Wearing my garbage, 2016

2001: Age of innocence

This is war. Essay.

THE TRIGGER WIRE FOR THE BOMB THAT HAD EXPLODED EARLIER IN THE DAY IN A PLACE LIKE N

series of drones on watercolour, Observation point, 2016-17

5.1 Emotional mapping and finding the ways of existing: war against nature and what is human nature. An effort trying to understand human nature in relationship to nature and growing from the natural.
5.2 Who is saving what? What is there left to be saved? What is worth saving? The constant worry of survival and for the future.
5.3 Mass destruction: warring and whoring. What is it all about?
5.4 Face of war

 

5.1 Emotional mapping and finding ways of existing: what is human nature? An effort trying to understand humans in relationship to others, us and nature and growing from the natural, evolving and superficial.

THE KILLER ELITE and Many of the men who disappeared, fingerprints of the men. They never saw them again. It was as if the men had vanished.

Bullet riddled body, his family searched for
his body to no avail
demolished the orchard’s walls with explosives; the trigger wire for the bomb that had exploded earlier in the day in a place like Nerkh, the shooting of a child is unremarkable for everyone but the family.

he would recite verses from the Quran and think of his children.
the Americans had arrested him, they sent a delegation of elders to the police chief venomously anti-American

poem after article https://www.rollingstone.com/interactive/feature-a-team-killings-afghanistan-special-forces/  by Matthieu Aikins November 6th 2013 in detail story what has been going on in Afghanistan after US attack and war 2001.

(Of course, they knew what was happening in repeat.) [10.]

Why does it, what we do, what happens in the world by us, depend on how we see ourselves? It is how we see ourselves is what we are? Our perception is vital for us, we are trapped by visuals. We are the centres, shells, attention seekers and we have a need to be seen and recognised. We must see with our own eyes to witness and believe (does seeing mean understanding? We understand individually from our own perspectives, how correct any perspective is and how blurry and mixed with assumptions and bias.). I ask knowing our perception and comprehension are distorted and guided, also how we see ourselves is and what we demand for and of ourselves. Our perception of the world is made through our senses and understanding of what our senses and experiences tell us, also by what we are being told. Many look but do not see; we do not have the time, we are not interested, we search for something special without finding it etc. How perception of ourselves is made in the end is a lot of factors, as is what we should be. We like looking at ourselves, but do we see the person how layered we are, we want to be and others to see, want to see in us value, what we are is what we should be or not at all usually. What do we understand and don’t is a matter of understanding that we are flawed and our perception is filtered, as this concerns everything we do and how we evolve as persons and build up, it is important to acknowledge weaknesses in our vision, perception, understanding, knowing, learning.

Being easily guided or being a person of your own have a lot to do with what do we dare to think, say and do. How we see and observe ourselves and others is curious in terms of understanding and learning, thinking we know what is possible to make happen and what happens in the world by us and others, what happens in relation to the learned, known, new and old. We act and behave the way we understand we can, should and/or must, ourselves being what is true to us. Of course this can be falsely said as many are not true to themselves, do not know themselves, which as weird as it sounds happens to larger extent than we like to admit. We are a mass and very preferably stay in the safety of that crowd. The world is therefore now our image and object, a lie or plain factual reality, the truth. Our psyches, fears, emotions and expectations reflected and put in practice, understanding being our quest as individuals, a community in a place trembling. Bodies and desires lay out in the open to those who can read such signs, in display for us to do something about and use, abuse, construct anew, go after, if we wish (what do we wish other than safety?), but being incapable and somehow lost at the same time. This incapability is what strikes out as important, what is it we cannot do and learn?

Dystopia for the future is waiting to happen since we are abusing and destroying the earth, ourselves and other beings over and over again until nothing else is left but dirt and wrecks of people trying to survive. Image is cinematic and somehow constantly present (not so far-in-the-future science-fiction?). Tortured minds, sand, machinery and mutilated bodies, death and drought but innovations of men, a constant state of battle and survival in brutally new circumstances (I don’t think it is the good-looking people in LA who will survive or is it so they have all the money?) Although we are aware of doing differently now might have a beneficial impact, many choose not to. It is our decision and path to not profit all; throw-away culture is a party. It is always the next thing that is interesting, still be safe and feel good, know yourself. Risking these might make you lose. So we will perish by our own doing at large-scale and cleaning up is not something many consider a good job. It is again something out of sight. It is conscious decision-making and choosing, knowing our destiny which is our destruction, to be destroyed en-masse which can happen because of war, poor economic choices, illnesses, running out of food and clean drinking water: safety will be gone or very pricey. To profit from this is what evil men do, right? Expensive medical costs, privatisation of water supplies and housing, polluting natural resources etc. Happens all the time. To think further is to see what is there for us, for us is what always is there to be considered primarily. We act upon what is our interest. Who is this us? We become from having, we need a lot and we like to form groups in terms of wealth and benefits. It is our worth how much we have and we are measured by this trait. Who are successful and greedy for it are seen as winners. We make from what we have got and also from what we do not have. Such division does not end at ground school, but do we have different dreams? Of course. To be able to profit the most is a skill seen valuable and clever. To live is to win, know what is there to win and feel powerful about, who can be powerful and how power functions, power being practiced by becoming the what we value the most, how we structure societies is about power, markets and whom they serve. It can be said it is our nature to be violent, selfish and via that be powerful. When looking at the evidence, the history of man, capabilities of fists, schemes and innovations, taking over by force is what we do well, invading. Evidence is there, we know what comes of being violent, but how does it influence decision-making today? Wise on the most part, strict, calculating, manipulating, knowing of the results when making decisions and options which multiply as we make complexity although we love simplicity and easiness obviously? Thinking for yourself is a drag and takes a muscle.

Using the known the somehow understood power position is to share power, but how sharing happens and what does it contribute to: how do we want to benefit from sharing or not sharing power and how monitor the power usage and its effects? One can radiate power (one can be a sunny smiling dictator), it is curious how a person takes up one’s personal power, understands it and uses it, how it happens the power of one. To absorb power, used and learned, feel the power that there is around, make it, maintain and keep it. Power is violence and it is care. To think it as energy that needs to be controlled, preserved and which is a necessity. How to share power to preserve and multiply its potential?

To be violent, disciplined and orthodox is to know how, what can and must be demanded in order to show wanted results for organising society to work long in to the future. It is a very direct and straightforward close-up needed in order to be militant, precise and the whole society to function as an army, morally weight choice to erase originality and creativity can make a mass a power house. To bring light to the darkest corners is to appreciate power as an equalizer. Those who object can be put to danger or opposition can bring the wanted push for progress spreading empowerment across the society in the name of freedom of speech. So, why does brutality repeat although we know the wrong and the right, I assume we do. It is a decision of whether the one person is granted his or her right to choose a life, life which originates from individuality or do all people serve the nation and live for the nation. Because we are liking the violent nature of ours and the results of this part we see in the world or is it the wrong kind of people who seek power and the power they use is the most effective kind, we tend to live for the system because it is an easy choice? Human nature and mind is glorious, godly, innovative, dark and violent, to suppress this makes us more human?

Human mind is many things, uncontrollable, when people feel free to choose and use their power, for many dangers lie just there, the power is what people individually choose. We enjoy it so much, the results of shared power, that there are decisions made for us for our protection, that we like too much of this comfort. God’s part in using violence sounds ancient in this world, God which we should fear is far away. Watching dying and death feels bad, we feel guilty of not doing enough to stop the killing in the world, powerless in front of death, suffering of others and being afraid of it, of ourselves for not doing anything about it. It is a luxury to be able to do and think freely, it is divine. To see the world in need of saving and of course it is in need, we are being ourselves, in need, and we create by living freely the need for nature and human nature to be healed: we end up going in circles very much all the time. It is a pattern of going under and rising up emotionally. Be left alone and uncivilised, marginalised, is to be saved and destroyed at the same time. It may be the inevitable outcome, strangest progress in radicalization, turning process of balance to imbalance, there is that we possibly become more aware of the consequences of our actions, or we should be and we learn when we must. Knowing makes destruction more effective, but also possible reconstruction. Maybe we are understanding progress wrong at the moment and the future is more and more in the dark which causes fears.

Question is what do we see worth saving, worth our effort, how do we define the valuable, worth knowing and learning about, worth leaving untouched and unspoiled as we calculate what is worthless we like leaving behind, defining what is garbage, what is worth our attention and learning about. We must be having things that are of value and that is our worth, to know and have, this is what I have understood. How long can we abstain from loving the feeling of owning and what is the worthless we discard? Why there is desire to use all there is to use and rush to another place and do the same? Everything and all what one can grab is part of human nature or is it the nature in us for us to find balance via hierarchy, spreading like cancer to the extent of intolerable and unjust and collapsing? Is it a basic need, greed of man, fulfilling what we are and lacking instantly, fulfilling instantly giving pleasure, a rush of being able to have and be somebody, taking all the chances and space there possibly is? Who stand accused of and in line, because we like to practice violence towards every living thing and call it justified because we can? Traditions and needs of becoming a success story show on images online: posing in front of killed wildlife like a noble man, posing like a true beauty lies in a hunt and being able to shoot, manifesting happiness and luck, wealth, adventurous character and mind. That lifestyle is for the rich. The poor kill to survive. To bring honor is to become rich in experiences and be admired as such keep us as species thriving on one way lane, as posers. The world is here to be saved, owned, had and ruined by us for us and there is heroism there. State of the world is the state of ours, to save ourselves from ourselves may be impossible. To save or ruin and a possession of ours to use as we wish, life, to have a life and live it. We doing what we wish with it when all we want is freedom, livelihood and opportunities. Idea of a free man is to be a conqueror, an emperor. Native tribes originally thought/think the earth does not belong to humans, but we grow from it as parts of nature as natural and profoundly insignificant, which to the first world humans can be and is an intolerable thought. As natural as we can be and is what we should understand what it means in everyday life, we defy this, but desire the natural as strength and vitality which we have lost and found again and again. What is taken from the earth must be returned, but is not. We may lose sight of what we take as it is ours in our minds, we do not know nature anymore and what can be returned is not natural anymore but toxic, inorganic and harmful and this progress is difficult to change, still we talk about and demand change. It happens all the time. It happens when forced for the good, when faced the destruction. Earth has balance of its own which we

183

should follow and respect, that is the wisdom. Is protecting the environment and human rights hindering our freedom to explore, profit and innovate? Yes, regulations and laws are supposed to bring obstacles that bring corporations to think how ethical business can be profitable, how sustainable products sell. Who has time to be wise these days, who is the guru of the today’s world? Wisdom is slow, progress/change/evolution today in part is fast and also partial. Business world has taken up position of the gurus, wisdom in life and the quotes, narratives, success stories, miracles. Surely wisdom and the market are not opposite to each other, we seek wisdom via products, we find salvation through this religion we have found. What we can understand as valuable progress must be visible for the consumers to understand it as progress and get excited about it to buy it. What happens to progress of man-made structures that keep societies moving, growing and living, what is that progress all about that is quite short-sighted?

Nature takes care of us, we should take care of it, the nature, the ultimate power, is the wisdom we constantly leave behind, forget and ignore. There is beautiful complexity in the organic world. Nature and tragedy of abuse is we cannot repeat complexity of nature, of ours and do not understand complexity to appreciate the infinity of nature, layered human mind. Truth in traditions of aboriginals and natives remind us, we are small parts of the whole, dangerous, but nature is more dangerous when we don’t know it. To learn to trust, respect and read nature, live with it and learn from it, is something we begin to forget since we do not hunt our food and do not spend most of our days looking for something to eat and place stay at. Just because we don’t live in nature, from it directly and we do not have the time, but yet we are dependent on it. Why has western civilization come to think easiness is the best thing and travelling to Mars is a brilliant idea? Again looking somewhere else, the further the better. To think everything is for sale, a trip is something to have, to have it all where we should aim at and see running forward full speed admirable? By inventing money-making tactics, mathematics and trade, methods of conquering and creating of the unstoppable machine which is us, civilizations have become booming and crashing; we go up fast and come down as fast, or faster, the easier exploitation and lying is the more difficult changing the whole society for better is. We wish to expand and grow, search for opportunities, which is good, that makes us opportunists. It is somehow a naturalist way of living, kill or be killed, win or lose, taking risks keeps us alive mentally and physically. So in a way we are practicing our nature. If you do not move ahead and win in this game, someone else will. Today what does it means to act out (as we are performers) in civilized manner in civilized world, in a world of excessive need to produce new, cultivate the culture of easiness and seemingly high performance: exploit, mal use, discard to get a new one, because we can and are unable to repair, unable to make another one for ourselves, can make our world malfunctioning at one point. Something about the easiness and effortlessness we like and complexity we do not control is where we stumble. To observe the day now, nature is outside of us as hostile and dirty. We like naturalness as a copy, to wear and something made for us, shaped for us, but we are disgusted and fearsome when nature comes too close in form of insects, menstruation, nipples and weather. As we ’evolve’, nature becomes unfamiliar to us, it attacks us with force. Is nature at war with us since we have been warring against nature all along as it seems or is it just a natural state of being, a cycle where destruction is inevitable to renewing?

We need to stay healthy, living in clean environment is a right and nature is in this sense a friend of ours as it is the healer, calming our minds, busy bodies and repairing itself after us (just like in Chernobyl). In nature and with help of nature we can find ourselves and become whole again is the mantra. Nature is the sellable product we must find, from where we find the cure, which we come close to like a product to smell and apply on skin. We are scared of the beast, the amount of abuse is we see it our right  to harness the dragon, don’t see it as abuse and we fail to understand how far we can go and what is this trip about. We miss what it is to go far as we call life a journey, spiritual travelling, a trophy of having a life in luxury, a deed of travelling to clear ocean. Oneself can be too far from oneself, it scares to be close.

It is a very emotional issue to think about nature since it brings us joy, memories, emotions, pleasure, honor, food, spirituality, experiences and winnings: our winnings are all from nature. We want it badly as a possession, it brings us pride, is our extension. We don’t want it to be what it really is and be close to us naturally on skin because we may not know what it does. It is beauty, incredible work of creation and the opposite of control and strict purity we like. Nature is surprising to the extent it is too much of excitement. What we want to see in nature is what it represents to us and gives us, cuteness and waterfalls, what we constantly find in nature is a mystery and awe. Awe I feel while watching the ’uncivilized’ nature, full-blown without human set limits, the uncontrolled infinite one making itself over and over again with and without people. As much as we know of our planet, it is divine and a mystery, sacred and unknown. To be lost there and here is the horror image, disaster movie in a dark wet forest.

Despair, the negative, leading to finding paths, solutions. Emotions to be avoided like being lost and being totally alone, something felt strongly of wanting, a hand is not reaching far enough. Like admitting failure is to be desperate, of not being good enough, not fulfilling expectations. We are controlled by feelings more than is good for us, we have emotional necessities and constraints. We are in our believed wit and reason firstly emotional and chemical beings, which is reason enough to know and believe nature’s work in us. Instincts, intuition, sensing and feeling, chemistry of our hormones make us what we are, part of nature. What makes us humans is this complexity which we like to simplify as it is too much to take and tolerate. A blocking dead-end feeling of no other choice but to accept our ’animal’, the nature within our human frame. To deal with it, the ways are and have been many, matters of life and death, who is human enough. There are constant surprises and they are the normal or should be. The tragedy of norms is we must fit into them. We make and invent

183

solutions and means somewhat hopeful but narrow, because we must (that is the human nature restrained into proper), when there is no other choice than do what one feels, practice civil disobedience, trust the power of one’s own, the power within, the better judgment of one’s own and knowledge of one’s own possibilities and options there are for anyone to go against.

