Welfare warfare

Sweden is one of the most heavily taxed countries in the world. This is where I’ve lived most of my life. To most people, the high taxes are a matter of course. We pay high taxes to contribute to the welfare of everyone. I’ve never questioned it that much up it until now.

What welfare? Let’s see.

I went to school for 12 years and was constantly treated as a burden, since I was a quick learner and wanted to get something out of all the time I spent there.

I went to uni as soon as I finished high school because there were no jobs to find. Uni itself is a letdown. I am to study languages and full-time is considered as 3 classes per week on 2 hours each. You are not entitled to apply for more than one and a half full time course per semester because then, as a high achiever, it would mean someone else would have their application turned down.

I would like to have a part-time job to earn some money since uni won’t be keeping me busy and because the study grant is not that high. Only that there are still no jobs and a big part of that income would disappear through taxes anyway.

I would like to move out to a place of my own but as a student without any considerable income I am not the as desirable a tenant as someone with a full-time job.

Last but not least: I’ve been seeking medical care for a year now without making any progress what so ever. I have had 3 medical appointments through public health care since, after which I have been ignored, taken for a hypochondriac, and not listened to through the entire appointment, respectively. The last one was with an orthopedics specialist and I had to wait for six months for it to happen, because “chronic pain is something you can live with and a sprained ankle is not”. After that long a wait he didn’t have a clue what so ever but thinks it is a good idea to cut my knees open “just to have a look”. I can probably not expect successful treatment even within the next year.

This country with all its welfare does nothing but coercing me into postponing my life plans, abandoning my dreams and lowering my ambitions. Over and over again. Even before you take taxes into consideration, that’s a high prace to pay.

I don’t know about you but I am certainly not getting value for my money.

All we are is nothingness

Nothing we ever do will make a difference notable at large. A geocentric viewpoint is not that reasonable and I get depressed from how many people there are who neglect that. Even if man kind never were, time would still tick away and the universe would continue to expand. Nothing we ever accomplish will change that.

What is the biggest thing we could ever carry out? Blowing the Earth to pieces. That, if anything, might mean something to the universe at large. The universe would probably not even noticing we were gone. Still, we would probably fail even if we wanted to have this place explode.

The greatest mistake that humanity has ever made is believing that we actually mean anything at all. We forget that everything would continue on just fine without our planet existing.

What does all this mean? Simply that nothing matters. That is not neccessarily a bad thing.

Liebersträum

Elections are a month away. You can tell. I cannot even express how it sickens me. Suddenly all people with some degree of power act as if they actually care about anything except their own said power. But they do not.

Working as a lobbyist has given me insight in the political game. I understand the rules better than before. But in the end it always comes down to one. That is, being the best imposter there is just in order to gain trust on a short scope of time. As soon as elections are over no one will care for your opinion again until the next term of office is coming to an end.

I wish to say that the things people put down time into in order to have things changed actually generates something in the end. Medias contribute at their best to have people believe that. But no one who possess the ability to change ever cares. No one ever has and no one ever will. It is only a facade.

In the best of worlds I could be less pessimistic. But I am convinced that nothing ever changes anyway. It doesn’t matter who gets elected, because things will stay the same anyway. People who we put our trust in to accomplish something in the end will only get better at pretending that they actually do. Society will stay the same because politicans tear up the changes accomplished by their predecessors.

Politics lack long-range strategies. Quick fixes is all there is to it. Which is why I have no faith in anyone claiming they take your opinion to heart.

Stockholm defeat

I’ve never been able to embrace the concept of Stockholm. Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough, considering that I haven’t been here that much. But every time that I do come here it’s inevitable to state that this city isn’t mine. Not that I ever claimed it to be.

I have five or six hours to spend in this city until the scheduled meeting this afternoon. What am I supposed to do until then? If I’d been in Gothenburg it wouldn’t have been any hassle, cause I’d know where to turn to. Stockholm is sterile and anonymous. I guess I could just stroll around downtown and it’s probably what I’ll end up doing as well. Somehow I just feel like I never get it. Locals understand their city in a way that newcomers don’t, but Stockholm could be the worst city to get lost in. No kidding.

