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This is the archives of the daily meditations published on the start page. Why these mediations are there and how many people reading them are questions without any answers - or to be correct; even if there are answers they will never be interesting. The meditations are written just like that, without any deeper thoughts and there are some misspellings here and there, but it does not matter becuase when it comes to the end of the day they are just written in the sand anyhow. Internet is just a large ocean where the waves of time will sweap away everything and nothing will be left. The idea to write on stones to preserve the text is actually rather interesting...

MARCH

Tue 31 Mar

Protesting against ourselves

Saturday the 28th of March WWF and the secretary-general of UN Ban Ki-Moon encouraged us to put out the lights during one hour forwarding a message to the governments of the world to take their responsibility during the negotiations of new targets for the reduction of carbon-dioxide to the atmosphere. The funny thing is we are actually protesting against ourselves, which of course is necessary, but still it is a bit funny.

Comparing the energy use of the governments with that of the people results in a rather uneven match where the usage of the latter of course is much higher than former. We always tend to believe somebody else is using all the energy and causing all the crises etc, but it is of course we and nobody else. Youths having grown up in comfort with things and food, school education and plenty of time suddenly go out in the streets and throw stones on the police to “raise their voices” against… Yes, against what?

Each one of us is only one person, and those not being me are a huge mass of almost 7 milliard so of course the latter causes all the problems. That is logical…  Teenager logic… Unfortunately many of the grown ups adapt to this logic as well thus causing confusion in their own minds. We count something like this:

“I am one, my children are two, as well as my spouse – that makes four of us – my parents, my relatives… my friends… that makes 58… Let me see… Oh, my colleagues and the other working in the organization of course, and Mary in the shop…” The more distant a human being is, the lower the probability to be counted as an individual: “82 million German car manufacturers, 62 million French baguette bakers… And 1,15 milliard beggars in India! Not to mention 1,33 milliard dog-eaters in China! Now I am realising where all the problems arise!”

So we put out the lights one hour to remind us all we should not put them on again? No, to remind all the Chinese not even to think of buying lamps!

Mon 30 Mar

Expertise optimization

Will there always be a balance in depth versus width regarding technical development as a social phenomenon? One thing is clear; if a technical field is completely without expertise no technical development will take place. If there are many experts in a specific field the development will take place in several parallel dimensions of this field. Another extreme would be the existence of experts only in all technical fields and no generalists having an overview; will this situation create problems for society because there will be no political overall control?

We might be able to discern a discrepancy between representatives of the financial sphere and the governmental ambition to control the domestic economical development. Tax money are being used as vitamin injections in an unbalanced system, and in principle those having created the financial collapse now demand governmental support to avoid bankruptcy. Does that not remind you of drug users screaming for free drugs? When people stop buying somebody else have to buy to avoid depression.

Can we imagine a similar situation for the technical development? I kind of future technical chaos where the co-ordination between research, education, infrastructure investments and technical development are no longer in balance, but are controlled by ad-hoc entrepreneur businesses and the flow of capital is stochastically changed depending upon what seems to be modern for the day totally without logical and human aspects. Still there is some kind of balance and maybe there will always be this balance between generalists and specialists, but we can at least reflect upon the fact the balance within societies, organizations and even families might be necessary.

Fri 27 Mar

$ 322.000.000.000

According UN the estimated turnover for the illegal drug sales (consumption level) is 322 milliard (British milliard). Sweden’s GNP is about 450 milliard. Since the trade is illegal the money is fed into the global criminal sphere creating higher efficiency and more advanced methods. This business has expanded from more or less nothing in about 50-70 years time. Some states are pointed upon as “narco states” where the connection between the illegal trade and the political life causes chaos, which is of course one of the keys to a continuous business development.

 In Mexico the illegal export of drugs to USA turns over about $20 milliard, which is 6% of the global figure. The coffee shops in the Netherlands turns over $1,5 milliard for the sales of 265 tons of hashish – legally! (Source: Swedish Narcotics Officers Association)

In Sweden it is estimated to exist about 15.000 heavy drug users and expanding this figure into a global estimation there would be 10,5 million heavy drug users in the world, which is just about Sweden’s population (9,5 million) and according the figures above they buy drugs for an amount corresponding to Sweden’s GNP. All businesses aim at the target group, which in this case is the heavy users consuming a lot of drugs. These consumers normally finance their cravings with crimes, for example by recruiting new consumers – young people believing they find a short cut to heaven.

There are only two businesses with a turn over larger than the illegal drug trade; weapons and oil. If we now face an economic depression reducing the price of oil as and all the economic packages from governments forces the countries to reduce investments in weapons there is an obvious risk the illegal trade with drugs will expand if we presume money will not be destroyed anywhere.

As always it is more difficult to change business behaviour through the producers compared to change it by changing the behaviour of the buyers. When we start to by small cars instead of large cars the producers have to change into producing smaller cars. Sending military attack helicopters to Mexico hardly affect the consumer behaviour in the USA. Each one of us has a responsibility to prevent the consumption of drugs thus preventing the global illegal trade to grow. Holland has another conceptual idea: make the illegal trade legal – but does it work in the long run?

Thu 26 Mar

Moral is not funny becuase...

I might not get as high bonus

I might not be able to get as high status

I might not be able to reach any status at all

I might have to work harder

I might have to take my bike instead of my car

I might have to get up earlier

I might have to start care about a lot of things

I might have to follow my duty instead of my cravings

I might be forced to do a lot of things

I might not be able to blame other people

I might have to look upon myself as somebody else

- So give me one simple reason why I should not try to maximize life without this difficult parameter!

- Well, to be honest I have only one good reason: Our planet will be a better one if we all try to do what is right – and as a rule we do know what is right. Raise your view 7 generations ahead and put your own deeds in this perspective.

Wed 25 Mar

Another winter day

After 5 month with winter I hear people complain they do not want winter any longer. And of course, waking up in en end of March looking at the thermometer telling -15°C, might not cause spontaneous enthusiasm even among the skiers. On the other hand the sun shines so the temperature will definitely be warmer during the day and skiing seems to be the perfect occupation a day like this – if we do not have to go to a lot of meetings of course…

Most people will probably spend their day indoors, so what are the complaints about after all? Presumably they are waiting for the spring to enter the scene, but even though it turns to spring most people spend their days indoors. Do you find it cold? Put some winter cloths on . No, I think it is some kind of symbolism we are dealing with. The conception “spring” gives associations more positive than the conception “winter”.

Try this: start connecting negative memories with “spring” and positive with “winter” as long the winter continues, then make it the other way round thus shaping positivism for all seasons.

OK, it is rather cold when it is -15°C, especially if it happens when it is almost April… But this fact is mostly connected to our expectation April is spring. Maybe this year April is a winter month? Maybe May will be cold and rainy – and June horribly windy! Leave the expectations behind and concentrate on this very day, the 25^th of March, as a wonderful one – even though it is a bit cold…

Tue 24 Mar

Our complex reality

Do you remember the Sinclair ZX81 computer? It was BASIC-programmable and you used the TV as a screen. With a memory expansion kit for 16k-memory it was possible to use it for simple applications. Some years later the Macintosh and PC entered the scene and here we are today, all of us staring at screens several hours per day. We have experts on parts of the operating system, experts for different programs, experts on different parts of the hardware, application experts, Internet-experts… And when we encounter problems we are guided in the corridors of absurdity from one expert to the next, explaining to us it must be an error somewhere else. 

Soon it is no longer possible to talk to the experts; if we are lucky we have some kind of access to an FAQ-database where we can look for similar errors and even though we have bought a product for real money, we receive nonsense-mails telling us somebody appreciate we have contacted them – which of course is not true – and it seems as though the best thing to do is to uninstall the program – preferably a complete formatting of the hard drive – followed by a new installation. The fact this takes half a day before all settings are correct does not seem to bother anybody because the money is already in the bank.

Sometimes I wonder if this tendency will continue in  the tracks started; in another 20 years we have to sit studying FAQ:s all day long trying to find out how we are able to get the machinery working as normal. Actually I still use that old DOS-knowledge now and then, which also is a bit surprising because a modern Windows operating system is no longer built upon DOS as far as I understand.

Imagine our cars having similarities with the computers in our offices; “No, sorry, you have to contact the injection expert if you have that kind of problem because that is not part of our responsibility.” Or even worth: “You need an access code to enter our FAQ for the central locking system.” That would be something when we sit alone in the forest without any clue how to drive back home.

Good Luck children!

Mon 23 Mar

The banana theory

Imagine a tribe with apes living happily in their tree tops a couple of millions years ago. When they get hungry they can just pick a banana from a tree, sit down comfortable on a tree branch and enjoy life eating the fruit. One October morning (this was before October or even intellectual aspects of time were yet invented so we have to imagine “October” as just a feeling) a member of the tribe wants his morning banana, but discover there are no bananas in his favourite tree. Of course he starts a search in the area just to discover there are no bananas at all around!

The ape leader, sleeping heavily, had been working all night collecting the remaining bananas because he started to realise already yesterday there was not many bananas left in the area, and being a smart monkey he thought it might be a good idea to take what was left – just in case his group would not realise the necessity of adapting to hard times. Since he had been working very hard he had been eating bananas all nigh as well so for the moment he was very satisfied.

Meanwhile the tribe was getting more and more nervous. With no morning bananas to eat it was necessary to find other things, which was not impossible but more dangerous because the lions always were a threat on the ground. The hungriest members are the first ones to leave, looking for food and taking the risks. The leader is the last one that has to leave because he can control the important members around him thus shaping a kind of steering committee for the tribe. Since communication has never been easy among monkeys, all that counts are power and established leadership patterns. The hungry entrepreneurs leaving the tribe cause no problems because their absence makes it easier to control the remaining members.

The leader also invents a bonus system, paying out bananas for those serving his power, thus building a complete economic control system. Society has taken another step towards future development! But what happened with those apes leaving this good society? Well, they might not sleep with their stomachs filled with banana energy, but at least they were free and happy.

Thu 19 Mar

Limited resources

There are plenty of limited resources in the world and one way of treating these resources is through the market economy, setting a price in accordance with demand and availability. This might be easier for coffee, oil or cars, but a bit more difficult for resources like wolves, clean water or human love (true love and not the one that can be bought on the street). Many of us have been raised in the sphere of market economy, thus accepting its rules without thinking so much about it even though we get upset if we suddenly have to pay for an article found at internet; software licence keys, music, texts, pictures, encyclopaedias – everything is expected to be free if we do not receive a tangible asset in return (like ordering an mp3-player or a chair) or a ticket for travelling. Even though we do live in a market economy we constantly seem to refuse to accept the rules of the game; time is a limited resource and time always has a price. How do you value your own time compared to other people’s time?

Try this: calculate your own time cost and compare it with what you are willing to pay for different products. Have you found the visit at the car garage expensive? They have to pay buildings, tools, people, offices etc. We have to accept everything has a specific price as long we expect salary for the time we spend at work. If you say “this is too expensive” then you should follow the conclusion of the rules for the market economy making it yourself instead because your time cost if obviously lower than the price on the market.

In the debate (at least in Sweden) there is an on-going demand from people that services like cleaning etc in private homes are too expensive. The service we want to buy (i.e. cleaning) is too expensive but we still do not want to do it because it is boring. How do we solve the contradiction? The state should subsidize the service of course because we do not have time doing it ourselves and it is motivated with “jobs created in the private sector”. But if the price does not correspond to what the market is willing to pay, why is the price not through the rules of the game lowered?