5.2 Who is saving what? What is there left to be saved? What is worth saving? The constant worry of survival and for the future.

Despair, the extremely negative emotion, unbearable hopelessness, emerges when a nation starts a war. When attacked and when going after against another nation, defending something or for whatever reasons, conquering a piece of land, having the right to revenge there, defend what one has. Moving ahead as world police saying God is on our side and approving of war for this reason and we are mighty because of God’s approval, empowered by the divine. Desperate sounding as there is little left to hope for those under attack or for those who hesitate to the part of God in warring. An attack against is the only option to preserve national pride at cost of lives and mayhem. We must do something risking everything we have for our future and for what we believe in, that is what we are and stand for as People. Despair of people who seek for the better life, who are not satisfied for what they have got, where they are to or what they have become may be a war-like situation, such as in many countries ravaged by gangs and drug lords. Despair of people who seek for empowerment, safety and success no matter what. Despair of those who try to put the world on a right track to save it and us. Despair of the selfish, and despair of the selfless under circumstances and coincidences and as a basic feeling motivating us, contradicting. To save the world for a flourishing paradise, for it to remain a paradise, which it still is without fear of death and misery which could be a lot for many. Despair being the leading emotion mixed with anger, hate, envy, greed and rage in doing, at the moment, at least when one follows the news, emotions are at display and used to describe situations of people, justifying actions for the viewer to feel for those who suffer and we pay attention to feelings of others, what they make us feel. Are their feelings justified or their actions? Sounding so cynical, but what else can we do?

I’m not sure if people recognize their emotions, why wouldn’t they is the first thought. How much hate dictates people, disgust is used as a shield and a divider. How people have the inside to feel, give and contemplate why they feel they do, how irrational it is; what is this feeling for and what to do with it. It is an absurd thought why wouldn’t we know what we feel, but often true. But it is one cornerstone of psychotherapy to learn to articulate and address especially to oneself how one feels, why and what do feelings mean, what triggered the feelings and thoughts and what these do to oneself, feelings arising because of what happens, how one has felt because of how someone spoke, why one feels the way one did when someone ignored one and how one feels about people and oneself now about what has happened, what one has experienced in life by people, by oneself and how does one perceive one’s part, a victim or a violator, a bystander, an average consumer, a rightful citizen, an underdog. How could one know someone else if one does not know oneself? That is many times why despair and fear take place when we do not know what is going to happen to us, everything is lost in a moment and why bad things happen to good people. Knowing too much can be a desperate and agonising place as is not knowing, knowing emotions and how they rule us is useful in terms of living healthy balanced lives and what we pass of ourselves forward. What there is to know, what is good to know and how to place these pieces rationally in everyday life is wisdom.

Fright won’t do when one needs to get something done properly, move ahead and in a new way. One can either succeed beautifully or lose miserably, but you tried, promised by Satan lurking. Risks we take and have taken have shaped our world. Try again. We are active by nature which we tend to forget. Our moods depend on activating the body. We are doers, makers, achievers, masterminds and ancestors of those who have taken steps, moved around and taken leaps looking ahead not knowing what might happen. Without something we see worthwhile doing and have a burning interest, without desire to evolve, without curiosity, our investigating nature, we would not be where we are now. To learn to use curiosity for our benefit not just to find out but become. Saving dignity, preserving a legacy, achieving those is to be heroic, staying put is for those who are satisfied with what they have got. Something indestructible and sacred like a blessing is still within the explorer and conqueror. It is to say I want to do good, be good in the eyes of others as well as in mine and doing good makes me feel good about myself. I want my life to be part of doing good for humanity. Find norms of doing good is probably the common path to choose from. Good is a

185

human thing to do most might say. What is bad then? Is it animal behaviour as we like to think? Animal instincts make us do cruel things? How does punishment fall upon us, fear of being punished and abandoned for immorality? To keep us in place is to wage fear and shame. It is easy to find and know what the good things are, worth preserving and use of propaganda is to create division and illusions of good and bad. Still those good things aren’t self-­evidently saved and prized. Rescuing is a well-meaning term and act of a kind heart as is to save a life a heroic deed. With heroism we can go on thinking wholehearted patriotism of the good people, who have chosen to do good and be good, call themselves good because they stand on the good side. They have it and easily continue warring against bad people, against something truly evil. Is it a very Christian thing to do? Pride or hurt happens to patriots and religious people so easily, defence and attack are there as tools, opposites fighting to win who is the most. Opposites disliking each other as they are in each other’s eyes the evil-doers and spreading ill. Do we ultimately save bodies when we save lives or do we save souls and persons, to whom these tasks of saving fall on in the end? Do we save and preserve because it is a good thing, socially acknowledged, because we are bound to take care of each other or because role of a savior brings glory or all of those things? Am I again being cynical here or are social media and double standards having the best of me? What does human life consist of is a complex web of sides of having life and living. Preserving life, the organic, bloody and then facing death evidently. To be given life, be thankful for it and which no one should take away or end. We act for the good of all by saving someone from suffering. To do good may help that other to continue do good.

Emotional in the news by the news made dramatic watched by, responded only when disaster hits close. The viewers to either respond or ignore, have rapports as background noise: they are all the same. We are spectators and documentators of what happens, of disasters we cannot do anything about, but feel guilty about, we must know of them and think how fragile life is, how horrible things people can do. What a viewer feels while watching the news, what is the stand of a spectator or a documenting bystander? How important it is to know how feelings dictate us, witnessing the massive hit against a mass of people, how are we manipulated by the media and what are respectable feelings before the commercial break. Why does it look like it is very often irrationality and cynicism manifesting itself, presenting itself perfectly as the rational? How something very rational as Western modern straight monoculture can turn into being irrational and disastrous, or has it been like that all along all the time. Something we have been afraid to acknowledge and see, the lunacy of ours in disguise. Modern mixed with Christianity tightly like the Middle Ages mixed with superstition and living along with cyber space technology makes progress look shallow. Denying our mental illness-like faith in God’s word, which illness is something out from demons that normal good people do like to worship? Mental illness is something to be hidden as dangerous, normally, something to be hushed and killed away, saying that we all are a bit crazy in a funny way, which on other hand means something liberating.

Crusades ongoing today in our world appear crazy on any scale, crazy being a word in normal use just as OMG. There are quite a number of people who have a very good and high opinion of themselves, but they do hateful acts in repeat just by talking and consuming. Rightfully in their eyes for some reason they fail to see hate in their actions or see hate as justifiable because they have been wronged or hating feels good: I love to hate.

186

We as humans are in a situation where we have no other choice than to discard ways that are corrupting, destroying the earth and ourselves. That is not a little tiny thing to do, because admit doing wrong is extremely difficult firstly. And to do this globally, understanding the importance of acknowledging, engaging in collectively without wanting something out of it financially. Meaning and happening of change globally will be the biggest event in history of mankind and how to change when we talk about it constantly is the big question mark. Who wants to change, what is to change and what kind of change are we making all the time? I say this because there is not much time. In fact, we do not have time, but we love to be in a hurry, don’t we? To be in a hurry is a luxury and a marker of status. You are needed and important, you are making something, you are visible. Western way of living has come to an end of one kind. It sounds sad in a way and  it is very, because it will be extremely difficult to change our habits, strategies, beliefs, desires and ways of thinking. Way of thinking of knowing the absolute right has come to an end, ways of closed circles that cannot be entered. Change is think anew what we need. If you are not able and willing to rethink you are doomed. We are at that end which is a train. What saving operations am I talking about and which ones will count?

Why would I help anyone and how do I help myself are some key questions in today’s world. Western consuming and living in luxury is an ideal, has been and still is seen as something to reach out for and dream about. We do not have much hope unless we do radical altering in thinking of value, worth and price, price of living, value of life and culture of aiding, sharing and gaining. This is my realistic view to it and it demands a drastic amount of work because in our interest is what do we benefit from doing anything. Our contribution now being an endless production of human waste filling earth and we must invent ways of what to do with it. The shit we make and why we make it, what is it with excess that is so alluring. This goes for everyone, this I hope, weighing in the options and how we want to look like in other people’s eyes. There is continuing false thinking that one person does not count or matter, what do my doings make in a big world. Him and her do matter, everyone. To change what we practice now, overproduction of junk does not mean just recycling and cycling. It means stopping altogether of overusing. Halting under growth demands and never stopping comparison to each other is impossible. What does it take to change an intolerable way of living and thinking? Probably a disaster.

First it takes seeing what are the things that are in mass use doing the most harm. Then we observe how many willingly would give up for example eating meat, which is a major question in food production what comes to people’s health and preserving the environment. Meat production’s need for energy, water and field space to produce food for us, food we don’t need, is intolerable. Meat is a very expensive source of protein and nutrition. Meat production is in many ways wasting of resources, not to mention cruelty done towards animals, which are often treated as emotionless objects without consciousness. Objects to fulfill our needs for leather and steaks. The amount of feed given to animals would feed a substantial amount of hungry people. Again, it is a question of habits and traditions. What we eat and how we eat, as is where do we eat. Is it a treat to go to McDonald’s and is it seen as fun luxury to be part of a culture that is for maximum fun and consuming? How valuable do

187

we perceive meat to vegetables and what does meat-eater think of him/herself. Accommodation and food production are the most important necessities we need to keep up to keep on living. To not have those every day is a personal disaster. For millions not having those every day is a disaster that is not done enough to. There are several reasons leading to not having these basic needs fulfilled. Mostly due to unemployment, homelessness, war, corruption, poor social structures, indifference and inadequate health care. The United States is an interesting example what comes to poverty, food supply, traditions, habits, wasting resources, making war and global politics combined with religious and patriotic beliefs. The US has a tremendous impact on all of the world politically, entertainment industry included (I see it as politic making machine and part of the national propaganda machinery of the US). So far, the nation has been a leading force and molder of finance markets as any other markets there are globally. If there is talk people not liking Americans, there probably is a good reason. American policies have been (mildly put) arrogant and totalitarian despite hegemony of loving democracy and freedom. American way of life is alluring and tempting for many as it seems what it says to be: free. The American Dream on screens and images is everywhere. how do we find freedom there? According to statistics American Dream is out of reach for millions of Americans themselves. On Feeding America website there are stats showing one face of America, which is devastating to read. Under the Supplemental Poverty Measure, there are 49.7 million people living in poverty. 3.1 million more than is represented by the official poverty measure (46.6 million) 2011 [1.] Figures are enormous even in a country of 300 million people. How well do these people living in poverty find their way out of their situation depends on how they find work, place to study and live, how bad is their situation to begin with and what kind of networks do they have to help them cope. If every diploma has a substantial price tag, poverty continues to flourish as ever. There are different states of poverty which vary around the globe and for which reasons are harsh. There is a definition of absolute poverty or destitution, which refers to deprivation of basic human needs. Lack of clean water, lack of food, shelter, health care and sanitation. Relative poverty is defined contextually as economic inequality in society. Societies led by the few wealthy and with corporal dictatorship economic inequality tends to be substantial. Poverty can be profitable and serve interests of the wealthy. [2.] Absolute poverty is a problem which seems to stay in the certain areas of the world. This is basic knowledge to most people, problem areas have continuous problems growing worse, knowledge of where poverty exists and why and who should feel guilty of the situation, what could and should be done, how much aid is helpful, what is the help needed and when people should learn to help themselves. Major question is why nonstop problems keep on existing and growing to the extent and devastation they do? Why people stay poor, hungry and desperate and what is the role of bad leadership in this. It is huge. Lack of education, gender inequality, corruption, lack of democratic politic making, extreme weather conditions, poor health care, poor housing and no work are signs of dead-end places. All in all, lack of future prospects, opportunities and

188

sustainable welfare keep on existing.

A girl born in brothel in India or in Bangladesh will most likely become a prostitute. In documentary Whores’ glory (2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhgpTrgLYt4 directed by Michael Glawogger a brothel owner (woman) states this as a clear future prospect, also to a child of hers and there is nothing to it, there aren’t any other choices. Prostitution is likely to be a future profession of many boys and girls born in extreme poverty without chances getting out of being poor. Without care, education, functioning inexpensive health care and support from the government situation remains. Charity is not enough and it is not lasting or a constructive method to remove poverty. How a nation deals with social issues and looks after its people plays a big role in dealing with poverty and other problems following. Support can mean a community that helps every individual in that community on their feet and is open to people wanting to join that community. A functioning community is open to learning, facts, opinions, ideas, change and difference.

Community of a brothel is based on caring of women of whom nobody cares for. An equal and evolving nation does not resist change on any level, does not abandon anyone, works together for everyone’s well­being, also it does not lean on brothels to take care of people in their basic needs. In poor countries there may be a thriving middle ­class and advanced technology in use, but wealth achieved does not trickle down to all parts of the society. In this way middle ­class abuses poor by neglecting the mass of ’hopeless cases’ who are miserably left aside and felt disgusted by. Stigmatizing the poor, the working poor, is an everyday practice and creating a level of look-alike glory and class is a way of using power where just anybody does not enter. One way of doing this is to keep power in the hands of the rich only telling it is justified and right and they earned their place. People having parliamentary office are often the rich pushing causes of their own and their ’friends’. In this picture politics sucks big time and corruption flourishes. If corruption is seen as a good way to move ahead why change the situation. To seek equality and peaceful action between people and nature could be the best way, but it seems to be the most difficult and less lucrative. There are some radical contradictions in the picture to salvation and glory. First what is salvation, how we pursue it, how we select which ones are worthy of rescuing and how we place grounds for saving. In order to be saved something has to be gone wrong. Our inhabiting the world the ways we do being one major threat and a violent act against nature, against ourselves. What is what and being rightfully ours should be argued. Us is against us, we are against other beings, it is a constant battle. Genius is the most cunning one. It is a place of excellence to put oneself above, to the place of righteousness, of knowing and having force and might over. People who have placed themselves on pedestals to have leadership have fought for it, have wanted it badly. It is one way of evolving and building cultures, to follow something, someone who knows where to go and how to do it fast. How long does the master last on that mastering spot?

189

Our animal instincts show best in a life-threatening situation, us panicking, nurturing our babies, wanting to survive, fighting. Our bodies and minds function accordingly with what we have learned. There is the thought that being led by emotions is animal-like behavior. Oddly according to the idea of world owned by man, animal-like instincts are the ones that keep us alive. We live in a world of separation, world which is divided into the first and the third world. Stages, progress and order of white man, order of privileges and most of all order of power and wealth. The privileged people and the unfortunate ones living in an impossible world where injustice is more a rule and we think we are very human in our reasoning, winning, beating and conquering. Which ones of us are the first in line of needing to be saved and being rescued and from what? How do we save ourselves from ourselves?

