Missing person

Image | May 4, 2016May 9, 2022 | Henna Timanttimetsä

What does it mean to have an ego?

May 3, 2016February 27, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Does it mean one can speak of oneself all the time, bring oneself forward because one understands one’s importance as a human being in a competitive world, to value and marvel all the wonderful things one has had the pleasure to do and become? All the wonderful things that can be labelled on that person things that make him or her. What are those things and who get impressed? What happens when those things are taken away, what happens to ego? To be self-centered can be about hiding one’s insecurity, that one is not able to compete in the competitive world where we are something only when we have excellence to present as visible proof. There is weakness in a hugely ballooned ego and it is fragile in unstable world filled with similar egos, similar ideas of what it means to be impressive, sizable and important. Big egos are fragile for criticism, afraid of losing and not winning, they attack and blacklist, stump on mud trying to defeat. Big ego is fragile for negative emotions to arise and take the better of the egoist which very often happen and so easily. There is hurt and offense.

The most egotist thing to do is to do all for the benefit of oneself only, to pursue and stand for things that bring good and profit for one and few only. This is a caricature which is very real. It is a very immature type of person for whom excellence is something one is born with, god given. How many of us are egotists, narcissists, disregarding interests of other people and any other being around? By the look of it, by experience, such outlook on life is fairly common, incapability and unwillingness to take others into consideration. What does it take to grow to be considering instead of a bully? Is it the bad thing that decent people deny from themselves ever having, consideration and compassion because it is costly, time-consuming, humbling and anti-hierarchical? Is ego something the bold people possess, ruthless and greedy ones, isn’t that ego as a hollow construction, a show off and scare? We talk as we know ego. We talk it is the positive empowering pedestal, a sign of self-respect maybe, a sign of disrespect if one is a woman, arrogant and cocky. Someone who knows what one wants and is must have a strong ego among all those egos. Ego has a dark shadow, it is gendered already for children. It is the negative which is not encouraged for girls to have and a girl who shows bossy is punished for doing the same what boys ‘naturally’ express. The word ego clings to something grand, becoming and making oneself and has the clang of the worst of mankind: self-absorbed, self-centered, endless self-love, violent battle that has no end other than dead-end. When we are selfless are we without ego, without dignity and awareness and acknowledging self-worth? To be able to fight for dignity and self-worth to know what one can do is essential.

How much is it good to have an ego? Is that the right question at all, the amount of ego in us and what we do when we have self-confidence and belief in one’s capabilities. As an artist it is essential the belief in oneself. Nobody else does that for you. How essential it is to have a strong ego, not be blinded by it but have it as a force. Is it the same as large ego to have strong ego? There is no one telling me what to do, how to do what I do. I either manage it or I do not. I work as long as it takes to make the idea come true. How much does my ego effect on why I do, what I do, how I do and what kind of place I occupy for myself to be able to do the things I value? One must value oneself to find one’s passion, follow one’s interests regardless of what people around think of them and of me.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434827/individual-cowardice-killing-american-culture?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_content=5728623d04d3012df78b5195&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter “I’ve often found myself thinking of William Butler Yeats’s classic poem, “The Second Coming.” In it, Yeats ponders societal collapse, writing: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” In our nation, the center didn’t even try to hold. The “reasonable” people made the easy choice to go with the flow of cultural upheaval.”

Destination unknown?

Image | April 25, 2016March 11, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Frozen Barbie: when empowered by looks your power is your looks your appearance. What kind of power is that?

April 24, 2016March 13, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

What kind of looks is empowering? We can imagine that, it is something that impresses one way or another. It can be a uniform kind of look, overly feminine, overly masculine, something that is controlled but emphasized toned exaggerated, arrogant, vulgar and self-assured, confident to the maximum. It is giving a power feeling and instant impression of size, message and direction. That one feels one has got power to seduce and influence with one’s posture, habitus, body form, color, age, presence, things that chosen and are shown, bare or hidden skin, that we pay attention to as sexy, appealing, that we notice as interesting. The visual of a woman is that she is sexual, she has as a cultural and biological being and construct a complex relationship to sexuality and sex, how is she showing and manifesting her sexuality and is it her decision. She is sexualized plainly because she is a woman or a girl, mostly she can’t own and control her sexuality, define it or use it for her own ends.