Oh and by the way, they think they found out what’s wrong with my knees. Something built in, according to the private clinic I visited while waiting to meet the specialist through public health care. I am to do a trial period of physio to see if it can be sorted out without surgery. If it can’t, well, we’ll see what happens.

Prescribe some patience to me

It’s not that I don’t know what I want to do with my life.

At this point I know fairly well what I want to have accomplished by the time I die.

It’s more a matter of what to do first. I don’t have the patience required to make priorities. I want to have it all at the same time, preferably at this very instant.

There you have the answer to how I manage to do so many things simultaneously. It’s because of my lack of patience.

I simply cannot handle not doing everything at once.

Lost at sea

It struck me as I made my way home from the train station. Not a soul to be seen. It was almost spiritual.

This relief, this sensation of finally being able to see things as they really are. To be able to put something that managed to get to you, because of its omnipresence, behind you. The feeling of complete freedom. Being out of reach, at last.

I couldn’t stop the laughter bursting out of me as I staggered along, crutches slipping in the slush.

And yet, I am still smiling.

Epilogue

I’ve been thinking of yesterday’s blog entry since I woke up today. I wanted to determine what was the underlying cause of it. I cannot recall having experienced such a strong urge to get away and cut all the strings connecting you to your most common context before. What it all comes down to, after having read it over and over for about thirty times during a couple of hours, is that I want to peel all the layers that have grown upon me since I was born off, leave everything that I built up and get away and try something different for a while. That without being obliged to remain in touch. Travelling for your own sake rather than to cross things off from a must-have-seen-list. I want to get to the core and start anew, so that I can see the world in a different way.

There’s no point in hanging around waiting for things to change, for something different to appear, for someone new to get to know. It’s not going to happen, because I stick with old habits and old patterns of life. I have become too predictable and this is a feature that I do not think that highly of. Things are not going to change around here and neither am I as long as I’m still here.

I think the whole point with the idea of giving everything up everything that I have, leaving everything that I know of, putting myself in a new context where I cannot take anything for granted, would be to see if I eventually return to the life that I lead as for now. It would be a test to prove whether this is the route I should follow, or if I was supposed to be something way different but neglected the possibility to because of the norms of myself and those around me.

I want to get back to the origin of everything that I have come to be. I want to trace my steps back to understand why things turned out the way they did. I do appreciate what I have. I have so many wonderful friends and their company is not a cause of this. No, this urge to get away and start anew is driven by egoism. But I think I need to embrace it. If I end up in the same spot as I set out from, at least then I know nothing went wrong along the way.

I’d have a story to tell

If I could do anything right now – If I could change the direction of my life completely at this very moment and ignoring consequences or long term strategies – I would leave everything that I am currently doing, pack my backpack and head off for the first city that comes to mind, get to know new people, make myself a new identity, cut communication with all that I know to this point to zero, see where the road takes me, stay for longer in some obscure city and pick up a new language while there, go on globe-trotting, get rid of my watch and cell phone, go hiking in the Indian jungle, climb mountains in Borneo, become part of some isolated village, learn how to craft things with my hands, set sails from one continent to another, feature as an extra in a spanish soap opera, fight for the cause of humanity in some radical activist movement, settle as a hermit in a tent on the way to a mountain top, invent a new religion that is ever-lasting and fail-safe, cut all my hair off, start a fashion brand, initiate an underground movement that eventually makes us abandon the market economy as we know it in favour for what the real value of things really is, getting broke and hitch-hiking to some place where I eventually settle and write my memoirs – all this while attending random lectures of random courses in every city I visit just to nurture my interests and development.

I’m being serious.

Fontanelles

Babies have soft spots on their heads when they are born because the joints, or sutures if you like, between the cranial bones have not fused yet. The soft spots are called fontanelles and close up by themselves with time.

During the weeks leading up to the exam that I just sat through I’ve been low on energy. As a part of some subconscious plan of action my interests have shifted to something, I assume, requiring less energy. It’s quite fascinating. I find myself doing stuff I never thought I’d spend a second on, and I enjoy it.

It feels like my head’s changing shape, yet again. As if the fontanelles opened up and my cranium is being remodeled. It’s a funny feeling. I wonder how long it is going to last for.

Friday is X-ray day

But this is the soundtrack of wednesday.