I’ve been feeling like a phony lately. I can’t think of a life that could be more perfect than mine right now; summer in Hawaii, no schedule, I am saturated in love that spans half the globe. Sun, sand, ocean. No real worries, only an uncertain future (along with almost everyone else.) I can finally spend all my time writing, creating, watching movies, eat amazing food, learn new skills. Truly getting to know the incredible people in my life. Endless summer, extended holiday. It really couldn’t get any better (well, maybe if someone dumped a million dollars in my lap so I could continue doing exactly this forever) so why is my brain choosing this time to get so goddamn sad about everything?

How I deal with depression. Depression and death are closely connected in my mind. I read that the thoughts you have on death and the inherent meaninglessness of life when you are depressed are false, but the cruel irony of depression is that those very thoughts will suddenly seem more genuine than any other thought you have had in your life. So at a time when everything seems so incredibly meaningless, when the act of talking or even smiling is soul-draining, you have to find the strength to realize that this is a false reality. Supposedly. Because this sounds like an exercise invented by brainless happy people who can’t come to terms with the fact that their existence is meaningless, right? But the majority has spoken; life is good and worth hanging on to.

First I try to access if I really want to be dead, or if I just want a change in what I’m currently doing. Most of the time there are still things I want to do, like visit Rome and find out how Game of Thrones ends. So then I assume I just feel really sorry for myself. And I start to think about all the people who have more right to feel sorry for themselves than me, which is about 93% of the world’s population, so around 6,5 billion people. I have never been hungry, never experienced a day where I couldn’t pay for my living expenses. I have a family that love and support me unconditionally. I’m highly educated (although, depending on your state of mind, this can be both a curse and a blessing), I’m creative, I’ve traveled a large chunk of the world by age thirty. I have amazing friends whose company I enjoy and they seem to enjoy mine in return. I really, really love my soon-to-be husband and our life together.

Maybe what I call depression is really just laziness? Because there is so much work (not jobs, two separate things) to do in this world and I don’t know where to start.

Sometimes I think it is a stubborn desire for absolute truth. I want to live in a world where people are who they say and inflicting any sort of violence is absurd. I want normalcy to reflect basic, indisputable truths, such as humans need air, water and food to survive, and to compromise fair distribution of any of it is considered the worst of crimes. Right now we are living in an upside down world where the people committing these crimes are practically celebrated for their ‘accomplishments’ because we measure all value in ‘money‘. I think that’s why I have always been so adverse to religion, too. Even as a child the stories didn’t make logical sense to me so I dismissed them as just that – stories. It’s still really difficult for me to understand why people want to structure their life around such old and outdated stories. I also think I grasped upon sustainability so fast because to me it was finally a story, a worldview, that made sense. To use nature as a guide, to live in harmony with all things around us, that seemed logical and natural.
Quote by J.D. Salinger (1951). I think this lingering sadness accompanying life is why Catcher in the Rye still speaks to so many, especially adolescents. We see the inherent phoniness of our lives yet the great majority succumb to it eventually, and happily so. Jobs, stress, mortgage, kids, debt, more stress, sickness, death. Do I believe there will ever be a utopia? No, not really. Humans have too many conflicting desires to ever truly be content 100% of the time. I know in myself that I desire a beautiful house, with a lush garden and lots of animals but at the same time I also desire to travel the world at a moment’s notice, like I have been doing for almost a decade. Will those two desires ever coincide?

Emerging from depression is like fog lifting and suddenly the world has vivid colors again, crisp, clear and in focus. I can’t stop taking pictures of it these days. I wonder how many times some variation of the same sentiments have been written? I understand why so many people hide their sadness and depression because these days in order to be successful you also have to be happy all. the. time. Being sad for no reason is the same as admitting failure, that you somehow are doing life wrong. I think sadness is just as big part of life as happiness. When you really think about it there are just as many reasons to be sad as there is to be happy. Life is fleeting, you will lose the people you love and no one will live the kind of life they want all of the time. That’s exactly why you should be grateful and happy when you have those things. They are precious, rare, and mostly importantly, real. But it is ok to be sad about it sometimes, too.

I learned by reading surfer biographies (Saltwater Buddha, West of Jesus) that life comes in waves. Sometimes you will be up, sometimes the ocean goes flat, and they are both equally important. You need both to create the ride. Around the same time I also came to terms with the fact that the only thing that can truly hurt you is expectations. If you don’t expect anything, you will never be disappointed. This one is hard. It means never expect anyone to be there forever, because they won’t. Everyone dies. But the people who choose to stick around until the end, not because they have to but because they want to, those are the ones that make life worth living.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened. If you can manage that I think you have unlocked the secret to life. (I’ll get there, too. Soon.)

