I guess it is not very politically correct to touch on the dark side of the human nature. Good for us all, then, is that art and fiction can expose and perhaps to some extend neutralize these kind of feelings and matters for us. The pinnacle figure in this respect could very well be Darth Vader from Star Wars, the prodigy Anakin Skywalker that falls prey to the Dark Side… actually propelled by the love and loss of his mother.. and later his neurotic fearings for his fiancee. Anakin’s way to the Dark Side…

… is summarized to the issues of:

• A forbidden love
• Dreams
• Anger
• Revenge
• Disappointment
• Helplessness
• Hate
• Feelings
• Isolation
• Fear
• Pain
• Dead

If you are one of the very lucky people on Earth NOT to have been in contact with any of these, be happy for your rare innocence… and otherwise, and more likely, you probably know the fight within in order to stay clear of the tempetations of the Dark Side. I do for sure ! 

So how do we deal with the Dark Side ? Look at the World ! Wars, Tyrannies, Poverty, Greed, Injustice etc. … I guess we are not doing exactly great.  Myself.. well I try to deal consequently with persons overstepping my limits, feelings or, worst of all, betray my confidence. If there is one thing I really lower, it is the weakness in others making them lie. Lie to me and you are ‘dead’, written out of my World forever. 

So to the end of Revenge… and trying to stay clear of the Dark… I take Silence as the preferred weapon. Friends can make mistakes… which should propel dialogue and forgiveness… but real Enemies will hear… nothing. They simply don’t deserve the attention.

79 AD … the destruction of Pompeii… one of the most famous catastrophes in the world history. The remains of the victims still stun and horrify us even today. Even today !

I was in Pompeii at age five… two years after my Mother died. I remember reflecting that this ghost town was once a place for the living. I remember thinking… “when will it be our turn ?” … being together with my grandparents making it a quite natural line of thinking… I was thinking. “They are next”.

I was wrong. My father was next, two years after, just a month after I had turned seven. THEN later came my grandfather, and later again my adoption mother, then my grandmothers alongside with all other leading figures from my Childhood. They are all dead.

So… one day we will all scream into eternity. One day we will wake up with closed eyes and who knows what we will see ? Who knows, really ?

The point to all this is: what kind of LIFE do we live ? What kind of experiences do we go for ? What do we valúe, who do we love, what do we dare and dare risk ? Which decisions do we make ? This is the important stuff, the lines in small that most don’t read but are fed and never really contemplate, failing to realize that we are the mere products of time and our time and context, outfallen events in webs of probabilities. We think that we control ‘stuff’ … and we might do for restricted periods of time… but really… naah. We are quite insignificant.

However, we living humans possess a unique power each day of our lives: we create our own personal reality. We create things in our minds.. and THEN experience them in the external world. If we do not like our experiences, we can change our minds and beliefs… and thus change our world, our experiences, our feelings. I know this for a fact, having changed the foundations for my life over an over again since early Childhood in dramatic manners that you would not have the first clue to grasp neither the magnitude or consequences about. Thus, I have questioned and examined the point in living almost daily since age five… and I have always found the above answer… alongside with passion, curiosity and a general love of just being alive. When we really choose we can live, unlike being the living undead. Observe, analyze, decide, live and… love ! The game begins each morning.

Try to understand this… before it is your turn to scream. You will, one day.

So I went to see the Medical Doctor yesterday. His verdict was clear and unambiguous: I had suffered a concussion last Saturday when banging my head in the fricking and life-threateningly too low ceiling on the second floor of the Starbucks Cafe on Tottenham Court Road just opposite the Center Point.

Furthermore, it was clear that I thus had been quite tough on myself running two marathons within three days with this dangereous injury, a feat that could be fatal if not to say LEATHAL ! I still suffer severe headaches and had to cancel a pleasure trip to Jutland this weekend as well.

Morale: do NOT underestimate the potential leathal impact of a Grande Latte 😉

Ok.. more seriously so… episodes like this makes you think a bit about the values in life. Stuff can happen and steal your entire life in a second.. a blow to the head, a car crash, a stray bullet or a bad disease. We can fall short to Destiny in many ways.

My only thought this past week has been: I want to see my children ! I want to see them grow up, I want to see them live and be happy, I want to give them all the best in Life that I possibly can. I don’t want to die now ! Maybe I’m overracting a bit… but then again, ask Liam Neeson if I am, his late wife dying after a ridiculous head trauma on a skiing holiday.

Life really is precious – NEVER fall pray to triviality, complacentcy or foul play.

Live by honesty and courage !

Live !

I have to confess, I am not the guy reading too much Poetry these days. I did when I was younger, lots of different things and of course the unavoidable stuff like the Danish Poet Michael Strunge and the French Arthur Rimbaud. Well… who hasn’t ?

Anyways… one of my favorite poems is actually by a very unknowm Norwegian, Arnulf Øverland, whose poem “Til en Misantrop” I discovered in a very remote hut when hiking the Norwegian Mountains… my primary occupation when I was a kid and in early manhood… actually, the simiar kind of quest as running marathons. Long hard days in Nature, beautiful eyesights, lots of struggle…

I often think of this Poem, “Til en Misantrop“. My snobby and hilariously self-righteous neighbours remind me. The News on the Television reminds me. The loved ones that I have buried remind me. My own history reminds me. The Poem itself reminds me.

Listen to this tune from the Musical ‘Hello Dolly’…

Touching, isnt it.

Why ? Well, to me it hints and refreshes the feeling of Grace, and it points to the existence of eternal and spiritual love, to the fact that we as humans can live in happiness through a lifetime based on a few sacred moments… and as Dostojefskij pointed out in his epic Novel ‘The Karamazov Brothers’ these moments might better fall in the Childhood to make the deepest impact. States of Grace are highly personal, of course, for me they have most often involved Nature, music, love, sex, sport, spirituality, chess, travels, activity, children and in the latest years… running.

I have sensed the Moments of Grace since I was a very little boy. I have ‘recorded’ them in my mind and soul… and I can replay hundreds if not thousands of mental filmclips from my life. I bet you can too. An important point is too: maybe the very next moment or expericence is one ‘for a lifetime’. Why not ? Always keep an open mind… and always stay hungry for fresh meat.. em.. spiritually, of course 😉

You know… this it ‘it’… the peek experience in life ! The State of Grace.