Mind Cleanup – Summer 2017

After my recent blog cleanup session, I finally feel there is some room here for a Mind Cleanup post. I moved the posts about Roskilde Festival to a new and separate blog, where they will feel more at home.

This feels so much better. More casual. The Epiphany Blog needs to be a simple place for random thoughts and musings, as intended at its birth.

So, let’s let those thoughts wander and stumble their way into writing.

News

Besides all Drumpf related news, the one topic that I feel is probably more important than many news outlets are making it seem, is the Qatar boycott. I have been trying to understand what is going on and why, but haven’t come up with something truly satisfying yet. Reporting on it seems foggy; information blurry and inconsistent; fake news? Who are the the good guys (if there are any left at all)?

My thought process might result in a little blog post in the future. Not sure yet…

Self-reflection

• A close friend had her birthday at the beginning of July, which I kinda remembered two weeks prior but totally forgot about after that and apparently these things really matter to people. The fact that birthdays really totally completely and whole heartedly mean nothing to me, makes it hard to deal with people who do. It’s hard to empathize. I’m trying (and failing (or maybe I’m still not really trying)).
• I started a journal, which will hopefully help me put my thoughts in order and live more consciously (and less chaotically?).

And now, it’s time to answer five more self reflection questions:

What are you bad at but couldn’t care less about (even though others may think you should)?

Birthdays. My own as well as other people’s.

Who are the most important people in your life?

There are several people in my life that I value highly and couldn’t imagine living without, starting with my boyfriend. ❤

Next in line is probably my close friend, Z, who is such an inspiring and wise person, I can’t even begin to express her value. She’s awesome. She’s a hero. She’s my guru.

Then there are the people that are important, even if I wish sometimes they weren’t. Or maybe “important” isn’t the right word but something more like “powerful” or “influencial”. But no, my family is definitely an important factor in my life. Can’t even deny it.

How much sleep do you need?

I wake up early, even when I go to bed late so the latter is something I try to avoid. I function best on 7-8hour rest/sleep. I am blessed with comatose sleep.

Are you rich?

I think so. It’s something that I like to tell myself I don’t care about. But it does matter. I have exactly the right amount of wealth. But when it comes to luck and happiness I am filthy rich. Luckily, those two things I can make myself!

What is a controversial opinion you have?

People who can’t have children “naturally” should give up. Nature does not want them to reproduce. Darwin says no.

Movies / Series

• I watched the third season of Fargo > So much darker (and less funny?) than 1 and 2.
• Doctor Strange > We want more!

Music

• Richard Bona > awesome Jazz bassist and singer from Cameroon, who just ventured out into Afro-Cuban territory with his new album (Heritage). Que yummy!

• Natalia Lafourcade > One of my fave Latin American songstresses with a super soothing voice and a super friendly smile. Her newest project (Musas) – an album and making-of documentary – completely stole my heart

• Jack Johnson > Spotify just pointed out this new Jack Johnson song. I think we all know who and what he is referring to when he sings:
  

  I don’t care for your paranoid us-against-them walls;
  I don’t care for your careless me-first-gimme-gimme appetite at all

I don’t care for them either, Jack. I feel you.

Looky here

Don’t particularly want to analyze this any further, but I thought this was interesting and amusing and thought I should share.

Hasta la proxima!

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the old development worker

This post was first published in my political analysis corner, but after giving it some more thought I changed it around a bit, split the original blog in two and decided to bring the part about my dad over here, which seems more fitting…

As my father returns to Afghanistan for the so-many-eth time I can see he is tired. He is still doing the job he has done all his life; writing and evaluating development aid projects, always returning with the conclusion that it wasn’t enough; that human greed sabotaged progress once again and that people at the bottom of the food chain have stopped believing they will ever be better off.

I got angry with him a couple of months ago, when he rambled on and on about everything that was wrong with mankind, about how all that is good and beautiful in the world is being broken down and trampled on. It takes him several weeks to come down from that cynical cloud each time he returns, which gives us very little time to actually enjoy his company before he heads out again to burden his soul and thoughts with the weight of the world.

It reminded me of when my great aunt, aged 95, lost her son and declared she no longer believed in god, if this was how he treated her and the people she loved. I felt I needed to guide her back to her faith as if this would somehow restore the balance in the world. She was the believer and I the non-believer and that is how it was meant to be.

In the case of my father, he was the one fighting for more funds for development aid and voting on the political parties that most fanatically promoted the re-distribution of wealth, whereas I stood somewhere slightly left of center, being skeptical and calling for a more inclusive system but with a critical eye on unnecessary handouts. I criticized NGO’s and their old fashioned post-colonial attitude of bringing aid and knowledge to the “poor unknowing souls in the third world”. I called my dad paternalistic and labelled him old school. He called me naive and unrealistic.

But now it seems my dad has lost his faith in the sector he has worked in for almost fifty years and that he can’t seem to let go of (or it of him). More than anything he has lost his faith in the Middle East and Afghanistan most of all. He gets so very bitter when he speaks of the endless violence, the politicians sabotaging productive decision making and the corruption that runs through every single institution. I think it is the shamelessness that accompanies it that hurts him most of all.

On the one side I wish he would just retire and spend the rest of his days walking through his garden, talking to the cat and taking pictures of butterflies. On the other hand I know it would be the death of him as he is addicted to the feeling of being needed and making a difference.

Even if at the end of the day he feels hardly any progress was made on the issue at hand, he needs to give it his full 100% and maybe a little more. It’s what we love about him and at the same time it is what makes him such a difficult person to be around.

So I guess it’s up to us, the people who know him, to pick out the positive traits he has and give them new life in our thoughts and actions. Perhaps it will even help him during those moments of bitterness that will undoubtedly bubble up from time to time.