Easter
You live, you learn.
I went helping my friend “Kingen” on saturday, as a driver and also playing rythm guitar on a gig. It was kind of fun. It´s been fifteen years since we sat in a tourbus together… and so much time and life has passed.
The experiment was putting myself in that context again, exposing me to the routines of touring, beeing a different man today.
I found that what i liked the most was to go out on the ice outside the hotel, playing with my dog (yeah, the dog was also on the road with us ha ha.) Great company.
I also enjoyed spending some time in the Jacuzzi, the sauna and watching a movie on my room.
“God i´m really getting old” i thought to myself. LOL 
I enjoyed the Hotel dinner and of course the gig. It was fun.
But…i could have done without the neurotic company of some other musicians trying to get a party started the whole time. It felt like beeing surrounded by 18-yeard olds (while them beeing in their late thirties, they behaved like kids). I, who do not drink at all these days, made a sudden exception and had a few medium beers, (never getting drunk though) and went to bed in time unharmed, but i noticed as usual that alcohol makes me dull, slow, unfocused and a bit confused. I just got caught up in the moment and found myself sitting there at a table with the rest of the crew, and for a short moment i fooled myself that i belonged there.
Of course i didn´t. Of course i don´t belong there. How could i? That lifestyle really hurt me quite a bit when i was younger and was definitly part of what brought me down for a while, years ago.
I do not belong in that universe. I don´t want to be in it. A beer does not belong in my hand. It felt like a stranger. Still, i got caught up in the moment. No catastrophy in itself, but a very clear reminder of the huge difference between the path i´m walking now, and the path i have left behind. The culture that musicians surround themselves with seldom leaves any room for a healthy soul to exist.
This understanding made me feel so happy about where i am right now.
The whole episode made me think, react, understand a lot of things. It made me see how far i have travelled from what i used to be. Making me see it in yet another perspective.
I enjoyed spending private time with my longest and dearest friend a lot. We had long talks on the road as we drove there and back again. But still…i realized i´m a stranger to that world, while knowing him so well.
I get more out of hanging with him in other environments. Don´t get me wrong, i wouldnt want to change anything about the weekend at all. It was educating and a lot of it was fun.
But the premises of what a touring life depends on are not acceptable.
It is a dark world i can tell you, remembering it from my younger years.
Imagine beeing away from home for about 180 days a year. Driving between hundreds of cities, repeating a tiring routine again, and again, and again and again.
Imagine that a major part of your day, 180 days a year, is spent among drunk people in dark, crowded rooms.
Imagine not knowing what town you are waking up in.
Always in transit. Never stopping. Never resting. Never growing. Never reflecting.
Imagine that there is always a few people in those rooms, every night, that are prepared to have “sex” with you, without knowing anything about you, never actually caring for who you are really.
Very painful to a concious mind.
Imagine, as i did up until fifteen years ago, giving in to it all.
-Jumpin into an ocean of neverending destructive life in all dimensions and aspects. Just because it´s there. Just because you can. Just because there is no other options presented. Nothing else to choose from.
For some people (to many), it´s a romantic dream of constant sensations and party. Well shure. But for how long do you think you can sustain that behaviour without destroying you life? 104 gigs? 230 gigs? 400?
I did over 800 gigs in five years between 1988 and 1993. Imagine the magnitude of self-abuse that followed with that. 800 dark rooms, each one presenting you with limitless access to everything on the devils Smorgosboard thank you very much.
It was fun the first 2-300 times. We were just young boys playing the field in our innocense. Then, after a few years, i became numb and couldn´t see the point in it anymore, but i still continued because i had no other offer or choice.
You see, there is no real life to be found inside that existence. None. Nothing. Nothing real. Nothing caring, true or sustainable. Just quick shallow fixes of stimulation. Egoboosters.
It really is the shortcut to hell in every aspect.
It ended for me in 1993. I got tinnitus and had to walk away from it from one day to another. I think that saved my life. I then made a U-turn and went into the booming Internetbusiness in the nineties for almost a decade, but that´s another story.