We are obligated to help to a certain extent. We offer what we have and do what we can. What else there is to life than assistance since we live with each other and are dependent on. Decisions to make how to aid, what is necessary and a human responsibility to give aid when you can are constantly figured out. How much do we let our pride dictate our capabilities to aid, how our self-worth and position is in comparison to others and how much there is division between people in helping and caring? Can you help someone who is at the bottom of a gutter or are you disgusted? How much do you think it is your duty to help? Where does the limit go and at what point it does not concern you? In welfare the state has a role of a saver of those who are unable to save themselves. It also is problematic in the sense that the role of helping is tossed to the state so much so that people begin to think helping others does not concern me. To think that there have been more or less desperate attempts in the name of saving the world is again image from movies. We are swamped with problems and pleas for help, all under constant threat. Amount of issues that have gone horribly wrong is immense.

It is one of the strengths of biblical message that God and good is and lives in every one of us and by saving one you save the sacred. Attempting to help someone in need is saving the holy. Interesting question is how much religion has got to do with our savior position and need for salvation and glorifying ourselves. How much Holiness and idea of the sacred direct us to do things for others. What comes to religion it is a collective binding thing and bringing people together, on the other hand religions have torn the world apart. Separation and bringing people together the non believers, believers of different religious faiths has bloody history. In the name of God, God is on our side, by right of God, God saves, God justifies killing, God above, in God we trust. These are phrases used to let us bear in mind reasons to do things, how they should be done, why

190

do anything, they justify our existence and makings. We have God’s word and blessings on our side. Still in use in most of the world, in the US as well as in the Muslim world the sword of God, justice and judgment of God. True believers like to build barriers between different kinds of people of faith, abolish difference, which is a threat to the community and what is acceptable, barriers against those without faith and so on.

West is driven by interests of finance, to prosper in the eyes of God, God of war, vengeful God, our God is a jealous God, he is on our side whatever we do as long as it is his will. Word of God is a powerful tool in the process of justifying deeds of the chosen people.

It is clear people acknowledge we need saving because life is problematic as it is, due to human psyche and needs and whatever circumstances we might have. Randomness of life can be unacceptable. We need to continue living, struggle is for learning, becoming and be forgiven hopefully. I can’t help of being cynical when thinking about good promises of saving the word and the act of giving. We, humans are the ones who need constant saving because we are sinners. We are forgiven by God, so what is hell for? We are desperate for being saved, being told we are good as we are and blessed. It is hardcore rescuing of souls and minds needed to mend our bad doings, to save something that is good and figure out what the good is. The world and its saving operation as it is in us and outside us, becomes sensible, possible and actually realistic in religious context. It is sorrowful, desperate and in the same time joyful situation to witness hopeful collective understanding arise which has got to do with faith and mystery of life. But does religion change ethics, attitudes and perspective of man when in the end man wants to save himself only hanging by and on to that faith in God and the good of his?

5.3 Mass destruction (warring and whoring. What is it all about?).

We are warriors. Soldiers, fighters, people battling, having daily combats: 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 as weak and show one’s hurt? We must suffer alone. Hurt is to be hidden and be the burden for oneself only. By victimizing ourselves we put us in the position of needing help, here comes psychotherapy again in aid for us which we clearly are in need of. Maybe we are victimized by the war of existence, burned and marked, owned by our pain. We are 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

191

in order to feel empathy towards anyone first allow ourselves be empathetic towards ourselves. With this thought admitting hurt is healing. It requires a permission to be a victim to feel empathy. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and weak in need of help. It does not mean a constant going in circles and crying out loud, ending wounded and nowhere, nor weeping about misfortunes of life, because misfortunes are there. What else would it mean? No one avoids those pitiful moments of self loath, hate and feeling sorry for oneself. To be merciful towards oneself would be the key to finding happiness everyone longs for, that it is in the moment and achievement. Release of guilt and sadness in a way of letting one feel every emotion there is, emotions as they are, can be helpful. To tolerate and recognize the emotional self is about accepting emotions as they are and learning them, what they do to you and make you do. What control has to do with our emotions, is a lot and what kind of control is needed, the meaning of self-discipline and order in life.

5.4 Face of war

War has multiple faces which turn into one twisted one in horror. Heads roll, many fronts are build and fall down, ways of realizing oneself in relation to wars happening in the world is that one cannot be shutting it all out, the images, refugees, suffering, a war with no end is a feeling of not being able to breathe. War is manifestation, propaganda and a statement, but I always wonder of what exactly. We manifest and propagate by making war and fight, manifest after a manifest our points of view and force, right of being absolutely right. For some it is a right to have and make. A manifest of power, of existence, rightfulness, of being right on the right side, of having right to judgment and punishment, wipe wrong from face of earth.

At war there is a constant threat of being killed, seeing, smelling and hearing death. Meaning of war is to kill or get killed. To win at war is an illusion. War is performative audio­visual act of violence in which there are only victims and losers. Winner is the arms dealer whose winnings go beyond comprehension, for whom war is a jackpot. Killer is a victim as is the killed. Situation where there is no alternative is victimizing, when there is an obligation to go to war when young. Before the act of killing the killing has already happened. Who feel obligated, is obligation born out of patriotism, which rose to new high after 2001 attacks in New York. The victims in rich countries are displayed truly vulnerable and hurting like no one else. Victim of war propaganda, victim of brainwash, of being on the side of something against something, of circumstances of politics and circumstances of reality made by businessmen, journalism and politicians. Victim of political games and schemes, where very often the biggest criminals deciding for wars go free and prosperously retire. At war people are forced to make murder, which is not considered normal behavior for a person with morals, dignity and appreciation for human life. Defending values and ways of life by killing is a way to make the world. In this light we can ask for whom is this world made? Operations to save face, to preserve honor, of way of life are operations of manically selfish lovers of power, glory, position and wealth. Some calling such attempts justified rational acts of politics, righteous and that something had to be

192

done to find those weapons of mass destruction. Much that I have followed politics, since the eighties, to make war is seen a global necessity to act, to make a point, to show off as world police, gain power and to have a say over. The amount of warfare and man­made catastrophes is appalling. It is startling to think that during the 1900s there have been four wars on Finnish soil only.

In the aftermath of the First World War and Russia falling apart for it to become Soviet Union, civil war broke loose in Finland in January 27th 1918 continuing bloody to end in May 15th 1918. In November 30th 1939 Soviet Union attacked Finland determined to invade the country in couple of weeks, which attempt failed and war ended in March 13th at eleven o’clock 1940. It is important to notice the imbalance of forces between the two countries in this war. Finland had only 32 tanks in use. Soviet Union started the war with 2514 tanks and had at the end of the war 6541 tanks in use. It really was a miraculous survival battle by Finns. A war when Russia did not invade the country felt victorious for Finns. [5.] Continuation War raged during 1941-­44 after Finland started claiming parts of land it had lost in Winter war to Russia. The fourth and so far, final war was the Lapland War 1944-­45 between Finland and Nazi Germany. Looking further than that in history the list is long of battles in the area of Finland. These four closest wars fought are still vivid in our minds. Memory is kept alive to feed our national pride and our deep respect and oath to those who fought in these wars with their wits. Seventy years are not far away, there are people who are alive and remember the time. Soviet Union/Russia is a one nation that has made serious contribution in making war also elsewhere all the time. Since it is one of the largest countries by area in the world it has probably felt warring is its contribution and right to master. Somehow it seems it does not know any other way of ruling than by violence and invading. Russia battled on several fronts simultaneously which it did for example fighting the Winter War and the World War 2. Macho culture and aims to keep a large nation together take a toll. Russia still is far from being a democracy and as a huge nation impact of its doings is major to its neighbours. Russia tends to be partner with other dictatorships and in this way of thinking it is stopping equality and peace from evolving globally. It does not want equality, freedom of speech nor democracy.

Soviet Union and now again Russia both have been invading areas, putting down rebellions and stopping attempts of different parts of the country to gain sovereignty. Some uprisings succeeded in gaining independence like Estonia which declared independence 1991 after it turning into battle of course. Russian despot ruling has had horrible consequences to ordinary people. Latest in my mind are the wars in Chechnya where

193

Russia has had two wars during 1994-­2000. To take a closer look at war history makes it clearer how ruthless and merciless its politic making has been and continues to be. One reason over any other is money and image. Financial interests of power nations like Russia, who conquer by size and because of their size it is like a rule to rule violently. Sizeable nations the US, China and Russia have a lot to say on political field. They have large economical influence and created dependence of energy and goods for Europe. China also acts as a waste manager for many western countries which depend on China’s willingness to dispose recycled garbage. They all have strong ideological background to persecute dissidents, which dictates their politic making even today and radiates around the globe. There is tradition and cult of violence in macho cultures, which makes it hard to learn to act and think otherwise, that it would be wrong. Machoism is an ’easy’ way for a boy to become a man and become a ruler or at least respected member of society. Initiation rites which make boys men are actively in use especially in gang cultures which flourish in South America and Russia. Rite can be to kill someone, beat or be beaten up. To rule with fear is an efficient way to keep power and learn to control with fear. To keep people in belief that those in power do good for people, because of having gained power position. Wanting to run for office is proof itself of good will. Do good because they are good men and have gained position for being, doing and looking good.

To have a look at the political map globally during one hundred years the result is that every political plot and game end up to the US or Russia and those schemes don’t stand the light of day and come little by little to public knowledge. The US likes to pull the strings and stir the soup well, once a friend can become an enemy. Sharing the good in soup made not too well as messy as the world politically looks today. Soup in question and made is poured all over in bad. (How generous of you.) Is it tasty for the rest of us? During one hundred years there has been nothing but political plotting to get the most profit in to the hands of the few in continuum, the exploitation done during centuries makes it normal. There have been extremely lucky people, well-connected who have ended up filthy rich, who have decided it is their time to do politics to get even richer, which continues even more so. How much the politics of the US is actually made by corporations and owners of the super rich enterprises running and lobbying, one can only guess. It appears the most of the world is owned by corporations and politicians merely have the position to execute wishes of the money men and often enough politicians themselves are very rich money men. Warring requires equipment, preparing, planning, strategy, focus, patriotism, loyalty, money and it makes good profit for those who manufacture arms, astronomical. The US still has an agreement with Egypt for example according to which US grants Egypt financial aid to buy American arms. The amount of money is substantial which goes straight to arms manufactures in the US. Money flow does not leave the country. ”Despite the highly secretive military budget, which the law protects from scrutiny, there are a few cases in which the public can glimpse the vast economic power contained by

194

the Egyptian military. One such case is the economic military agreement between the United States and Egypt. Between 1948 and 2011, the United States has provided Egypt with 71.6 billion received approximately 1.3 dollars annually in military aid from the United States. The Obama Administration requested another 1.3 billion dollars for the 2012 fiscal year.” [6.]

Morals seem to be strict where there is no moral. Interests of nations and people are usually more financial and economics is the ruling force of all in the world. Wars that were fought show on every graveyard in Finland. On every Independence Day we are shown the movie The Unknown Soldier on TV. We watch it or not. Knowing reasons leading to wars I still am puzzled by the extent of them. Knowing what triggers warring it is not comprehensible nor justified on any scale to reason and make war anymore as we should be wiser than before. How could a macho culture be changed which warring clearly reflect and be altered to be less hostile? Number of ongoing wars and wars fought is scary and mind-blowing in lack of a better word. The amount of money spent to kill seems to be secondary issue. For warring the money is found, billions of it. Effects of battles to those who have battled and to those who live in battle fields are no doubt crucial, devastating and long-lasting. It probably can be said no one leaves a war zone unhurt. Those effects last decades and do not remain within one generation. In the US scars of the World War 2 and Vietnam War are still in the process of healing. Many veterans of war have ended homeless being unable to work and support themselves. Side effects like alcoholism, depression, suicides, post­traumatic stress disorder do not heal themselves in time or never. Symptoms affect not only the individual but the whole community and families especially. War does not end to declaration of peace. It continues in the minds of people, in movies, stories, cities, landscapes and in history books. Desperate acts and useless in every way, not to mention far from peaceful life on Earth.

Ways of facing problems, problems which make politics seem messy and criminal. Benefiting from politics to make war and profit, dynamics of everyday life, diplomacy, hierarchy and protocol, means how to build an equal society are always beyond sufficient and quick to be done. There are always ways to do things better. Then we have to choose by whose better we want to live, for whom we live and work. Who would want to compromise, who decides peace is a better option? Who should are the leaders. Wrong doings and hurting to solve something have taken larger than life proportions and scale in a way that has done quite the opposite than solved anything. Latest atrocities would be wars in Afghanistan and Iraq both of which have gone bonkers, lamely put, and measured by

195

any scale and seen on any graph and dimension. Both wars have been horrible disasters for both Afghanistan and Iraq, but also for the US. What are the worldwide effects of such large-scale attacks? Despair is raising its head in front of these never-ending situations all over the world. The war crimes done for which no one is charged with. War crimes firstly the US having attacked an independent country to find terrorists and weapons, which were not found and evidence that allegedly was, wasn’t there. The biggest terrorist so far and by far is the United States of America itself. Especially during the last decades of the twentieth century and beginning of this twenty-first. Bill fallen on the lap of citizens of America is estimated to rise up till 6 trillion dollars and lives lost hundreds of thousands mostly civilians (this number includes casualties also in Pakistan). [7.]

Conclusion of everybody is that warring against terrorists in this way has not been worth it. War to avenge dead Americans is an act of pride. Sadly those situations are ongoing even though the US is not bombing anymore but trying to preserve livable circumstances for civilians as they have also been saving lives of citizens of other nations in their own opinion. All this because the US was attack 2001 in New York. Quest for weapons of mass destruction failed. Two bad guys Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were caught and executed. One of them was not even put to trial, which making democratic justice happen would be demanded. That much for democracy and peacemaking. Revenge, brutality and paranoia being leading political agendas and ideologies. How to even calculate losses of these wars or make Afghanistan and Iraq peaceful societies again. Losses go over any estimations. Cost of war is always far-reaching; emotional and mental hurt is difficult to cure. Not to mention need to avenge, bitterness and hate which remain. War is not a cure.

Who becomes a victim? Is there pattern in dynamics of behavior and what is qualified as weakness? People kill and slaughter each other at war repeatedly.

It is bold to say a killer is a victim, but this is the case. Bullies and killers are the most hurt people, power and aggression working as shields replacing empathy lacking. Driven by their hurt, trauma, history and lack. Mostly lack of love and caring (this my theory). Desires which drive for warring. When facing people who have done bad things to other people, how these people are faced and what is bad enough? How does one look at someone who has killed? Have they done something you would not do? Who judges the bad and wrong? Do we pretend we are not affected by hurt, hurt against us and others? Do we laugh at hurt? To harden ourselves to manage as it seems many do, is a survival shield. It is humiliating to admit hurt and pain, but when you do

196

does it open up a new person, a freed one, relieved? If I say we are all victims of mass manipulation of what is right and wrong by what is taught to us, told to us repeatedly, I’m not hugely mistaken. Gender is manipulation, power is manipulation and truth should be found, truths, lies and multiple realities. It can be difficult to walk one’s own path. Group pressure is a strong manipulator and guide of people. It is not easy to dare to do differently and follow truth of one’s own. Responses can be immediate and very often negative. In society where I have grown memory of war has always been there and I was to fight like a soldier to survive which has a lot to do with my sex. [8.][9.][10.]

