Paying to disconnect?

For a long time I’ve been hunting the existence of the link between wealth and happiness. People say money brings you additional misfortune, more necessities and duties.

During my travels I watched the business class at airplanes, as a student in UK I watched first class cabins on the trains. I’ve seen posh clubs and restaurants; I’ve seen the alternatives of hotels there is today. The high class-shopping streets in every city, the pent houses with sky-high metallic fences. Limousines pumping out music but leaving only a shady tinted window to stare back into.

And today it hit me, the more money you spend the less you see. The better technology you paid for the less tempted will your curiosity by other answers. The nicer office, house and car you have the less you will go outside it.

People are paying to be separated; more money to fly business class and not deal with screaming children, couples fighting, foreign views of personal space.

They get picked up at the airport, attend meetings, they get guided through the country to see buildings meaning nothing to them, moments as a tourist, to then get taken back to their country in the same way.

In hotels they get their room service to not deal with the queues, the noise or the time wasted just waiting for food.

They go to expensive restaurants with quality food cooked by a gourmet chef because it cannot be wrong, it will always taste amazing.

In the posh-clubs there will be beautiful people, people with money, people that wants to make business and people long gone, VIP-areas with a crowd that wants to dance among people without touching or connect with them.

There will be bouncers removing trouble-makes, girls will get their drinks paid for and it will be too loud to have a conversation.  

Shopping-malls full with young attractive men and women that will grab your attention before you even seen what they offer, they will want to help you to know what you want.

They are professionals, they must know.

I suddenly know why I didn’t see travelling as something big when I was travelling with my family, we were safe and in control anywhere we went hiding behind the word tourist.

When we can pay for the service we will restrict the good-hearted to help us, help us because while they help they will also embrace their own country. We take away their rights to see their home through our eyes.

When I travelled on my own I fought for a little extra bit of luggage in Italy with a woman having no compassion, I ran after a man who stole my purse, I heard conversations because people would almost sit on my lap. I got food poisoned and found a friend at the same time. I learned to speak without knowing the language in countries where English was too foreign.

The higher society the less it has to do with the origin of the place.

And I ask myself why does people want to miss all of this, why is this image of luxury not associated with the real price, to not see. To be so disconnected that the true world is less appreciated than fancy curtains.

Why can I fall asleep around 30 other children in kinder garden on a thin madras on the floor, girls, boys, friends and strangers and years later I need a door, a room, a lock and an ultimate comfort to sleep?

Danger is like anything else, nothing we can hide from and nothing we can be free from. Therefor to pay the price of a white wall between you and the rest will be a lost gamble, every time.        

What is beauty?

For me rain, high mountains or a mother holding her arms open to her child, a clear sky and a sky full of stars mean beauty.

The beauty you cannot maintain neither control for your own view of perfection. The beauty lays in the insanity to stay what is no matter what and how the world affects or attempt to change it.

Untouched purity carries out most affection in us, like a home baked cake raise our senses of curiosity. 

The real attraction is not in the perfection it’s in the flaws, to be brave not to be alike. 
Our scars speak the story so the personality shine through the cracks in the glass.

Covering your flaws, painting your wands is destructing and denying the self to be happy. Not accepting what you were given might blind the eyes to see true beauty not only in yourself but also in others.

My life logic

Change is your own,
differences are others 
and the solution of the equation
remains equality. 

A different weather report

The subway is a place for thoughts, like a crowded room where everyone dissolves into their own spheres.  When I stride into the subway I catch myself in a bubble, I study individuals and their performances in a moment of solitary among masses.

Yesterday when I trembled in my bubble I sensed the sunshine and I felt something changed in me. I felt happier and encouraged. The winter was feeling brighter, as a contrast to the dark mornings and afternoons a new year was approaching.

I got out from my bubble and gazed around, I was not the only one who felt that way, I could see hope in the pair of eyes starring right at me. I closed my eyes and leaned against the window, the music in my ears put me into a comfortable harmony.

I thought about how people change in every season. Every winter starts joyful, there is Christmas, New Year and snow. The last slump of autumn with endless rain has given up and children are longing for Santa and adults for holidays. But when New Year ends something happens. It feels like the entire society falls into a paused era.

People shrink, holding their arms around their bodies, like they are protecting themselves from something bad. The smiles are gone and they run and rush through their days instead of walking and enjoying the time they have.  People talk less to each other, smokers do not sit anymore to converse on their breaks, the snow turns irritating and to get dressed up becomes complicated. Fashion becomes a pain rather than an asset.