Importance is on the visual of a woman because body is a turn on or off, it is her. An object of desire with subject attached to. Face being the key to that person who is an image and product. Sexuality is a play with roles, status, hierarchy, reality and illusion, it is to be liked and loved, accepted. That she is the kind to be liked and loved, maybe as a whole person, as the same as she looks, someone who is by definition beautiful on the outside is on the inside the same beautiful and whole, important. She is complimented for her looks first. Is the first thought of her always how she looks? That is the first thing women experience, are seen, talked about, are expected to be, beautiful and via that beauty be worthy of noticing and appreciation. Basically there is nothing wrong with the habit of telling people how good they look, when they have seen the effort and want to impress via looks. To be impressed by appearance is what happens instantly, we like or we do not. It is possibly never a neutral issue.

Iconic beauty queen and an image but she is a living person who says she is in control of what she does, how she performs and what she shows of herself. Someone who makes her living via her appearance selling her looks to be printed on ads and magazines, on the internet for all who wish this kind of content and get a thrill over it, a positive one. What is the positive here, the empowerment which is the abusing of people desires, insecurities, abusing the space for something selfish. What is it we are watching, what is it we have? What is the interest there other than sex? Our need to look at beautiful people empowers those who have the need to be looked at, admired for their looks, told how good-looking they are. Does empowerment move the other direction as well as beautiful people are idols for very big part because of their beauty?

Empowerment is born via attention, a rush and energetic turn on, highly sexual experience, perverted and natural. The flow of images of people and fame that may follow, dreams of fame, possibility of fortune, getting inside a jet set, becoming popular, comments given, all kinds of comments that feed the fame, outrage, hate, dislike, criticism, especially the negative emotional, irrational and rational outbursts of reactions, story of a person which is a picture, story which grows as the fame grows bigger. She and he who are gazed, compared, envied, copied, imitated, desired, put as posters on walls exploding the internet. Human form of perfection which for the eye is symmetrical and appealing, as I analyse the mediocre hyped human form that is placed on highest peak of our attention, to catch our attention. Constant policing as contrast, in comparison shaming of her means she is oppressed, oppressed on so many levels it is almost impossible to break the wall of bias and expectation of what a girl and woman are supposed to be and do. To be in control is not care of thoughts and comment. Permanent state of chauvinism and sexism infiltrated stay set as model for all which is understood by all, things seen as funny, harmless kept alive and going because it is impossibly tight grown, stuck and glued on us, and we wonder anything and anyone who does not want the same.

Image | February 28, 2016July 13, 2022 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Upsetting biology

October 28, 2015August 5, 2019 | Henna Timanttimetsä

What are we when we cannot be defined by our biology? It is almost understandable the mental turmoil over claims that biology stands the last defining factor for us and there is no way round it, why would there be and why are we the way we are. Turmoil over something we cannot fight against is naive. We like to defeat nature, be better, know better and use it for our benefit. We are selfish, narcissistic and full of ourselves doing exactly as we please, how else. There is a little truth there we have come away from, grown apart from nature, nature in us and nature in general. We don’t know it, we don’t respect it, but it’s there. What to do with nature in us and how it affects our lives? Should it be ignored (impossible, especially for women) or learn to understand what we are in this whole which we are part of, from which we come from. To say against nature of ours is to deny the scientific facts, which nature also is for us science and study, a target to explore and while doing that we get to know ourselves. It is also fair to say that we maybe are becoming less human and what that means is to go closer artificial existence. We sometimes feel like robots and building artificially humans to be the way they wish to be is making an artificial appearance, the way we want to be. To refer to nature in talking of us and grounding arguments concerning humans with nature and its involvement in our lives is said to be old-fashioned. Statement is strikingly odd. Since when did nature and science become old-fashioned?

