Tor on Marathon

How short is a human’s life ? So very short ! Every moment counts, every moment is precious.

During the last year I have lost three running mates under tragic circumstances. These people will never attend a race again. We will never hear their stories again, see their smiles, share some moments together. They are gone. Gone forever.

Makes me think a bit. Perhaps it is time to act, time to tell important stuff to those important in ones life. Time to acknowledge friendships and lifetime masters. Not that this is new.. but to be even more consequent, even more dedicated in the persuit of being open and honest and in being grateful. Grateful for the inspiration and flux of important stuff into ones mind – and heart. We have the chance to act today – tomorrow is the promise to no one. Waiting – what kind of living is that ?

Thus, yesterday I called up one of my old lifetime masters, the renowed danish chemist Anders Kjær whom for a lifetime was a central figure in the area organic chemistry both in Denmark and internationally. I got to know prof. Kjær as a very young student (aged 20) and we shared a friendship based on chemistry, classical music and literature. Imagine that (this is some odd 20 years ago). Anders inspired me to attend my first international chemistry congress in 1988, where I had the pleasure to speak with several Nobel laureates and heaps of fameous chemistry professors, huge experiences for a kid on 21 ! Anders also send me off to Norway to study at the best Scandinavian University, the Technical University of Trondheim, at the similar eccentric and renowed prof. Synnøve Liaaen-Jensen… I stayed in Trondheim for 1.5 years and had a great time there.

Prof. Kjær was quite surprised by my call, obviously. But very happy and so was I. 16 years had passed but the tone was warm and friendful. My speach was humble. I think that few people (non-family) really “stand out” in a persons life, I know that the number counts less than 10 for myself, thus the more reason to honor them.

This meeting with the past reinforces my lifetime quest: I insist on being me ! Life is so short and memories so precious, and all is so very absurd if we do not choose and experience things as the individuals we really are each of us. Living by the false or living to please others points of views (e.g. also in a marriage) is just not an option. Authenticity and brutal thruthness is the recepe I subscribe to.

I believe all my lifetime masters did too.

I have been very fortunate.

I have lived in the context of many great things, inventions and persons. I have lived in the era of Johan Cruyff, Zico, Maradona, Laudrup and Messi, in the era of Bjørn Borg, Martina Navratilova and Roger Federer, in the era of Ingemar Stenmark and Gunde Svan, in the era of Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen, and so on and on again (just to mention the sport examples). I can enjoy the daily persuits of social networking, I can listen to music of the great composers, I can light up my house with electric bulbs and in general rely on all the normal things people do and take for granted anno 2010 A.D. 

If I had been living 100 years ago, I would not have been in the context of these great persons and the experiences they have given. Probably, my Purpose in life would have been totally different. Probably, my Morality would have been very different too. We tend to think that these things are “given”, “laws” that we have to obey either as single individuals or in society. But when you think about it, Purpose and Morality, as so many other things in life, are so crucially dependent on their context, especially their context in TIME. If we understand this a bit better, we can better make free from it. To a certain degree.

So lets take it again. The SINGLE person that I truly need to honor the context of is: myself ! And if anybody should be added, it should be my children. The unit of a parent to the successful upbringing of children is the only really universally important thing in our existence. All other issues and subjects remain so heavily on context (and chance), yet we live our lives if the persuit of these contexts, often in vain and in vanity. Why ? Because humans are afraid. Afraid not to.

If you can reach free yourself from the chains of context, you become truly free to choose the contexts you really like, to choose your Purpose and to live your Morality. Your Purpose. Your Morality.

What else can be important ? In the context of – Death.