This blue marble

– and yet it spins

Category Archives: Life


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The red door and Schrödinger’s cat

reddoorAnd there it was, the red door, with the heart-shaped keyhole and a little chain knocker. It looked inviting – but how would I know whether behind it awaits opportunity – or challenge?

Nothing in life is ever one single thing or perspective. Just like Schrödinger’s famous cat: placed in a sealed box along with a toxin that can at any random time kill the cat, the cat is equally dead and alive at the same time. Until we dare to open the box to look. Schrödinger’s thought experiment is also called the “observer’s paradox”: we cannot know the outcome unless we dare to look. And by looking we influence the outcome. 

There is no security on this Earth. Only challenge. Or opportunity. The choice is yours.

(Helsinki, Finland; June 2015)


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About celandines and the fleeting nature of it all

yellowanemonesI saw them in the park, the little celandine suns. While kneeling to snap a photo I was joined by another photographer, with more serious equipment and the same intent: to snap a memory and impression of the golden and green and this particular spring day.

This is the essence of photography: it is not about taking beautiful pictures, but about recording reality. Most often it is about our human weakness of not accepting the elusive nature of time and precious moments. Photography is an incredibly technologically advanced method of attempting to store deep emotions, feelings of belonging, and moments that once were and will never return again.

As I carefully tread through the grass without trampling on the celandines, I reflected on the incredible size of market and business around clinging to past moments. I thought of how important it is to so many that share what we once saw and felt – the basis of social media. And I could not help but wonder, what would happen if we accepted that nothing is permanent? That after enjoying a moment it is time to let it go? That life is stock-full of moments and we might enjoy them more if we breathed through those moments with eyes open instead of fiddling with our smartphones?

(Helsinki, Finland; May 2015)


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About cherry blossoms and the brevity of it all

Hanami

If there were no cherry blossoms in the world
My mind would be peaceful

(Fujiwara Norihira)

When cherries bloom, the Japanese celebrate the beauty and fleeting nature of life. Not life as a continued existence, or life as an eternal soul. But life as that short moment of seven days where a cherry blossom opens, blooms, and drops its petals to the ground like snowfall. Life that, after blooming, has yielded a fruit and another life.

We Westerners mostly celebrate life without including its end, whatever it may be. Death, or transit to rebirth, is always a separate subject for attention. Standing under the pink cherry blossom boughs I wondered how it would feel to celebrate life, including the brevity of life as we know it. And yet, most of the sakura poetry I have stumbled upon is concerned with that brief moment when a cherry blossom petal falls to the ground. Life is uncertain, and the petal knows no more of its destiny than do we humans of our own fates.

A fallen blossom
Returning to the bough, I thought –
But no, a butterfly

(Arakida Moritake)

(Hanami festival, Helsinki, Finland; May 2015)


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Hold on, Nepal

maju-deval-before-NYT maju-deval-after-NYTNepal, I have no words for you today. Or rather, I have all words for you, but I cannot choose the right ones to use. And none of the words will truly help you today. I am relieved my friends and the social business staff are spared, and I worry about what happened to the orphan children we have supported. I worry about the lack of water and the cold nights. About people buried in the houses gone to shambles. About the villages that cannot be reached because roads and vehicles have been wiped out. I am stunned by the destruction of your beautiful temples on the Durbar squares. Of the main Monkey temple building still standing, among the wreckage of shrines.

You are inhabited by a sturdy lot of people, used to extreme conditions. This was too extreme even for them and recovery will take a long time. I hope people will find it in their hearts to help you in any way they can. And I hope that six months from now they will still remember to help, even if media discussion may have moved on.

(Images courtesy of New York Times (Anna Nadgrodkiewicz and Narendra Shrestha/European Pressphoto Agency) . Maju Deval temple, before and after)

(Kathmandu, Nepal; and Helsinki, Finland; April 2015)


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And yet the world spins – for now

IMG_6682 One time, long ago, my grandfather was a shipbuilder who spent much time managing Soviet business relations. Today we scour through photo albums to find images of the stories he used to tell.

One time, long ago, my grandmother used to dance folk dances up in her birthtown. Today all I have is a pair of dancing shoes from the ’40s, which I love to slip on for a special day.

One time, Guest house Pooki in my grandparents’ hometown used to be a bank. Today it serves sushi.

As I walked to the shore where we once moored the boat to the summer island, I pondered on the fleetingness of it all. If nothing is constant, why do we create lives as if the opposite were true? If everything is bound to change, why do we resist? And what is the difference between sticking to past times and preserving our past for the future?

Looking out over the sea, I thought about how one time, long ago, the planet Mars had vast oceans. Today we spend millions on seeking traces of condensed water on the barren surface. Perhaps the difference between unhealthy resisting and positive preserving lies in the impact on future generations? Perhaps, instead of understanding space and planets we should understand the impact our little lives has on the future of our world. Perhaps instead of trying to understand the universe I should focus on how my grandfather’s tales and my grandmother’s dancing shoes unnoticeably directed my life.

And yet, at least our world keeps spinning. For the moment.IMG_0164(Uusikaupunki, Finland; April 2015)


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The baseline

baselineWhich is better: to always chase the next thing, or to be truly content with what one has? And yet, can there be improvement if we did not actively seek it? What is the difference between contentedness and lethargy? Is ambition healthy? If we all simply let life happen to us, as taught by many wise souls, would anyone of us have the drive to make the world a better place?

Many big questions for a little weekend break. In the meantime, happy Easter and spring break to you all.

(Helsinki, Finland; April 2015)


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The law of Jante

saltholmenGliding over deserted Saltholmen island towards Copenhagen airport I think of how this flat country requires equal flatness of expectations. All peaks of success are evened out – and so are the lows. If you are good student you are expected to help those who are not equally successful. If you become rich you are expected to pay for it. Celebrating success is not encouraged, and neither is standing out as a total failure.

Once upon a time in a Norwegian book there was a Danish little village called Jante. The people of Jante abide by a number of laws which all boil down to one thing: you are not better or worse than anybody else. Do not expect it – nobody else does, either. Just fit in and you will be fine.

In the midst of this competitive world, in the heart of every Dane there lives a little villager from Jante. And not a month passes that I do not wonder whether the Norwegian author mistook the location of the village: the law of Jante ensnares the Finnish spirit, too.

As we float past the Öresund bridge rising from the bottom of the sea I wonder if it would be possible to keep the cake and eat it, too? What if we decided to keep the supportive lifting towards the mean for those who need help, and allow celebrating success and individuality? Why should the mean be the limit when it is possible to reach the stars?

(Copenhagen, Denmark; March 2015)

 


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Why I spend my nights working on a kids’ coloring book 25 years later

coloringbookDid you ever find you never got to do that simplest little thing you always wanted to do? Or how you haven’t got a single step closer to a big dream that always hovers so close but not close enough to do something about catching it?

I always wanted to complete a coloring book from start to finish. The past three years I have been yearning to see the French Riviera in spring. I still have not experienced the (relatively) new Helsinki Music Center, and there are many books my friends have recommended that I still have not read.

Until this spring. This spring I have read all Moomin books, completed a coloring book on horses, gone back to Kathmandu, and seen a concert at the Helsinki Music Center. I also have a trip to Cannes in my calendar, an Indian head massage scheduled, and I have read 3 books out of 20 that my friends recommended to me. All thanks to Day Zero Project. 101 goals in 1001 days.

What an adventure it will be to stay a night in a treehouse, go to St Helena with the Royal Mail liner ship, and learn to make Limoncello. Why not live a little with me? List your goals and live today.

(Helsinki, Finland; March 2015)