Thought of the day: to be happy with what one has means not looking for more. If one is not looking for more, one is not curious about change and new things (unless purely for speculative or rhetorical purposes). Thus, contentment kills curiosity, and without curiosity there cannot be proactive personal growth. Is it, then, an impossible equation to not chase for more (be content), and simultaneously grow as a person?
Why is contentment spiritually valued, if it makes us too lazy for personal growth? How can one ever attain the selfless contentment spiritually valued, unless one already is enlightened and has nothing more to seek?
Thoughts larger than a glass of wine above the rooftops of Stockholm…
(Stockholm, Sweden; May 2016)
Trucks, trolleys, fuel, luggage carts, catering, cargo loading equipment, pushback truck… It is incredible how much equipment and work is needed to send away one 747 jet.
A telltale sign of getting old is to get stuck on one place and return year after year. I confess, I have got stuck on coming to the Riviera. How could I ever wait for a whole year to return again? Impossible. I will not. Since I can work 1-2 days of a week from anywhere, it is not impossible to consider flying down for a long weekend to work on a patio with roses and pool instead of in the office.
My heart is whispering to me that to not have a place of one’s own down here during this lifetime is unthinkable. I am struggling not to listen, but talk to me again in 10 years from now and we will see who wins: my mind or my heart.
(Juan-les-Pins and Nice, France; May 2016)
Hello little sleepy St-Paul-de-Vence. Beneath your car-free cobble stone streets, green facades, and chirpy birds I can sense a a vibrant energy bubbling under. I wonder if I drank from that fountain and stayed here, would I morph into an artist? 
While it must be terribly hot in the summer and dark and windy in the winter, right now it is just right. Ice cream weather and a splendid day for sketching the beginnings of a masterpiece. Many people come to stay for a while, but Chagall never left. I can understand why.
(St-Paul-de-Vence, France; May 2016)
There is a reason for why the French Riviera is also called the Côte d’Azur, or the Azure Coast. And there is a reason for why so many late 20th century painters like Renoir, Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, Monet, and even Norwegian Munch, all stayed there – or moved there. I wish they would have had the delight of seeing the azure waters from the air.
(Antibes / Juan-les-Pins, France; May 2016)
From down below the sky often looks the same. Either it is blue, or there are some clouds drifting, or a degree of overcast or even completely gray. But from above the clouds the sky is never the same. There are skyscrapers reaching above the sky. Fluffy clouds like steam above a thermal pool. Layers of cloud like sheets of down duvet. Towery black clouds lit up by lightning rods exploding vertically.
(Somewhere above Europe; May 2016)
Here up North, gardening is serious business and all about flowers. Perhaps a bench could be in order. Or, if one has courage, a teensy weensy fountain. Or, for the most brave: a little statuette.
And, folly of follies, should the king become utterly completely bored with his beautiful castle, well, how about building a little garden shed, with just two wings and about 30 windows, for the king to move into? A little like a boy moving into the empty toolshed in the back of the garden? The king of Sweden did exactly this. Gustav III lived his last summers in his “garden shed” – until he was shot during a Venetian style masked ball. 
(Royal Haga Park, Stockholm, Sweden; April 2016)
Lovely ones, it has been a crazy few months. When I have not been looking at my computer or out of an airplane window, these have been my two favorite views: piled up on the balcony with the cats, and my coloring book. And the seashore of course – see a photo a few posts back.
(Helsinki, Finland; May 2016)
Once it was a field. Then, the suburb of gentry. Later, a fruit and vegetable market; and during its darkest times, the playground for ladies of the night and lost poets. Today, Covent Garden is a market again – and one of the most timelessly hip ones (if that is not an oxymoron).
(Covent Garden Market, London, United Kingdom; April 2016)
This blue marble 