Because nobody is willing to sell the time to a lower price I suppose? This means we demand from the state to subsidize a kind of slavery wrapped in beautiful words.

Pay the price or do it yourself. This is the simple choice. Or why do not you sell your time cheaper? Oh, I forgot! Sorry – you are of course more worth than the rest of us…

Tue 17 Mar

The human ageing process

A human being participates in a life long ageing process and maybe everything we can do is to find methods how to avoid an accelerated ageing? Youths have yet not achieved useful habits for ageing, which of course is natural; nevertheless it is important to understand how to adapt good (and maybe new) habits. The older you get the higher the demands of self discipline because there is no one telling you what to do. If I do not keep my body machinery in good shape it is a fact nobody cares but my future self… Three psychosocial parameters have been found working as health protection:

1. An active network of people and friends

2. To have a work or an occupation

3. To see meaning and to consistency in ones life

The older we get the higher the probability to miss one or more of these health protective parameters, which means the probability for non health increases. It is said we loose brain cells from age 20 and up, but the fact our brain contains 50 billion (am. trillion) cells in cortex cerebri we still cope with reality if we avoid filling them with garbage…

Remember these scientific results instead of fearing the loss of brain cells:

a) Personal development has no age limit

b) Unwanted changes exceeding the coping ability are dangerous

c) The personal apprehension affects the capability of mastering something

d) The intellectual capacity is preserved by challenges

e) Loss of memory and lower learning capability are compensated by insight and overview

f) Many typical ageing phenomena are cultural bound

g) Health and physical capability are get closer related the elder we get

Rigidity, getting stuck in routines and habits just as self-absorption might be a result of lack of stimuli in the surrounding.

(From Dynamic Psychiatry, Cullberg, Natur och Kultur, 1988)

Mon 16 Mar

50 years society development

There are often discussions about crimes and if it is worse or better today compared with earlier. We have a feeling there are more crimes committed 2008 compared with 50 years earlier, 1958, but it is hard to find comparative figures without all psychological explanations and extenuating circumstances hiding the conclusion, why we still stand with our question if it is worse or better. To find out I have found old statistics from Sweden 1958 (not available at Internet where only figures from 1988 can be found) and compared it with 1988 and 2008, which makes 50 years with a check point 1988.

The over all figure is that crimes known by the police has increased 289%. A bit surprising murders (and equal) has decreased 59% from 514 to 209, but assault and battery has dramatically increased with 844%. In other words the violence seems to increase but we do not kill each other in the same extent.

Raping is always discussed and the change is dramatic: +1.160% from 427 to 5.379 cases. There is one explanation often heard and that is it was hidden earlier, but have to confess I doubt that kind of explanations telling people it is not worse. It is for sure worse…

Robbery: +1.913% from 442 robberies to 8.896 and this includes bank robbery as well as personal robbery. I doubt this has been “hidden” earlier. In total crimes against property has increased 307%.

What do we have more? Well, arson has increased 794% but forgery only 204% - maybe the latter is too much work? The problem with drugs (narcotics) was not really invented as a separate statistics 1958, but from 1988 to 2008 the increase is 168% (from 29 thousand to almost 78 thousand).

So a simple conclusion from a statistical point of view regarding crimes committed is the situation has become worse during the latest 50 years. There has for sure been a development in society, but maybe not the one we would like to see?

Fri 13 Mar

Friday the 13th

In the ancient Greece Friday was a lucky day, the day of Venus (compare France “Vendredi”) but Jesus fate on Good Friday changed this and since then Friday has never been a lucky day, especially not in combination with thirteen, which the Babylonians regarded as an unlucky number since they had a system with base 12. All the first 12 numbers were lucky numbers but 13 was then following being a prime number as well. Napoleon never did anything Friday the 13th according rumours and Bismarck never took any important decisions or made any strategic movements this day.

We live in a scientific era but there is often no row 13 on airplanes and in the USA you can often find level 14 after level 12 in high buildings. Hotels skip room number 13 and most people prefer to be 12 or 14 around a table. Maybe we like rites also in the shadow of science?

Old rites never die they might not even fade away…

If you really take an important decision today which later show up to be very bad, or if you do something that causes problems another way, I can imagine you will always remember this as something made at this very Friday the 13^th. If you, on the other hand, make the same mistakes on a Wednesday and the calendar says the number of the date is 25, I am almost sure you will not remember it as something that happened Wednesday the 25^th. So if the probability for mistakes is equal for all days of the week as well as all dates we will also make mistakes this particular Friday.

It might even be so, since this is the last working day of the week for many people, it might be a higher probability for mistakes being tired after the week, and the 13^th is right in the middle of the month which might make us less concentrated compared to when bills are to be payed, accountings are to be made etc. So maybe after all, Friday the 13^th really causes bad luck?

To be on the safe side; relax and follow the examples of Napoleon and Bismarck just for today and do nothing at all that you might regret tomorrow.

Thu 12 Mar

All these tragedies

In Baden-Würtenberg (Germany) in the Swäbisch Forest Winnenden is situated. It is one of these charming German small towns (about 5.000 inhabitants in the centre of Winnenden). Younger people go to school every day, and the elder go to their work if not yet retired. Many of them know each other and say “Guten Morgen” when they meet in the morning. It is well organized and in principle nobody has to starve or walk on the streets begging. I like places like this because they normally have an atmosphere of harmony.

A boy grows up and show an increasing fascination for violence, weapon and films with horror. One morning, actually yesterday, the 17-year old Tim dresses in military clothes and takes a Beretta and a lot of ammunition from his father’s collection. Before the end of the day he is dead together with 15 other and even if time cures all wounds Winnenden will be one of these places we cannot hear about without thinking of a tragedy.

For me it seems as though young Tim was not alone in the family to show an interest in weapons. 18 different weapons at home and explanations like “The father was an enthusiastic sport shooter”. It might be so, but I cannot get rid of the feeling such enthusiasm might transfer itself into the minds of the sons (imagining daughters hardly pick up the hobby). And producers of computer games like the one young Tim loved, “Shooters”, can of course hide behind alibis like “We only produce computer games!”. Yes, you do, and those producing drugs only produce drugs. I have seen a couple of games like this and I am not impressed at all.

We are the grown ups, we are to take responsibility, to show what is good and what is bad, therefore we cannot just say “We only produce…” because we all know the reason is “…and earn a lot of money!”

Wed 11 Mar

Plato vs. Wittgenstein

It is interesting to move people from one era to another as a mind game. Imagine Wittgenstein 400 BC and Plato 1950; how would they have expressed themselves, in what way would their thinking appear different? This is not only an academic game, but also a way to try to catch development of philosophy – if there has been any development? Asking a professor at a university we would get the answer “Of course! There has been an enormous development!” and one thing is obvious; there has been a development regarding conceptions used. The words and the meaning of words change over time. Looking at the core of philosophy it is more difficult to be convinced. There is for sure a difference between Plato and Wittgenstein, but letting them change era with each other, imagining how they would express, it is not at all easy to say there really has been an enormous development.

Philosophy is not technical development. Developing an apparatus is a non-abstract logical evolutionary process, and developing philosophy would be a development of the logical patterns of human mind, which is an abstract non-intellectual evolutionary process, i.e. development of the brain processes.

Wittgenstein, living in the era of science, had to carry a heavier yoke on his shoulders of being able to prove expressions used, while Plato could use conceptions more freely, living in an era of poetic freedom. Changing places of the two philosophers would remove these boarders of culture. Many people think our culture (the present) is more free, but this is just because prejudices are being applied when looking upon an earlier culture. One has to read and understand Plato to understand our culture has different boarders compared to the culture 2.500 years ago.

Tue 10 Mar

What can be said?

Another 180 pages at my breakfast table. Yes, 180 printed pages with “news”. I glimpse it all through and maybe I am updated by these three newspapers; one covering Sweden and the world, another one covering the region and one covering businesses. The total weight is 457 grams (that is 167 kg per year) and the total area of commercial advertising is 6,85 sqm, which is 34% of the total 20,1 sqm. 5,5% is sport, 20% business news, 10% cultural matters, leaving us with 30% news, comments etc, not as much as the commercial advertising but at least more than the business news.

So what can be added? Can I really add something to this flow of information landing in my mailbox every day? Tomorrow I will receive another 180 pages, but at least I do not spend time to watch TV-news as well, but take the risk of being not perfectly updated. Maybe, if I had watched the TV-news, I would have knew already yesterday evening Frau Klatten (12,6% owner of the BMW and another 47% together with her mother and brother) gave away 7 million Euro in a plastic bag to a man she had knew 1 week (Helg Sgarbi, a Swiss gigolo). At least I know this now after having spent another hour with 180 pages.

7 million Euro in a plastic bag. The psychologists explanation is “Passions change the biochemistry of the brain” (Peter Walschburger). Yes, obviously…

Mon 9 Mar

Western Electric 1924

Maybe the report ”Management and the Worker” by prof. Roethlisberger and W.J. Dickson presented 1924, is not very modern but parts of it is still well known to many people even though it is probably mostly forgotten. Never the less it is an interesting report and the most well known part is the one about the experiment with the lights at the workshop resulting in an increased productivity when the light was increased as well as decreased, but there are other parts not as known, which might be worth reading. The experiments with the light caused more confusion than insights, why the tests at the workshop were extended also to other aspects. This is a summary of the test series (each period was 4-12 weeks):

Period 1 and 2: Normal 48 hour week (incl. Saturdays). No pauses. 2.400 relays per week were being produced.

Period 3: Piece wages were introduced. Productivity increased.

Period 4: Two working pauses of each 5 min were introduced. The production increased to some extent.

Period 5: The 5 min pauses were prolonged to 10 min resulting in an remarkable increase of the production.

Period 6: 6 working pauses of each 5 minutes. The production decreased and the workers complained about disturbance in the working rhythm.

Period 7: The 6 pauses were reduced to 2 pauses, but instead a hot toast was given by the company. The production increased.

Period 8: Like 7 but the working day was shortened 30 minutes. The production increased.

Period 9: Like 8 but the working day was shortened another 30 minutes (ended 16 pm instead of 16.30 pm). Production did not change (the productivity is now higher than with 1 hour longer working day compared to period 7)

Period 10: The working day was prolonged back to normal and ended 17 pm and the production increased.

Period 11: During this 12 week long period free Saturdays were introduced. The production remained unchanged.

Period 12: (This is interesting…) All positive changes no toasts, pauses, free Saturdays etc introduced during 1,5 years were taken away and everything was back to the situation according period 3. The production now reached all time high with 3.000 pieces per week (25% more than from the beginning).

The conclusion from the test series was it all depended upon improved communication between management and the workers. Another conclusion was it was better to talk directly to people compared to communicate through inquires – that might be worth remembering in times of e-mail inquires!

Sat 7 Mar

Why is this the weekend?

Maybe we should change view of the weeks just to see how our idea of the days will transform into something new? We are so used to Fridays being the introduction to the weekend, Saturday and Sunday the weekend itself, that we cannot look upon the week any other way than we do. It is as if somebody has laid out asphalt for us to walk along an endless highway! Please remember days actually do not exist the way we imagine.

It is actually rather fascinating how we can get used to things that do not exist like weekends for example. I know it is “Saturday” today and this knowledge affect my attitude how to spend the day. Already when I weak up I “know” it is “Saturday” making me conclude I can do other things compared to a “Tuesday”. Often people have regular activities planned or other types of routines kicking their fantasy in a specific direction.