This blogpost has no point. None at all. I´m a thousand years away from it all now.
And now i´m gonna take the dog for a walk.
And i Miss my daughter Molly, who´s away at her grandparents.
Still, i think this will be a good day.
love
/Stefan
Sveti Stefan
Oh.. today i happened to read about a place i visited in 1990, namely “Sveti Stefan”. It lies in Montenegro and was bulit in th 1400´s as a fishing camp/fortress.
In the fifties, emperor Tito converted it to one of the world most luxurious resorts, that made celebrities from USA and Monaco crawl all over it for decades.
In 1990, the war on the Balcan had not yet started, and when i visited Sveti Stefan for a few days stay, it had lost some of it´s glamour, but still presented an incredible experience to a traveller.
Every move i made was assisted by a waitor, a butler or some other function from the staff. If our glasses became halv empty (i travelled with a woman) it took about two seconds and someone was there to fill it up. You can understand the feeling. The staff were used to serve Elisabeth Taylor, Sylvester Stallone and the Kingdoms of Monaco… and there were we, a couple of curious tourists from Sweden, enjoying the afterglows of the rich.
Here´s a page about the island/hotel:
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Republic_of_Montenegro/Sveti_Stefan-719499/TravelGuide-Sveti_Stefan.html
Yes, it´s an island. They have preserved all the little fisherman cabins (about a hundred) and while leaving all exteriours of the island intact, the interiours was carefully renovated into the most luxurious of suites. Rocky stonewalls from the 1500´s meeting azur-blue swimmingpools and James Bond-Style Restaurants and an international Casino.
It was a thrill, and i´m so glad i visited in 1990, because it was the last year that the place still existed in it´s industrial faded, romantic innocense.
Then the war came, the island was closed for some years, and now, some Big Finance are renovating it to be a major Jet-Set-Hotel once again, only this time, focusing on hard, cold money, leaving none of the old aristocratic charms of it´s history.
When we were there, we could still sleep in the same bed used by Sophia Loren and her lovers, feeling the Jackie Kennedy-like historical wings sweeping around us. Now, i guess, its lost.
I have a lot of pictures of us, lounging around beeing the ONLY guests at the huge hotel at the time. We had the iland almost to ourselfes, as it was off-season and every little corner of the facility seemed to be only ours to explore.
So, today, i brought out the photo-album and enjoyed a moment on memory lane.
It is a fine memory.
/Stefan
Comfort.
You know, my last blog was written conciously to be very unpleasant, provocing and challenging.
Strong words creates strong emotions. I know.
We all know, that a change will not come simply by feeling bad about ourselfs or taking on the collective guilt and responsability for people suffering in this world, as an individual.
I am not blaming you or me as individuals.
The issues of poverty and injustice are so complex, that it takes a global change of mindset to make it better.
Still i think it´s important to really point out the facts. To create a disturbing little thought, maby leading to analysis about our behaviour and our values.
It´s because of the fact that we distance ourselves from even taking in the whole picture, that the problems can continue to exist and grow in the first place.
It is our mutual greed and addictions, combined with denial and refusal of empathy that slowly leads us to extinction. A day at the time.
I´ll write it once more; Overconsumption, general overuse of resources, lack of human interaction, dialogue and communication, twisted and abused religion and politics are pushing the world to a limit where it is very likely that it will simply explode in our faces in a very near future.
What is there to do about it?
I´ll tell you;- Just change your own attitude and lifestyle a little bit.
Just a little bit, is enough. Take it in, do small positive things to yourself, your fellow man and the world around you through small adjustments in every day life.
I will give you the method.
Down below i´ll write what´s holding you down, keeping you hostage, keeping you from beeing happy. So i´ll tell you the secrets of instant personal revolution;
Don´t watch so much TV.
-It´s holding you down.
Eat something a little bit more healthy.
-Bad food is holding you down.
Take care of your loved ones.