1. http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/facts.html 18.11.2013
2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty 18.11.2013 3.https://shadowsoftenderfury.wordpress.com/s=there+is+something+about+the+nineteenth+century interview by Alf Gunwald Nielsen with Gurminder K. Bhambra ”There was a concerted attempt to begin to demarcate Europe from the rest of the world.” What Bhambra has in mind is the emergence at this point in time of a way of writing history, in which Europe was posited as superior to the rest of the world.”
4.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/01/how­economic­growth­has­become­anti­life?CMP=twt_gu 
Guardian Nov 1st 2013 by Vandana Shiva ”An obsession with growth has eclipsed our concern for sustainability, justice and human dignity. But people are not disposable – the value of life lies outside economic development”

5.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War 19.11.2013 6.http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/14063/the­moral­ambiguity­of­united­states­aid­to­egypt  by Frida Alim dynamics and schemes of the US and Egypt dealing with arms deals and contracts, concerns and debate over development of democracy in light of unjust spending on arms by military and US meddling internal affairs in Egypt. 29.11.2013
7.http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/5/report_cost_of_war/weiss.net/2013/04/democracy­afghanistan­pakistan.htmlhttp://mondoweiss.net/2013/04/democracy­ Moral ambiguity of United States aid to Egypt by Frida Alim Sept 9th 2013, 29.11.2013 8.http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/energy/2013/10/24/Iraq-sees-hefty-return-to-oil-growth-in-2014.html Reuters, BaghdadThursday, 24 October 2013, 29.11.2013
9.https://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprise-network/2013/oct/24/canadian-social-stock-exchange
by David Floyd  Oct 24th 2013, 29.11.2013
10.https://www.rollingstone.com/interactive/feature-a-team-killings-afghanistan-special-forces/  by Matthieu Aikins November 6th 2013 story telling in detail what goes on in Afghanistan after US attack and war, 29.11.2013

Image making noise

2001

Among the living, stepping out into the unordinary.

4.1 Depression, recession, low, despair, destitution, cynicism, shame of it, intolerance, indifference, violence, problematic complexity of showing emotions and knowing them and consequences of not knowing.
4.2 Medication, psychotherapy, hospitalization, help strengthening feature and the phenomenon of thinking you know.
4.3 She is fucking mad!!
4.4 revolutionizing something – the ways of making money.

Revolution, the very emotional event, the anticipated door to change and banging it, looking at it, adoring it; how involved are we and is it a political, cultural, emotional, intellectual and social necessity as it is there all the time as potential, a potent possibility, force and scare, a known unknown? It is a moment of not wanting to be controlled anymore but taking control, the question is of what. Reminding of growing up and making or trying to make a distance/difference to one’s parents and traditions but still restrained by all of those and making a life always is connected to where one comes from, and yet revolution needs to be led, guided and planned anew. Authority and structure is needed in every creative act in terms of the past, right and wrong must be chosen, what does it mean to be led by a charismatic person and who is that? It can be a sure road to destruction as character can be a mere image, a posing shell. Isn’t it the lure the vanity the idolization of someone bigger than yourself and having pure faith in an image true proof of our sensational infantile need for beauty, the outer beauty, the what we see is what we believe? My question is, is revolution immature always, a utopia which stands for us as a beautiful freeing dance-like claim for liberty which is there to be taken and be celebrated, but is too much at once to swallow, too much to own and digest, understand and know, because the structure which is profound and solid takes time and effort to construct? What happens after the party as Žižek wisely has asked and after the idol begins to look like a normal human being with flaws does revolution fade as well? Yes, when the ground work has not been done properly, revolution is a mere event in time.

Again a question as there is also such a thing as leaderless revolution which happens organically but knowingly and is liberty for us to learn, where no one is taking the credit for making the revolution and being a hero of the resistance. What happens when we are free and we are not led in an old-fashioned sense? Is there being born a new way of leadership? What is needed to know freedom and how much structure people need to feel safe, as it is understood with freedom safety is an uncertain and a luxury? Not wanting to be dictated, told what to say, do, be like and feel is an anthem of the youth, gay movement, in art, as it is something to sell and buy: be yourself, become the best you and this is how, only you should know how to be yourself: follow your urges and desires and live them. Again feminine and masculine come to show and manifest in different ways in making social change, being oneself can be found via daring to go dangerous routes, sexes may have different causes and needs, those who are less scared dare more obviously, different meanings sexes and sexualities have what comes to goals and aspirations, to have sex to procreate or to have fun or both. Those choices have important task in society and for individuals: how we form collectives and let our groups to be formed, who are invited and who are out and why in and out exist. Those are very much questions of what we are attracted to and what is allowed. To live like it is the end of the world and the paradise is now is one form of freeing oneself, finding total excitement and joy within with others. It has happened in the sixties, along with sexual revolution, hippie movement and in the seventies with gay liberation movement which consequently also had disastrous results in AIDS epidemic breaking out in the eighties in New York and San Francisco. This wild and unrestrained behaviour has been culturally significant which probably has its roots in art and music, namely rock, sex and drugs and the very oppressed and hated position of the sexual minorities. Human right of gay men was to fuck as much as possible and this they did. Thinking next is what do men and women do differently in situations of demanding rights and do women endure ill-treatment longer because they have little alternatives to choose from? Many found sexual liberation in having multiple partners whenever and talking about sex which had not happened in human history before at least not in this scale. Sexual liberation is also a class issue: who have time and chance to liberate themselves sexually? Sex is still the most flammable issue socially, the true taboo subject all over the world. Whose agenda is the most powerful, who are listened to and who are the loudest, who oppress the most, who are the oppressed and why? What is power there is the scare that free sexual expression brings, scare is decay and corruption of the youth, which scare is not unfounded, still the process of freeing is necessary in finding something worth while to live by and think about.

It is seen as feminine to feel, to show and talk about emotions, to cry, to laugh, be insecure, admit sensing, being physically weaker, lose reason and being irrational is somehow feminine and show compassion is expected of women. Crying is a powerful outburst with tears and facial expressions. It is probably the most controlled emotional mental physical act. Please don’t cry, I would have to react to your tears. Does revolution (political) bring out the best in us, the true us (whatever the best might be)? One has to define the best qualities of humans, but is civilized, cultivated and the human self the best in us? That can be the most robotic part of us. To define ourselves comparing each other is what we do and find groups to belong to which can result to building shelters of similar minds and bodies, we are tribal whatever ism we stand for. Behaviour can be seen irrational, behaviour of those who oppose us is lunacy as opposing is dangerous, a mental disorder at worst (something that happened to the Suffragettes and feminists afterwards over and over again). To declare mental love is to share emotions as we should and to love is demand human rights for all, cost can be high as with love it often is. To some fucking a lot is the purest form of making love. Question is why we like to abstain and refrain our emotions into illness, into nothing instead of dealing with them? Because there is death lurking in going to extremes. Scared of being exposed is one part of our existence. To not being scared of judgment and abandonment is part of liberation. Expressing to the fullest is an illness-like happening and also the healthiest one, feelings are stupid but still we trust them, we go with the flow of them. We like having an order of emotions, taking them for granted. Being stuck up is more a standard and emotional is inferior a phenomenon which must be ruled by reason and us be guided because we are monitored for our behaviour and everything unordinary is to be suspected especially if you are a woman and a feminine man is not a man in macho world.

An order which many of us seem to live by is not to, a no, a ban, a prohibition of, especially what comes to others what they can be and do. Something in us that must be closed off from sight and be ruled. What do we let out and what we do not, because we are not allowed, because it is not proper and we’ll be damned, we do not dare to break the civil backbone of modern humanism, because we must behave ourselves, contain ourselves in the eyes of others to be seen as accepted and prosper? It is an interesting topic, because our refusal to be ourselves and the desire to find ourselves are in conflict, which could be called a plug there is, that is not wished to be pulled off, there is a pivot behind the door, a stepping stone, something nonverbal we must find in therapy and via personal fall-down, an unspoken inner banner which is there and one must find it, but how far is it there and can you see it. Inner banner, a flag of your own, what is it like? It is often a heard dichotomy, the confrontation between the political and personal and how do they communicate and effect. It is to say personal is political, a common phrase to use, it is also true. My choices in everything make politics not only by voting and in my choices of educating myself, but in what I consume, how I choose to live, eat, drink, travel, see, listen, wear, talk about, watch and how I express myself in anything and where. Everything comes up from making political decisions and choosing of what is safe, good, correct, profitable, good for economy, good for our nation, what is good for us to do in order to live in an organized society and profit from it and how we look. But it is common to think politics does not concern, touch, interest or they, who do politics, are not interested in people as they should, concerned or touched by lives of ordinary citizens. Emotional landscapes we inhabit, which we make, we have and how we notice them, invaded emotional spaces online and outside, which emotions are there for us to sense, why are they there for us, why do we have feelings at all if we are unable to use them, recognize them or are they to use us? Do we inhabit or know emotions at all? Emotions are as if they were rare

173

precious things we cannot afford anymore other than instant ecstatic thrills and chills called experiencing excitedly. It is good to say I am excited.  We go looking for company to avoid boredom and loneliness, not to face ourselves, not to face the everyday of someone nor mine but to enjoy and be entertained, in other words we are drugged by entertainment.

How about those sudden outbursts like revolutions, riots and revolts? Do they entertain,excite, release emotions, aggression, rage, go in circles?

Speed of change, speed of time, there is time capsule in change, in every moment. Waiting it to happen, saying change is what we want, but what does it mean? Phrasing what it is one wants to change or do we have capabilities to do what needs to be done and changed? Framing to tell we have no other alternative but change. It is settling, something is going to happen soon and alarming at the same time, exciting, maybe an effort and time to find crystalized truth, meaning and explanation of what happens, what might happen and why. Timing, what happens with timing, in time, in waiting, in lining up, in hurry, in speed which media and civilization bring in to our lives. Speed of pictures, speed of events, speed of a runner, speed of a shutter. Speeding, measuring, comparing, working, staying put and there it is, change. It is all the time.

4.2 Medication, psychotherapy, hospitalization, help strengthening feature and the phenomenon of thinking you know.

How does it happen, change? According to some laws of life? Yes. Mentally, physically and socially could the reasons leading to depression, getting ill and having economical downfall be similar, they are inevitable for us to grow as humans and communities. Societies have psyches, bodies, illnesses, life and death, cycles. Situations and capabilities of making the dealing of money and wealth, social and economic sectors function poorly, one-sided staring of financial well­being of one’s own and what one gets make us blinded. Failing to fulfil political promises make voters anxious and feeling low. We look at the pictures of the wealthy, how they live and want the same at any cost. Telling repeatedly good times are not ahead of us unless we make these cuts, but in the same page economic growth is a demand and cry. Depression is a situation with lack of trust on anything anymore. To feel depressed is very understandable in this picture: we can’t all be enormously wealthy and happiness is what we seek via wealth and physical appearance. Complete lack of hope for things to change for better as we measure success with what one has, what one possesses, how one looks. Depressed society begins to eat itself instead of flourishing, because it is scared and paralyzed for not growing exponentially all the time. How could amount of depression in society be measured and through measuring healed? How we change the whirlwind of illusions that drive us mad? It is to be measured how we fall sick and to be acknowledged is what we desire the most. In order to heal a hopeless situation we do desperate things, but every particle and unit must work for the same cause, the cause is what at the moment? How depression moves socially can be evaluated, as can birth mechanisms of a downfall be predicted. Other than speculating the patterns that occur and listening to people’s stories we like to assume most. Other than listening to those who know we like to see everything in monetary value and loss. There are pretty clear ways how depression happens, what it does, what it is like. Reasons to fall, reasons of getting ill. There is something fundamentally wrong that has happened, a deep cut where a soul has fallen. Wrong happens when all are not listened to, taken into consideration, taken care of,

174

talked to, touched, acknowledged, needed, aren’t given what they need: what do we need can be understood via destruction and loss. People need to be needed, our fundamental reason for lot of despair, to have meaning in life for many come via others, if life feels meaningless and if it looks like there aren’t means to change much in circumstances, there is a dead-end feeling, bottomless sentiments, darkness. Uselessness and hate make depression. In order something to fall and fail, it is like we are expecting it to happen. There is lack of kindness and compassion there. Mistake is to think people are like machines, miscalculation is to look for financial winnings only which refer to us as intellect and proper. There is an inability to slow down, unwillingness to settle for less. For things to fail there is wisdom lacking in seeing how parts function together, how we function together, how we should function and what is sharing. Our systems in which we live are working for wrong reasons altogether if economic growth is why we work, live for and why anything is done in the first place and we are loved for how we look like and what we have. Reasons for mental disorder as depression vary, reasons that lead us feeling low, make us feel inadequate, not enough, not loved, unfit and so forth. Emotional hygiene supports possibility of depression to emerge. In this empirical, personal and emotional perspective depression is very much a social disease, since we are social beings, needy of being loved. Animals get depressed for same reasons, for neglet and having lost the contact to their purpose and natural environment. They also need something else than to eat and stay physically alive. Emotional life of animals is easily discarded as unimportant, but they do feel pain. Some people are more sensitive than others, and some get ill easier, like those who do not handle the load they given and are supposed to carry. Some of us get depressed, because they are melancholic by nature. We like to emphasize individuality, but the most difficult task is looking, we do not see the individual, a person but expect what one are supposed to be like. We cherish mass unity and movement in one direction often on surface level, in the face of complexity of life it feels insane and unjust. Is that why we like to simplify ourselves? To fit in is what one should be doing, not understanding the massiveness of this multitude we are, not understanding ourselves.

Medical evaluation process of who is ill and who is not has evolved in twenty years. For example, homosexuality is no longer an illness in Finland. There is no illness nor cure for that matter to cure sexuality of someone. But it takes a lot of effort to make it sink into public consciousness that gay/transgender or any other gender is not a choice one makes or a state of mind someone falls into. To fight prejudices, we need legislation and work done for minds to change. Prejudices stick hard, almost unbelievably tough, as an artist I know. To know personally gay people, mentally ill, poor, rich, people of different ethnic backgrounds, different classes, people who think differently, look different, act different etc. is essential in making world more tolerant, therefore ghettos, bubbles, isolation, divisions keep prejudices alive. For not people to marginalize in an unsatisfactory way left in loneliness, they have to do something about prejudices themselves. It is scary to meet

175

people who hate you because you are gay, as it is scary if they hate you for being a woman and an artist. How would that kind of meeting happen and what would happen? A hate crime or a public hugging? Prejudices function strangely in an imagined world of abstractions, simplistically focusing on weaknesses. Working on comparison between those who think are strong to evaluate those who seem weak. Weakness is intolerable still, weaknesses are easy to spot and strengths are there to be grasped if you are willing to join certain group. Groups of those who think are mighty and strengthen their existence as community. Comparison and division, separation, isolation is familiar behavioral pattern to make hierarchy. It is a lonely spot to think, be and act differently, but what can you do but be fearless. What kind of option it is to go with the mass?