Imagine we could erase the knowledge about weekdays and each day would just be another day, which means we would probably not even think of the day as something else than a continuum. Of course I understand there are many arguments like “society would not work because we would not know if we were going to work or not” etc, but such argumentation is based upon a false idea disregarding the fact there are other ways to look at life than the way we use right now. There are many phenomena yet not invented that will be regarded as absolutely necessary once invented and when these phenomena are an active part of our life we are going to be so convinced they are “real” that a life without them cannot be imagined.

Some years ago my children were fascinated to hear that when I started my career as an engineer the PC was not at all present in the offices. Most people used paper and pencil, typewriters were being used but mostly by the secretaries and so on. “But how could you work without a PC?” – trying to imagine the activity “working” without a keyboard and a screen at your desk was completely impossible for the children. I added there were actually telephones, but also before the entrance of the telephone as an every man’s tool people could actually work.

Maybe we should throw away the computers and cell phones just as the weekdays? Just as an experiment? At least it is worth thinking of, because now and then I conclude they tend to demand a lot of time…

Fri 6 Mar

How will your 2 kWh taste today?

You will probably have an energy intake of about 2 kWh today. About 240 grams of alcohol will give you enough energy for one day, so half a bottle of vodka or 2 litres of wine will probably satisfy your body, just as half a kilo of sugar will. One problem in our culture is these typical weekend energy sources normally are added to the routine intake of food, which means we will increase the intake and often decrease the output.

Some people are surprised alcoholics do not have to eat, but that is not very strange at all. Of course vitamins are important, but our primary need is energy. When all the cars in the world soon are using the same source of energy as human beings some absurdities will probably be obvious; poor farmers in Africa will grow crops to be processed into energy for the cars in Europe to make it possible for the farmers to buy energy for themselves and their families. And what will happen during years with bad crops?

Well, the cars or the farmers will have the energy I presume. Let us think; European cars or African farmers – the survival of the fittest… Oil have clear environmental drawbacks, but makes it easier to differ between energy possible to eat and energy not possible to eat.

The car by the way has a better coefficient of utilization compared to man as far as I have understood; 40% for the combustion engine against 25% for the human muscles. The logical conclusion from this fact is it would be better I take the car instead of the bike (tough conclusion for a biker) because using the same source of energy, presupposing all energy sources are limited, I make the world a favour to make all reductions possible. Our brain is the heaviest user of energy in the human body, which means I should reduce my thinking processes as much as possible.

Thu 5 Mar

A reflection about SAAB

The Swedish car manufacturer SAAB (Svenska Aeroplan AB) is fighting for survival in the tough reality among all other car manufacturers fighting for survival. Reading articles about SAAB in the press gives me a feeling of reading obituary notices; this is obviously one of the world’s best manufacturer of cars and the only problem is the customers not having discovered this fact, but have been misled by other manufacturers to buy something less good. Suddenly the market does not at all work! People buy the wrong products.

I cannot connect those obituary notices with my own experiences. Where is the discussion about all the quality problems SAAB has had? Back in the 80^th we had a SAAB 95, not the 9-5 but the real stuff 95 from 1965 with 3 cylinders. It was a good car, just as the models following this. The fact SAAB not even then made a lot of money from manufacturing cars was less interesting, because they manufactured aircrafts for the military defence; Tunnan, Draken, Viggen and so on. The Wallenberg-sphere wanted to have a car manufacturing as well.

The quality problems slowly entered the scene during the 70^th and 80^th. Wallenberg sold off the car manufacturing in the beginning of the 90^th after heavy losses and then the quality problems really took off. American cars have never been that impressing when it comes to quality… I now and then had the SAAB 9000 as rental car in the 90^th; some of them were good but some of them were actually gasoholics so I actually talked to a representative  for SAAB asking why some cars used such enormous amounts of petrol and he said they did had a problem with that and the next models were to be better.

How many rather new SAAB 9-5 had motor failures in the Swedish forests during winter? The design of motor was not good, but the next model… A car dealer I knew told me SAAB was the only car that broke down standing on a parking place. I had a SAAB for a short period some years ago and when I was to sell it and the buyer were to come, I could not open the doors – it had broken down standing on the parking place. Fortunately I succeeded to fix it, but the thermostat had broken down as well.

It took some time, but now the owners have discovered what the customers already have discovered; SAAB has too many problems as it is today to compete with high quality manufacturers. The marriage with GM end up in a divorce and SAAB is trying to find a new partner to pay the house, the servants, the food and all the loans but what is offered in return: A disastrous row of losses throughout the years. And they are surprised nobody wants to pay the party? But do not forget: the next model is really going to be better! Volvo has a much better strategy: the present model is better.

Wed 4 Mar

"Abroad" does not exist...

We belong to the specimen ‘Homo travailen’. Every day we hear people say they would like to go abroad. That means they aim at leaving the area surrounded by invisible boarders constituting their home country, and move into another area where things are different. What is exotic for one is every day living for another. Does this “abroad” really exist?

No, in principle not. “Abroad” is an illusory place inside our own minds making it easier for us to actually see how life looks, smells, tastes and so on so forth. Some claim travelling to summer during the long and dark Swedish winter is necessary, but also this is an illusion created in their minds; slowly building up the idea winter is long, cold and dark making it important to escape makes it harder and harder not to escape.

Travelling typically takes place to either beaches or cities; from one city to the other. Actually cities are not differing very much from one another; the houses look different, but most people have limited interest in architecture and people talk a different language, normally not understood why English is used. Sharing the culture might be one argument, but when it comes to the point; do we really share the culture living in our hotel rooms?

“Abroad” does not exist – or making it more correct – that is all that exist.

Tue 3 Mar

Another Euro or two of 30.000

Presume you have €30.000 in your pocket. You would probably give one of them away without hesitating so much I think. Imagine now you give €1 away to each person you meet without using anything for your own expenses. Some people would be surprised getting the money, some would be sceptical and probably some would even refuse to accept the money because they would expect some activity from their side in return. The more you have given away, the more you would wonder if you should not use the rest for yourself having given away quite a lot already. When less than half of the money remains in that pocket, most people would start to hesitate (if not earlier) to give anything more away.

A man’s life consists of about 30.000 days. In the beginning one day equals eternity, but the more days we have been giving away the less we spontaneously tend to give away. Every day becomes more and more valuable as if we calculate the value relatively the amount remaining in that pocket of ours and with such definition we were actually standing closer eternity when we were younger.

And now you are expecting some kind of conclusion or wisdom for today making it easier for you to decide whether you should give another Euro away from your pocket or use it for your own, but unfortunately there are no such conclusions or wisdoms. This Tuesday is another one of all the 4.300 Tuesdays we will see, and each one of us makes decisions how to use it. Some will kill, some will work, some will do nothing at all, some will play, some will stay and some will say “I love you” – welcome to another Tuesday.

Mon 2 Mar

Stumbling through life

From the moment we learn to walk, we seem to stumble along following Dame Fortune’s index finger showing the way forward. Life happens. Of course we have the possibility to keep our course now and then, but fate always has some surprises for us making changes of the course necessary.

We get used to the stumbling, look upon it as natural, and even think we are running along the course decided. Who knows how we would live if all those coincidences had not occurred? In a way we probably have some basic parameters deep inside keeping the course when we have lost it; otherwise our lives would certainly not be anything but chaos. When we say that we are in control of our own fates, we mean something inside keeps the course.

Let us presume this “something” is our intuition, to some extent unconscious. The program sequences used by intuition are for sure made up by our parents during growth, but some parts might be transferred via the genes (just as spiders do not learn how to produce a web, they just do it). We have to conclude there is no overall plan made up for us. All of us are atoms in the cog wheels of life.

Aiming at a certain goal in business, sport or whatsoever is one thing. Being in control of our own life process something else – but what it is nobody seems to understand. Life just happens to be the way it is...

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Thu 26 Feb

Computer storage media vs stone plates

The oldest texts preserved are 4.500 year old clay plates and then there are numerous of stone plates of course as well as papyrus scriptures (the Egyptian death books is one example). The Chinese used a kind of bamboo rolls about 3.500 years ago and later developed into fabric and paper (2.000 years ago). The oldest preserved book (with a modern definition) is a Buddhist text, the Diamond Sutra, from AC 868.

We can conclude we do not have much written information that is older than 1.000 years, but it has existed. There are 2.000 year old pages proving the existence of school books (we all know the life length of a school book…). Today most information is stored on magnetic or optic media. I am not sure how long such media last, but it would surprise me a lot if those media are yet readable 100 years from now. But it can of course be transferred to new media thus preserving it for another period of years.

Used fuel from nuclear reactors is to be stored first 30-50 years in large water basins and then another 100.000 years in a final storage site until the fuel is harmless. 100.000 years is quite a period of time. I get visions of future people entering those secret sites, finding the cylinders of copper. They would guess the 10.000 year old cylinders are some kind of sarcophagus used for religious purposes, probably the remains of important persons. Strange looking warning signs tell them to keep out.

Probably this will not happen, but anyhow; 100.000 years. It is an impressing amount of years.

Wed 25 Feb

What is interesting about this picture?

Answer: It is almost impossible to tell how old it is. Looking closely we can conclude there is a transmission line in the background telling us it is taken after 1900 because before that not many places were electrified. Of course many people would say it is not very interesting at all that it is impossible to tell the age of the picture, and maybe that is correct?

Well, the picture is taken yesterday. All the buildings on the picture are at least 100 years old, but so what? We can reflect upon it for a while. This is also a reality, just as cities and beaches are, maybe more real than a city, that is partly artificial, without space. Things happen in the city. What has happened at the particular spot shown at the picture? Maybe they built the transmission line 80 years ago...

One reason we prefer artificial realities is probably it feeds us with impressions, just like TV. Have you ever thought travelling by car is almost like watching TV? Make a full scale test and you will notice one obvious and positive difference is there is no promotion in the car - not yet at least.

Tue 24 Feb

The importance of winter

If spring and summer would keep on forcing the crops to grow, demanding more and more nutrition out of the earth, we would encounter lower and lower yield. There is one time for sowing, another for harvesting, but also one time for abeyance. This seems to be valid not only for farming, but also for businesses or philosophy. Of course there are exceptions where continuous growth seems to be present, but sooner or later we have to be prepared for the winter.

Toyota shows losses in their automobile business for the first time since around 1935. That is an impressing continuous growth. At the same time there have been winters also for Toyota having been treated without losses. The problem this time is probably that the winter came so fast and directly from a marvellous spring and summer. Everybody was expecting the leaves to turn red and yellow before it was all frozen.

Being a farmer is not an easy business. If you wait to harvest another day, there will be a bit more growth, at the same time an increasing risk. You have to study the parameters telling you how the weather might change; maybe the autumn will be warm giving you better opportunities, or too wet lowering the yield from Mother Nature. Being a broker trying to optimize the dividend yield you study other parameters, but the basic principle is the same and a broker not being aware there will be a winter sooner or later runs the risk of standing in front of a frozen land covered with snow because he never saw when the birds left for Africa.

Mon 23 Feb

We cannot imagine being a horse

Human empathy is a strange phenomenon. Some people might think they can really imagine how it is to be an animal, transferring all their feelings about the animal into their own minds thus shaping an empathic reflection of the mind of the animal. Such reflection will always be false no matter how convinced we are it is true. But the same goes for images of other people; we will never be able to create true reflections of another human being. Of course we can have the feeling we have the feeling of another human being, but the verification process is far too complicated to be possible to carry out.