-Lack of closeness holds you down.
Radically cut down on your consumtion.
-Consumption is an abusive replacement for real emotions. Just like drugs. It holds you down.
Kick your addictions and abusive behaviours.
-These are holding you prisoner and keeps you away from happiness.
Speak freely about your thoughts among your friends.
-Honesty makes you feel good and creative.
Donate to something.
-This makes you part of reducing the shit of the world. Making you feel good.
Quit drinking and smoking.
-This will fill you with energy and stabilize your emotions instantly. Returning your true self, to yourself.
Choose a better politician.
-Bad politicians are holding your future hostage.
Take long walks.
-With power, strenght and fresh oxygen in you body and mind, your depressions will release their grip on you a bit.
Light a candle once in a while.
-A moment of reflection and contemplation will make you feel less lost.
Read some books.
-You will be as thrilled as you are by TV-series, but your mind will be working, excersizing, making you motivated, skilled and creative.
Cut your computertime.
-To much computertime holds you down.
There are thousands of little things one can do in everyday life, that improves your selfrespect, your self esteem, your ability to think and love in a sound way, feeling a bit more free and relieved.
You don´t have to take on the whole world, just yourself. That´s all there is to it.
If you succed in doing this, that heavy lump of pain, doubt and sorrow in your chest will dissapear, just like magic. Wouldn´t that be nice?
-Or maby you have gotten so attached to that little lump, giving you excuses not to act because “you are a victim of circumstances and completly incapable of making your life better”?
Then, tell me, are you incapable of doing all the things i wrote above?
None of them costs any money. None of them takes very much time. Still, combined, they will turn your life around completly making you happy every hour awake, without any particular reason.
Wouldn´t that be great?
Just try it for a month or two. It´s not like it´s very hard. You can always drop it and continue as usual. We can always start to contribute to the shit of the world again, like we´ve always done.
I´m just presenting an alternative and a few free shortcuts to unconditional happiness, (the one thing that every born human seems to be searching for).
So now you have it. The recipie. The map. The method.
Now you have no excuses to sit in a corner feeling enslaved and helpless. Just do it. It works.
Nevermind me. I´m just here to kick your ass around a little.
/Stefan
Ignoring the signs.
The world is.
Ignoring the signs.
As are you.
And i.
Stock markets crumble.
A father stabbed his family to death last week in Sweden. His kids; -one and three years old.
Kids go to school with machine guns. Regullary. Happens every year. In random countries, on random occations. Gunning down anything. Everything.
Ignoring the signs.
Are we.
Letting it pass.
Making it a normality.
Something that must be accepted it seems.
I can´t interprete it in any other way. Since we are letting it continue.
The weather is turning on us.
Hatecrimes increasing.
China points the big gun at Tibet.
Ignoring the signs.
Are we.
Every twentieth minute, a man beats a woman beyond recognition.
In Sweden alone.
Every minute, a child dies from starvation. One died while i was writing this sentence.
One more while you are reflecting on the fact, reading this one.
Now it´s about three of them dead, since i started to write about it. And counting.
After a nice cup of coffe and some TV later on tonight, a few hundred more small bodies are turning cold and stiff around the world. Counting 24/7.
Ignoring the signs.
Are we.
Is this the symptoms of a civilization on the right path?
Is it?
Do you support it?
Do you?
Do you accept it?
Do you?
Do you want it to continue?
Do you?
Ignore the signs?
You see, this is the price someone else is constantly paying, for you and me to have this kind of life that we live. Every second, someone else, somewhere else, is paying with pain, blood, misery or their lives, for us to sustain and maintain our way of life.
Would you give it all up to protect the life of a strangers child? Of course you would.
But you and i are concieved into a foolproof system, that is helping us…ignore the signs.
The pain that naked empathy and awearnes would cause us would destroy us.
So we go to sleep unmoved. Unwoken.
We are all monsters. Using our selfapproved license to kill the world.
Ignoring the signs.
/S