Tuesday 23 January 2018

How I've changed in my foundation, over the last two years

"May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't, we might as well lay down and die"...
-ABBA

I think maybe I did that... Maybe I died.

Until I was 25, I lived like people expected me to live, more or less. Of course I was always unusual, no way to escape that, but in the large picture, I followed people's expectations.

Then at the age of 26, when I was in university, on my way to becoming an engineer, have a good job, get an intelligent husband and have a house, a car and 2 intelligent children, I suddenly fell out of the bubble and my world came tumbling down... I realized that this rich world that I'd been living in (Sweden) was an exception, both in the world right now and in time, and that it was possible only because it was living on the expense of others, both of the poor world today and of the whole world in future. And it hit me that I was not ok with this!! Not at all!...

I cried. I suffered immensely just going into a supermarket, and realizing how much exploitation of nature and poor people there was behind almost everything that was sold there, to us rich people. The evil behind it all was crushing me.

I thought I would die, but then I found my salvation in escaping the bubble, and in putting all of myself - all my powers, all my talents, all my time - into fighting for good, fighting the evil. At 27, I went to Africa, and I started working with a biogas project. It was meant to empower the poor and save nature, all at once. It's how I survived, but not only that: I felt more alive than I ever had before! Finally doing things that nobody had ever recommended or expected of me, I felt alive for the first time...

That's 12 years ago now. In that time, I've had two children in Sweden, with my Kenyan husband, and I felt I had to take a little break from saving the world outside, so that I could save my own family... The husband had so many problems, and bringing up children takes a lot of one's time and attention.

But then something else happened. The Green Party, which I had been a member of for 18 years, got into government and started doing everything wrong. Taking massive steps in the wrong direction, and calling it small steps in the right direction... It shocked me! And in the aftermath of that shock, I realized, among other things, that for 20 years, I had been paying extra for organic food, because the other food was destroying the planet and to me it was obvious that if it destroys our planet, we stop it... but it had come to nothing, because the others never followed! I was ok with being the first, I was ok with pulling a bit extra, but after TWENTY YEARS, organic food was still less that 10%... The others were still enjoying the money they saved by buying food on nature's expense, on other people's expense.

And my country closed its borders to refugees in the biggest refugee movement this world has ever seen... With the Green Party voting for it! Not even those 7% were with me!!...

Somehow, I think I died. I stopped breathing for a while. I felt that I had misunderstood everything... I had been trying to save the world, because I thought it was important to reduce suffering... but the world never wanted to be saved! It was fine, the way it was! I was the only one who minded, and that was my problem!... Even those refugees, they never cared for anybody else! They wanted us to save them, yeah, but had they grown up safe, they would have also closed the borders! Even those poor people, had they grown up rich, and I poor, the crushing majority of them wouldn't have cared for me!... So why should I cry my heart out for them?...


Nature is nature. It's cruel, and it's beautiful. Death is ever present. The majority of all living creatures on Earth die very young. Only some very few of them reach the age where it's even possible for them to have offspring. In Sweden, this is no longer true for humans... Most of them now live to old age, but that's an exception. One way or another, that will change again, back to the natural way.

Humans were never made for a life without suffering. Without grief. Without death ever present. I don't think it's good for us!...

12 years ago, I came to Africa for the first time, and I discovered something that we in Sweden must have lost. I discovered a joy, an appreciation of life, that Sweden didn't have. It surprised me, and it puzzled me... Eventually, I started asking myself if it was the proximity to death and suffering that was the cause...?

And now I've reached the conclusion that yes, to a large extent, it is. I now live in Kenya since August 2017, and I still feel so much more alive, so much happier, so much better than I ever did in Sweden. I sell biogas digesters. Thus I'm still empowering the poor and saving trees, but only because it gives me satisfaction, and because that's where I now have my expertise. I always felt enjoyment in clever ideas and beautiful solutions, and biogas has all that. But I'll never again care like I did before. I'll no longer try to rid the world of death or suffering. What for? That wouldn't be an enjoyable world anyway! We were made for hardships, and we need some of that to be able to enjoy life. And pretty soon we all die anyway, and then none of it matters anymore. No matter how sweet or terrible our only life was, it will all have come to nothing.

Enjoy it while you can, if you can! And if you are among those who can, congratulations!



My previous life is over. I died... This is afterlife.


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