Then the spring comes, slowly upgrading its presence, and people start to walk upright with a confidence they thought they had lost amongst the melted snowdrops. Strangers begin to smile to each other and colorful clothes are suddenly an option.  More people get out now, shopping and taking walks. Relishing.

The spring is the season for hopes and dreams. It the time we make plans for the summer and listen to nostalgic music that brings us back to an era of delight.  My special season has always been spring, not too cold and not too hot, flawless.

When summer is approaching there is no limit for happiness. Vacations, limited edition Ice-cream flavors, volleyball at the beach and floral dresses are a fact. School ends, people graduate and find their own ways in life. People who are in the age of 18 find themselves now growing up to make their own decision. The combination of graduation; the power of freedom and the hot sun makes our world become alive again.

But even the summer has its ends, the summer nights turn cold, and the leaves start to fade from green to orange. The season for fashion has taken its charge. Large cozy hats, mittens and fluffy sweaters are lining up in the wardrobes. I like the autumn,  to take walks in all the orange to philosophize. I love the smell of rain and glorify falling asleep as rain shutters against my window at night.  

Next stop “Marble arch”, the speaker yells. Bubble time is over and make it in time to work becomes priority.

Some day my future generation will question the accuracy of my values.

In my opinion norms are something, which is build up by underlying values. Values are our defense to why a norm has been followed and still is.

I was born in Sweden with the tag ”origin Sri Lanka”, my two sisters were baked in the home country arriving as 10 and 5-year olds to the western lands. As the youngest member in our family, I was the center of care to all family members. Since no relatives of ours lived in Sweden and only a few Sri Lankans were scattered all over Sweden, my family became very attached to one another spending leisure time together. With the oriental culture of ours, my parents tried their best to induce the cultural identity to us. There will always be unwritten rules and regulations to keep up the family values they were thought to pass on with the norms.

Unlike other European countries children aged 1 year began kindergarten full time in Sweden. Government grants enable all the parents to afford the costs. I however attended the nursery at the age of 4 and that’s when I began my social life out of my family circle.

In nursery teachers taught me about how to build up my self-independence. At home mum and dad fed me where as in nursery I had to eat by myself, do my dishes and help others. At that point nursery became my second family.I spent more of my awaken hours at the nursery than at home which is a reasonable explanation why my influences started to expand majorly.

In my family we truly valuate honesty between family members, the ability  to share everything and be an acknowledgement of respect.  Hospitality is my fathers key-concept due to his thrives to impart us how to live with fellow humanity. My parents expected us to only speak our mother tongue at home, to demonstrate the respect to others culture without escaping our own.

In secondary school as I were and am an athlete I was part of a huge society. Most of my friends were from school and most of them were ethnical Swedish. I found out how to be outspoken and how free and unpunished it was to be me. This was the free culture that I absorbed like a sponge in the desert. My opinions in right and wrong changed dramatically, sleepovers and late nights suddenly became a lifestyle. I learned that this was a society for secrets. Secrets not shared with my family. I could now discuss heaven and earth knowing my thoughts remained safe and un-judged.

In high school I attended in my opinion what I call my first strong student society. I met teenagers, full of life curious about the world living by the vision: “Friday everyday but persist intelligent”. We spent more time outside, away from the books and desks. A bunch of fresh bloods who wanted to change the world. That was our new culture and our new norms, protesting against everything we knew until then to build our dreams and forget realism. I started to work with part time jobs, and as I were young and impatient I had thoughts similar to people in my age to get a full-time job and not “waste” more time behind a desk with my nose in a thick book.

But in third grade we all changed, we had to face reality; our end road was exposing us to the critical moment where we had to choose our own pathway to survive and to find our future.

Because of the overprotectiveness in my family, the freedom included in my friendship became an enormous treaty I often chose the opposite path of my cultures norm.

Engraved now is doubts during my growth about my capability of defining right with wrong due to the young suspiciousness of sharing important questions with important influences in my life. The result is an unbalance left with two options; my judgments are either impulsive or untouchably strong-based.I know however majority of understanding comes with wide involvements. Not solely by reading, listening, obey or leading.

I’ve always been an independent thinker who likes to roam out of the boundaries and clearly see the actions inside to make my decision. By now I hopefully have chosen the best possible values from family and friends in order to create my own norms.

But even the sun has spots and some day my future generation will question the accuracy of my values.