Who can be cured and who not, what it is to be cured and be normal, what the norms are, how to know what actually is the wrong there to begin with? Are there hopeless cases? How to face someone who is mentally ill? Should I be scared? Mental illnesses are problematic in many ways, difficult to treat, to diagnose, difficult to live with. How can we tell when society is mentally ill? We like to call each other crazy quite often without it being hugely stigmatizing, but to talk about someone in that manner behind someone’s back ”there is this crazy person” makes it a bit different. Then it becomes stigma. Need to give stigma to someone has not disappeared. It is everyday fascism. Someone is crazy, the one is dangerous, a threat and must be avoided, locked up, isolated, spat at or felt sorry for. It is true mental illnesses increase violent behavior especially against the ill her/himself, suicidal tendencies, self-­ loath and hateful thoughts get the best of. It is a painful experience to be depressed. Stress and constant facing of ill in life make possibility of mental illness bursting higher than for those who live in secure environment with loving people around or people who have been loved much face mental illness against all odds. How random it all is… Levels of stress in life and how one tolerates stress and randomness, dealing with setbacks indicates clearly how one is doing mentally. Where does the border of ill and being healthy go? Merely being an artist is sick for some. If there is a group of bullies and one person who is bullied, who is the sick one? What kind of behavior is seen as sick and what not can also be culturally bound. Illness breaks the atmosphere of normal every day. We see ill so much it is maybe normal and underestimated like a minor injury or cut in hand. Atmosphere of there is nothing wrong is a bit strange, of something exact, sterile and cleaned out of sight and hidden.

176

Can there be such a state on social level as balance or is there always a factor of wrongness, a crack? Better yet must there be some kind of imbalance and sense of danger for us to find happiness? Which danger and wrong we need to reach out to feel alive. Secure steady life is an ideal for many, but there are contradictions that fail me, such as unhappiness and amount of depression. We want to avoid being scared and situations of not knowing what will happen next. To go further, to reach something unknown is to test one’s limits, what can one do, where do one’s limits go. Wouldn’t we all like to know. Unknown can be found pretty close, you don’t have to travel to space to find the unknown and scary. There is still much to study within humans and animals since we do not know all, we are not complete. We just like to assume we do know and are perfect. Human psyche and emotional side is much an unknown and avoided topic in general. One reason why we are scared of the tricky mind of ours is we find something out of the normal. To be mentally ill gives opportunity to test our limits what can a person tolerate and what it is to survive situation of no control. This is what bullies do, test us. Dangers like whether one comes back from psychosis, whether one sees light of day feeling good and light in front instead of pain and hell. How long will it take for one to mentally break is a sadistic game. Meeting someone behaving disoriented and irrationally or beginning to behave like that yourself how do you react? It is one thing we are afraid; the irrational and what mind can do to us. To say we do not understand it, the unknown subconscious, the irrational, is a good place to start. Reason why artists are seen as a bit scary, out of the ordinary and abnormal is we test the limits of ours. What to talk with someone like that who possibly tests you? Why not talk with someone like that and test him or her instead. There is the concept of normal again to face, idea of me structured and what me should be, normal needs a clarification since it is one term very much used and controlling what we do and how we do, how we react and what we should tolerate. I have an idea of normal, but it is not what I should be. It is outside the norm, normality and I conflict with it constantly. Why should there be normal? Am I irrational, the idea of me? There are things that are normal for me to do daily: brushing my teeth twice a day, going to bed and sleep the night, dream. Normal people drive their cars.

Setting the normal, deciding what is strangeness, that is difficult to face and understand, accept, have a qwerty battle in our everyday, between us, there is constant conflict which makes us interesting. We go through thinking what we do is normal and acceptable and try to find ways to preferably stay in that frame of normal and acceptable and feel shame if we don’t. In this picture art is very much welcomed as mixing the pack and moving barriers of thinking patterns and ways of seeing. Therefore, artists are seen as dangerous hazardous and suspicious individuals. At best they like to think for themselves and do as they please, at least some of them, since art scene is a very much regulated and appropriated by rules of proper as it is a business and market where appearances matter as does wealth. Insanity is much of a taboo, but fully with us as we daily face it, like it or not, acknowledge it or not, see it or not. We define insanity outside of ourselves, what is mad for us, what is a crazy

177

thing to do equals to something you would not do and you disapprove. Insanity entails danger in any social scene, art is no exception. Danger of losing face, one’s reputation. As it seems prejudices go stronger the smaller and isolated the group is. Contemporary art scene has isolated itself very effectively. To say artists are like that, has been common enough for me to hear in the arts and outside of it. One problematic issue being the ideas of inside and outside of it. What are they like exactly? There is a stereotype of an artist which creates partly the whole scene of arts. The assumption of a person who makes art, assumption of the art scene that it is arrogant and distant, fine, too fine to understand and get involved with. To make art is still thought to be almost an occult and due to divine inspiration, you can pull out from craziness but don’t be crazy. It is bad for business. Stories of golden ages in art stay alive and are in focus. Strict divisions of good and bad, low and high, which are dictated by taste, knowledge of the arts, expertise and social status given with confidence regulate the arts. How does that got to do with illness of mental kind is probably about the divine inspiration? All this we can observe in the light of classes and social status, habitus, meaning one who is seen adequate to create art and leading to how that person creating art is treated. What motivates a person to create, what does s/he create, how are creations of hers/his put-on display and will they be put on display and seen. What is it to put on display and to be on display? What are we displaying? Average Joe is one term used to describe the normal on social level. It gives hint that Average Joe is not the most open-minded person there is and what about art, open-mindedness must obviously be dug out as it is lost. Normality is horror for those who are repulsed by banality. In the frame of social changes arts have been strongly involved and horror is there in important role, irrationality breaking the codes of proper. It is an art to make society and minds change when they rather stayed the same liking complacency and safety. Whether on the side of those who have power to establish and strengthen power of one’s own. Is it art, not to want change, it is bizarrely common in the art scene not wanting change, talking about progress is again on the surface of things without structures changing at all because it is lucrative. Arts reflect perfectly the whole of society. Then there are those who need to be heard for the sake of everybody, those in the marginal, for liberation’s sake. They do what they can to disturb the power elite: protesting, singing, satireing, provoking, to test the limits of society and power people by scandalous art, provoking the tender spots, making nonsense and unmeasureable craziness, the unexpected shock is very much needed to make change.

Personal ideas deemed appropriate or not. How an individual can be original and powerful in the same time? What is personality and how restricted it is? Am I assumed to be of certain kind? Isn’t it so we, even if not religious, are bound to religious traditions and doctrines, like self-evidently falling into them, with them, colliding and struggling. There is beauty, wisdom, truth, guidance, hope, but also very slow tendency to seek change within religions. We know them since they are taught to us and lived by throughout the year. There is no escape. Religion is here and there like a living thing.

178

Our Finnish society for instance lies on Christian values, festivities, terminology, history and names even though we are a secular state. Schooling system is built on Lutheran/Protestant schooling system which system made by church was in use before in history, meaning preachers were the educators of people up to the beginning of 1900’s. Even though church schools were separated from state schools at the end of 1800’s influence of church is immense. To teach religion at school still meant in 1980’s and 90’s serious deep studying of Christianity. This is slowly changing, very slowly or not at all? The compulsory part of studying faith is odd but it is to know our culture. How many of those schooled really have had faith in their hearts since to have faith and say it out loud has been seen publicly as weakness. Here it is a private matter but all over, weird. Believer is stereotyped often as Holy Roller and a zealot trying to convert those who have doubt, different opinions and society wanted to be stuck obeying religious leaders is what it seems to be oddly enough. There are strong bias what comes to believing in God or not and to which God to believe in, not that there are many options offered. Essential questions in life for everyone. Do I believe that there is someone or something guiding us, making us, judging and watching? Being part of Lutheran faith by birth, schooling and living in a Lutheran/Protestant/secular country is somewhat a norm and everyday unquestionable practice here, a bedrock. Loud objections aren’t that common, but you can choose to believe or not and still it is compulsory to live by it. Religion raises its head when LGBTQ+ rights or are women fit to be priests (still) are talked about and church personnel and politicians with true belief have objections. Right to abortion is still in debate. Killing of fetuses cannot be tolerated and men need to have a say how women deal with their bodies. Religion is a serious business, how about war? Kids understand what is being said and they listen obediently as studying God’s word begins quite early. For children God is mysteriously intriguing, frightening and puzzling, all the same we are brainwashed into believing at school. We have a silent agreement and illusion of freedom in seemingly secular state which is not that free and tolerant. Yet comes the question what can I as a person do to be free? Hypocrisy is a safety net, a mask to look better than you actually are. It is denial of facts, to do otherwise than you tell you do. What should be done, would be good to do and you are told to do and what really happens: are you part of the world and how much what you say weighs. It is more again a normality than obscurity to act hypocritically. We live staged lives. It is telling there is much fear to let you be yourself, to admit your true opinions, your true face, to disagree. Fear of loss is great.

4.3 She is fucking mad!!

I wanted to disturb, I wanted to be annoying. I was hoping someone would understand why. Yes, I had a little hope for being understood, just a little, but the thing that I think about hoping, the most important thing

179

is what you do yourself, how do you understand what you are doing. And why you do what you do. Why do I think by disturbing I could make my statement or make something positive happen?

I whistled through a shopping mall. Invented my whistling tunes while I walked. Everybody watched surprised, some annoyed. I would have glanced someone whistling loudly in the shop. I think I was loud, yeah. I also whistled biking home from the city. That was hard work. I had to stop to take a breath.

Censorship is a way to do the world and stomp it to stay the same. It is a common practice of everyday on personal and public level. We do it to ourselves and to others by looks, talk of all kinds of subtle and not so subtle ways of letting know what is good to do. It is a mind control, behavior control, strategy control and multilevel control of society. Reasons for control often are not letting upset and hate show, fear, any kind of sensation, sexuality, personality, difference show in order to maintain discipline, order, conformity, hegemony, to maintain power or just to oppress to maintain power position. It is a forceful tool to be able to censor and make it a mental behavioral state and automation as well. People who censor themselves in fear are easy to control. Forces of those who wish things to stay the same. And what things are those and who are the forces who have such a wish? State of eternal growth, state of holy image, state of pedestals. To push the envelope is to say of searching for new expression. Expression defined by the one who is expressing, artist who lives expresses, everyone has expression of their own. Who sells the expressed, what is new in this picture of making money, of expressing to be a product? Nothing. Do artists express to make money? And what is valid expression, and what is art. When does expression become art? It is expecting the unknown to be found, expecting originality to be found, expecting the unknown to exist and we be prepared for it. It is a state of trust to express. Then make it a vendible product in a certain frame.

Music world is an interesting scene when talking about censoring, finding originality and freedom of expression. Pop artists pushing some envelope of theirs and possible the establishment’s as far as the record companies allow them to push. To push the envelope against those who actually have power can for a recording artist be suicidal end of a career kind of scenario. Someone has put something in the way to be pushed and one has to push hard to be seen and make change. Usually it is artists themselves who have boundaries to be changed. That is not a surprise in a world of wanting

180

to make it. Controversies, scandals, provocations are marketable items nowadays like ever. Controversy is to rub your ass against male crotch and stick your tongue out, show nipple, have huge body parts, revaling clothing. Huge is only the amount of press. To use sex appeal in making money is not news, but it continuously is. It as such is not incredibly pushing the envelope what comes to originality. To actually stop obeying pop cultural idiosyncrasies would be. It is interesting to analyze cultural scenes since there are people who seriously have power over what we see and use as culture and as art. The power of expertise is a given status. It is a world of relations, golden handshakes, hearsay and again talk over what is proper and good at the same time, but it is a business. The amount of money is huge which circulates in movies, music and in any art,  which platforms function as product manufacturing businesses. What kind of revolution would be desired here? These industries talk about being revolutionary, progressive, artists being revolutionaries, as well art forming itself is a revolutionary act.

4.4.revolutionizing something – the ways of making money.
At war. Revolution is lucrative business. in art. very much so.
Danger of it, danger in living, danger of getting killed, tortured, humiliated, abandoned or injured, of I don’t know what some people like to defy it, death, what else, loneliness. Can we defy life? The uncomfortable effort of pushing against all odds, all minds, that are against difference and progress, the unbearable situation of finding strength when there is none left.

It is to change methods of interaction, patterns of thinking and gaining wealth and therefore revolution to actually making it would mean a complete altering of way of thinking. (Skeptical thought cannot be avoided.) To change how we gain, what we want to gain, if we gain and what there is to gain. Are we doing things to have it all? Despair is one bottom of the end and it is happening right now. Governments are desperate, so are people. Desperate people do anything they can to survive. State of ready to be insane, do hurtful irrational acts, ease the pain to hurt someone else, to get whatever there is to get is the tone of today. To make a change to one’s situation by learning to be wiser and more selfless is the wisdom everyone should personally follow. Revolution is not a sane situation. It is chaos and disorder, why would we need that. We, citizens of Earth obviously are not in enough desperate situation, destruction continues. I claim that what is interesting and temptingly revolutionizing anything is still the happening, despite my skepticism, event itself, unity and effort to maintain the thrill of complete turnover and it is making its way. Radicalism and outlaw qualities appeal but so does better future. What is forbidden allures, to be

181

against all what is set, letting aggression rule is an easy way. Revolution is an expression and learning how to be wise with rage one has. Using rage as a creative force is a new beginning, to create new is to destroy something.

Declaration of instant

 

Power within: Origin of need for power and search for recognition. What is political radicalism today?

3.1 die Macht
3.3 What makes revolution needed
3.3 Not to trust help of others but one’s own is empowerment.
3.4 Bad example: what makes a totalitarian nation to exist. Bullying tactics tangled and exposed.

What makes us powerful and makes us think we are powerful? Is it always in comparison to someone? Who thinks is powerful all mighty, better than and why: what is the definition and act of power? We take and give power which is basic strategy of being a living person making schemes. We play games of granting and taking, using and possessing power, processing power, how are we in terms of power someone has. Is it over us? It is empowering to create and consider one’s makings worthy personal creations, that you can is one thing needed to feel powerful. Do we need other people to witness and congratulate for it? We eat to get energy and feel powerful, listen to music to be inspired by and belong, live empowerment of different elements like sounds, electricity and sunbeams and we become powerful because we observe, think, make, learn, interact and move. Power is in a moment, physical and mental, knowing and playing, a way to rule a moment, take over, master, share and compare. How is power in time and how are power and time individually used is what one allows oneself, which can be taken away from you and denied from you. It is in taking liberties and how afraid are we in doing so, characterizing ourselves to be individual, labelling to stand for something, manners of talking give power, looking, choosing how to look, conflicting or choosing not to, liking and not, pausing, speeding, feeling power of self, enjoyment of doing or choosing not to.

Power has to be taken as it is also granted within society by society, power appropriated and stated: what we can do with our power. In this way thinking everything is power and we are power animals. When we do not have power it feels like death. The sun and nature are our energy sources, the all-powerful God and Goddess. Power is something to fight for and protect as it can be lost, the power position and source of light and warmth, leadership and recognition, comfort and safety. It has to be known, gained and earned. There is either too little or too much of it which makes it problematic, a question of how much and what to do with it, what do others do with their power, what do they do to me. I am attempting to explain the self­-evident and yet it is one of the most difficult issue for us, the most profound and complex issue there is. Light, radiation, push, movement, figures, numbers, scales, tubes, papers, news, text, an image, flame, a bomb. Is it about particles working together, one star, one individual and how he got made, and about millions and millions of other particles and individuals, selfs, selfless, egos, maniacs, reasoning, greed, jealousy, envy, love, hate, chemistry, physics, making of chain reactions. Everyone has a personal relationship to and with power, one has to be aware of it, yearn for it and know what to do with it. Child has power over his/her parents and power of the parents remain with us the rest of our lives. The emotional bond between is the very basic power relationship in our lives: you came out of me, I made you, you are therefore mine or why didn’t you protect me, in your power you hurt me because you could, I trusted you. I have a say over you but how long?

