kulttuurintutkimus ja -keräyskeskus/ centre for cultural studies and collecting.
There is a dude and then there is a thin tablet in a picture with grayish background smiling. What do I make of this? Do I want this thing desperately?
Soldiers, fighters, people of battle, of daily combat – who is the victim here if not the one who fights constantly? How do we victimize ourselves and do we since it is a cultural norm not to place oneself on stage and show one’s hurt. It is to be hidden and to be burden of yours only. To victimize ourselves we put us in the position of needing help. Maybe we are victimized cattle at war of existence of hiding, burn marked, owned by our pain. We are supposed to be victims, knowingly, but not showing. Sacrificed and slaughtered at the altar of war daily, the daily battle of existence in pictures and anywhere. We must in order to feel empathy towards anyone first allow ourselves be empathetic to ourselves. It requires a victim to be found to feel empathy. Allow ourselves to be vulnerable and weak. It does not mean a constant self-search going in circles, ending wounded and nowhere, nor weeping about misfortunes of life, because misfortunes are there and that is it. What else would it mean? No one avoids those pitiful moments of self-loath, -hate and feeling sorry for yourself. To be merciful towards yourself would be the key of finding that happiness everyone longs for.