived in the late third and early fourth centuries - is for some reason one of the few we commemorate. I don't think many Norwegians (I can't speak for the Swedes and Danes) know specifically why we celebrate Saint Lucy's day (I had to google it, and I'm not all that much wiser - it had to do with torture and religion, and frankly, I get enough of both in my thesis...). Regardless of this, however, we have very specific traditions in connection with December 13th.

There are processions with young girls in white gowns, holding candles and singing "Santa Lucia" (the Neapolitan song with Norwegian lyrics). There is a special type of pastry baked and served on this day only (lussekatt). Often, the processions are in schools, kindergartens, or they visit nursing homes or churches. Yesterday they even had one walking down Karl Johan, the main street here in Oslo (the street that a few nights earlier was absolutely packed with all the people waiting outside Obama's hotel hoping to catch a glimpse of him and Michelle).

I didn't celebrate Santa Lucia this year. I had an eventful weekend otherwise, and though I would have liked to make lussekatter it didn't fit into my schedule this time. Maybe next year I can make up for it. I did, however, think about Saint Lucy's day when we were planning The Burrow's Advent Calendar. Yesterday's entry was my tribute to the Scandinavian celebration of Saint Lucy's day. One day late, I present the drabble also here:

There are many rules when participating in the traditional Santa Lucia procession:

Walk straight, one step at the time, following the beat of the choir singing "Santa Lucia."
Keep your head up, don't look down, but don't step on the long, white gown you are wearing.
Hold your candle straight, and make sure it doesn't drip on the floor or set something on fire.
Smile.
Look serene.
Most important of all: don't cast envious glances at the queen of the procession, who is wearing the crown of lights, while you are merely wearing a silver garland tied around your head.

To see the image accompanying this drabble, please visit http://www.the-burrow.org/. There you can find a drabble a day counting down to Christmas Eve.

On religious encounters

Yesterday (today, Sunday, hasn’t seen any adventures yet) I went for a walk. It was an exercise in Digressionism, to say the least, and therefore I feel compelled to write about it here. I’m not pretending this is the gospel of Mari, but for any of you out there with a foot or more in my religion of choice, reading this might be a good place to start. It also has a tad of “real” religion in it, but I will try to avoid sticking my tongue too far into the bee hive.


Before I left the house, my landlady/host mom/roomie/TV buddy, Linda, told me about a craft fair at the Presbyterian Church nearby. She gave me some directions, and I decided to see if I could find it. My original plan had, after all, been limited to “go outside since the weather is good” (Norwegian to the bone). A goal was not unwelcome.

By now I have lived here for close to two months, and with a lot of help from a map, the elimination method (otherwise known as trying and failing and failing and failing and failing before maybe succeeding), and directions from random passersby (frequently squirrels) – I have with time learned to navigate the tricksy streets of my neighbourhood despite my lousy sense of direction. That is – I have learned to navigate the parts of it I actually need to know. Send me off in any other direction, however, and I am lost as a cupcake. To my defence, let me point out my poor sense of direction (or lack thereof) isn’t the only thing to blame – the neighbourhood I live in really feels like a maze most of the time. I remember the first few times I went in here (as a passenger) in a car, and I realized that I would never be able to get back out again on my own. Not too far from the truth. The streets all have similar sounding names (most of them has something with a tree in them – pine-; forest-; wood-;– get the drift?) , and for some reason they seem to be moving around (you thought you were walking down Woodberry Lane, but all of a sudden, you find yourself in Wells Parkway. You take a left in Pineway Drive, knowing that this will take you up to Forrest Hill, but no – you’re back on Well’s Parkway. The only safe thing with these streets, really, is that no matter where you try to go, you will always end up in Well’s Parkway. It’s magnetic, or something). In addition, 90% of the houses are made of red brick, and they all have similar looking yards and driveways. All the driveways are inhabited by one Lexus and one minivan. I kid you not.

So, to expect me to find the Presbyterian Church on my first attempt, was a haphazard to say the least.

I walked down our street. I knew that if I only followed it to the end, I would end up at Route 1, which would take me either to College Park town or to the area where the church was supposed to be, depending of which way I went. However, since I now know the area “so well”, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a little detour. Since it was such a lovely day, I wanted to take some lovely pictures with my lovely camera (whose name is Buck, so you’re all introduced). This was a bad idea.

I walked in what I thought was a circle. When I get lost, I usually walk in circles. When I am not lost, or have not yet understood that I am lost, however, it turns out I don’t walk in circles. Either that, or the circle failed to take me back to the start (that’s not really an “either”, is it? Circles always take you back to the start – that is sort of the point...). Anyway, where I ended up was (amazingly enough) not Well’s Parkway, and thus I had lost my one foolproof method of navigation. Since I didn’t have my map with me, and since I no longer trusted the elimination method since it now apparently did not take me back to Well’s, I was forced to turn to my last option: ask someone.

The first squirrel I met was not very helpful. I tried to climb the tree it directed me to, but no luck. I should have known better – Presbyterians are too down to earth to have their churches in trees.

After a while I ran into a nice looking group of mothers and kids, and they were able to give me much more useful directions. Apparently, I had been walking in circles after all – only the church was in the middle of the circle.

Once I got there, the fair was almost over. I went in, looked at a few items, and figured out that I was not feeling entirely comfortable there. I had not brought a lot of cash, and I had also failed to bring any sincere intentions to buy anything. Nothing feels worse than having 4th graders look at you with their big puppy eyes, wondering why you’re not buying the egg cosy they have made under great risk of stinging their own fingers. I ended up getting a couple of used books (25 cents each, so I had cash for those) – ironically one was about a sordid love affair and the other one was about a Jewish man losing his faith (was this my suppressed opposition to organized religion speaking?). Then I left, feeling oddly aware of my (limited, yet visible) cleavage and the fact that I was in a church.

I don’t mind religion, especially not when people don’t feel the urge to convert others (which, I should point out, no one in that church seemed to have even the tiniest inkling to do). I even respect it – to the point that I feel compelled to be properly dressed when I visit a church or another religious site, since I am the one coming to them and thus should strive to not offend anyone. However, even after this brief encounter with religion, I felt the need to seek an idolatry that much more fits my personality – Starbucks (which incidentally is where my camera got her name. Yes, she is a she. Don’t ask). This time I easily navigated my way back to Route 1, went into College Park and found my place of worship.

Currently reading: Here, There Be Dragons by James A. Owen, though with only some 50 pages left, I believe I soon will venture on to the “new orange book” (that you will have to good grace to hear about tomorrow).

Currently listening to: September’s Playlist as assembled by J. M. Hunter at this awesome blog (I stalk the blog for the music, and end up giggling over the incredibly funny posts).

Currently eating: Goldfish S’mores – since I was too lazy to go make real breakfast before writing this…