Outrage in the matter of whether transgender people are what they feel they are is insignificant. Outrage against a feminist who has faced outrage throughout all her life sounds tiny and hurt feeling ridiculous, naive and out of the proportion. People get outraged because feelings are hurt and such thing must not happen for those who are hurt continuously because they are freaks of nature. Emotions which there are in massive force used in social media is a curious thing and how we should feel about the matter of comforting cruelly discriminated people who are also a mass, not only transgender people. They are all who do against what they are supposed to do and be, who practice out of mainstream sexuality, who are distasteful in the eyes of the majority, who are perverse, who do not care for normal rules for sexual acts and display sexuality as it is and comes to be. To strain and restrain sexuality, the force and nature in us, is also normal. It cannot be out in the open, there have to be rules to obey religious order. Shame over sexuality is a norm, sex which is natural and should be normal issue to everybody without fear and feelings of wrong. It is therefore religion which has taken us away from nature, animal and instincts which cannot be followed because they are impure. For religion biology and evolution have been and still are tough cracker despite the evidence. How can we have faith in nature when there is such impurity and filth there even though God made it? For humans to be able to manipulate what nature has done is something we justify with religion and with our supreme intellect, because we can and we want, we must have.

When people start hating someone when that someone says against what people want to hear, it is again normal. Surprising and positive would be if this tactics of feelings which cannot be hurt because they are so vulnerable, sublime and true was tossed aside and the outraged defending crowd would be rational and listen, have a discussion instead of wave of hate and outcry. To be enslaved by one’s emotions has been considered instinctive and therefore natural for which women have been accused of, being under power of something we cannot rule and which moves us.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2015/10/what-row-over-banning-germaine-greer-really-about “But why are women always punished more than men for having controversial opinions?”

To become part of gender and sex-oriented society

August 5, 2015March 6, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Sign is there between the legs, a message to people how child should be brought up. What would happen if it didn’t mean that much, that sex wouldn’t dictate how we are perceived and how we should be? Saying earlier that to be a girl is a full on crisis is exactly it, how to grow and adjust to the environment when to adjust is the most wrong thing there could be and do. Adjust and accept because one must. Firstly is the issue of where you live and what kind of atmosphere you are born to, what does your environment tell you, makes of you, lets you be, how you will end up knowing who you are and what will you be, what you should be and who to believe, what to be scared of and what life is worth, your life. To having accepted how to live when does the fun end if we are having fun in the first place.

To be an individual can be tricky. What does it even mean anymore. Young men and women on the video below which is an intro to the movie Spring Breakers 2012 by Harmoni Korine is truthful to reality of college students in the US. Both sexes are exercising roles that are heterosexual and oppressive, roles that are to be followed by students as fun but strict and fitting the idea of letting go and being young in a certain way. Equaling reckless behavior to fun where women are exposing themselves as willing pornographic wild sexual partners on beach with alcohol and drugs. Camera angles tell the story of where to look. Women line up in front of men to play blow jobs with open mouths in which men pour drinks from cans, cans posing penises. All happens on the beach, bright color swimsuits and ads, ecstatic faces and young people who want to go out of control and to be seen as such. Men are more of spectators and users of goods which women gladly offer since it is fun and there are many women instead of one. Grouping is essential of this fun, group dynamic, collective awareness of what is happening and what to do. Who will be wildest and sexiest. Do men expose themselves, do they get drinks on them like it was sperm? This scene is a collective dance of spring, ancient as it is unacceptable and blown out of proportion. Pornographic imagery is very clear as is influence of music videos. All bodies are trained to perform this act. What happens really is shaming and objectifying of women. Women willingly play cattle to be slaughtered and enjoyed, enjoyed and slaughtered. It is suicidal, destructive and dangerous, but that is obviously what they seek, what turns them on. It is one way of seeing student life and a break from studying.

http://time.com/3984218/joyce-carol-oates-marilyn-monroe/““How could such a beautiful, successful and famous young woman kill herself?””