So what? Well, I am just pointing out the risk our empathic attitude towards our surrounding cause misunderstandings and confusion. That is all. We could call the false empathy “The Walt Disney Syndrome” referring to all the animated films about animals where these animals have human properties (happiness, sorrow, love etc) and even if there might be true to some extent it is absolutely not true to the extent the film directors have used.

Maybe we should not learn to try to feel how other creatures might feel, but we should try to learn not to be ourselves. This is actually much more difficult and such an empathic idea is not at all simple to understand. Empathy is always based on the I and our own feelings transferred into another situation. To learn not to be ourselves is of course impossible, but this does not mean we should not try to strive to reach it.

To be a horse is to be a horse, not to be a human being imagining the life of a horse. To be another human being is not a matter of reflecting our feelings in another mind – it is a matter of actually being this person which is something completely different because we have to use the image of this other person and move it into our own mind and look upon life exactly as this person does.

Sat 21 Feb

Weekend

It seems more common to work at Saturdays today compared to some years ago. I often hear people say they find it calm at work and they get something done. During the weeks e-mails, meetings and telephone calls keep us occupied. At Saturdays it is suddenly possible to do some creative things like turning papers. This does not go for those who have shops or similar, they still have a working day at Saturdays. That old tradition of keeping everything closed at Sundays was not a very bad idea, and in some countries this tradition is still kept. If Sundays also become a regularly day among the others, there will be no white spots in reality. Using Saturdays for cleaning up the desk and Sundays for cleaning up our mind is a good concept worth keeping.

Yes, I know those ideas a desk full of papers and things symbolizes creative thinking and an empty desk the opposite. I claim that is pure nonsense. Creative thinking takes place among structures of knowledge or ideas. Music built upon chaos is not very interesting, even though there might be some “revolutionary” ideas built into it we do not listen very long to this “false creativity”. All creative people I have met have a deep knowledge in those fields they are creative. So forget the alibis for not having to clean your desk!

Tomorrow it is Sunday. Try the old concept of doing nothing. I know you do not have time for doing nothing, but that is just another reason for trying. Now and then we cannot avoid doing work also Sundays, but as a principle it is really not a bad idea to stay away from shopping, working and so on.

Fri 20 Feb

PC as Mindgames

In a way we can look upon the PC as a kind of simplified reconstruction of mind; the hierarchical decision trees built up, more and more information added, programs as routines to deal with different types of information and on the top of it all Internet symbolizing other human beings and their knowledge. We listen to different IT-gurus telling us which religion we should follow, showing us the way to ultimate freedom. Some people interpret this freedom as a world without moral, a world where we may run along the routes of fantasy no matter where they lead.

We can look into people’s PCs and get a picture of their mind; some have no structure at all, no idea how to build the knowledge, while others might be too structured, spending a lot of energy making the decision trees but have no energy left for collecting information, thus shaping empty trees. They are very well structured but live without life experiences. The first type with no structure at all might have a lot of information but cannot perform due to chaos in the decision tree.

The computer gamers around the clock are the drug users in this world; lost in a life without connections to reality. After a while they start to believe their fantasies and feelings in the game is reality. RL is just a disturbing parameter. If there are drug users there are also the dealers with nothing but financial interests, of course with different aspects of “individual freedom” as cover up for profit.

One day we might conclude reality was not only created in 3D – it is also touchable, not to forget liveable, skiable, runnable, loveable, talkable. Yes, I would like to say it is experienceable.

Thu 19 Feb

Becket's last Krapp

There is one play I can read over and over again, and that is ”Krapp’s last tapes” written by Samuel Becket. Of course I can read other plays as well over and over again, but I prefer to read Krapp, like a small child prefers to hear the same fairytale every evening. I remember reading a story by Roald Dahl for my children when they were small (I do not know the English title, but directly translated it would be “The mini pegs”, “Minipinnarna” in Swedish) and I can imagine reading it now as well, but being a serious consultancy I cannot read Fairytales in the evenings as you surely understand!

Anyhow, the play of Krapp is interesting because it is dealing with the question if we, poor lost human beings, really are the same persons from youth into old age. Krapp has recorded himself and sits there listening to his voice, seeing the illusion of this other version of Krapp, and try to see the difference, or at least understand if there is a difference.

Before the curtain goes down, we hear Krapp recording “Here I end this reel. Box [Pause.] – three, spool [Pause.] – five. [Pause.] Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance for happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back.”

Now, please do not take this as if I am pessimistic regarding the outcome of the life process. It is actually the other way round; We can learn something out of this, but probably I do not understand it thus making it necessary for me to read Krapp now and then to see if there is a transformation going on or not referring to the impression of Krapp when listening to him every year (and that leaves me the rest of the evenings with those mini pegs by Roald Dahl)

Wed 18 Feb

Indoor living

It is interesting to see the slow transition going on, from an outdoor to an indoor society. We no longer have to dress for outdoor life (if we do not want to) but can jump in a warm car, drive wherever we are supposed to travel, go to offices, shops etc without having to be outdoor. Still there is a small window to reality if we need to wait for trains or busses, or if the car is not warm when we start it up. Larger cities are slowly being built in, probably leaving some spots of green where we can sit and have a cup of tea when the sun shines.

Well, this transition is not necessarily negative, but it is at least a change that demands more and more energy, especially in cold countries where heating is necessary and in warm countries where cooling is needed. The tendency is clear; we prefer an environment with about 20°C no matter the consequences. A long time ago mankind adapted the conditions of nature, but now we make nature adapt mankind.

Children use more and more time for indoor activities and only go out when the weather is “good”, that means when it is the way we want it to be. During holidays we can go skiing in a prepared nature, but then we do want to go by lift uphill and only take the fun part going downhill. If we do not “like” winter we can always travel to Thailand (everything presupposes we can afford such a living, which is every man’s dream).

So, how much time will you spend outdoor today? Look into the future and dream about the perfect indoor life where the temperature is held constant and the need for winter cloths is since long forgotten. Strange in a way – is it not?

Tue 17 Feb

Life and a cup of tea

There are times when I have a feeling life is as simple as a plain cup of green Chinese tea. At first it does not taste a lot; just some vague smell can be felt from the vapours. After a while this taste comes stronger, still not being too strong. We learn to relax, and begin to feel all these artificial tea-tastes are just a bit too much. A plain cup of Chinese tea is enough, and we have the possibility to reflect upon the thoughts and feelings of today.

Of course life is now and then a bit more complex than a cup of tea, or we think it is no matter what life really is. Imagine a country where people work together and share what can be shared and after having fulfilled the duty of the day, sit down with a plain cup of Chinese green tea.

If you want to do it even simpler you can skip the tea and just take a cup of hot water. It is actually not at all as strange as it sounds, but I am aware it sounds a bit “ascetic”. We often have this idea we should make everything with a touch of champagne and caviar, just to enhance that feeling of life. That is just a myth – a strong myth of course, but still a myth and a dream of luxury.

Mon 16 Feb

Goddess of justness

In this mini series of the four virtues we have reached the last one, justness, symbolised on the copperplate engraving as a Goddess with a sword and a balance. One could as if a sword really is necessary for the Goddess of justness, and we probably end up with the question if the police are to be armed or not, which is not a very easy matter and probably again one of those questions without an obvious answer.

Maybe we all agree the Goddess should carry the balance just as we all should strive to balance our activities trying to reach an ethical living. Sometimes we do things that make the balance fall over towards the wrong side and we have to compensate these activities with good deeds – or at least we should try to compensate it but not always do.

The sword is there to remind us there are always people with a balance completely non-calibrated, or even broken. For these people the Goddess of justness shape balance in their living with her sword, forcing them to see how the balance stands. But the question is still if arms always need to be fought by arms? Have we yet reached a higher level than 1532 and the slaughter of some 40.000 Indians of the Incas when a ship with soldiers arrived from Spain; 175 soldiers against 40.000 more or less unarmed Indians without defence system.

The Incas might still ask where the Goddess of justness was sleeping those three days and how we can be sure she really exists.

Sun 15 Feb

Goddess of courage

In the third of the four copperplate engravings of the virtues we can see the Goddess of courage; an androgyne warrior with a sword in her hand, looking towards the horizon. By her feet a lion stands, passively waiting for orders. A warrior has always, or at least for a very long time, been the symbol of courage. Plato also had courage as one of the most important virtues of mankind, and his definition (from “The State”) was that the fighting spirit stays at the instruction given by the intellect of what to fear and what not to fear. Such instruction can be given from the own intellect or from a supervisor of some kind.

Some say courage is following ones own road no matter what happens. Other says that courage is to say what you really think. There are numerous of definitions. Is there such a thing as ethical courage; to do what we know is right even if we do not gain from it, which of course in a society where time is a limited resource and attention highly important does not get a top priority.

Reading in “Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English” we get the definition “quality that enables a person to control fear in the face of danger, pain, misfortune etc”, which is closely connected to Plato’s 2.500 thousand year old definition. Today scientists try to find the centres and the genes controlling fear and their vision is to create a man without fear and the reason such projects are being financed by America’s military defence is not very hard to guess.

Sat 14 Feb

Goddess of wisdom

Yesterday we studied the Goddess of moderation, so why not look upon the Goddess of wisdom today, with “her” double-sided head, which actually is a rather interesting interpretation of the conception wisdom, where male and female thinking working together in an androgyne mixture fulfilling the human dream of integrated co-operation. Maybe Friedrich Nietzsche’s Zarathustra was such a character and Carl Jonas Love Almquist’s Tintomara was it definitely.

Nobody knows if wisdom is the integrated human being, or the androgyne figure – or something completely different? Maybe wisdom, as Russel wrote, is just empty foolishness and does not really exist? We know at least wisdom and intelligence not necessarily are exchangeable quantities. The one can exist without the other or both can be absent (or maybe present?).

The Hebrew word for wisdom is Chokmá and it shows us another view of wisdom not at all being complicated or abstract but something rather simple; practical rules how to live the daily life. A person following these rules will automatically in the long run become wise. It is not necessarily a very comfortable way, why we prefer some short-cuts here and there. Who would like to try? Not many. We do not dare take the risk. The thought there is a risk of not following the rules does not occur to us.

Giordano Bruno meant there was an old religion in Egypt. The ideas were being spread to Greece, India, China, Rome etc, thus shaping Judaism, Hinduism, inspired Konfucius, later came to Rome developing into Christianity and in the Arabic region inspired Mohammed and so on. Poor Giordano was of course burnt at Campo die Fiore in Rome the 17^th of Feb 1600. Maybe I should have written this on Tuesday instead?

There are no answers to all questions, and science cannot always help, but do not give up the thinking!

Fri 13 Feb

Goddess of moderation

She holds a small cup in her right hand and I think she has a small jug in the other, probably filled with water. Of course she does not appear modern in the draping she is wearing. The picture is an old copperplate engraving origin Italy from the 15th century, but maybe she was not even modern then? The Goddess of moderation has probably never been popular. Who wants to be moderate?

Moderation is one of the four virtues, the other three being wisdom, courage and justness. Plato pointed out another one instead of moderation and that was consideration (in the meaning of self-control) and even though it is closely connected to moderation, there is a small difference. Having moderation as a virtue means avoiding excess as a principle, but consideration gives no such principle because it gives us the right to judge, which of course makes it necessary to have a sound judgement and a good portion of self-control. Moderation is therefore easier to treat for the man in the street.