I used to travel the world with songs like these on repeat. I think if I have an addiction it is the beginnings of things. I liked drifting from city to city, always just a visitor. I do not put down roots anywhere. There is a tantalizing sadness in not belonging. A sweet ache deep in your stomach knowing that you possess absolute freedom but at a cost not many people is willing to pay.

For almost four years I forgot what that feeling was like. I made a beautiful home in a beautiful place with my love. There was no money to travel. I didn’t mind. I was so focused on following The Path. Finish school. Get a job. Make money. Save money. Because money is key, right? I lasted less than two weeks. That sweet ache in the pit of my stomach returned with such a vengeance I couldn’t breathe. The twist being, of course, that now I was too connected. I was no longer a ghost floating above earth. I was a solid shape that left footprints. “Run away, just run, start over,” the ache tells me. But at some point there is no more running away. Too many decisions has lead you here. Student debt and all the knowledge that came with it have narrowed down my infinite possibilities to just a handful of possibilities. Not to mention I actually love my husband and our home, and the world would be even more of an empty void without them.

That’s new. If running away, ignore, start over, isn’t an option then all that is left is me. And if I have to stay, really stay on this planet in this existence, the one thing that doesn’t make me want to lie down and die, is being a writer. All my life I always assumed that at one point, one day, I would become a writer but I have never actually made the decision to be a writer. I know that doesn’t sound like much but it’s a huge thing for me. This time last week I couldn’t stop crying and life seemed absolutely pointless and painful to boost. Then it finally clicked. If this is what I want to do, just do it. When I was 20 and the ache got too bad, I just left. I made the decision and I left because leaving was easier than staying. Goodbyes were heartbreaking and beautiful. I left because life should be about infinite possibilities and I couldn’t find them where I was. So I made the decision again. I am going to be a writer. There is no plan B anymore. Do you know what that feels like?

Infinite possibilities, but better. Because if I fail, I still have a life that I love.

And this album is amazing. Get it.

i like songs about drifters / books about the same
they both seem to make me feel a little less insane
walked on off to another spot
i still haven’t gotten anywhere that i want

i know that starting over is not what life’s about
but my thoughts were so loud i couldn’t hear my mouth

modest mouse – the world at large
album: good news for people who love bad news

In this post I’m going to talk about something that is difficult to talk about, but also very important. To me, it cuts to the very core of what it means to be human. The act of taking your own life. Humans are unique among the animals as in we are capable of deciding if we want to keep living or not. Do most people consider it a choice?

I guess most of us have had hard times where, however fleeting, the idea of not existing seems pretty appealing. The catch being that it is pretty damn painful to end your life so that’s where the exploration stops for most people. Do you have to be mentally ill to take your own life?

I’m not talking about actual chemical mental illness, where you are incapable of separating reality from illusion, like where a paranoid schizophrenic decides the best course of acting is to slit their wrists because aliens landed in the backyard. That requires hospitalization and medication. I’m talking about the existential crisis known as depression.

In a way, depression is all about perspective.  It is a distortion of reality, but the cruel trick depression plays on you is that now you feel like you are seeing the world and its truth more clearly than ever. And it’s all meaningless.

When you are depressed you can’t distinguish between time and the meaning of things. It’s like, because I am unemployed and unsuccessful right now, I will always be unemployed and unsuccessful so why shouldn’t I swallow fifty pills and go peacefully into that good night?

Or take laundry for instance. Laundry is just something a normal person does without much thought. But when a depressed person thinks of laundry it becomes this metaphor for the meaningless of life, the fact that you are going to have to laundry every few days, or even weeks, for the rest of your life and it will never, ever be just, done. Over with. Then laundry actually becomes a reason worth killing yourself over because what is the point of life if it is going to be filled with these endless tasks. Might as well check out now rather than, inevitably, later.

And when you are in that state of mind, it really doesn’t take too much to push you over the edge. Sure, you don’t want to be remembered as someone who killed themselves over laundry but if a slightly more serious, noble reason comes around, you would be very tempted to grab that reason and end it all.

You actually begin to think you would be doing people a favor because this way, they won’t have to deal with your bullshit anymore.

