I Don't Know What More To Ask For

Sometimes people make me proud. A few days back, the Norwegian minister of foreign affairs decided not to follow some of his Nordic colleagues out the door in protest as their Iranian counterpart went on an anti-semitic speech spree in the UN. I have no doubt his brain was bleeding as much as theirs were, but as he was the next speaker on the list he chose to remain seated and instead spoke up against the debacle of it all when his time came. I respect that. Neither choice could have been especially easy, but the fact that he took a verbal stand in a forum where people deem it politically dangerous to critizise is a good thing. People should do that more, silence is not the way.

What about me? Do I take a stand on issues I burn for? I think I do, although I could probably do it more actively. Take animal rights, for instance, or gender balance in business. When I first came to Finland I tried a couple of times to volunteer for animal shelters, but they did not want people who didn’t speak Finnish. I think that is a bit strange, as the animals that need help basically couldn’t care less if the person who shows them love has language skills that keep her from saying much other than color combinations, “A beer, please!” and “I have red curtains.”. I’ll try again, a bit more ardently this time around. Fortunately I work in a company where gender politics are not really an issue as we have an impressive amount of female managers considering the industry we operate in.

Other times I might have too much action in me. It’s hard for me to burn for something and keep quiet about it even though I know it can create a mess to speak up. If people treat my friends wrongly, for instance, I go all up in flames and have a hard time settling down, even though sometimes I have to. I should probably let them fight their own causes in peace, but then again I want my friends to burn as hotly for me when something goes pear-shaped.

I haven’t written about individual versus society in a while, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately. Are we inherently good, and if so is it the presence of others that negates that potential in us? No matter how much I try to shake my disbelief in the human race, experience won’t let me. Someone always gets hurt, no action lacks consequence, and no word spoken disappears without a trace. So, if a certain amount of hurt will always be the outcome, is that necessarily bad? Something always has to go to create progress, right? No spring without winter, no life without death, etc.

I think that life is too short to sit on the fence. Inaction, complacency and passiveness annoy me as if they were offences against life itself. We’ve been given this tiny fragment of time to do something with, and it’s almost insulting to me that some people choose to make so little of it. I love my passion for things, it’s what drives me! I try to not be too scared to follow my ideas or to make choices that might end up bruising me. Lack of self preservation instinct, you say? I don’t think so, I think I am just lucky enough to know that bruises heal, both mine and others’, and that there is too much to earn by burning, loving, laughing and taking leaps of faith to not. After all, what else is there?

“It’s about you and the sun,
a morning run,
the story of my Maker,
what I have and what I ache for.”
Röyksopp – What Else Is There? (The Understanding, 2005)