I have noticed for quite a few years now that kids don´t wear colors anymore. They wear almost the same clothes I´m wearing (only smaller obviously…)(!). Passing some kids in the neighborhood the other day made me think of that again. They where about eight years old wearing only brown, black, white, grey, and it looked kind of sad in a way. The next bunch of four girls, who were a bit younger, maybe six years old, looked the same. Suddenly though to my relief, they started sliding along the sidewalk, giggling, it was more like rolling actually – they had shoes with small wheels under them!
Most people associate something with colors. For instance:
***Bright colors: playfulness, happiness, creativity
***Brown, black, grey: Neutral, structured, serious (stylish?)
I think it´s sad that kids look so serious nowadays. The clothes from my own childhood, as I remember them, were an explosion of all the colors in the rainbow. My favorites came from a store in Germany where my father lives, they had clothes from a brand called Oilily. Crazy floral patterns mixed with the brightest shades of pink, yellow, orange, red, turquoise, purple…! Since my childhood was during the 80´s, most of them were oversized and baggy as well, it was wonderful. Today, a lot of kids look like little miniature adults. Like their parents try to “create their children in their own image”. I guess this phenomena could be caused by a combination of parental influence and a major increase in the fashion awareness amongst kids. It must be extremely expensive being a parent these days, raising the next consumer generation in Norway.
Oilily print
Filed under: Thoughts & Reflections | Tags: Innovation, Thoughts & Reflections
I read about the government project “Kvinnovasjon” in the newspaper some weeks ago. The project is great, but the name of it does just not appeal to me. Kvinnovation is a combination of the Norwegian word “kvinne/kvinnelig” which means woman/female in English, and the word Innovation (obviously). Especially the heading of the article was bad: “Flere kvinner vil bli kvinnovatører” – More women want to be “kvinnovatører” (female entrepreneurs). To me it sounds a bit too much like arts and crafts, interiors and home made organic soap, made by country side women behind their red and white checkered curtains. Like something these women came up with at a workshop one really “koselig” (cozy) evening, while eating home made waffles with strawberry jam and drinking coffee. It just sounds old fashioned, and presents female entrepreneurs as something unusual and very different from male entrepreneurs. Female entrepreneurs are as tough, ambitious and hard working as their fellow male ones. The name of this project should have displayed that in my opinion.
The Norwegian government wants to achieve 40 % female entrepreneurs by 2013. In 2006 they started the project “Kvinnovasjon” which funds and supports new competence, mentor arrangements and networking for female entrepreneurs. This is mainly a project for women in the outer districts of Norway as a part of regional politics. The aim is to create diversity in the labor market outside central areas. As of 2009 central actors can apply for funds trough this project as well. It is organized through SIVA and financed by the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development (Kommunal- og regionaldepartementet).
Check out the impressive achievement by Gry Cecilie Sydhagen who established the company Metizoft in 2006, and was voted “Female Entrepreneur of the Year, 2009″: ” The jury states that Sydhagen operates in a very male-dominated and tradition bound business. Her dynamic personality and indomitable optimism mixed with a sound realism will take her far. She has ambition, determination, implementation capacity, she is solution-oriented and has an ability to think innovatively and creatively. The jury also highlights the company Metizoft AS, and its potential in its assessment of the candidate. The company is in a class by itself. This applies to both products, business development, goals and internationalization. The concept is in the forefront of innovation in a tradition bound industry, combining software and environmental needs and solves a complicated need of the customer.” From the Metizoft web page: “ Metizoft is today the worlds leading Consulting Company within Green Passport /Inventory of Hazardous materials (IHM) solutions delivered to ship yards, ship owners, ship equipment suppliers and ship recycling facilities.”
The Norwegian TV presenter Christine Koht, wrote about her inner voices in the magazine A-magasinet (inside Aftenposten on fridays) the other day. Not about demons talking to her in her head, but about the voice everyone has inside every day, constantly talking about something or other, and which never shuts up. So, she and her girlfriend decided to play a little game where they each ear dropped on their own inner monologues, to hear what it was talking about at the moment. Later they shared the results. She states for herself that the inner conversations she witnessed were not exactly “words from the well of wisdom”. There was a high tempered argument against a car driver which had long passed, a silent, but well articulated talk on drugs, a lot of witty comments and killing lines. She writes that the embarrassing character of the inner voice is that it is almost always annoyed, angry or overbearing, unstoppable and going in circles. Check with your own. If we think about the fact that we are 6 billion people on earth, there are at least 4 billion of us who are old enough to have this blabbermouth voice in our heads. That means that billions of blabbermouths are at every second rambling on; complaining, bragging, arguing and telling their boss, their neighbors their spouses and themselves what they “really think” . The only time we can escape the inner voice is when we are completely immersed in something outside ourselves. It also goes silent if we really listen hard for it. Mainly she thinks that the unconsious inner voice is wasting our energy and preoccupying the mind with long gone past or unknown future, everything else than now.
I think we all can relate to that inner voice she is talking about. Some people are more concious about it than others I guess. I often want to tell mine to shut (the f…) up, especially when it is going around in circles,which it tends to. I read somewhere that if you are repeatedly having conversations with somebody, without that someone being present, you should tell that person what is on your mind. There was said at a Silva-method seminar I attended, that according to research, generally about 80% of the thoughts you had to day, are the same the same thoughts you had yesterday, last week, last month and the last year (!). In some cases though that circling voice can help us to achieve our goals, keeping us focused. Since muting the voice only can be achieved by total immersion into an outside subject (or meditation), maybe it is possible to learn how to pay less attention to the destructive circling, and more to the constructive circling? I will give it a go next time when the blabbermouth inside my head gets going on the porsche idiot in traffic, the stuff I should have said, the witty comment that would have been perfect, the harsh words that would have been deserved, the things I didn´t do, and those I did… How about every time you feel the destructive circling accelerate, you sing your favorite song? In stead of 4 billion people walking around with a frown on their forehead, we would have 4 billion people walking around singing!