But, of course, suicide is the ultimate selfish act. Not one person has any way of knowing how their life influence the people around them, and how such an act would impact or devastate them. Whenever I get really, really down and people around me may start to worry, I always tell them they don’t have to. As long as my mother is alive there is no way I could ever, ever kill myself. Because to do that to the person who gave you life, who feed and nurtured and made countless, endless sacrifices for you, is just about the most horrible thing a person could do. I mean, I care about a lot of other people too, but my mother gave me life. To end that and have her live with it, while I float away into oblivion, is so awful I can’t even process it.

A lot of indigenous tribes all over the world don’t, or didn’t, have a word for depression in their vocabulary. (Most of them are extinct now, isn’t that depressing?) It just wasn’t part of their worldly experience. Yet more and more people in our culture succumb to depression and we hide it, or take pills, or quit functioning and lay around all day contemplating the meaningless of life. Then, a lot of people change their lives and feel better. But either way, it takes a certain level of comfortableness to be allowed to feel depressed because I’ve also noticed people in poverty tend to prioritize hunger over their emotional well-being.

This all leads me to conclude that depression isn’t actually the problem here; the problem is that it requires a certain level of insanity to be able to function in our modern society of work-life balance. Depressed people have simply found a way to see through all the bullshit and now they are upset because their values are out of line of what television tell them they should care about. Or maybe they just finally woke up to the fact that the corporations we depend on to feed, clothe and house us have also hijacked our governments and are using them to wage war and kill innocent people, just like us, only born in the wrong country. That there is absolutely no way of not being a hypocrite in this world, which is pretty fucking painful, when all you desire is truth, honesty and beauty.

A lot of my favorite artists have committed suicide. I don’t glamorize it but I do feel that tinge of jealously. Hey, you came, you saw, you conquered minds, then went out in a blaze of glory leaving an everlasting imprint. Obviously, I’m not a fan of accidental drug overdoses.  Addiction is a disease and there is plenty of life after it. But a gun-to-the-head suicide says I’m done and I’m going out on my own terms.

As an artist you spend your whole life weighing the good against the bad. If you are a really good writer you understand humanity so deeply, and the pain of writing it all down is balanced against how much you love the world to be able to share these deep truths. And then I think, at some point, the pain becomes too much. And that’s okay, too, because everyone’s lives are different. The people who make it to the finish line are worth celebrating because of how they triumphed over adversity, but the ones who didn’t quite make it, but tried so hard, are equally worthy of celebration. Until such a time where we all can live out our lives in peaceful and beautiful co-existence. May it be less demanding and more in tune with our fragile psyche and strong hearts.

In celebration of reaching almost 500 followers on WordPress, I wanted to open up the floor for a little informal Q & A.

When I started this blog 1,5 years ago I really had no idea what kind of blogger I wanted to be. I thought I wanted to be a lifestyle/personal blogger but over the past year I have learned how much I truly value my privacy and not having to put every little thing out there. Not to mention, my life is really not that interesting! I’ve even stopped maintaining a personal Facebook because I just don’t see the point anymore, although I’m more than happy to creep on others! It also seems to me that personal bloggers tend to buy a lot of stuff to constantly show off and that’s really not going to work for me since my blog is basically an anti-blind-consumerism forum.

So here we are, and I’m very happy to be right here. I’ve really been enjoying the WordPress community lately and discovering a lot of insightful and well written blogs. As fun and frivolous as Instagram is, the blogging sphere is where I feel most at home. Over the past year, I have moved away from the more personal posts to cover issues that trouble and inspire me. It’s been a wonderful outlet for me and I feel so blessed for having such intelligent and compassionate readers. 90% of the comments I receive end up making my day because I get to feel heard and understood by people all over the world. What a gift writing has been and continue to be for me.

But it’s perfectly natural to feel curious about the person behind the words so consider this your chance if you have wanted to ask me a question, or for me to clarify anything I have written in the past. Let’s get to know each other a little better!

The closest to a selfie I can do, wearing a light brown fringe clip-on. I’m debating going back to my natural hair color but after 6 years as a blonde, that is proving really, really hard. Who knew blonde was so addicting? Oh, everyone? Ok, then.

I’ve been feeling A LOT better lately, after I wrote my post about depression. I’m coming around to the idea that happiness is not a constant; it is a lesson that has to be learned over and over. It’s ok to slip every now and then. It doesn’t make you a failure – it makes you a person in touch with your emotions.