There is a tendency to mistake freedom for removal of the necessity of moderation, which also is connected to the fact we let the available amount of money regulate our needs. You have probably also heard parents tell their children they “cannot afford” this or that. Does that not mean if they had been able to afford whatever they tell they cannot afford, they would buy it for the children, and does this not build the logic in the child’s mind available amount of money are the flood-gates for the needs.

And on the top of this we are surprised the development of weight follows that of GNP? The Goddess of moderation with her small jug will never be as popular as Ronald McDonald, but this does not mean she should be preferred idol…

Thu 12 Feb

Selling instead of giving

Christianity teaches that he who gives is blessed, but capitalism teaches the necessity of buying and selling, thus boosting the economy increasing the GNP. Making a small and rather naïve experiment we can look upon a child going to a birthday party bringing a small present for €10. Giving the present away results in a total GNP for this activity of the same amount, but if the child would sell the present at arrival to the party, which of course would cause some confusion, the GNP would at least double. Capitalism teaches us to add an overhead cost of maybe 20% for the work of buying, walking and carrying, as well as capital cost for the usage of money. The child sells the present for €12, giving a total GNP of €22.

This presupposes the receiver of course do make an alternate purchase for the €12 now given to the child with the present. In that case it would all come out equal of course, but imagining the €12 if not given for the present would end up in the piggy bank, this example in principle is correct. The €12 also has to be part of a tax declaration or similar accounting making them part of the official trade statistics.

Money in piggy banks is hidden and does not participate in the flow of capital. So if you want to serve your country, tell your children to empty their piggy banks and start the trade of birthday presents. Giving is no longer a blessed activity. Buying and selling show us the road to heaven!

Wed 11 Feb

Successful success

We have to sort among all impressions telling us how to live to be successful. One difficulty is the tendency to forget life has to last all life and the fact admiration from numerous of people does not change anything but the bank account if you are lucky. We wake up another Wednesday and what happened yesterday is slowly turning into a pale memory where only glimpses of what happened are stored. Presume you were famous yesterday – does that really make any difference compared to a dream during the night? All that remains is the feeling, which of course is not too bad, but today this feeling is no longer more real than a dream, also remaining as a feeling.

Successful living might be something else, something we never understand? They have a saying in northern Sweden: “Only salmons follow the stream – dead salmons…”. I do not know if this saying is based upon objective research and a broad analysis of reality, but it is good enough for an ordinary Wednesday in February.

For some people this day will be a day they never forget. Some will never remember anything more after this day. There are all kinds of experiences from more than 6 billion people all over our globe. If we are allowed to say “our globe” is not for sure, but “their globe” does not sound very attractive, as if I am not part of it.

This attitude of not forgetting life is to last all life should not be taken as a pretext for living every day as an isolated enclave, rather the other way round; keep yourself on the rails. At the same time, do not hesitate to change that route you are on if you discover it leads astray. Even though the change means hard work it might give you a successful success with your own measures and by the end of the day that is what counts.

Tue 10 Feb

Orwell and Internet

George Orwell (Eric Blair) wrote the novel ”1984” (1949) about the life in a totalitarian state, controlling its inhabitants. Among other interesting aspects, there is particularly one that interests me today: the continuous rewriting of the history. The state has numerous writers making changes of what was written earlier to fit the purposes of the government today. Without any reason at all I woke up today thinking about this phenomenon and Internet.

Online-encyclopaedias are continuously updated and that is of course advantageous regarding many things, but at the same time there is a risk that today’s research not always, as we normally imagine, is a better and improved version of earlier research. This approach presupposes we are slowly moving away from the dependence of individuals growing into a complex collective wider analysis, as if we are approaching heaven. The fact a person today encounter wider knowledge compared to another person yesterday does not automatically tell us the person today persists a deeper knowledge or better analysis.

If we no longer have those old encyclopaedias in our shelters but only got Wikipedia to trust I am not sure we have outdistanced Orwell’s society – we might as well have closed it up. Everything is rewritten to fit the perspective of today and all that were being written yesterday have been swept away by the waves and left no trace.

Presupposing mankind develops is an uncritical but attractive approach. But how will we ever know if we continuously change history? Oh, how stupid of me! Of course we will know, because we just rewrite history to fulfil the vision…

Mon 9 Feb

Transferring time

Man, generally, is looking upon his own time as modern which it of course per definition is, but maybe we now and then should transfer our own perspectives to history – just to see the long terms effect of such a time transfer. I was born 45 years ago, 1964, and if we transfer all these years backwards, from 1964, we end up 1919… Those three dots you just saw is my own surprise. Right after the “great war”; electricity in houses was a rather new invention, Europe disastrously wrecked and Germany forced to bankruptcy. My grandparents were rather young and their parents were about my age. They lived in a modern time.

Maybe you think “So What?” referring to the title of the Miles Davies tune from an old LP. Yes, that is true, so what! I tell you what: For my children 1964 was not very modern because there was no computers at home, no internet, hardly any TV and – listen to this – no possibility to send SMS! But it was anyhow modern. Do you miss what does not yet exist? No, of course not! You do not miss the Rackalambra that will be impossible to live without 2054. Why should you?

Let us make another jump before we start working: From 1919 we transfer ourselves to 1874. People were emigrating to America from all over Europe, and kept on emigrating for a number of years. There were modern ships carrying you over the Atlantic Ocean to an unknown land. General Lee had surrendered just 9 years earlier and the Civil War had ended and some 620.000 American soldiers had been buried but yet not forgotten. This year, 1874, gold was discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota, land of the Sioux. That winter was very hard and the Sioux population left the reservation and moved away but was later discovered by some 650 cavalrymen led by General Georg Custer – the Indians encamped on the little Big Horn River. The General ordered an attack…

That was three jumps only, just to get perspective on time.

Sun 8 Feb

Organizational weakness

Human collective work is as a rule organized thus shaping necessary rules and routines for each individual to prevent ineffectiveness. An organization has many well known advantages but there are as well disadvantages and normally the advantageous aspects widely override these disadvantages. When there is a non-normal situation it might though be the other way around; the disadvantages suddenly grow and the weight of them make the balance turn.

The organization is per definition built upon the handling of upcoming situations through routines. Each routine has been refined and polished throughout the years to fit reality. What will happen if there suddenly is a situation but no routines? We can imagine the company always having been successful and slowly growing and now one day in February stands in front of a competitor’s successful invention invading the market, or a family where everything has been a successful ride towards future but reality decides to stop the turning wheels. The successful hockey-club that always got economic support from a financial institute suddenly no longer gets the money and the ghost of liquidation knocks at the door. There might be a group of friends always having had good living together but now discovers a change in the atmosphere and so on so forth.

The problem seems to be there are routines built up only to handle what has been foreseen. Human beings are often optimistic and happy future fundamentalists and this is surely good and positive, but if we are not prepared there will be a long and lonely winter we might one morning stand in front of an empty shed where there always used to be a lot of wood. So maybe organizing for normality but being prepared for negative surprises is a good basis for a philosophy at home, at work and not to forget the most important part: deep in our souls.

Sat 7 Feb

Human obligations

There seems to be a need for a new UN-declaration contrasting against the human rights: human obligations. Every day we hear about the rights humans have and I even get the feeling criminals do have more rights than obligations. Children have rights in school but hardly any obligations at all and probably it is only a matter of time before the teachers have to pay children to do homework because the children have so much to do after school. I herewith use my human right to demand a declaration for human obligations!

Do not say anything, I already know; it is old fashioned to talk about obligations in our time where ‘freedom’ and ‘following the heart’ are the guiding principles. Hunters in Sweden and Alaska have the right to decrease the wolf strain according their own measures. Managers have the right to have a salary corresponding to 50 ordinary workers because their responsibility according their own measures is so enormous. School children have the right to protest against teachers forcing them to do things because the children have their rights and teachers only obligations.

We are surrounded by people that only have learned their human rights. Imagine a world where everybody knew their obligations and kept their mouths shut instead of nagging continuously about their rights. Feminists (yes, I am tired of them as well) keep repeating they have the right to be part of company boarders or being managers or whatsoever. Well, start your own companies and be your own boarder...

In the end the human rights look like this: “I have the right to do only what I want to do. I do not have to plan anything and I should get regularly payment just because I am I. If my rights happen to interfere with your rights, my rights will be the dominating ones because I have per definition more rights than you.”

Are you a human rights fundamentalist? Open your eyes and look around. There are just too many people with too many rights and too few having any obligations.

Fri 6 Feb

Value of TV-news exaggerated

The last time I saw the TV-news was 1993 and the headline news was a Serbian grenade attack against a market-place in Sarajevo. First there was a TV-studio report explaining what had happened and at least for me that was informative, even if they could have left some of the horrible details out. After this TV-studio session there was a camera team walking around at the market-place, showing us all the grenade-shattered bodies. Why? Can we not understand people have died if we do not see it?

 Make this test: read a morning paper 30 minutes and compare the information you receive with 30 minutes TV-news. TV treat us as some kind of donkeys, giving us first a headline and a short explanation followed by longer explanation where no information is added, and then – as if this was not enough for a normal intelligent human to understand – we get interviews with the people involved just to convince us these news are not just made up but actually true! In the end we need a summary if we by chance did not understand the information given.

After having seen dead human beings we are thrown into some zoo where a baby monkey has been born and the consequences of this is analysed. Completely absurd! And do not forget the sport news! Sport fundamentalists in a TV-studio are allowed to wallow in 1) a pre-analysis about the chances to win which normally results in a presumed gold-medal. 2) Pictures from the actual event and 3) an analysis what really happened and why there was no gold-medal this time but the increased possibilities to receive one next time.

If you are a careful user of time, do not hesitate leaving the TV-news to rest in peace! The journalists might do a god job, but I prefer keeping their products out of sight. 30 minutes wasted to get the information from a morning paper’s first page, which you can glimpse a couple of minutes. Claiming being in stress and do not have time to do this or that, does not impress me when I hear people have been watching several news programs during the evening. Do not forget that test… Also do not forget to read a good book to your children instead of letting them watch the absurdities being served in cubistic shape in your living room.

Thu 5 Feb

The pocket-money economy

Maybe about 100 years the habit of giving pocket-money regularly to children has existed. It is difficult to say when it all started, but in Sweden the word was introduced in the language around 1895. A weekly allowance is also paid during the military service (I remember having 23 SEK/day, about EUR 2). The phenomenon is interesting because younger people adapt the the pocket-money economy, and getting older they slowly replace their parents with the state.

Pocket-money are to cover only things children want to buy themselves and everything else, all that is necessary so to say, are being paid by their parents. The older the children get, the more money they normally receive, as if they were taking a larger responsibility for the necessary parts, which normally not is the case. A standardized teenager has a considerable amount of money to spend every month (the increased responsibility is to receive money only once per month instead of once per week).

The apprehension we should not need to pay what is necessary for daily living are now deeply planted also in the hemispheres of quite old people, “indoctrinated from birth” by the pocket-money philosophy. I am not responsible for the necessities of life, but somebody else is because my salary only covers the needs creating a positive response from my pleasure centras of the brain.

Of course this explanation is a bit drastic but take a look around; we do not want to pay for music or films, but have “the right” to download it free. If I cannot find a suitable job where my personal development can be fulfilled, the state has to pay for my living until I can find such a job and so on. So maybe we should reflect upon the fact the pocket-money tradition teaches nothing but consumption until the pocket is empty and we have to wait for the next payment. Maybe we should teach our children to analyse their needs instead of fulfilling them through consumption?