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”
Buddha
Filed under: Encounters | Tags: Encounters, Life, People, Thoughts & Reflections
Sitting on a bench at the National Theatre, with an unexpected hour of “freedom” before meeting a friend for dinner. Oh bliss! An hour that I hadn´t planned for anything. I sit and just watch the people walk by, listen to the accordion of a street musician in the background. I pull out my notebook to write or draw. After I´ve been sitting there writing for some time, a guy approaches me with a question. “Hi, could I ask you to recommend a restaurant near by?” I have to think about it for a minute, and then I suggest the chinese restaurant “Dinner”, which is right behind the Theatre. It all still seems quite normal, but then he continues asking me all sorts of questions about the menu, what dish I´ve tried there, if they have sushi, if I could recommend a special dish, what the address is, how long it would take to walk, how long it´s been since I´ve been there and it just went on and on. As it started to get a bit awkward, he finally ended the conversation by thanking me politely for the tip. He walked off, but then turned around and added: “Nice smile by the way!” Surprized and smiling I replied ” ehm…thanks!”. It was such a nice innocent compliment. A few seconds later I noticed that a second guy had been standing close by, observing the conversation. As the guy who approached me walked off, he followed, and they walked on in quite a different direction than towards the restaurant I had recommended. I was confused.
Suddenly, I remembered two similar experiences I had about eight years ago. I was working in a store in the evenings while I was studying. One evening a guy walked up to the counter, and asked me if he could introduce himself. It was a bit awkward. I was thinking either you introduce yourself or you don´t, people rarely ask for permission in advance. Anyway, I listened to his very slow introduction, which seemed to recuire a lot of concentration and effort. He was breathing quite intensely through the whole thing, which made the introduction even more strange. After he finished I returned the favor, though in a speeded version. He thanked me and walked off, leaving me a bit puzzled. This guy also had a companion following him seconds after he left the store. They seemed to be discussing the “performance”. “Weird” I thought, and forgot about it, until a few weeks later: A guy walkes up to the counter again, “Hi I´m from the Association of Stutterers and would like to introduce myself to you, this is my supporter (the guy standing in the back)”.
They were out practicing approaching strangers to overcome fear. Striking up a conversation with a girl they don´t know is understandably a tough challenge. I read somewhere that there are actually three times as many men who suffer from stuttering than women. There is no certainty about what causes the condition, but most probably it has to do with psychological matters or is inherited.
I have been told a number of times that I can look quite unapproachable, which is not a concious choice, but an involuntary signal I guess. Therefor I salute the bravery of the guys approaching this unapproachable face!
So if you get approached like this, don´t get alarmed, and be nice! It could be some guy fighting the very limiting problem of stuttering!
I think this encounter should be a reminder of the fact that facing your fears, very often is the only way to achieve your goals and your dreams.
Filed under: Thoughts & Reflections | Tags: Bubbles, Life, Thoughts & Reflections
People often say, ” I tried to step out of my bubble, to see…”. By that, I think they mean that they tried to see things in a different perspective. “Think outside the box”, oh, don´t you hate those expressions. I have a friend who used to say ” Step out of my bubble!”, when people got to close physically, which is a whole different situation though, but illustrates how the bubble can be present in the physical world as well. People try to step out of their bubble to see things more clearly i think, because they are aware of their ignorance.
- Can we really ever step out of our bubble?
I think we can put a lot of stuff into the bubble, and take some out of it, but I am quite uncertain about if we can ever step out of it. The bubble in this chain of thoughts is our life, our history, everything that has happened to us, every influence in our lives, everything we are putting our minds to. We have that basic content, that is mainly based on our history. Who we are is a result of our past experiences, our beliefs and surroundings. Of course we are evolving constantly, and we are changing the way we think and act over time, but I think that it is not a result of having been ouside our bubble, but a result of putting new stuff into it.
When we experience something new and very different from our usual existence, like going to a country far away, where people are living in a “different world”, we can get the feeling that we are stepping out, because there is no past reference. We can get an urge to do something we never thought we´d do, it can change our view on the world, on our selves. We get inspired and flood our bubble with new stuff, and think that we have squeezed out the old rubbish that was there. 
I think what ever you experience, unfortunately it will always be from within your bubble, and not standing next to it or leaving it at home. There is no escape. Everything inside your bubble will be a filter that marks the new experience, and makes it unique. No one will have exactly the same experience, but the people with bubbles filled in a similar way, will have one quite close to it. We recognize our fellow bubbles in a matter of minutes. They make us feel safe, they are our tribe.
Conclusion: There is no such thing as stepping out of the bubble, only adding stuff to it or throwing stuff out of it. Actually, even if you throw something out, it does not mean that it is completely gone. The shadows of discarded stuff linger forever in the bubble. Sometimes when they block the sun a little, you get reminded of their past presence. Imagine if we were able to “break in” to someones bubble, someone not in our tribe, and experience the world perceived through a different filter than our own. I think it would be as mind blowing as going to outer space.