Where did honeythatsok come from? It is actually a line from The Strokes that I adapted as my online alias as early as 2005. But 10 years later, it is ever so fitting because I tend to be pretty easy-going with people. I’m always dealing with my own shit so I’m very accepting of people dealing with theirs. We’re all usually doing the best we can, and if someone has time to intentionally hurt you, they are usually not worthy of your time at all.

I’ve been really into photography lately. I think everyone in Hawaii turns into amateur photographers but I’ve spent more time editing pictures than I have been writing this month.

I’m also experimenting with prints, so if anyone is interested in purchasing one please contact me.

If you have any other questions you would like to ask me, feel free to do so in the comments. I will get back to you asap, either in the comments or in a brand new post.

Thank you all for being part of this journey with me. I hope you know how much it means to me!

I think Joshua Ellis just made my blog obsolete with this amazing, somber, absolutely human post. Please, please read it. I also think, whenever I get down in the future, I will just go back and read this and spare everyone my take on contemporary sadness. Not that everyone’s pain isn’t valid, it is just so… the same. Without further ado, go read: Everyone I know is brokenhearted.

I think my life would be a lot easier if I wasn’t obsessed with truth. Truth in all things. I badger the people I love about getting to the bottom of things – why did you do that, why do you think that, why, why, why.

Sometimes it feels inevitable that my life took this turn. A writer asks questions. A writer tries to make sense of human nature. And what bigger question is there than who runs the world – who creates reality?

In no way do I think I am unique in asking these questions. I think a lot of people do, and I think that’s why all these ‘truther’ movements are popping up. As marketing and image-obsession increasingly seep into all aspects of our lives, people are eventually bound to start craving truth, honesty and beauty, which all used to be found in art. But even art is an endless marketing campaign now. Maybe it always was, who knows.

So then the artist turns to reality – how can I shatter these walls around me? How can I make a space that is bigger and more free?

It doesn’t have to be an all consuming obsession. Push against the boundaries of reality too much and you are bound to go mad. But the unease is always there, creating an unsteady foundation. I don’t try to fix it. I accept sadness as a counterweight to happiness, because I have known them both. I accept that there are questions I will never have answered, some because they are cloaked in shadow, some because science hasn’t caught up with them yet. And some because I didn’t ask, and now too much time, space and distance have passed and the answers matter to none but me. An artist needs unanswered questions and unfinished moments.

I used to think I would live forever, like all teenagers do. I fantasized that I would be unearthly rich and that by the time I was old someone would have invented freezing technology that allowed you to time-travel through the future – un-freezed and thawed once every century so that I could take a look around at all the advances made – before going back to sleep. That way all the answers would be revealed to me and I wouldn’t have to miss out on a single truth.

The artist fancies herself special. It took a while, and a lot of growing, for me to realize all living things fancy themselves special. These days I revel in being ordinary. Fortunate in the lottery of birth, educated and encouraged to follow my curiosities, a lovely home, lovely family. I’m no more or less depressed than most people. There are a million things I could change about myself, and a million things I should feel more content with. Average. Ordinary. Do you know how special that is?

We need art to make sense of humanity. We need philosophy to guide morals, integrity and justice. These endeavors are not useless; quite the opposite. And when all else fails ask yourself the immortal question: why so serious? No one here gets out alive.

Re: The Point of No Return – Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here

I haven’t been writing much over the past year. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, it’s more that I don’t see the point. I’ve been struggling with depression on and off, and the worst part of depression is that everything seems rather pointless, in a vast existential kind of way. For me, at least, it’s a chicken and egg situation. What came first; intense knowledge of the impending doom of climate change triggering this mindset, or a built-in depression that leads me to seek out knowledge justifying my doom and gloom mood?

Most days I’m fine. I’m actually really good and I still have a hard time accepting just how blessed I have been in this life. Surrounded by love and support, countless trinkets and material items that make me very happy, lucky to have seen so much of the world at such a young age. Truly happy in my marriage. But still. What’s the freaking point of it all? My mother says it’s all this idleness. It would drive anyone crazy. She probably has a point. Plus no regular source of income leads to a certain stagnation, especially when one spent their 20’s flying off to exotic locations at the drop of a hat. So I finally got a job that I can feel good about, helping out good people with plenty of time to write on the clock. Again, I’m just too damn lucky for my own good. This is just background information. I don’t want anyone to actually feel bad for me because I don’t.