But as it goes your children are not yours. To own something or think owning someone is a destructive power feeling, feeling of absolute overcoming and knowing what is right and wrong. Possessions are extensions to our ego and we like to expand, clear the way. When people have in their hands solid all-conquering power it is a matter of evaluation, judgment and freedom of choosing what doings can be left not to do and what desires tell one wants to do desperately something. In this scenario we are not so compassionate rational beings in control of ourselves knowing what is best and our desires are very selfish. Ultimate power does something to one’s character, to compassion for those who do not have one’s position, too much empathy is not good for disciplinary reasons and making results, reaching goals, keeping one’s position.

3.1 die Macht

Signe Larssen writes in the blog Critical Legal Thinking http://criticallegalthinking.com Notes on the thought of Walter Benjamin: Critique of Violence is about the difficulty of translating the word Gewalt (so difficulty of understanding violence the concept the same) ”which in German carries the multiple meanings of (public) force, (legitimate) power, domination, authority and violence – with the word in English violence carries few of these senses (particularly, institutional relations of power, force and domination or even non­physical or symbolic violence).” [1.] To translate a text into another tongue and culture of thought is a violent act itself is my thought but so is also not trying: is it possible to understand the meanings in other language and the culture as something will self-evidently be left out or misunderstood, which is the violent part? Am I overreacting here (but on the other hand feelings are there and here very sensitive) and saying violent act, is so close, that it is almost impossible to avoid hurt, when according to Jainism just walking over ants is unforgivable that one must look down constantly and walk carefully wiping one’s way, as there may be our ancestors in new form all over. Just like in everything, a step must be taken towards the unknown to open new paths risking offending and comprehend which is always a place of contemplating, place of high risk and possibilities to go wrong. Mistakes will be made against sensibilities, grammar, ways of thinking, work put in to understanding and respecting but hurt is unavoidable and hurt is what violence is all about. Tricky and triggering as it is to speak, our language and use of it is for many reasons and finding power is one of those reason. Where does it lie and how; to be an expert and know nuances is one good way to power: what kind of gestures people appreciate.

Interpretation of violence, to say it is a concept, makes us see the violence done where there should not be aggression but still is or what is understood as an everyday routine and not a wrongdoing, can be viewed from the perspective of the one who is acted upon but cannot act against, is not allowed to and should take all hits because of the underdog position. To be able to verbalise nonverbal action, a hit, is to fight against violence and create defence. An attack, an act, a play and game where there are interests which are being protected by violence, aggression, seen as a core part of life, which is from where I study the subject violence, as I think it is impossible for us to live separate from and not be affected by it, difficult to be safe from and find justice. We watch violence, brutal murdering for enjoyment, as viewers and players to which theater we do not take part in real-life and are not responsible and somehow we are at least those who can watch, judge the content and by thinking what does watching do, the killing seen do to our minds and morals, how are we affected by it. How we decide how and when we are violent, when we think it is time to be aggressive, against whom, forms of violence there are so many. A judgment call is made all the time and we grow into culture that is brutal against animals and humans all over and somewhere else far away even more than here.

Basic part of us that cannot be completely eliminated away with, with which we struggle a great deal, often not understanding the consequences or ourselves why we are the way we are, and hurt caused or not caring. It is very individual and oftentimes minimized experience. Shouting angrily is too much for many to take, it takes a certain kind of attitude not allow it to happen as such and answer back. The physical violence is the one we tend to register and feel empathy for the victim. It lingers in how we say what happened. What we say and to whom we speak aggressively and about aggression. Speaking past someone is microaggression, ignoring, rude.

To multiply and make progress we invade, as cells, bodies, societies, cultures, corporations and as Peoples. It is the very essence of being alive, wanting more, expanding, producing life and staying alive, securing existence, to know and understand power of oneself is to make it visible, a showcase. Yet it is hard to accept the violent nature of life and nature, of any act that even hints to hurting physically and mentally is disturbing to normal people. To translate is to change something unique into a totally different form trying to preserve the way of thinking and saying and make it understandable in a new place and culture. Culturally bound ideas how something is done and thought in real every day life is how something was thought in a particular place and time before. Learning to think and do otherwise is translating oneself, peeling layers within. To change language of time before is learning a different tongue. It is for example studying religious texts which are full of violence and bigotry but in practice today as word of God. Painfully task of understanding takes a lot of work and effort. Clearly not done by many religious groups as religion is the one primal reason to attack, abuse and oppress. To learn and evolve we have to go through self-torture and achy experiences, demand discipline and have wisdom of the heart.

3.3 What makes revolution needed

Authority and leadership are basic functions and tasks in society to occupy and have for society to work properly. It is part of someone’s personality to lead, show the way. One has to be aggressive to succeed in the task of leading and making decisions. We like to practice freedom of choice under built beliefs of what is right and true, we need something solid as religion to guide. Something which is believed to be right and must have also appeared to be so for many. Something that is right (true, real) does something good for most of us, benefitting, makes feel good, proud, hopeful and satisfied. It has got to do with learned common sense, structures of society that keep our balance and order, righteousness, justice, what is proper to do and what is not. The concrete idea of right is the believed right, true to that particular reality, what is seen fit and in interests of profiting the community. Right and good to have, what is known to be right in general, good to do and is that the good for one or many, we must choose. [3.]

Who makes reality of ours in the end to be reality of mine and how do realities of people meet? Have I learned to see reality through my culture’s eyes or my subjective experience and understanding, which part of my culture is me? My roots and society empower me. There is like and dislike and warmth and cold, all is not well always. There are cracks, unhappiness, malfunction. Culture works as manipulator which is easy to dislike and I am very much a product of my culture. Where one is born works as a powerful emotional and intellectual molder of mind. One is born into the hands of the powerful who promise to take care of you but society’s part is large in this regard. First reality issues we face are bodily needs that need to be fulfilled. To grow is to move away from situation where body rules the ways we need and act. Control of mind over body to realize ideas is a big step which now is and has been helped by machines and inventions to keep us satisfied and our basic needs filled and to create new needs. For us to be more conscious and be able to educate ourselves, have spare time to actually know ourselves instead of thinking how to manage daily.

What is expected of civil servants such as politicians? Do people who have power over economics have moral responsibility for how they handle money flow, stock exchange, banking, buying and selling and how they influence on lives of people all over the globe?

Matter of evolving as humans concerns educating children which nowadays is much softer way than before. Results are a much-discussed topic. What can be asked of a child, how far can education go in demanding and disciplining? It feels bad and uncomfortable to demand a cute innocent child to do anything. What violence, use of power and domination mean and how to find balance of not hurting. Philosophy of unhurt is to think and know what is good for the child, what is their best interest, demanded of them to do for themselves and think about the results of one’s actions without causing pain and ill. It is one of the core issues of mankind, the relationship between adult and child, adults’ relationship to childhoods of their own, assuming what life should be, what one should become and how to reach the ideal. [2.] For some bombing is freedom and just an act of just rebellion. In a culture where aggression, emotions and violence are openly showed and every day happenings, minor mishaps and injuries do not count. Difference is how things are measured, faced, experienced, dealt with, what is life worth and who is to decide, where violence leads, what can be achieved with it. Is power essentially about knowing, invading, taking and receiving or is it just living? Power is about not one but about everyone in the area of an impact. Power is an effect, influence. It requires our limbs to grab and desire to want to grab. What comes to thinking aggression often comes to play without analytical calculation what happens after. Truth has power but is truth overcoming or voice of

163

reason? It is inevitable within human and animal relations to look for order and through desired constructions and rules make structures to live by and evolve. Some kind of dictating of order is necessary, manners of interacting need to have commonly accepted rules and ways of happening to be successful. Order and usage of power is a livelihood necessity which is either gained or lost based on history, needs, situations, abilities, rivalries, politic making and favoring. Power is in details of doing. It is often forgotten notion that everybody has power to move to act, to speak, to live. Energy is in us and is therefore us. Every act and word are individual power used and passed forward to make an impact, make part of one’s own count, play the part, be part, be active participant even though one may feel passive and not having a voice to be heard. What must one do? One has to believe that power is there in everything one does and we like to use it to benefit ourselves and people close to us. Which characteristics of ours make us leaders, persecutors, rulers, dictators, traitors, tyrants, obedient, unlawful, unfaithful. How we decide for ourselves and for others is a scheme of multiple issues and things to consider that play their roles in anyone being powerful or not and to which extent. Whose power is the most trustworthy?

One part is to succeed in making decisions, to know what to do and executing ideas, dealing with the results and to move forward. To know where to go and what is to be done. Nature of power can be to halt an individual from knowing. It can be punishment of having done something wrong, how we are controlled to do as we are desired by whom ever. Dynamics of human power is bound to what is thought to be intellectual and intelligent, right and wrong, calculating options and what-ifs. It is also evident that self-­ confidence, ability to solve problems, quick decision-making and convincing ways of persuasion and presentation of oneself and ideas of what should be done have an important role in power play. To look powerful is to have a certain kind of posture, habitus and strong view to organizing things in life.

3.3 Not to trust help of others but one’s own is empowerment.

To become is a learning and living experience. In order to be powerful, one has to empower oneself with knowledge. Power has become to mean something of considerable size, knowledge of to which direction to bow and show loyalty, whether to lie or speak the truth. Power associates with arms, hands and men having power by physical force, making war, taking life. Fear is an ultimate power tool. Those who have finance have been and still are the most powerful people whose grace is wanted. Power is an

164

extension but still one whole block that either raises respect and fright or both. To be powerful on one’s own is to know what one is capable of, to be able to live without constant assistance, to be master of one’s own, without someone telling what to do and be one has to know oneself. Possibilities to make one’s own life requires survival skills not only a knife and knowledge of what can be eaten, but ideas. To be able to trust one’s own views, abilities and thoughts is something people should learn to do more. Few of us can live battling against every odd, authority and jurisdiction though it happens constantly and requires a lot of energy. Such people who question authority and have doubt are very much-needed for democracy to work best. It is also one characteristics of democracy that it can be criticized and battled without losing life and be terminated.

One way of showing power is to create architecture which states where power lies. Power wants to manifest and impress, show off and be bigger than. It is to reach the skies with high towers, go fast with vehicles. It is an awkward moment when there are hierarchical credits to consider in a room, to talk to someone one has to be introduced, with whom can I shake hands with, when not to say anything but listen respectfully, where to stand, what are the right words to say, who will understand my humor and who will find it distasteful and what to wear to make a right impression. Impressions are power. Power is in details as much as it is with large constructions, appearance, bureaucracy and protocol. It is clever and it can be horribly stupid. Knowing how a staged performance works is to know and accept staged performances which keep power together, continuing and ruling. To accept realities of basic protocol is thought self­-evident and manageable. To move forward in a modern society is to accept rules of play, rules that have a certain meaning of places of people, where one stands and what can one ask for and do. It is usual to hear there are things one cannot do especially when one has ideas of one’s own and wants to try them out. Power is a question of life and death. It is work to live and to have life on earth. Nature of power on social level between people works as natural selective force which is part of survival. We have to fit in. We try to avoid social Darwinism, but survival of the fittest is a ruling element in the world today between people. Our basic ideology is to either live or perish. It is part of a cunning game which one must be able to play and understand. Power is usually something one grows into but how? It is taught empowerment of class, gender and origin, lack or virtue within social classes or dictated virtues. Power as possession grows the older one gets. Children are the least powerful. It follows life experience, respect, relationships, profession, class, money, networks, occupations, education and

165

knowledge how power around works.

Authority and leadership are basic functions and tasks in society to occupy and have for society to work properly. It is part of someone’s personality to lead, show the way. We like to practice freedom of choice under built beliefs of what is right and true. Something which is believed to be right and has also appeared to be so for some. Something that is right (true, real) does something good for some of us, benefits, makes feel good, proud and satisfied. It has got to do with learned common sense, structures of society, righteousness, justice, what is proper to do and what is not. The concrete idea of right is the believed right, true to that particular reality, what is seen fit and in someone’s interests. Right, what is known to be right in general, good to do and is that the good of one or many. [3.]

Who makes reality of ours in the end to be reality of mine? Have I learned to see reality through my culture’s eyes or mine, which part of my culture is me? My roots empower me, there is dislike and warmth. Culture works as manipulator which is easy to dislike. In where one is born works as powerful emotional molder of mind. One is born into the hands of the powerful who promise to take care of you. First reality issues we face are bodily needs that need to be fulfilled. To grow is to move away from situation where body rules the ways we act. Control of mind over body to realize ideas is a big step which now is and has been helped by machines and inventions to keep us satisfied and our basic needs filled and to create new needs. For us to be more conscious and be able to educate ourselves, have spare time to actually know ourselves instead of thinking how to manage daily.

What is expected of civil servants such as politicians? Do people who have power over economics have moral responsibility for how they handle money flow, stock exchange, banking, buying and selling and how they influence on lives of people all over the globe?

166

How sentimental does power make us or is it just business and self-­ interest? It is every citizens’ duty to vote and choose representatives to parliament of the state and EU. Many choose not to use that vote. Who is to blame for economic crisis we are having to deal with at the moment? We look for guilty ones but aren’t we all guilty of not using our personal power enough to make things better? One voter does not have power? That is a lot to ask, to ask people to be more aware and less selfish, see the effort of finding out and be interested. To actually read the texts on products is what is it that you eat. Politics being made of and where it is made, by whom and in what kind of circumstances. Expecting honesty and integrity though having been disappointed several times one begins to doubt the whole idea of giving power to strangers over issues that concern every individual personally. What is it to have mandate of that kind? Isn’t it a huge obligation, freedom and duty to do as well as one possibly can to serve citizens’ rights and well­-being. Politicians work for people not the other way around. Even that does not seem self-evident. To do politics is a sign of strength and message of doing well, getting ahead in life. Unfortunately, there is an awful lot of distrust and things aren’t as transparent as they should be. True power is invisible and unreachable as long as we don’t understand how it works and feel powerless. Power has many characteristics and is negatively associated and toned with ruling over and making of politics of war. It stands outside though it is inside of us. It is given, taken, a prized winning. Power poses and has a meaning of putting people on pedestals to be looked up to, obeyed, worshipped, idolized. There is violence there, domination, hidden or bare, appreciated and not. To be a leader of a country something good is expected of that person. To be a father figure or a mother of a nation, nurturing and smiling kindly is a bit kinky position of trust and holds an obligation to do good. To take the lead and guide after being given mandate, but something that has been gained deceitfully can be taken away deceitfully. Position must be jealously guarded, fought for to keep it. Politics the power game, which is a paradox as politics is mainly supposed to function as field of common general issues and of doing common good not placing individual nor corporal interests first. Repeatedly politics show to be a crooked battle field of interests, gaining position, and status.