Wed 4 Feb

Hypomnemata

A long time ago in Greece it was popular to take notes, write down all kinds of things you heard or read thus supporting our fading memory. Such notebooks were being called Hypomnemata (Hypo- is a prefix meaning ‘under’ and 'mnemata' origins 'mnemon', ‘mindful’ so maybe we can conclude these hypomnemata thus being a support for the memory, because we cannot remember everything we read). It was like a database with thoughts and ideas to return to instead of forgetting most things ever read or thought.

As you surely understand I have read about this hypomnemata-tradition and found it interesting and I think many people still use the technique of writing things down or cutting articles out from magazines, as well as mark places in books or similar things. Most things we think have been thought before, but maybe once in a lifetime we succeed to think something new without noticing it? Therefore we have to write as much as possible down to be able to catch it up later to study our own thinking capabilities and reflecting upon the thoughts later. We realise it does not matter if we made the thinking ourselves or if anybody else did it; what is interesting is the thought and the results of it.

Our own hypomnemata help us transforming our subjective apprehension into something more objective by forcing us to take a standpoint toward our own thoughts. We are also able to see shifts in opinions and meanings throughout the years. I do not know, even if I presume, also hypomnemata over dreams were being made in Greece. I cannot see why dreams should not be part of the reflections since they are important input for us how our intuition works. It is a bit difficult to recall details but something is better than anything.

So why not revive the old hypomnemata-tradition of the ancient Greece; buy yourself a simple notebook, keep it in your pocket (except when you are to write of course) and as soon as you hear, think or read something you find interesting, take a note and make it part of your collection. Normally we think something like “I will remember that” but after a couple of hours we have forgotten it and cannot find anything but traces.

Tue 3 Feb

The illusion of symbolism

To use symbols is a common method to explain an abstract aspect of life. Maybe we all have spent time in school decrypting famous novels trying to find out what the writer “means” by the use of certain symbols or courses of events. We have heard about the human life process being a metaphor of the seasons; spring is the beginning of a beautiful period looking forward to summer when all our dreams are to be fulfilled, then we know there is an autumn when it might be wonderful colours but also a lot of bad weather, not to mention the winter period. How often do we really ask ourselves: Are all these metaphors true?

Yes, there is of course the necessary outcome (“How is it that the wise man dies as well as the fool!” as Qoheleth states in the book of Ecclesiastes and it is so old making me presume the copyright has expired…) but we could as well look upon our life process as being crowned with summer, starting with the autumn. After all we have had a wonderful time in that warm stomach and then we are forced out to the cold and hard living, forcing us to take responsibility and earn money to survive in a strange world full of competition. What is so much spring and summer about fighting the daily struggle?

Of course our body gets weaker when we are older, but that can be compensated with a deeper inner life, where a better structure and deeper knowledge help us understanding mankind and not to forget, our own I. Each season lasts 20 man years making it possible for us to meet the spring around middle age and retiring when the grass is green, the flowers bloom and the large forests smell summer.

Or: life is a continuous cycle forcing us around and when it stops nobody knows. Travelling to the summer in the winter or the other way round would then be to leave this natural cycle, as could we escape periods of non-growth by flying away like the birds, but we are not birds, which we might prefer to forget if we believe in the metaphor life ends with winter.

Mon 2 Feb

The president of USA

The situation was tough with banks in liquidation, increasing unemployment in the industry as well in farming (prices of agricultural products decreased). USA was screaming for help and a strong personality was elected. After he had taken office new laws were being introduced, the country was to be reorganized. The president and his braintrust of experts focused on financial measures; unemployment insurance, national pension insurance, parent's allowance and so on. The president also wanted better relationship with other cultures, thus entering an era of international co-operation.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected 1932 and took his office the 4^th of March 1933. His measures were no direct success and four years later USA and the world was closing up another (or the same but deeper) depression. But instead there was another war helping up the situation, because states Lewis Mumford in “Technics and Civilization” the army being the ideal consumer, destroying new products thus shaping a demand for more. World war II was the injection of vitamins USA needed.

Today’s tips for Mr Obama is to simulate war: increase production by stately means, dig a deep hole in the Mojave desert and tip the things into the hole, but keep it a secret otherwise some entrepreneur will dig everything up and sell it, thus causing prices to decrease. Maybe it is better to use one of those bombs of yours to destroy it more efficiently? This method will turn the state into the ideal consumer but without the negative impact of a war. Never mind it sounds absurd – war is always even more absurd.

JANUARY

To top ==>

Sat 31 Jan

Confessions

Why does the writer write and what does he actually write? For many people these questions are not at all interesting since they have the opinion a writer makes everything to appear intelligent, deep, funny or whatsoever and of course it might be so in many cases – or at least in some cases. Furthermore we imagine the writer sitting in front of his desk, trying to find something intelligent out, turning and twisting the thoughts and then writing it down.

You have probably heard or read about people saying they “would like to become a writer” but what they really say is this “I would like to be famous” and nothing else, because the wish to become a writer is very easy to fulfil: grab a pen and start writing. That is all! The moment you move your pencil on a piece of paper, writing down what you hear, you are per definition a writer. But instead of doing this simple thing they go around and talk which turns them into “talkers” instead of “writers”.

One might object writing down what you hear presupposes you hear something and that is true. The probability to hear increases when you start listening instead of talking, thus connecting the art of writing to the art of listening, which is almost an forgotten art in our culture sphere where talking instead of listening is celebrated as one of the most important individual properties.

It is said “Anii” wrote a scripture in the old Egypt (somewhere between BC 1.600 and 1.100) and parts of it has been preserved as hieroglyphs written in the stones. Among other things this Anii wrote “Do not speak much and be careful with what you say, since your tongue brings unhappiness to mankind”. The Egyptian culture of the passed celebrated the art of listening.

Also remember that listening to outer voices still is easier compared to listening to the inner voice. That is what writing is all about. If I say I wish to become a writer I actually say I wish to transform from a talker to a listener of the inner voices.

Fri 30 Jan

Economy vs. consumption

(Greek; ‘oikonomia’ from ‘oikos’, house, and ‘nomos’, law). In the passed economy was ‘government of a household’, which might not seem very interesting but 1653 François de La Mothe Le Vayer published “L’Œconomique du Prince” a series of texts to the crown prince of France where he claimed there were three different types of government, each one persisting its own science or discipline.

1) The art of governing oneself (connected to moral)

2) The art of correct governing a family (connected to economy)

3) The art of correct governing the state (connected to politics)

Maybe we can mention this some kind of career plan for the crown prince, as well as for everybody else? Guillaume de la Perrière pointed 1555 upon the fact the king of the bumble-bees (manager of the hive so to say) rules without any sting, telling us a good king does not need the sword, but “patience, wisdom and diligence” and furthermore la Perrière says that the diligence means the government always shall manage as if he himself was in service by those who are being managed, so as the family father going up first in the morning and going to bed as the last in the evening, caring about everything in the household because he considers himself doing service to the family.

This idea can actually be traced back to Platon (“The State” is recommended reading for anybody interested). Today these ideas probably would be classified as rather old fashioned because our culture leans upon modern research and there are no proofs that these ideas are based upon anything but prejudices. During the 60^th and 70^th we started to dismantle the need for governing oneself and then continued, logically, dismantling the family during the 80^th and 90^th. Economy has been replaced by short-sighted optimization of profit through pushing of unnecessary consumption thus making us forget the old truth 7 fat cows are being followed by 7 leaner – but that was just an old dream if I am not wrong?

Thu 29 Jan

Interested or not interested...

…that is the question. You have heard it, and also said it; “I am not interested…” which might be true, but at the same time we should try to figure out why we are not interested in the things we are not interested in and why we are interested in those things stimulating our interest.

Have life shaped some magical parts in our brain finding some phenomena of the world more interesting than others? One claim to be interested in jazz and the other in rap. Probably our brain is just used to a particular type of input, adding it to the knowledge already stored thus stimulating our abstract “fantasy” to keep on the track. Trying to feed the rap-brain with harmonies from Roy Hargrove’s trumpet will create impressions not storable anywhere in our internal distributed network. There are so to say no nodes in that system adapting to these strange impressions. Does this mean the rap-brain is not interested in those harmonies?

Have you though of the fact small children more or less as a rule always seem to be interested in everything. On the contrary, the teenager now and then seems to be interested in nothing at all. Throughout growth our brain collects information, but after a certain period of time the mechanism seems to be a blocking of information to make the building of the already stored knowledge blocks more efficient. Through the active preventing of the blocking mechanisms we can force our brain to accept expressions not yet adaptable in the existing structure by building a new structure.

That man who used to walk on water, did he not say something about being as a child? This is often interpreted as if we do not need take any responsibility and live for the day only. That is a complete misunderstanding. Not taking any responsibility is just another teenager philosophy leading nowhere at all. We should be aware of the risk we adapting this philosophy; laying the road with a permanent surface…

Wed 28 Jan

Motorism vs. Exertionism

Presume certain strength and power of endurance is needed to enjoy for example cross-country skiing which for the moment is a suitable exercise in this white part of Sweden. Furthermore we presume gaining such strength and endurance not always is very attractive and easy going; a certain effort is needed to overcome the power of comfort. We can probably agree it is easier to adapt to such efforts when we are children and do not question the scientific reasons for doing things but just do them without thinking of alternatives (i.e. we have not yet become quasi-engineers of our own life processes).

Let us now look upon the motorized life; travel the easy, fast and image-creating way! Running at high speed with a snow mobile seems far more attractive compared to skiing for most youths. It gives an immediate “kick on route six-six” to quote an old forgotten song. No need to overcome comfort, no need for the slavery building up the power of endurance, just jump up the seat and adapt motorized life as it is.

Is there a problem? Life is tough and hard anyhow, so why not go for the easy-living the moments we are free to do it?

Taking the nature of relativity into consideration and the fact the human life process tend to push us against the want of experiencing increased comfort throughout ageing, there is actually a problem as you all can see. Do not give your children the ticket to motorism, show them the road of exertionism – but do not forget starting with yourself. After all, our children will not follow our tongue but our movements.

Tue 27 Jan

I read the news today...

…about Bolivia, a report regarding the cultivation of coca bushes. People are allowed to keep some 2000 sqm for “personal needs” to prevent sales for the production of cocaine (for 1 kg cocaine 300-400 kg coca-leaves are needed). The interesting thing was that the report was mainly based on interviews and there was a picture with three women chewing coca leaves arguing “since thousands of years this has been a tradition in the country”. The journalist could be said to be objective and so on, in principle taking the standpoint (forcing it into the mind of the reader) that the chewing of coca leaves is natural and almost healthy.

The Swedish researcher Jan-Åke Alvarsson has in the book “Amerikas Indiankulturer” (The indian cultures of America) (University of Uppsala, 1997) in his essay about the Incas concluded the authorities of Inca had strict control over the feasts and it was “a mortal sin” to drink alcohol during the weekdays and “to chew coca leaves was not even to think about”. The society was strictly controlled and there were regular health controls as well as laws what kind of food children was to be given. Worth noticing is that when European arrived they were astonished about the order, the absence of diseases and the clean air.