I’ve been thinking maybe I’ve just got too much education for my own good. I don’t think there has ever been a time when philosophy and thinkers have been especially encouraged but it feels extra hard today for some reason. Slogans like “in the age of information ignorance is a choice” sound very progressive and hard hitting but let’s get real. Ignorance is encouraged more than ever.

We are drowning in useless information. Opinions and emotions are encouraged over facts, which are considered boring. It’s all about your emotions. Or other people’s emotions, on reality TV. But real-real emotions, like depression and the inability to fit into today’s very narrow and rigid success paradigm, are highly discouraged. Because it might lead others to question their place in the system. I feel like I do this a lot when speaking to people, and I feel bad about it. So I laugh it off and apologize for being a “downer”. I’ve learned enough about depression to understand that it is a false reality, and not one worth spreading. If you have a solid grasp on your meaning of life, hang on to it with all you’ve got. Unless of course it harms anyone else. Don’t be a psychopath.

I spent some time questioning whether or not I am a psychopath or at least narcissistic. I’m pretty sure these things fall on a scale and if 10 is Ted Bundy and 1 is Mother Theresa I am maybe a four or five. I tend to be pretty self centered and I will bite your head off (metaphorically speaking) if I’m hungry or tired, but I also suffer from an overload of select empathy. Stories about animals suffering leave me in tears. I can’t really enter pet stores and shelters. I have two white little bunnies that I love like crazy. To me, one of the most amazing aspects of being alive is to have a little (or big) creature show you love and affection in return. We can’t really communicate and they have no inherent reason to trust me, but they do and we co-exist and show each other love.

I guess, to me, that is the core of being alive. If the universe is just one big experiment and all living things on this planet is a one-in-a-trillion coincidence among billions upon billions of empty stars and planets, then the reason we are here must be for the universe to experience itself through life, joy and love. This is a beautiful planet. Animals have beautiful, trusting souls. Individually, most people are beautiful, too. But collectively? We have near destroyed this planet. Maybe I was drawn to study sustainability to understand why. I have most of the facts now but I still don’t understand the way.

Fact: in the last 40 years 50% of all species have gone extinct. Fact: every second 5 babies are born but only 2 people die. Fact: since the 2008 financial crash 99% of all capital gain has gone to the 1%. In 2016 the 1% will own 51% of the planet’s wealth.  Fact: catastrophic climate change is now unavoidable. 150 years of industrialized civilization has essentially rendered the planet close to incapable of supporting life.

I think most people would like to think these things aren’t connected because once you realize that they are, it will change you. I will most likely not have children. I think in decades rather than lifetimes. I am so grateful for the wonderful three decades granted to me. I hope to have at least a couple of good ones more. I’m not naive enough to wish for decades of stable employment but I do wish to infuse my life with as much meaning as I possibly can and maybe make a small difference, maybe with my writing or maybe in a way that will surprise me. Because I am grateful I do not fear death, but I would like it to be on my own terms; not starving, fleeing violence. Over 50 million people (the world’s refugee population has increased 50% in the past 5 years) already find themselves in that circumstance right now. It will not get better. Our window to “fix” the world have closed and greed was the culprit.

Climate change. Such an innocent word. Unlike war there are not a handful of people responsible. In a way, we are all responsible, and then none of us are. I didn’t build the factories but I benefited from them. I didn’t kill wildlife but I couldn’t stop it either. I didn’t poison my beloved oceans but I live a lifestyle that require 100 000 ships to sail them at any given moment.

The sadness I feel in my heart stem mostly from the fact that it doesn’t have to be this way. This beautiful planet could provide for us, given the chance. We don’t have to destroy it to survive. What an insane time to be alive. It seems against all logic but maybe, in the big, big picture, things were meant to play out this way. Our amazing, crazy species came so far in such a short time. We created things that rivaled the beauty of the universe. We saw, learned and felt wonder. We allowed the universe to experience itself in a brand new way. And now the party is over. We are the last loitering guests. Only here to witness the demise of the lions, tigers and polar bears. In in some 20 million years the planet will re-balance itself and perhaps give life to new species. It’s more likely than not, given that it has already done that six times in the past 4 billion years. Maybe this, all of this creative genius combined with senseless destruction, had to happen for whatever will rise next to be born. And in that way, I get less sad. It’s almost comforting.