3.4 Bad example, what makes a totalitarian nation to exist. Bullying tactics tangled and exposed.

Power is a shield and a weapon. Tool of individual strength and ability. Totalitarian nation uses power in a nondemocratic way and is a good

167

example of how power should not be used. In the world there are several countries which can be called totalitarian and which praise their way of handling state affairs. Dealing with cruelty, injustice, persecutions, death sentences, propaganda, censorship, restrictions of freedom of speech and expression. Poverty and organized crime flourish such as Russian Mafia etc. [5.] Notorious example of totalitarian nation and plots is Russia using its power to eliminate opposition in and outside the country. Critics of wars in Chechnya and of Vladimir Putin have been heavily silenced, imprisoned or killed like journalist Anna Politkovskaya (1958­-2006) who was shot in the head near her home. Assassins were and are never to be found but the killed are examples and warning signs. Ways of killing, rumors and doubts are strong evidence themselves of deep corruption. Aleksander Litvinenko who had escaped Russia to Great Britain was poisoned 2006 in London. He was an officer of the Russian secret service who criticized heavily wars in Chechnya and publicly accused (1998) his superiors of ordering assassination of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who also had fled Russia and applied for asylum in Britain 2003. 2013 he committed suicide by hanging. Death also was suspicious but evidence for anything else but suicide was never found.

Investigations started again this year 2013 to find reasons for death of Jasser Arafat (1929­-2004) and were concluded by Russians [7.] that he was not poisoned with the same radioactive substance as Aleksander Litvinenko (1962-­2006). [6.] It is sad history of Russia and international politics of today and it is clear Russia is not a modern democracy and not even trying to be one. How to negotiate with such a nation? State of democracy worldwide is fragile. It has reach a point of capitalist totalitarianism after fall of Soviet Union 1991 when Soviet integrated into fifteen separate countries [3.] still without freedom of speech and its politics is just as brutal and macho as ever. Question is what makes Russia practice militant politics? Is it incapable of doing otherwise? Why does it assume it wins by acting the way it does and what does it win other than horrid scalps?

Cultural difference between Finland and Russia is wide therefore my comprehension does not find logical reasons to abolishing political criticism, marginalizing and criminalizing difference such as LGBTQ lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Church has traditionally had strong stand in Russia and its influence on how sexual minorities or any other ’oddities’ distracting social order are treated is immense. Whether leader of the country wishes to be friends with the church he has to have an opinion about LGBTQ people and keep it very traditional. It is a relationship of give and take between the church and the state. Neither is to be trusted (as horrible as it sounds and is).

168

Divinity in service of leadership. God who is the ultimate authority working through and with those who dare to speak his words. Words of God which cannot and must not be questioned but are interpreted and decoded (translations of translation, faith at work in multi­production of men with power and production of political meaning and desires). What comes to Christianity and power it holds in the world of religion and politics it is clearly said thou shallt not kill and the same goes for judging. It is not up to people to make the ultimate decisions over anyone. This I understand is against death penalty, ill-treatment of homosexuals, disabled, dissidents and of anybody who happens to disagree or live differently than you. One who is truly having faith should know this. Especially Russia is an interesting case of hypocrisy and macho-made divine­ culture. Such is the case in many sizable and powerful nations exploiting faith. Faith is power, God is power-ful. Staying and gaining power, to justify and make ill human action have God’s blessing. One side to tyranny is to build a legend and myth over one person and make him second largest in the known world. Who could be bigger than God who is a man himself. Totalitarian power is based on underestimation and anti­-intellectual forceful superiority of chosen ideology and chosen humanity which steps on diversity and difference, which usually are seen as threats. There is a strict pure way to rule and think, which wishes to eliminate all other ways of expression, knowing, living and believing. This is how capitalism functions at the moment with the help of surveillance and the very orthodox goals of only expanding its power and wealth of those who serve this particular God. There is a group of people who stand for power, who seek it, who search for power and those who use that power in a chosen way to benefit from it in a chosen manner. Traditional and concrete way is to use power as a weapon as is the case in many authoritarian countries. Weapon of choice is to keep vast mass of people quiet and oppressed. It is a weird and familiar theater. Power is to secure and make sure things are smooth and stay that way. Power elite has defined what is a good state of things for that particular nation and its people or a particular group in that state which may not be all the people of that state. Power elite made with money has also defined what meanings do inhabitants of that state have for people of power, why people live in that state, what is purpose of a state to those citizens and globally. It has a body and amount of aggression which must be taken into consideration. Power raises emotions. No one wants to be a button to be moved and be pushed, so one has to seek to obtain power in order not to be disadvantaged. Learning to be cunning and deceitful is part of totalitarianism. In this way we are part of nature’s survival of the fittest circle socially, politically and organically. Society’s supposed task is to reduce, soften and possibly remove circumstances that make cruelty and favoring of the ’fittest’ encouragable, self­-evident, lucrative and possible. This happens by

169

making society tolerant and open for multiple choices to appear and occur. Power is a position where someone is placed because that someone has specific qualities for that position. What kind of specific qualification and means do people like Aleksander Lukashenko or Vladimir Putin have for them to stay in power and have countries of theirs continuously ruled in authoritarian way? Position which requires abilities, leadership, trust of a nation and loyalty, clearly wealth and friends. Foucault says there is truth in power. Something that has proved false has lost its power. What if all why a nation functions is false and false has become truth and there is no one to trust. Situation where everyone is corrupt the one who has the most power is the most corrupt. To have power is to have responsibility but to whom are Aleksander Lukashenko president of Belarus (1994) and Vladimir Putin current president of Russia (2012) responsible for? Power of a dictator is given and taken and it is a force to make others do organized work for that someone who has the power. [8.][9.]

1.http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/10/11/notes-thought-walter-benjamin-critique-violence/­ (3.12.2013) by Signe Larssen, Difficulty of translating the word power, Macht, Gewald, authority, how do we understand power.
2.https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/magazine/the-wedding-fix-is-in.html
(8.12.2013), article about detailed organizing of a wedding and creating bourgeois life through buying a theatrical ceremony. Price transparency, the cost of happiness. by Catherine Rampell

3.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/dec/03/economic-revolution-environmental-plans (3.12.2013) article by Andrew Simms, what kind of revolution is at hand after financial crisis in Europe, how do we alter power relations in financial world to serve societies instead only the rich and how do we keep the environment unpolluted. 4.http://www.coldwar.org/articles/90s/fall_of_the_soviet_union.asp (4.12.2013) Archive with basic info on Cold War and Soviet Union.
5.https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/12/ukraine-victims-euro-russian-divide-2013122132119927878.html (3.12.2013) by Rosa Balfour analyzing situation in Ukraine after wave of demonstrations and an ongoing revolution for Ukraine to become member of EU.
6.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/polonium-210-poison-alexander-litvinenko 
(3.12.2013) An assassination by Russian secret police? Nobody knows.

170

7.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/10538010/Yasser-Arafat-died-of-natural-causes-Russia-says.html (27.12.2013) by Inna Lazareva 8.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_Russia (4.12.2013)
9.http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/12/04/egypt­s­draft­constitution­rewards­military­and­judiciary/gvc8  
(4.12.2013) by Nathan J. Brown, Michelle Dunn, Carnagie endowment for international peace, article about difficulties of making a democratic constitution after Revolution 2013, the problematical Muslim Brotherhood, military rule and making Egypt a democracy.
9. https://chomsky.info/20131208-2/ (8.12.2013) neoliberalism is some misleading concept doctrines of which are not either new nor liberal. Sunday, 08 December 2013 By CJ Polychroniou and Anastasia Giamali, Truthout | Interview, it is working for the rich, the world.

Feminism an ideology and movement, a striving force and necessity in making global revolution of equality (or it used to be, what is it now?). My philosophical, ethical and ideological ground. Perspectives into making wise revolution: what does it mean.

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Division, separation, segregation, mutilation, denial, hate, abundance, abandonment.
2.3 Movement, theory and action.
2.4 Unity what could it be?

2.1 Introduction
We, fundamentally biological beings (I’m trying not to be hugely banal about the characterisation of us and biology, us as a species, genders etc., characteristics of what comes to being human as biologically determined form and shape, organic and changing. As we know it, us and nature, which we know, is what often happens, we think we now), are dictated by random events that happen (welfare state is to make the impact of randomness of life less hurtful and cruel, right? Nations are for humans to survive and thrive, not the opposite.) Our lives are up to a point very random still, not to mention the environment and hormones (funny combination but essential); our chemistry and what it makes us feel and do, is a big part of us and our world as is our anatomy, our biological functions, thoughts and needs etc. There are lots of things that dictate us, we just don’t like to admit it as we are not in control, we can be prepared to that hard fact. We like it to look like we are in control and build the structure of control, to control others and have control, things organised, having things done and having made it, give us the power feeling. We know what we are doing. I’m interested in how much power is an illusion and what is power in terms of self-discovery, living and doing in relation to others. Denying biology is the ’new’ way of empowerment and it is the you can be what you want-ideology, which is a wild thought, thought that we have the ultimate control or want to have control on every aspect there is to being human because we so desire. This issue has come up with transgenderism and in bringing up children, sculpting one’s body to match the inner feelings and desires completely or images seen: this is what I want for me. How it seems to me is this, where we are headed to, towards the utopia of complete control of our bodies and our destiny especially thinking what makes one happy and what we are in the eyes of those who look at us. Feminism has a lot to say about this, lot to say about competition, competing and how opportunities stay open for all that we can make an effort to make it.

Meaning of biology for us is the inseparable and something to dive into constantly which has interested me as an artist: as it does not end, how much part of nature are we and dependable of it, as bodies and minds, to speak of this sounds naive, how come? Without nature there is no us but we like to move away from nature like we were standing on it, as we have no control over it we make shields. Nature is far away as it is the unknown eventful place, in part and for many for most parts we like to be unconnected to this beast we profit from. Nature does not connect with us in suitable, comfortable manner but affects and looks like as a disaster area with which we are ill-prepared to cope which always is a big mistake as we do not know what is ahead of us. Some survive, some don’t. Biology is the unacceptable as it does not do what we want, it eats us. Does this mean we are being alienated from nature completely because it is the easy solution to staying young and good-looking forever and that is what we should want to be powerful? In the making of us there is something I have been wondering what is it all about, what is the making. The very foundation of feminism is that we are equal and we should have equal opportunities as humans but what this means in action and every day is the interesting part and how feminism puts the case of equality forward today in terms of class, ethnicity, origin, looks, wealth, status, work, occupation, education, opinions, in terms of all things that make us different form each other and what does equal mean as we all want and desire to make something of ourselves which brings in the power relation aspect. Equality is a massive task, how it is implemented and understood, it sounds good. Equality, just to say the word is a weird thing and many think as such it is a naive one. What kind of relationship we have with this biology we are born in to, how does biology shape our chances equality-wise is a major issue and can it be altered is the hard question. How we accept ourselves and others, what is the route to acceptance and what we must accept and what not.

Nature has made it we differ much from each other, but we bleed when we hurt. What is equality required and possible in our differences? Living beings share vivid emotional and sensual world which lead us to thinking what separates and unites us. Gender and sex do not dictate intellect, abilities, character nor worth is the feminist idea and good human sense; what do they dictate? Feminism the ideology is to benefit all on grass root level and having choices not to be dictated, monitored and policed. We are more or less feminine, we all have a mother, we all have a relationship to femininity through bodily features still the feminine is under constant attack. Women are the foundation of any society. When women are well taken care of all society is likely to do the same, be and do well. When it is acceptable for a man to walk like a woman, talk like a woman and wear a dress without it being strange we have come closer to gender equality. When a woman can define her femininity, rule her body, sexuality, decide for her life, we are closer to justice and truth. Feminism is diminished down by many men and women as not needed and dead old-­fashioned movement, laughable and unnecessary. If women are not able to have a say over how society should work, as is the case in many countries, then society is not working for all of its members. If women are laughed at because of their sex and because it is seen weak, if they have to be ashamed of their sexuality, if they have to be afraid because they are women, it is a sorry world. If men have to be afraid of female qualities in them we live by macho dream not what is true. What is feminism now is the first and acute question. Who can be and is a feminist? What are the results of feminism and how can it accomplish needed social and cultural changes? Impact of feminism is already all over and pretty fundamental but not yet enough. It is important in this issue at hand to know whether to take a side or not, and on which one side violent gender division exists and is held tightly upon us. Decisions on what to think, how to react, how to judge and whether to judge at all. Gender is by rule problematic, always current and touchy topic where assumptions and given orders apply like an ancient legislation. Society where anything differing from mainstream is an oddity that should be covered up, silenced and removed as indecent and infernal is not living

149

the 21st century nor being on the nerve of things nor wanting equality at all. Sex, gender and sexuality are the most used tools of control. Identity and division are structured and ordered by our traditions. We seek to be accepted, desirable, wake attention, maybe make provocation to make ourselves and be seen. Sexuality is denied as damaging, corrupt, perverted, animal, uncontrollable, destructive force which women hold and use to destroy men, society and themselves. There are tight rules how to be a sexual human being and how to be a good human being. Sex is a taboo to be dealt with not out in the open although it is all over and nothing like ordinary. Still when one glances ads anywhere, music videos and movies anything entertainment industry produces for us to hear and see sexuality is there in the main role and in the very much learned way. It is a way to look, make statement, do business hypnotizing us and our thinking. It is way of selling using our basic needs, fears and prohibitions. We live with sex industry (like it or not) and by which rules business provides guessing what it is people desire and want and it is simple. What do we dream about in high-tech information society consuming, being entertained, sexuality making life a psychological sadistic game at worst. Disapproval and talk make controversy, breaking moral codes make headlines. What is it now, nipples, butt crack breaking the internet, look at the size of it, oh tits. The more we disapprove morals of someone the more controversial the issue gets the more fuel there is to be poured, bigger and bigger when nothing is enough. Press disapproving a racy pop artist’s performance giving her performance lots of space and media coverage, good for her and her manager. Is it disapproving or advertising and also good for the media company? What happens to journalism or us? Middle-­aged women disapproving how young girls walk and dress. Is it regret or concern? What are we concerned about, what do we regret and what do we make of the idea of a young girl and her sexuality, is it a possession and an asset for that girl?

What is behind disapproval is a moral behavior code, gender assumptions, traditions, what is good to do in life and why and who gets to decide. Intolerance, ignorance, religion, narrow­mindedness, worry over corruption of morals, desire to hinder change, fear what one is and showing it and plain fear for the unknown. For many sexuality is the great fright and truly an unknown island. It also makes me wonder why continuously so? Why the big mystery, fear, ridicule, shame and hiding? We desire to be sexually interesting. Most everybody thinks about sex and hopefully has sex. The most controlled sexual being is woman, her pleasure is dangerous. She cannot have it, because it is sinful, impure and evil.

2.2 Division, separation, segregation, mutilation, denial, hate, abundance, abandonment.

World as a whole is very much divided into ideological camps and bunkers which fight each other. People do not either wish to comprehend each other or simply don’t comprehend due to many often irrational reasons dividing us. How that other is thinking and feeling can

150

be a huge task to take into consideration and have interest over. There has to be a strong ideology and movement to defend those who are repeatedly beaten down. Something to call mine because it is personal, political and repetitious. Behavior and patterns which are not stopping until they are stopped. It is a demand and fight for human rights to happen for women, children and men, for indigenous people and other beings. Those who are persecuted because of their gender, ethnicity, background, religion, sexual orientation, disability, difference of any kind and to defend those who cannot defend themselves. In this regard feminism is not a cause for women only ideology and movement with strong barriers around although it is accused of this, rightly so. Camps fighting within feminism is the norm. Women contribute much in welfare in all society starting from home and neighborhoods. Feminism is a necessity and vital opposition against tyranny of corporations and traditions which are creating illusions of perfection and what is right. Feminism is opposition to tyranny of man, tyranny of people as products, against objectification, against one-sided views on color, size, ideologies, values, against tyranny and castles of finance and irrational despotic decision-­making. Women are and have been enslaved to the illusion of perfection, an image in our brain of what woman is, is manipulative, created to eliminate difference, clone personalities, pleasure giving machines and thinking security is found through being desirable. In addition to that women are caretakers, providers, producers of new people biologically, socially, culturally and traditionally. In this sense manipulation is harsh practice, cruel and unjust. Educating girls in to their roles as females, girls, future women, persons and people begin from very young age. We are taught to know, what is our part via our sex. Somebody else knowing what anybody’s place is and meaning in this life is the root of inequality and injustice.