The organized Inca society with roads of higher quality than the European roads made it possible for the Spanish army to invade the country very easily by the way, because there were no real defence system present. According Alvarsson, the today widespread habit of chewing coca was introduced by the Spanish invaders.

Give coca to the people because it might possibly be a comfortable method of controlling them? The large article in one of Sweden’s largest morning papers, does not criticize the coca usage at all, as if the source is 100% trustworthy saying it has been used for thousands of years. What does the man on the street actually knows about society thousands of years ago? What do we know? What do we want to know, and what do we prefer not to know?

Would it not be better to cultivate corn? That is at least possible to eat and does not just make you forget you are hungry…

Mon 26 Jan

Opium is always opium for the people

How big influence is the commercial interests on man? Li Hung Chang, once known in Europe as “China’s Bismarck”, a leading Chinese statesman of the 19th century, was forced to an unsuccessful war with the British Empire 1839 because he refused to legalize the British opium trade in China. There were major British economical interests in the opium trade and an illegal trade, since long supported by the British government aiming at selling opium in China, was suppressed by Li Hung Chang while the misuse of opium spread in the country caused social and economic disruption.

Now, most of us would reason that this was a long time ago and since then the world has become wiser. But Britain was already 150 years ago said to be civilized, and we can see the world has become more rather than less controlled by commercial interests, so we cannot be convinced this obvious infringement of human rights, only aiming at strengthening Britain’s economical situation, does not show us how the world still function. Pointing upon Afghanistan claiming Europe and USA now tries to stop the opium trade tells us nothing but the fact the economical calculations now have to be made the other way round; the trade is now causing negative economical impact.

Why do we not stop export of cigarettes to Asia if we care so much about the people there? How come we allow tobacco commercials with Asians girls as target group? Can we conclude the 150 years really is a long period of time making mankind change from a slave in the service of commercialism into an ethical idealist? Or are the opium wars (there were actually two of them, the first 1839-1842 and another 1856-1860 when also France was involved, supporting Britain against Li Hung Chang).

China was forced to legalize the trade of opium within the country, furthermore lost Hong-Kong and also had to pay large war reparations. But Li Hung Chang kept on building his vision of China and died in November 1901, 78 years old. He modernized the country and introduced new technology. That would have been more far-seeing of Britain to support instead of short-sighted profits from opium trade.

But when there is a lack of money, short-sight profits will always be rather attractive.

Sun 25 Jan

Hesitation on the road to nowhere

What I understand and what I do not understand, I will probably never understand. It is doubtful whether it is possible to learn which is which, never the less, I presume most of us will keep on trying? That is what makes us all human; working hard for what we believe in, even though we fail over and over again. From all these failures we grow, if not in knowledge, maybe in thee intuitive feeling of life.

Another week has passed and I make a short reflection what really happened this week. Maybe I should remember this week as the week when Mr Obama was president of the United States of America. Yes, that might be something to remember, but after a couple of years I doubt I remember the week anymore. It will be enough remembering the year – 2009. Looking at the week from another perspective I can conclude there are some traces of nutrition among the confusing experiences. We often tend to forget every day is a day full of experiences, even if we are performing some kind of routine work. Some people think that visible activity is true activity, and that is of course correct, but out from this conclude visible inactivity is nothing at all might be a mistake.

Trying to understand – that is an activity as well.

By the way, there is no way back. Mankind has walked such a long way and built such a complex society that finding a way back is no longer possible. We all have to walk that road to nowhere, never the less we need to stop now and then – to hesitate, reflect and discuss. But I am quite sure, there is no way back anymore. Still in the 16th or 17th century there might have existed a way back? I do not know for sure. Now we have to realise we should say farewell to all these old human conflicts, forget them! Forget your own conflicts! Spend this Sunday cleaning your registry of conflicts as if you could download some mysterious anti-conflict software. Every building block of society (i.e. family, individual) should be treated with this anti-conflict software every Sunday, starting up the new week with a fresh attitude.

I do not think there is such software for downloading, but there is one ready to use already planted in your brain. The trick is to find it, searching among all those old catalogues and files. The good news are it is easy recognizable when you find it. The bad news are it is really tricky to find. Unzipping old conflicts might result in new ones, therefore you should be aware of clicking the correct button when receiving the pop-up window  "Do you really want to run this file?" There might be safer to erase it as it is, running the risk of not reaching all its roots, nevertheless getting rid of it. That is a choice we have to make. There are always difficult choices.

Sat 24 Jan

Do not read this if you prefer TV

Impressions are being sorted without our conscious treatment. Some of them are concluded to be worthless even before they have reached our deeper layers, other are classified as VII, Very Important Impressions. Then there is a storeroom for all those that might be useful, if not now so maybe in the future, why they can be valuable to keep. Somehow the storeroom needs to be sorted, and how this is done is strictly individual. There are individuals that actually do not have any order at all, while others do keep that room in perfect order. The latter is not necessarily equivalent with a more efficient mind since the perfect order as well might force mind to block impressions to prevent chaos in the storage. On the other hand not having any order at all should not be celebrated as the creative way of treating life.

It seems as though our storages regularly are searched and rearranged to adapt to new impressions. Different aspects of knowledge building (i.e. school education) forces mind to build more complex algorithms for searching and arranging blocks of impressions. A child (normally) has a very open structure and they need help building a room. Grownups tend to have closed structures where only decision rules are being used for handling situations. Both children and grownups prefer not to rearrange their storerooms, why closing the door pretending the order is perfect is a preferred method.

The more comfortable we get, the more we tend to search situations we are being used to meet, not making it necessary for us to question the decision rules created out of earlier impressions. That is probably the reason TV is very popular (particularly American TV). It feeds us with the same information every day in different packages. This gives us a feeling of security. The different packages make mind believe it is being fed with new information and slowly, without our awareness, we get more and more habitual in our treatment of life. We begin to live what we see so to say.

It serves us better to participate in our dreams during night than watching TV. Both these activities might be classified as passive, but understanding how our own mind treat impressions and simulate decision rules, necessarily needs to be much more important to ourselves, our children and our own future compared to sorting the same impressions over and over again. These impressions originate from expressions serving commercial purposes, and understanding the commercial hara-kiri to produce expressions questioning the customers’ decision rules, make us understand the reason why TV needs to be questioned as being an important source for information. Even today’s news is a copy-paste version of yesterday’s news when it comes to the deeper logic behind the façade, but all the pictures prevents us from discovering this fact.

On the other hand – I might be wrong, because this is only something I found out in a dream tonight. The drawback for you is, the only way to find out if it is wrong is to try it out, and trying it out means rearranging and questioning your search algorithms being used to build your decision rules, and this particular reason is the reason many of you will disagree, blocking it all out – and watch TV instead.

Fri 23 Jan

Do you think it is Friday?

How many thoughts will be thought today? How many words will be outspoken – and how many will never be? Imagine 6,5 billion people taking a piece of bread for breakfast. That is imagining 150-200 million tons of flour. Some seven thousand filled trucks with flour. Placing them in a row without space in between gives us a queue from Frankfurt to Stuttgart.

Try to imagine all these people taking 2 pieces of bread for breakfast – and another couple of pieces for lunch. Fortunately most of these 6,5 billion people cannot have a piece of bread for breakfast. One can say: that is a lot of trucks! But the more correct interpretation would rather be: that is a lot of people.

Maybe we have to reflect upon everything we do this way, to understand what we are doing? Have a glass of wine! 500 million kg glass is needed for the bottles. And a nice piece of meat in the evening of course, together with all that glass – sorry, that glass of wine I mean. Maybe 10-15 million cows needed.

And so on so forth.

Now, we do not think this way, mainly because we would be nervous wrecks if we were to multiply all our activities with the figure 6,5 billion. But this does not mean we actually should not reflect upon it – just as a pure imaginative idea. Do I have to mention all these people throwing 3,5 kg of garbage every day? No, I thought I was not welcome to mention it. After all it is Friday and what we do not see does not exist and what does not exist we cannot see.

We do not see all these people, so in principle for us, they do not exist. They are somewhere else, spread out, lost in eternity or whatsoever. I cannot see them in my country at least.

Take a piece of bread and have a glass of wine, but at least think about the multiple effect of 6,5 billion.

Thu 22 Jan

Is there any time at all?

We have developed a rather scientific culture – at least we try to be and think we are scientific – and some phenomena are so deeply rooted in our minds that we seldom seem to reflect upon the fact they do not with necessity correspond to anything but an abstraction of human mind. One example is the conception time, which is extremely useful of course but maybe does not exist the way we normally imagine.

The height of the Eiffel tower is 300 meters or 0,3 km. One meter is easy to understand as a certain distance. A British tourist visiting Paris would prefer to know the tower is almost 1.000 feet, because this is more natural to him not making it necessary to recalculate the distance from meter. Driving in Great Britain for a 'normal' European driver means continuous calculating from miles to kilometres making it possible to understand how far one is supposed to drive.

Most people think they understand the expression '15 minutes' as a corresponding 'distance' and unit for measuring time, but should we not more often make a recalculation to our own sphere of understanding? Can we really say there is an objective measurement for time, just as there is for distance? Time is actually a human invention, maybe less similar to distance than we think. 300 meters is per some kind of definition for each one of us 300 meters, but the more abstract 15 minutes cannot be imagined the same way as the length of the Eiffel tower.

Make this experiment: Imagine '1 hour'. Concentrate your mind, and get yourself an impression of this simple '1 hour'. Ready?

Now, imagine '1 minute' the same concentrated way.

So what did you see?

What you saw might be your impression of time. Ask your colleagues or friends later at the coffee break (or similar) what they see. Is the difference in imaginative ideas of time quite large from one person to the other?

So what makes you think 'time' really exists? The fact the sun rises and sets every day? Well, that is a movement controlled by natural forces and particularly here in north the period between rises and sets is dynamic and depends upon the time of year – maybe 'time' has the corresponding dynamics? '15 minutes' when we are 5 years old might be something completely different from '15 minutes' when we are 50 – or it is one thing when we are cooking and something else when we are sleeping?

Don't ask me; I have no clue...

Wed 21 Jan

Another day in paradise

Not everybody would agree our planet is a paradise, but it is actually the only planet we have why we have to accept it fulfils the definition of a paradise. Today 370.000 children will be born. 165.000 persons are going to die. So if it takes you 1 minute to read this short reflection 260 children have been born meanwhile and 115 persons have died.

Maybe it does not sound very much? The earth is a big planet! On the other hand 135 million children per year are quite a lot. And 165.000 deaths where in most cases there are sorrow and the losses are deeply felt by numerous of people. Collecting one tablespoon of tears from each lost life make 2.500 tons of tears per year. Statistics often make us forget reality hidden behind the figures. All these tears, but also the happiness, belong to life in paradise. There would be no happiness if there were no sorrow – everything would be a constant grey mass of nothingness.

Some say life is a comedy, while others claim it is a tragedy. Life "is" nothing like that and having spent some years in this paradise I would say we have to be aware this Wednesday in January is just another day in paradise – the only paradise we have. We should be more caring of this paradise. Of course one might object to such a conclusion, claiming there is a paradise to come behind this life, but that can never be an argument not to care as much as possible for this particular day. If there is a hidden paradise, it will not be better if we do not care about the earth today, and if there is no paradise to come, then we still have to care as much as we can.

So if you did not care very much yesterday, start caring today.

Tue 20 Jan

Man: the great amateur...