I’ll still keep fighting for a more sane world. I’ll love and take care of my little bunnies, my husband, my family and friends. I’ll try and help out where I can, write when I have time, travel some more when I have money. I’m still excited about all these things. I hope you are, too. I hope you are living a life that is meaningful to you, while remaining mindful to the world around you. That’s it. That’s all you have to do, really, that’s the only thing the universe requires of you. But you still don’t get to slack off, though. You still have to fight bullshit institutions and bullshit jobs, created only to keep a system that decayed long ago on life support. Try voting for candidates who want real change (not just saying it.) Start a new political party, or join one that is still not corrupted to the core. The unknown is scary, but the good news is, it really can’t get much worse at this point so let’s try something new. Let’s try politicians who put climate ahead of everything – even bribes and personal security. The media dictates what we care about. That’s a pretty important responsibility – make them fucking earn it. You have to help make advertisement-based corporate media obsolete simply by ignoring them, and by supporting journalists and writers with integrity. Most of them are freelance these days, or barely getting by. Cutting bullshit from your life will leave a void for a while, and that emptiness is going to be filled with sadness and questions, but don’t reject it. Just let it happen.

And what happens on the other side of all that? Maybe nothing. Maybe you only get to go quietly and/or screaming into that good night knowing that at least you tried. You may even earn yourself a smug ‘I told you so’ when shit really hits. But maybe, just maybe, we can also become the ‘change’ in climate change.

It’s amazing how many lives one is allowed to live if one only pays attention. When I have a depressive episode, which can last anywhere from weeks to over a year, it’s like my life has pressed pause. I remember very little and no new core memories are made. I cease to live and simply exist. As a writer that is pretty terrifying because my passion is about stringing together events and emotions to create something worthwhile. When my life frequency hums so low it is hard to remember what it’s like to vibrate in unison with the planet, the universe and all other life. At those time I am extra grateful for all the hard work of other writers who help me remember who I am, and that we are all so very much alike.

I was raised on, among other things, audiobooks. My aunt worked, and still works, at the local small town library and has a passion for books. For years throughout my formative years she would keep us in a steady supply of at least two audiobooks at the time. For something close to a decade I would fall asleep to voices and stories and I still have the hardest time falling asleep to only my own voice in my head. Eventually I grew up to be a sullen teenager and the audiobooks stopped for about a decade, but lately thanks to Audible and phone apps, they seem to have made something of a renaissance.

I just finished The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen and that’s what sparked this post. It’s a remarkable recording, mainly because it’s an older Matthiessen reading aloud the adventures of a younger Matthiessen to a group of his closest friends towards the end of his life. This book topped several best-of travel memoirs lists and it’s one of my favorite genres. It’s pure accident I happened to find the audio version before a print copy but I’m glad I did. The recording is a little hard to get into. He speaks slowly, he is an old man, after all. But he speaks with passion and compassion, and some of his insight is startlingly perfect, even to a younger woman.

Matthiessen, a writer, sets out on a journey to climb the Himalayas with his friend in the 1970s. He is in his 40s and has just lost his wife to cancer. He has young children. He has traveled extensively, but an inner search for peace brought him to undertake this difficult journey at this time while his companion hopes to catch a glimpse of the elusive snow leopard, only spotted a handful of times by westerners at the time. The book burns slowly. He takes notes every day, through September to November. Most of he notes are about the trek and the local Sherpas that are hired to help carry their bags. He also meditates on his life back home and the journey that brought him here. He has excellent insight into universal truths of humanity, be they male or female, westerners or easterners, religious or non-religious. When traveling in these parts of the world, you can’t help but be fascinated with Buddhism and the simple, unfathomable life the villagers lead. Maybe you have to have experienced it yourself as an outsider to really grasp how hard that emotion is to convey because the last thing you want to do is to belittle them, or make them seem strange and exotic. Matthiessen manages this difficult task brilliantly, and I think that’s why the book has had such lasting effect.

It is, perhaps, one of our greatest struggles as educated westerners, this constant search for peace and balance. I’ve struggled with it a lot lately, and as usual, the book I need appears before me at just the right time. When Matthiessen sees a crippled child, no older than four, drag herself by her elbows along a stony path high up in a small mountain village, his natural instinct is to get her help, somehow, someway. But when the child reaches him, she offer an incandescent smile in a grimy little face. And he moves on, which was his only option to begin with, because what does he know of this child’s life if she is able to greet a stranger in such a way.

