Category Archives: Longer thoughts

“The Sad”

Posted on by under Book Reviews, Longer thoughts

In the book The bell jar, by Sylvia Plath, she describes her depression as a glass bell jar, lowering itself upon her and making the air around her stale. I don’t know if I’ve ever been depressed, and I don’t think that I would describe it as a bell jar, but I do have a sadness that descends upon me every now and then. It doesn’t seem to ever leave me completely alone. Even during some of the best times of my life, it has creeped up on me. I’ts been okay though, because it’s been during moments when I’ve been able to handle it.

“The sad” is not the opposite of happiness, it’s just a the-world-is-turning-slower, I-notice-everything feeling of melancholy. It’s not necessary a bad thing, and I think I might even be okay with it following me for the rest of my life, because I think it’s linked to a lot of other parts of myself that I like and appreciate.

I’m just not handling it all too well right now. Which is why I’ve been trying to write something on this blog for days without being able to bring myself to do it. I’m not dealing with it in the right way. I know that, but I don’t really now how to change it, because of the sad. Or maybe that’s just an excuse.

Anyway. I hope you’re having a good day, and that you take time for all of those things that are more important than time. Bye.

Bus thoughts (on Art)

Posted on by under life, Longer thoughts

What’s the point of anything? I don’t know. But it exists. And we exist. The things around us are what we know,  the sound of the bus, the trees outside the window, that’s reality right now. And I can change that. I sing a song under my breath, and suddenly that’s the sound of the world right now. I can make a sculpture, so that’s what people see. We can change what’s around us, change what this is, and so change who we are. There’s so much space, and art is being intentional when filling it up.

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That’s the only meaning we know.

Necessary procrastination

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The word procrastination does not exist in the swedish language. We have a word that means to push something to the future, but procrastinating is not just postponing something, it’s the verb for what you’re actually doing while pushing something to the future. So it describes doing something, but it describes it not by saying what you’re doing, but by saying what you are NOT. (weird word, I like it)

Sometimes though, I think the subconscious processing of thoughts is undervalued. 

It always makes me think about a story I heard once. It’s about the emperor of China or something, and how he told an artist to paint the most beautiful painting ever (of some motif, I don’t remember). The artist spent years working on his painting, but when he was supposed to be done, he asked for another year, and another, saying he was not quite finished. When he finally appeared before the emperor and uncovered the canvas, it was empty. He then took his paints out, and painted the most beautiful painting in 15 minutes. 

How long did it take for the artist to paint the picture? 15 minutes? Or all those years?

I can usually write a school essay because I’ve been writing it for a long time. Even if I write it the night before it’s due, it’s been in the back of my mind for a long time.

The question is, is it better to consciously decide to do something later, instead of constantly pushing it to the next minute? Do some intentional procrastinating? (I suppose that’s called planning) Or is the stress necessary to constantly have it there in the back of your mind?

I don’t know. I don’t have enough patience to finish writing about this.

Revelation

Posted on by under Longer thoughts, poetry

She hated flowers. Held in her hand she would look at them when she received them for achievements or performances, she’d smell them and then she’d dry them so that they wouldn’t die.

I think about these things a lot.

People are creatures of skin and bone and puzzle pieces, and something’s always broken. They’re searching everywhere for the missing pieces, in broad daylight and neon in darkness, of darkness and of the truths or whatever parts of it they can find. There was a woman whose father was the big puzzle solver and he would hand her pieces at the right time for her to have them, he would heal whatever part of herself was a mystery, complete and build up until she got closer to him.

I think about these things a lot.

We’re cracks in concrete walls and wrinkly shirts and unmatching sunsets under blemished sky. But her room was filled with the dried flowers. And when her father saw it he stopped in the doorway and lost his smile. He asked her where the puzzles where and she looked down, saying that she was almost done. Lifted a hand that was almost covered, soon strong enough to reach out with. He tilted his head.
”I will be a good example.” she said, ”I will show other people what an end result can look like.” She would help them find their pieces, show them what they were looking for, answers for what didn’t fit or form the right pattern. A piece from her hand fell and she looked at him.
”See? It’s not finished. Can you just help me a little more?” and he reached out and removed anything that ever covered her and she fell with it.

I think about these things a lot.

The things weighing you down are dust and wind with a different sense of gravity imprinted as a lie in your mind. And she rolled away from it, sitting up, looking as the father put the pieces together on the floor.
”That’s where you’re supposed to make puzzles.” he said. Looking at the images starting to make sense and everything fitting together she got scared. The turn away from mirrors kind of scared, the open scared because you have nothing between you and it and she didn’t even know what she looked like anymore so he put her in front of a mirror, bumping her with his elbow.

I think about these things a lot.

”See, you kind of look like me.”

You Will Get What You Want

Posted on by under Longer thoughts

And you can call that karma or a result of good goal setting or the grace of God, but that desire inside will claw at you until it gets out, you will fail and fall but the itch in your guts won’t stop and so you’ll continue.

The problem is that you have to really want it. Do you want that body more than you want a relaxed day in from of the computer? Do you want to write or do you just want something written to brag about? Do you actually want to be successful or do you just want the money that follows? Humans are passionate creatures, and we pour water to build our waves of success until they become uncontrollable and break and drag you with them, but you have to get there. You have to know that you will let go of it, but then you will come back, because you have no choice. You will get what you really want, you will get results in whatever it is that your inner being can’t stop doing, can’t stop being.