A practice of likable personality is a kind of survivalist plan within patriarchal society. Practices of girliness, manhood and womanhood are to set roles, find security, a heterosexual practice of servitude, obedience and slavery. Woman is foremost a sexual being whose sexuality must be controlled, whose body is a possession and is either holy or cursed, disrespected and impure. Holy only when she does what is expected of her, is agreeable and nice. Situation is such for millions and millions of women. The way out is a hard struggle. Women who do not have a choice but to breed, feed and protect their honor which is also honor of man and family. There are tasks in society given to women on grounds of natural and on grounds of how things have been done before. How women should look like, what are feminine features and things to do. The whole gender issue should be addressed in technological language as women are much seen as objects and machines who are less than. Place of woman falls on her systematically and orderly without much questioning and without many wanting to change that pattern as it is suitable. This is how a factory functions, orderly producing brainwashed products where workers do not have a say. Case in many countries is that women have the part of reproduction and serving, which is fine if it is voluntarily chosen path in someone’s

151

life. Why such control over women is still possible? How the kind of social factory has place anymore? Why woman needs to be put into a position of a dog and why women stay in that given place and when situation changes new problems emerge as men don’t keep up with women? Choices provided by society play a big part in how women manage to solve their lives. Fear of violence, death and abandonment are reasons enough to settle to what other people want. Women who want to decide for themselves to provide for themselves can end up alone. For an uneducated woman it can be a challenge and scary situation to find oneself struggling in a dead-­end. What options are there, how strong are we in this kind of situation or prepared? Religions are dictating position and tasks of women and do not give women power in their lives and let them have bodies of theirs. Women cannot have themselves, especially not themselves. What is the soul of women? By denial and placing fear of punishment religions acknowledge female power within her proving of being afraid of her power. Keeping women uneducated and unaware of their power is a way to rule, but it is also way to keep society from evolving and stopping all people from finding what they could do and express. What she can do with her body and mind is too much to handle. Question is who is not able to control oneself? Maybe chaos and disorder will follow, maybe something no one else hasn’t thought and done before. Interesting is how the feminine and feminine desire realize themselves in this negative, because they are there. Prohibition of expression, suppressed individuality and contempt for the natural sex, incontrollable. Human life and body molded by God’s word, God’s word put in praxis, God’s judgment put in action by people. Dividing good and bad, holy and evil, placing burdens on people because of which sex they happen to be born. Deciding what is what, maybe not knowing the truth but thinking one knows being scared of change. Diminishing and minimising something that is very complex makes complexity even stronger. There are such contradictions in what is said, what happens and what is believed to be true it is no wonder there are conflicts. Contradictions via interpretation, to comprehend and put in order life and the representation of humans, we continue fighting in everyday life because we have free will, visibly. Paradoxes which are difficult to manage, to change and unjust to live by. An overall religious view is to see body and bodily functions as impure especially female ones and the world as such where spirit and soul matter and wander in search of perfection and harmony. It could be as if life is somewhere else all the time, is for someone else, in some other time and we in despair.

2.3 Movement, theory and action.

The word Feminism originates from French Utopian Socialist and Philosopher Charles Fourier 1837, the year of his death. [1.] Words Feminism and Feminist first appeared in public in France and the Netherlands 1872. Claims for women’s rights started to happen at large in action at the end of 19th century and beginning of the 20th century by Suffrage movement in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and in the
152

United States claiming women’s right to vote and stand for parliamentary office. It is still knowing how religions dictate place of women difficult to understand the opposition feminists have faced and face today. The amount of bitter hate and disdain against feminists, women claiming their citizenship and human rights that for some are less than that of men which is God’s punishment and judgment for all women. Feminists have been treated as lunatics and criminals lacking decency. Feminism as something that will pass. Those unattractive misfits, bald angry lesbians who hate men and behave like prostitutes, unattractively angry. Those who fear say anything to put shame on dissidents. Women who don’t and did not fit nor accept the society’s mold of proper, place of woman, continuity of males as kings nor rules of hypocrisy have been self-evidently painted malaise, harmful, insane, ridiculous, hysterical, marginal and difficult. Women who didn’t accept their part as underdogs began a feisty battle which became violent towards feminists. They began peacefully demanding their rights which did not work and they began to break windows. Feminism is first a movement, demonstration and fierce action demanding and fighting for equal rights and opportunities for all. It is a fight for possibilities to choose how to live as an individual with will and mind of one’s own and as a capable decision-making thinking person. Prejudice and historical echoes have made it so that feminism is not mainstream ideology even we are bound to it as a thoroughly society changing and questioning political ideology. It is not all that common to be working class feminist even labor movement is very much women’s and children’s rights movement. Common is to hear celebrities say of not being feminists but. Desire of theirs is to pose as strong women of the business and live as sellable products earning money that being an illusion of having control over their image and being strong is a facade. Powerful yes but how? How scared can one be and how manipulation is strength? It is too common to hear the denial and keeping distance to that odd and hateful religion­-like ideology that want women to be ugly, hating men or something. Ignorance is once again biggest prejudice creator around. Woman is desired as a body that brings joy for someone else but her and to concentrate on staying pretty and desirable as long as you can is one kind of power but is it strength?

After having put action out with positive results groundbreaking feminist theory started to develop and wonder position of women in society thoroughly. Feminist theory is a complex set of ideas on how genders function, are supposed to function, genders and sexes as social and cultural beings and constructions. Feminist theory is much as any academic work working and looking from the middle­ class points of view but is seen as radical movement still. Working class and middle ­class stay separately still and suspicious of each other; can they mix and work together without suspicion and prejudices and why the division is there in the first place, what is the class divide all about? What happens to equality in this picture? It is a vital issue for feminism how classes function and change, how work is seen and defined, paid and appreciated. Which classes will perish, shall there be new ones, what is the meaning of discourse over the class question all together, whom does class system serve and

153

what would world do without distinct separations. Colossal structures of research, work and education are there to be shaken. Working class (which still exists) is too scared to get radical, at least in Finland. Every society has working class of its own kind. Curious is how do they appreciate themselves, are appreciated and what kind of groups get made within. Education and work cultures reflect directly to position of women and rights of labor concern all of women. Feminist theory tends to float inside an academic bubble, thick walls round academies which may scare the common man. Feminist research does not address everyone as doesn’t science as a whole even though it is the meaning of science to be for everyone, serve welfare and the evolving of every man. Elitist academic towers can be isolating and again gaining position can be luring power element in academic competition. Academic position is much respected place to have. To talk only to certain kind of people about social change is an intriguing subject itself, matters of writing and talking but it is not enough to make that change happen at grass root level and be understood that the struggle is the same. Question is how and what message of change is put out, by whom and why? And how a change could be pursued if groups of people do not communicate with each other? It is clear change required does not happen within middle­class, in academies nor in theory. Question is what kind of groups of people globally are the ones who are oppressed enough and tired enough to act? Who don’t want empty promises, unemployment, dead-end future prospects, poor welfare and poor quality of education? Middle ­class and working class do not respect each other enough, know each other, speak the same language or desire to understand each other. There is mutual contempt there which stops multilevel interaction, compassion, understanding and collaboration. How could there be found mutual language and patterns for action which lack oppressive and biased hierarchical structures?

2.4 Unity what could it be?

Communist Manifesto published in 1848 demanded abolishing of child labor, education for all workers including women and children. The demand list of the Manifesto was modern, fresh and ahead of its time demanding equality, dignity and human rights for all. Importantly Manifesto stated abolishment of bourgeois individualism, changes to inherited position in society and right to property, which meant abolishment of slavery and exploitation of people, need to stop abuse of workers’ effort and time. It demanded progressively everyone’s right to work without fear, more time to schooling oneself and one’s family. Free development for each is the condition of development for all. [2.] [3.] [4.] Developed way of looking society and its people on idea level which was to be reality and revolutionary vision to be made come true, a utopia of a better world
154

within reach to applying all hopefully bringing welfare, well­being and prosperity. Demand for abolishment of bourgeois family could have meant a beginning for women to stand on their own and have multiple paths to choose from than only having one or two. Michel Foucault states in Foucault Reader, Rabinow, 1984 that bourgeois society before Freud’s inventions repressed sexuality and especially infantile sexuality to a point where society refused to speak of it or acknowledge existence of sexuality in children and women. Crusade against masturbation is a typical example of this as is giving diagnoses for women who in any way acted differently than what was the general ’better’ judgment. Crusade is to the point essential word to use in contexts of bourgeois society and its determination concerning use of power over women and children and in general anyone who stands on the ’weak’ side. Weaknesses strictly categorized, the weak labeled and stigmatized. Infantilizing women in terms of sex was the norm, female sexuality was beauty in statues, very fragile but obviously too powerful to let roam free.

As Communism firstly concentrates on abolishment of the bourgeois way of life and class and gaining global labor rights, feminism concentrates on ending sexism and slavery of women, standing for girls’ rights for education and rights of those in the marginal and  under threat because of their gender and sexual orientation. Feminism is against persecution, against mental and physical torture. Questions about difference and what is the difference between and why should it be pointed out are the core issues. [4.] Both ideologies, Feminism and Communism have interesting similarities in being hated, bigotedly stigmatized and activists persecuted for demanding basic human rights and equality. Focus and determination of ending dictatorship is admirable, needed and springs out from harsh reality and experience. It is good to bear in mind that slavery was ended by law 1723 in Russia where poverty has been more of a rule to this day for the large part of the population. Position of women is questionable in a macho culture self-evidently. [3.] [4.] Worldwide slavery has not ended nor extreme poverty and injustice nor exploitation of work nor abuse of women and children nor of those who do not fit in tight gender boxes. Strong political global movement and revolution is much required not as a local act but as global aggressive action (aggression here does not mean physical and violent warfare and question remains how to address anger that is boiling). People are more globally active and maybe even more aware than ever therefore it is appalling problems as extreme poverty and crimes against humanity such as human trafficking and slavery of maids exist. It is intolerable there is resistance against the demand for human rights. [5.] Feminism is at the moment making strong, new and active movement especially in Europe. Taking stand nonviolently and loud as hell.

155

Feminist movement Femen is fighting on the streets facing fascists, ordinary street men, politicians as well as the police, who continually arrest bare breasted women shouting Fuck your morals, God is a woman, Ukraine is not a brothel, in gay we trust, Nudity is freedom! Strength and visibility of such fearless action and devotion to the important cause is impressive, appreciated and joyfully effective. Feminism should be exactly that and in there, on the streets, in demonstrations, during world cups which lure prostitution to flourish, in places where world leaders meet to make people in suits face anger, attacking fashion shows to let them who exploit hear out those who really have an important message: Listen to those whom you abuse and manipulate! We are many and we force you to listen. Feminism is activism, sextremism, distraction, interruption, disturbance of status quo and destruction of seemingly comfortable balance breaking that clean surface. It is an unforgiving demand in itself and notion that women have to take their place to be heard, fearlessly speak out standing tall. Feminism is demanding abolishment of sex trade, acknowledgement of the problems which women globally face, abolishment of sexism and punishment for it, concrete demand for separation of the church and state, legalization for access to free and safe abortion, women to have decision over their bodies and work, punishments for rapists to be heavier than they are. It is demand for respect, justice and dignity. Feminism is demanding human rights and lasting social change to all human beings, environment and animals. It is one of the most important global movements at the moment and the importance of change shows in the way Feminists are treated. Importance of attitude change is immediate. Importance of finding conformity a repulsive tool of oppression and fascism. Importance of learning how fascism works today and manifests itself daily in ways of monitoring, dictating, suppressing and manipulating. Place of women is displayed by showing hate against women, against Feminism, stigmatizing those who dare to speak up and act against oppression. It is one of the most important issues globally to make concrete change to better lives and rights of women, minorities and children. [6.] Situation is angering and change is slow. Hierarchy, power and position of church is immense dictating places of genders, how people should live, what is right and wrong. Religions and dictators are obstructing development of human rights for people to achieve better quality of life, better treatment and appreciation of women and children as individuals and people. [7.] I see divisions very clearly anywhere, personally and generally and I refuse to be what I should be by my sex and gender traditionally, ordered by someone who is to be above me because he or she can. I can do nothing but go against. Change is coming and there is no other way.

156

Links to the books read and which are to be read over and over again. Communist Manifesto is a recommended reading for those to whom the word communist is a curse word, to whom everyone who is on the left is a communist and communism equals to mass murder and oppression. People use philosophies and ideologies to force their personal interests forward in the world, this has been true before and is true today. It is not necessarily fault of the philosophers and dissidents.

https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/communist-manifesto-ebook/

https://monoskop.org/images/f/f6/Rabinow_Paul_ed_The_Foucault_Reader_1984.pdf

Chomsky answers by returning to other dimensions of universal human nature and reason. In his opinion, there is a universal human need for creative work and free inquiry. The possibility of satisfying this need is stifled in our society. Given modern technology and science, Chomsky argues, the means are currently available to overcome the alienation and drudgery of labor. If this has not been accomplished, the fault lies not in science but in the social and political organization of our society.”

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fourier
www.wikipedia.org/Feminism 18.12.2013
2. http://www.marx-seura.kaapeli.fi  uusi linkki 12.8.2018
3. https://www.skp.fi/asiakirjagalleria/kommunistisen-puolueen-manifesti 18.12.2013, 30.10.2013 Kommunistisen puolueen manifesti pdf.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Russia 30.10.2013
5.http://www.tulva.fi/blogi2.php?aid=116088 by Lauri Punamäki ja Emmi Vähäpassi 22.11.2013 Naisunionin pohdintaa miksi miesten pitäisi sallia liittyä feministiseen järjestöön 6.https://www.facebook.com/FEMEN.International 18.12.2013 Feminist organization fighting for human rights worldwide! Their breasts are their weapons. Originating from Ukraine making fierce action against patriarchy rule and exploitation of women.
7. https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/on-our-radar-feminist-news-roundup-82 21.11.2013News post by Arielle Yarwood fight is far from over, fight for women to have right to their bodies, right for abortion
8. https://womanstats.wordpress.com/?s=state+feminism 21.11.2013 woman stats project, Feminist blog/ column about state feminism in political use during Cultural Revolution in China
9.https://www.salon.com/2013/05/07/how_to_fold_a_thong_a_straight_man_working_at_victorias_secret/21.11.2013 article by Christopher Pilny for Salon
10. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/topless-jihad-why-femen-is-right/275471/20.12.2013 by Jeffrey Taylor article of Femen demonstration in Belarus, demonstrators were kidnapped, tortured by secret police. 11.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third­wave_feminism 14.3.2014