Is it girlhood having a crisis?

August 5, 2015March 6, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Crises are normal part of life. Life is a continuation of crisis after crisis. In this light to speak of midlife crisis is absurd. It is as if one had waited and endured till midlife to erupt and be able to do what one desires to do and be. It is an image of people who are under control in straitjackets which they are not allowed to be stripped away from. It is an image of a world where people are not free to decide for themselves. In this image they are slaves to traditions and ideas of gone generations who do not allow new ideas of living because those ideas threat authority, way of life and the whole idea of what is seen as good, what kind of society is good. Who does this kinds of straitjacket good serve is a good question. What is accomplished by it, by militant control? Thoughts on what is good for anybody is dictated from above. In this dictatorship girls and women serve this unchangeable monolith of patriarchy and are replaceable second-class citizens, are threatened and bullied into silence, shame and intolerance without human rights. Monolith that is scared of girls and their education, their bodies and minds is a weak society. It is a tale of men who are terrified of female power.

Asking if girlhood is having a crisis is therefore funny as to me girlhood is and was a bloody crisis. To be told of entering men’s world when I am being stared at and my body being commented by adults was sheer horror. To live for amusement of others was and is the thought of the ideology of chauvinism and sexism which I resent with all my being. I feel nausea when I think of walking and being looked at and shouted at. I truly hope boys will be raised to see girls and women as equals not servants to men, not sexual objects of desire, but thinking and feeling persons, makers of lives of their own. To be a girl in a world where perfection is seen via male perspective, body and what a man can do bring feelings of powerlessness and fear. Yes girls are small and they are easy to rule which makes the having and making of girl brides seem pathetic and sadistic. Those who wish to have children to rape are moronic criminals and brutes, sadists who see evil in children and not in themselves. World where children are subjugated moronic criminals and brutes has a bloody future.

http://www.reproductiverights.org/feature/fighting-for-girlhood?s_src=16SOC0815&s_subsrc=datasync&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=16SOC0815““Stopping the continuum of harm that is triggered by early marriage is only possible when governments fully implement laws and policies that prohibit child marriage, and when women are aware of their rights and empowered to make decisions about marriage,” says Upreti.”

How do you clean without a vacuum cleaner? Who cleans without a vacuum cleaner? No one. Really? Can you smell the new smell?

April 20, 2015July 13, 2022 | Henna Timanttimetsä

I have a cleaning dilemma which is ideological, not that much that I didn’t know what to do. Is it also a gender issue, environmental? Do I dare to ask? Can you imagine living without a vacuum cleaner? It is a similar kind of question as could you live without a car or two. It very often is for many unimaginable. Why is it so unimaginable? Life would get difficult and uneasy if we didn’t keep it together with helping equipment. Our everyday problems are solved and we don’t have to think much about it just. Sigh of relief. One could almost feel like a freak without the basic tools, left without lacking something important which is meant to be with us organically like a friend. Almost, hey. Of course this is a question of how much space one has to do clean and what kind of dirt we are talking about. When it comes to professional cleaning ladies, who clean for living, it is good for their health to have ergonomic light tools, essentially important. Cleaning ladies’ work is hazardous, unappreciated, loathed even. Something you do not easily see, stay interested in unless the job is not done. To pay attention to those people who take care of our spaces is therefore important. They are many and invisible as long as they stay quiet and do their jobs. Cleaning personnel get paid poorly, pay which does not enough include to the fact it is a dangerous job to maintain surfaces. Health risks are there how the work is done and what kind of poisonous cleaning detergents are used, not to mention people looking down on you as you haven’t moved up in the world. Detergents can smell good for a minute. Spraying detergents is the same as breathing them so you can imagine what the shit can do in the long run. As garbage men, cleaning ladies and janitors are doing socially extremely important work, think about it what they could do: stop the whole of society. Can you smell the new smell?