Whatever peace he finds is fleeting, and he does not shy away from his less flattering actions and emotions, as well. Fleeting peace, fleeting insanity. It can all be found in the solitude of the mountain. I don’t want to give away whether they saw the snow leopard or not, because it’s the driving mystery of the story. Eventually he comes to terms with the fact that if he does not see the snow leopard, it’s because he is not ready for it. And he accepts that, like a westerner, he is “forever getting ready for life instead of living it each day.” Which is a sentence I have written myself, time and time again. Not sure if it is a western problem, or just a writer problem.

The book brought back vivid, vivid memories of my own travels, which have been on hold for the past five years while standing still in beautiful Hawaii. Eventually, everything becomes ordinary and I stopped seeing Hawaii with my traveler’s mind. I stopped seeing the rain forest on volcanic mountain peeks, covered in mist, looming in front of me, mysterious and ancient, as I step off the bus. I simply saw my commute, stressing across the street trying to beat the oppressive humidity. But today I saw them, overlapped with the tales of the Himalayas in my earbud, and even further in my mind’s eyes, all the places I have been so lucky to visit.

Some memory imprints are purposeful; you make a conscious snapshot that you can always return to and feel exactly as you felt then. Some of mine are watching the sunset and then the endless starry night over the rolling hills of Uganda. Visiting an empty monastery deep in a silent Mongolian valley. I felt so out of time, I honestly expected dinosaurs to come trampling down. The first shower after a four day train journey spanning the entire Russian tundra. Ordering my first meal in Beijing. Getting lost on the islands of southern Laos while trying to spot a rare dolphin that will soon be extinct. Holding a koala in Australia. London at night with a beautiful blonde, 2 AM after-parties with characters out of Alice in Wonderland. Spending my 22ed birthday alone in Beverly Hills, learning that location means nothing without the right company. Some imprints are accidental, ordinary occasions that become momentous, like meeting my would-be husband in a dive bar at 3 in the morning where neither of us wanted to be but still, somehow, were.

As a writer I flick back and fourth through those moments, recalling how I felt, now removed, still having sympathy for that girl. At 30, feeling old and spent, with no clear path to how to finance the rest of my life while holding on to some shred of sanity, I became someone else. I dedicated myself to learning the absolute truth about the kind of world we live in because knowledge is free, yet I’ve also learned, comes with a price. “God offers to every mind a choice between repose and truth. Take which you please – you can never have both”, said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Truth or repose, said Matthiessen, in my ear today, quoting Emerson. I want both, of course, but for now I’ll settle for becoming a traveler again.

Scientifically speaking, past, present and future are all the same. Who you are at the end of your life is who you had the potential to be all along. And in that sense, everything is alright, always.

Summer is slowly passing. In Hawaii the humidity is still like a blanket and we all beg for the Trade Winds to return. As a Norwegian my body is incapable of dealing with any sort of humidity and the last few months have been like an exercise in mind over matter. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

That’s pretty much the mantra for this year, isn’t it, and for any foreseeable future. I am so goddamn uncomfortable right now, in this climate, literally and figuratively.

Literally, the world is burning up. Each year and each month is hotter than the one before. Images of forest fires haunt me and I’ve been having nightmares, waking up with the smell of smoke in my nose. Politically, I’ve never been more discouraged with the direction the world is heading.

There was a parliamentary election in Norway this week and I mailed in my Green Party ballot, after hunting down the only consulate representative on the island. I still take voting very seriously, it feels like doing my part. But to no use. The rightwing (comparatively in Scandinavian terms) capitalist parties are still in power for another four years. The Green Party (a relatively new party in Norway) got 3%. The main issues were, as it is everywhere, taxes and immigrants. The center-capital-socialist parties ran on a platform that Norwegian society is becoming colder, another term for inequality, I suppose, and to reverse the trend. The voters disagreed. In Norway, like most educated countries, the concept of climate change is widely accepted and climate deniers like Trump are widely mocked. But if you make any political moves to actually enforce policies that address climate change, other than prestigious international agreements that make one look good, the vitriol is unlike anything I’ve seen in modern politics. Go to any Green Party Facebook page and marvel at the two completely different realities presented in the comments by ordinary people.

This anger towards environmentalists and, let’s face it, the true conservatives who promote preserving our natural resources at the cost of business and capital (unlike the pro-business conservatives in the US, Norway, and elsewhere) is exhausting to me.