All we do is gain or lose control

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I wish I could lose control.

Splash colours until people cry by looking at them,

turn myself inside out and wipe my blood on the canvas.

Instead I give up halfway through ugly eyes, drawn as if I were a pretentious 12 year old. Disproportionate figures and shapes that never become anything. The thing is, I don’t know how to draw. I repeat lines, and colours, look and remake, but when it comes down to my own expression, I’m empty. Just recreate by hands and in mind. Like we all do, are we nothing but radios? We understand something we think no one has understood before and we tell it or teach or live it. And even tuning in to that, the repetitiveness with which people think their minds are free, is just another of those realisations. Is that what I’ll blare about until the day I die?

Sometimes (too rarely) I forget to act normal in public and I sit weirdly curled up on the bus with the bumps shaking my handwriting. It’s slowing down though. Minutes of looking out the window between every sentence. My mad sadness settles into sleepiness. To quote a song that I like: I don’t know if this, is a surrender or a rebel.

The Storm

Posted on by under Longer thoughts

I walked through a storm today. It’s sweeping over this dark country, we call it Helga like the girls name, like the old Swedish word for holy, like the songs sung at christmas and it makes the trees feel tall and loud. The sky throws things at us. There’s inspiration making my veins itchy. Why? Why now, when I’ve had a self absorbed no thoughts – all thoughts day. When I’ve forgotten to tell myself I’m brave ages ago. I walked through a storm today and it TORE THE BREATH FRom my lungs and I only ever scream when I’m silent.

The world consists of ideas

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This is something I feel like you’re ‘supposed to know’, and maybe I do in a way. Ideas, after all, are the beginning of everything. But I sat thinking about something on the bus today, the random sounds we make. Seriously, what even are words? Sure, we understand them, because our brain makes sense of them, but without that we’re just a bunch of creatures shaping our mouths differently. Or these letters. Lines and dots. We have a deal you know, when I write this, we have agreed what the words mean. If someone disagreed with you, or if everyone did, you’d be a lunatic drawing strange shapes and making weird noises without being able to reach anyone. It’s the same with money. Money doesn’t exist. It’s a freakin’ piece of paper. It would be as meaningless as any other dead tree if you wouldn’t think it symbolises some sort of value, or more importantly, if no one else thought so either. It’s something we know I suppose, but when I heard that ideas make up the world, I thought it was because they were the beginning of everything. An idea that then turns into something real, all that makes up the world. Maybe my mistake was considering just the things real. Ideas aren’t valuable because they come from sudden inspiration and result in something else, they’re valuable, because they are everything, they’re not the beginning, they’re just it. Things start with ideas, but systems are ideas. And systems are deals we’ve made in the hope of creating a better world, now we must all uphold them unless we want it to collapse.

Problem of The Artist (The Ability – Ambition Gap)

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There are two sides to any sort of creating:
  1. What you want to express, say, do.
  2. Your ability to do it.
The first one, many people have, the second one, not so many. Because the first one is instinctual. Natural. Inspired by the outside world, but also everything you are, letting it out. The second one means fighting for the first one. Because it all comes down to communication, making other people see what you see, whether it’s through a text or a video or a picture or something completely different. And this is where it’s easy to give up, because a lot of time the gap between the first and the second point will seem impossible to get over. For a great part of my life, I’ve never even thought about the fact that maybe one day I will be able to paint down what I see in my head and be happy with it. But I believe that day will come. I hope it will, because I have to. That’s how you continue. Because everything you create and become unhappy with is a part of what you will create and be happy with, later. It’s the warm up. You’re building up to it. Do it publicly or secretly, just know that one day you will see your soul in a creation. And if the first thing, your want to express something, is strong enough to get you through the ups and downs of the second step, then I suppose you’re an artist.

3 stages of life

Posted on by under life, Longer thoughts
  1. The dance hall is empty when I arrive. Silent except for the faint humming of the city and the ticking of the clock on the wall, the same sort as those they use in the classroom. Fooling us. Deceiving us. Tick tock, tick tock, as if anything actually exists. Sunshine through the windows, diminished by frosted glass, yet reflecting on the mirrors and creating blurry shapes of light on the wooden floor. Everything is beige and white and soft shades of pink in here. It’s nice, I think.
  2. It’s different after class. The slight nervousness I always get before teaching is gone, and so my head can’t stay as silently calm. The sunshine faded slowly and I didn’t realise how dark it was until I turned on the light and saw colours instead of shades. The city seems brighter though, clearer. Starting to dance. The colours flashing by my eyes when I close them are sharper.
  3. At a youth meeting tonight they spoke about the kingdom of Jesus and I almost teared up because home, I thought. Home. And tonight there was the aftermath of a full moon, the actual one must have been covered by the clouds for several nights. I looked up at it, small clouds rushing past. I didn’t even know, I thought. Somehow that meant something. When at midnight I walked home over frosty ice, light reflecting in piles of snow as tall as me, I thought the world was almost achingly beautiful. 

I start out normal and then I become so fucking strange.

(Song of the day: Anything by NEEDTOBREATHE on Spotify)