Interesting point here is how we assume, forget, do not think, see the obvious or ignore completely because we don’t have to pay attention. All we have to do is to know the necessity of technology and total superiority of things we own, their unquestionable value to us, that we know they are right for the job they are designed to and we can have them. Tasks and needs which cannot be done otherwise, who would want to anymore. We would soon be asthmatic and living in filth like our ancestors going nowhere. It is the power of advertising, powerful collective suction and consuming mindset to owning, to expertise, re-organizing, planning and performing proper civilized human beings who maintain themselves. Especially herself who has to know how to maintain this perfect image, how to be in it. It is so precise of an image holding on to us tightly. Letting go is overwhelmingly problematic. We have our reasoning which is part of the problem. Effectiveness is all. This reasoning is solving only the surface of things without wanting look inside.

If we lost machines like washing machines and vacuum cleaners it would mean cleaning work renaissance with laundry and household staff. Would it be class society all over again? Nevertheless there would be work if there were people who needed the service and paid for it. It is easy to see how important hygiene is for our everyday lives and how easily we ignore this fact.

What do you know about vacuum cleaners is another question and I bet nothing much. Where do they come from and where do they go? They, our tools, do the job just as well and much better than the old ones. New ones keep on appearing, designed, manufactured and they look amazing matching our interior of chrome and glass which need to be spotless. We are instructed how to plug-in, put on and how to operate. If you are not able to there is something wrong with you no doubt. To get rid of the things when they have lived their lives with us can be a bit tricky if you are willing to put effort and time in to that not so tiny ecological dilemma. We don’t have to know machines we use well, we don’t have to know where the materials come from, how the cost of machines get made and who profit the most. Vacuum cleaners are made super easy to use, everybody can use them, everybody can have them and will have a vacuum cleaner. What other this machine does than suck dirt and dust and what kind of life does a vacuum cleaner as an object represent is the easy comfortable living without dirt without effort. It provides and represents health. Even our apartments have closets for the thing with a long tube and heavy body. It is an essential tool cleaning your car, sofa, carpets quickly without too many extra movements and tricks.

Why I talk about vacuum cleaner is that I don’t own one and I happened to ask the cleaning lady who works our building could I borrow the one she uses. (I got a face) Nobody asks such questions because everybody has their own. So I think it is a very interesting cultural question of how we consume, how we maintain our standard of living and take care of our property, homes and which items belong to a modern household. I am in many ways a minority, by far.

Can you imagine people who live without vacuum cleaners, what they are like? At what point imagining life without those essential machines in our lives has become almost impossible?

To get stuck with ideas of how modern life is arranged and should be lived is where the closed society is born. Not that societies were not closed before, but there is a large problem waiting to be solved about how we evolve or do not and in some ways it is not new and some way it is terrible isolation which is almost impossible to change. What kind of society is closed and how do we open it or better yet encourage people to open up society as a culture and as a structure?

Yes it is a bit perverse question, psychological, and you can begin to imagine all kinds of alternatives, horrors, To think what do I mean with cleaning can too be very different than idea of cleaning to a super hygienist. Why do I even ask is because we assume too much. We have vacuum cleaners and they work perfectly fine, mostly. A machine almost all households have like a self-evident equipment so much so that to think cleaning without this noisy part of home would be unthinkably. To me it strongly seems people as modern population have come to a point where we do not see the opportunities there are. We like to be stuck and like our comfort.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/vacuum-cleaner.htm “2. As the fan blades turn, they force air forward, toward the exhaust port(check out How Airplanes Work to find out what causes this).”