Norway is the 7th largest oil industry in the world, yet we hardly use any of it ourselves. We use hydro (water) power which is very clean so we like to think of ourselves as an exceptionally environmentally friendly country to the point of hubris. We even think our oil industry is somehow “cleaner” than the rest of the world so of course Norway should not only continue but ramp up production. The oil industry is nationalized in Norway so all profits go into a communal ‘savings account’ that currently stand at around $800 billion. More than enough to transition Norway into a clean energy pioneer project, but not with the current government. Instead, the ones in power and their supporters argue that we should open up vulnerable areas in the northern parts (Lofoten) of the country to oil exploration and in the process damage (there is no ‘potentially damage’ when it comes to the oil industry, there are always leaks and environmental destruction.) These gorgeous and unique vistas that have been around for millions of years and are global heritage sites. But it could all be wrecked for another $60 billion in the bank. Norwegian greed knows no bound.

We are only 40 years into the neoliberal experiment and the concept of the individual having to sacrifice anything for the common good is rapidly becoming a four letter word to the majority of the employed, still hanging in there, dwindling middle class. Not even appealing to the future of their own children and grand children can sway them away from their right to luxury cars and tropical vacations. Instead we prefer to argue the science, the logic, the physics, the images in front of our eyes. We are literally going to be arguing ourselves into extinction.

This is a paradigm-shattering video so I’m not sure if I recommend it but Guy McPherson is a biologist who is looking at climate change from the standpoint of a biologist and what happens to a species when you add up everything that is threatening their habitat. The math is terrifying which is also why he spends the last half of this presentation talking about becoming comfortable with death. And why we won’t even begin to tackle climate change before we as a culture starts embracing the fact that we will die. Maybe soon.

“Enlightenment is not for the faint of heart. It’s the destruction of everything you thought to be true.”

And you know what, I’m okay with that now. I wish I wasn’t, but there it is. Neoliberalism has turned fighting climate change into personal responsibility, or worse, a personal contest. Unless you are a vegan who never purchase plastic nor travel outside your bike radius, you are a hypocrite and can shut up about climate science. But that’s absurd. Since when is our society that militant about anything? We even accept priests that sexually abuse children (look, they just don’t have access to women) before we tolerate an environmentalist who owns a car.

So I let all that toxin seep in. Slowly, but surely. I’ve followed the Trump palace intrigues minute to minute and all my brain can process at this point is that money and power can withstand any amount of corruption and untruth. In fact, 2017 saw the death of truth as Trump’s biggest triumph and lasting legacy (aside from naming Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobile, secretary of state – talk about on the nose!) will be the mainstreaming of ‘fake news’. People who can’t follow quality reporting minute to minute and people who didn’t get an education in critical thinking are sitting ducks for this latest capitalist invention – weaponing the news. It’s always been going on to some extent, but the rise of the billionaire class and the internet created a perfect storm of brainwashing tools, complete with social media; your very own, curated 24/7 news channel. I can’t really think of any intervention large enough to break a spell of this magnitude.

On my news channel the headlines are screaming; the wealthiest companies in the world are stashing $20 billion into offshore tax havens EACH MONTH. Permanently out of reach for the public. EACH MONTH. That’s enough to cover universal basic income AND healthcare for both US and Europe. We subsidize the oil industry $10 million A MINUTE! $5 trillion a year. In January 2017, the richest 8 men in the world had the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3,5 billion people. Less than 6 months later that number was only 5 men had the equivalently wealth. That’s how fast their fortunes grow. That’s how poor the rest of us are!

I find myself censoring myself a lot this year. Everything I say come out so negative. I don’t want to be a negative person. Maybe I’m depressed? When you’re depressed your mind plays tricks on you to back up all your negative thoughts. But I don’t feel depressed. In fact, in the quiet moments, I’m actually quite happy. I feel in control of my little insignificant future road for the first time in a long time. I feel, dare I say, optimistic about my projects I’m spending a significant chunk of my life pursuing. So, maybe not depressed. And all my negative thoughts are backed up by science so… I’m just uncomfortable being me right now.

I’ve always been a weird little introvert. A thinker, a writer. I’ve been depressed, I’ve been restless. But I’ve never not liked myself. That’s a different feeling than all of the above. Normally I would freak out. Oh my God, I feel this way now so I will feel this way forever. But I’m choosing to look at it differently this time. Being uncomfortable is where growth happens. So if not liking myself right now means that I will be a better person/artist in the future soon, I’ll take it.

As for the world… I can only control the little part of it which I occupy. I can create stories to impact the spaces around me beyond my touch. So that’s what I’m doing. I like that. I’m excited about that. And I hope to share them with you all soon.