Sometimes it seems as though every individual strive to be “the best” at something, but maybe we then tend to forget man is per definition the great amateur and being the best might not necessarily make us any happier. Old Mr Henry Ford moved mankind closer to being a specialist because it was, and still is, more productive from an economical point of view. Today most people think they are to specialize more and more throughout life and occupations not within our own area are to be bought from other specialists, thus turning society into an effective working process.

Objections might be raised to an idea of not striving for specializing and that is of course the necessity for a company to be productive compared with outer companies, a region compared to another region, a country or why not EU compared to USA or Asia. Always winners and losers in other words. But we forget man has always been a true amateur – there are stronger animals, or faster animals but maybe not more intelligent animals? Is it a matter of intelligence? On the other hand there are no evidences intelligence are directly connected to survival.

The keyword is more probable something like flexibility? So why not enjoy being an amateur, doing things we have no idea how to do, try to learn something every day? Do we have anything to loose? Yes, of course, a room at the top; When sun sets nobody wants to be the fool on the hill except the fool on the hill...

Mon 19 Jan

Is personality development possible?

We read about it and hear of it every day; personal development. In theory it means we presuppose we have something mentioned personality, which can be developed by the use of different methods and through such development we will grow in wisdom and happiness – something like that. But actually there are some obstacles to be aware of in a development project like this:

1. What is my "personality"?

2. How can I be sure "personality" can be developed and how do I judge the development if any?

3. Presume my "personality" in the long run is just (another) dead end and the more developed this personality is, the more difficult it will be for me to find the way back because I have been going such a long distance into this dead end that I will never have the energy to walk all the way in the other direction.

But OK, if we have found answers to these questions and we are aware of the risks, it might be possible to develop the personality – and it is of course. Please do not understand this as though I claim development of the personality is not possible. Personally I am a bit sceptical to the phenomenon and idea to develop the personality, and the reason is the three questions above.

If the answer to the question in point 1 is my personality is a cluster of routines built up during growth to make treatment of life simple and effective I would like to compare it with some kind of quality system within a company (sounds a bit boring, but quality systems are really effective). For sure there are always possibilities to develop a quality system, but it will be always be a quality system so to say. Presupposing such systems are good, what would the drawback be to develop it?

Let us move to point number 2: How to judge if any development takes place? Well, the complexity increases and the quality department needs to employ a couple of quality engineers. In our metaphor this might be translated to we need to allocate more and more mind resources to keep our personality on the track – or exclude more and more signals from the surrounding to make life fit the development (instead of the other way round).

Without any help you are now able to see the risk with the dead end in point number 3. With a fixed and complex personality you might never even be aware that thing in front of you is a wall…

So what can be done? Nothing?

If a product cannot be developed, we have to settle it, use the rules of liquidation – to develop my personality I need to annihilate it… But! There is one small drawback to keep in mind: it is very difficult.

Sun 18 Jan

Routines make daily living for us easier

Have you ever thought of how many routines we have in mind and how bad some of them actually are? Make a study… If we for example do not have a ready-made routine for taking the bike every day to work, we prefer taking the car – especially if we do it as a routine. Otherwise we have to think how to dress depending of the weather and how warm we will be when biking, how to carry the things with us and not to forget; how will we be able to make the shopping on our way home?

"Life experience" might be "developed routines". Teenagers often have strange routines and parents acts as routine guards. But also adults often have undeveloped routines. When children are just about 5-10 years old it is easier to convince them they need to break some patterns and develop their routines, but the older the children get the more difficult for us is it to persuade them they need some changes in their databases – more and more energy is needed to make these updates, not to mention the energy needed if one of the main system files contain some bad coding from childhood.

But who make updates in my mind and your mind? “I do not need any updating” is a common attitude, and maybe particularly if we "do not have time" with such "luxury". This kind of updating is actually mentioned “philosophy” and we should try to learn our children how to treat life, which does not mean they have to read Kant or Wittgenstein. Writers can only give (valuable) input, but never teach people how to find a method to make mind updating.

When I find out a general method I will write a book about it, but I doubt there is such a general method that is really useful.

Good luck!

Sat 17 Jan

Unconscious miniature decisions

We often hear and read about the great visions, plans for the future, career development and so on so forth. All these plans have one thing in common: they are made on a long term basis. But having a long term plan might make it possible for us to take the every day decisions per automata, without thinking of it, thus being sure we still steer our life towards the conscious long term vision. Does this philosophy really work? Is there not a risk the long term vision is just some kind of comforter? Please, do not expect me to present an answer to these questions! Answers are not always very developing – they are in a way ruining my long term vision…

Every day we probably make hundreds of miniature decisions without thinking of it and somehow this type of decision making probably controls us to a larger extend compared to the great visions. I thought about this when reading about the Indian software company Satyam and how Mr Ramalinga Raju slowly had lost the control of the galloping catastrophic economical situation. It all started with really small decisions, nothing illegal and the way he explained it really made me believe every miniature decision was rather rational. But if we do not try to catch the long term result of the tendency of our miniature decisions, we will never actually discover where we are heading.

I have seen this in my dreams; how my dream-like limited intellectual mind resources make short term analyses of situations leading me astray. I am not saying Mr Raju has this type of limited mind resources, rather pointing upon the importance of being conscious about what we really are doing. Even if every decision we make is rational, legal and maybe even correct from an ethical point of view, we have to be aware of the risk the consequence of all these miniature decisions might be the opposite to all this.

Per automata decisions are effective because we do not consciously have to make a lot of intellectual analyses, consequence studies and find suitable philosophical standpoints. Normally we probably just use the cultural pattern for our miniature decisions, but be aware you cannot be sure cultural patterns are not just following a cultural tendency leading us astray...

Fri 16 Jan

The world famous "PC blue screen" made my day... Interesting culture we have developed; a missing file prevents us from doing our duties of the day. I considered the possibiltiy to throw computers out of my life, having lived with them since 1981 always causing new problems, but as you understand by reading this, I decided not to.

Thu 15 Jan

Sportsmen, managers and workers

Economical systems develop as part of a cultural pattern and we get used to these systems as if they were following some law of nature - maybe in a Darwinistic way? The development of payment systems is interesting and the way they have been developing the latest 30 years fascinates me. It all seems logical to me, but there are some parts causing confusion, so let me point upon these parts trying to make situation clear to everybody.

Sportsmen

and -women have to be regareded as a group consisting of some of the physically strongest individuals of society. This group has succeeded to persuade governments they are to have special rules for paying tax since the period they are active is so short. (Furthermore they prefer to 'live' in Monaco - but only until it is time for retirement, then they prefer their home country). The logic behind these special tax rules seems to be the sportsmen cannot find a living when they retire at the age of 32 or something similar. Is that not rather strange? Should this group with such physically active individuals not be in the position of making a good work? Or should we feel sorry for them, having spent some 10 years doing whatever they find fun to do?

Managers

The logic behind high salaries for top-managers is 'high responsibility means high risk, thus higher salary'. That is probably acceptable for most people I think. But slowly this 'high risk' was so high that they also needed a golden handshake - if they made a bad job. Thinking of it, they should also have some kind of bonus, if they by accident make a good job, and when retiering they should really have an extra payment, having made a good job. I wonder if they really should not have special tax rules? Do they not pay a lot of tax for all this payment?

Workers

I cannot get rid of the feeling the risk of loosing the job seems to be higher being a worker compared to being a manager. But the consequence following the 'high risk payment logic' (according above) is very expensive and we therefore need another logic in this case. And we cannot apply the sportsmen's 'short active period logic' either. Hmm... what can be done? Oh, yes! An 'easy to replace logic' can be applied to this group! That solves the dilemma, becuase by the end of the day somebody really has to pay the party. 'Workers' are everybody not part of the group 'sportsmen' or '(top-)managers'.

Wed 14 Jan

"Requite evil with good..."

To read is one thing and to understand something else? It has probably always been rather similar as it is today; small groups of criminals try to control their surrounding. If these groups get too strong and use heavy weapons against civilians they change from being 'criminals' to 'terrorists'. Some of them claim to be muslims, and one problem is they really believe they are. Maybe they were not patient enought to reach the end of the Koran and chapter 41:

"Requite evil with good, and he who is your enemy will become your dearest friend. But none will attain this attribute save those who patiently endure; none will attain it save those who are truly fortunate." (Fussilat 41:34. The Koran transl Dawood. London: Penguin Books 2000).

Is that not rather simple to understand? Following this one can conclude requiting good with evil will work the other way round; he who is your dearest friend will become your enemy. Furthermore it does not matter so much what we express - we have to act the meaning of our will. I think there are not many countries without criminal groups, and these groups are in some cases very difficult to handle, but all the rest of us can do is to stay on the track and requite evil with good and hope in the long run this will make the world just a little better.

So if we do not have time to teach our children something more than this, to requite evil with good, the world will make a small improvement for each generation. But for a long time yet, there will always be criminal minds. Some of them controlled by thirst for money, some by thirst for power. The most important thing is they do not start controlling the rest of us.

Tue 13 Jan

You are an artist

I get more and more convinced most people are 'artists', but the definition of the conception has made us so confused that we think that the 'artist' needs a colour palette or a horn of metal in his hands. The Swedish expression for art is 'konst' origining from the German word 'Kunst', and in the Middle Ages all kind of craftmanship was 'Kunst' and the more demanding and difficult the greater the 'Kunst' and the higher the status for the 'Künstler' himself. Several hundred years later craftmanship became something simple and it was no longer high status to be an artist if the 'art' was not to be enjoyed by kings (preferably paintings with the king himself as a motif...). Since then we still have this narrow definition of the conception, and this is probably the reason why we do not say we have to call an artist when the car has broken down?

Is this also the reason 'we' (=our culture) are willing to pay several millions for a small painting and at the same time complain about the prices we have to pay for a plumber or a taylor? You can download a picture of Mona Lisa and print it out yourself, but try to download the plumber... Either we are worshipers of art or misled by the attitudes of the 16-18th century upper class. I am not saying art does not have a value, but I claim also other craftmanship should be valued as art.

Mon 12 Jan

News prevents development?

I have this feeling now and then, that the continous flow of "news" prevents us from seeing life itself on the analogy of not being able to see the forest for all the trees. The fact we have companies producing news every day makes us believe what is being produced are news and the treatment of all this information in our limited brain resources thus prevents creative thinking. We are so to say filled up with the treatment of external information.

Sun 11 Jan

What is a financial crisis?

It is rather funny after all - I mean the discussion about the global financial problems, not the problems themselves - after having read about this crisis for some months I have the feeling it is as if what is missing is something deadly important, but what is missing is money... The world's salvation is obviously the car industry because if we cannot produce cars we cannot eat. When it comes to the point none of us wants to eat cars - we want bread. The economical logic looks like this: "Well, if car sales declines, we will not have any jobs and will end up without money and without food!"

Thinking another way, I presume we could give each other money - or food - because that is what actually happens in the economical transfer system. To make fair sharing possible we have built a system where an increasing continous production is necessary. So mankind survived some 2 million years walking on two legs, and suddenly we will die if we cannot produce cars?

I have to confess I doubt this logic. It is made up in economic minds where everything can be measured in monetary units. Somewhere I read (I do not know if it is true)Volvo concluded after having made the "Amazon" (60th), that if they made cars like that they would sell fewer and fewer cars becuase the Amazon would last forever. They made some optimization and produced the 140-series (introduced 1969 I think), which definitely not lasted for ever. It is more common to see an Amazon (or 120-type) than a 140-type (because they are all eaten by rust).