social

How much of ourselves do we reveal?

| Henna Timanttimetsä
What is necessary and what is not, but we keep hidden and treasure. Hidden personal info which is necessary to keep hidden. Rational, calculating, manipulative and maybe a human thing it is to be seen by other people, need to be seen but not seen through hopefully, place oneself to be seen, looked at, at least that is how people like to think of themselves that they are looked at not inspected. To have secrets is one basic ingredient. Looks is therefore one secret to be solved. We are analyzed all the time, everything is a sign. People like to think they are not open books but mostly they are nothing but. You just have to know what to look for, there are strings to pull. How cynical is that. How do I know what someone is thinking? I’m not a psychic but what people think of other people and what people want is something always relevant and there always is something to want and take. It is a basic human interest, self-interest and suspicion, danger one way or another. There is no trust but I’ll have what you have and call it mine. Person is present in the conversation even if nothing much is said, all is in the how things are said, what is said, why people do things and what are they getting from doing the things. Bias can be and is something one can rely on. It exists in a way that you can never avoid facing bias. To know what the other is thinking know the bias against you and assumptions about your kind. It is not of course 100%, nothing usually is but it is a very strong guiding light to acknowledge that we like think we know more than we do. To know oneself is hard enough and to be secretive can be an advantage, respectable.
Still to guess what people do and think about is quite easy. Why? To me it has appeared that community molds people very strongly, how for example young girls from certain background, upbringing, education and culture behave and what they want, what they think of themselves, their possibilities, other people, what life can offer them can be frighteningly similar and bound to that particular group. As is many people do not know what they reveal of themselves merely by facial and bodily expressions, how they stand, what they are wearing, how they look at other people, what do they say or do they speak only for those who they think they can speak to, they feel safe with, do they team up with people and what kind, how they respond to strange people and how they take their space. It is amazing how quickly we catch up with in a strange environment with strange people just by looking and observing.

To be of high value what to accomplish and what to be?

| Henna Timanttimetsä
I have wondered what is needed to be of high value in society. What society values highly in a person, what is valuable for a person and in a person who has achieved appreciation, has been noticed as a maker. What gets noticed as we seem to seek getting noticed? We do not get appreciation just being alive, we have to make a life, a face and become visible. To have done something in life that can be appreciated is what all people want. Life worth living and be proud of. What I wonder where does the appreciation come from, what is it, how it is given, granted since it is there to be given after having done something valuable to all, something all can see. What is worth while to connect with, something to relate to, follow, get to know and idolize?
How egoist one has to be in world today and is good to be is good to ask and bear in mind the extent of ego one has and what does it mean to have an ego. Without ego we do not manage to make ourselves, to be individuals and it appears we need to be egoists to fit in in contemporary society, to be part of egoist culture that appreciates those who take their place regardless of what there may be in their way, regardless if the goal if worth having.
To be an independent actor, artist, ego is something that one has to work with, to have a strong self-reliance, confidence to stand behind one’s actions and art is essential. Artist therefore has to be able to produce possibly without constructive feedback, alone with only oneself as coach and mentor and to trust making pieces of art for the public, if they wish to have them. Work without anybody telling what to do, without someone telling when, how, where and so forth. Art has high value in contemporary society, high art especially. Such high place can be a dead-end for art. To evolve and become high as high is noted as good, it is a wrong place for some reason. There are more rules, policing, codes, barriers, complex relations and silent contracts that make art in high become less, distant, expensive and losing part of its purpose. Art is noted in news papers when it has news value. The more people are interested and the more money art attracts the more valuable it is to news papers. Everything revolves around money and how to make it. To ask again what to accomplish as an artist in this kind of stage and age?

Among many things that are fucked up homelessness is the one that is on the list of immediate to deal with and abolish.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

It has been something that I feel very strongly about. Everybody has a right to have a home. It is a human right and therefore an acute issue for governments to take action over since it is a serious human right violation and a kind of bottom from where it is difficult to get up on one’s own. It is a duty of nations to provide affordable housing for their citizens. It is the least you can and must do. To comprehend why this is not happening is extremely difficult, but I try. Why do we have nations? What are nations for other than making profit for the rich, for corporation, to provide cheap labor, infrastructure and tax money to exploit? Since it is Christmas time and according to latest statistics in Great Britain alone there are thousands of homeless people, we are obligated to act upon it, to help. Those who are the lucky ones and have roofs over their heads, who have means to do something, what can you do? http://www.homeless.org.uk/facts/homelessness-in-numbers

What would be the most helpful thing is to radically lower prices of rents, to regulate how much is the limit above which prices do not go. Housing is an area of business in which people ruthlessly exploit lives and livelihoods. When paycheck is not enough to pay the rent government is not doing its job. Extortion and rip off that is what is going on and is outrageous, wrong and unjust. “Nobody should be in the streets; that is the problem with this whole thing,” said Sandy Perry, a minister and outreach worker with the Affordable Housing Network who has been at the Jungle daily trying to help. While he agrees that the Jungle, with its piles of garbage, buckets of human waste and now rising creek waters, “is not a nice place to live,” Mr. Perry said the city ought to have a better plan for homeless people in general.

More than a few of the encampment residents said they were victims of rent increases. Yvonne Vabiseo grew up in San Jose and had a job and an apartment until recently. “I worked at Dollar Tree,” she said. “I had a car and my own place.” She lost her job just as her rent was raised, prodding her into homelessness.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/us/driven-from-silicon-valleys-jungle-homeless-face-limited-options.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1

Distance of things as artificial difference in things and for people, natural as a happening. Distance between to tell who we are, for us to know what we deal with and what we do not.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Distance to those unworthy, to the garbage, to those who are to be forgotten and unspoken of. Distance to foul, to smelly, to politics, to difficulty, to hunger, to trouble, to suffering, to death, to murder: distance can be silent killing, denial and horror in front of life and cruelty of man. To make a gap between clean and dirty in order not to be infected, exposed nor influenced by: not to change. Distance is to dream the far away land, to dream something to find out of reach, something unexpected and new. It is not understanding, something that is incomprehensible and for some reason out of grasp. Distance is to hold a secret, to feel veiled, to feel hidden, to avoid speaking the achy issues, to be in silence. Distance is to be silent when one should speak, to not speak for those who would listen, to not see those who wish to be seen and not to face what becomes of seeing. Distance can be fear of change, fear of acting out, fear of putting oneself into it, into solving the problem of distance. Distance is inability.

Distance meaning the state of not wanting to face oneself, somebody among somebodies, not to face things done, but escape, escape situations of shame in shame, distance kept from feeling appallingly ashamed. Distance is to make a difference between us and them, between people and people, between not understanding. Distance is isolating, it can be too much to live in isolation, but it can be living in periphery without a need to leave. Isolated from what, far from what, marginal to what? Distance now is an effort to make it unimportant, making it important still as a making.

Oh you are so far away, there, somewhere, come here. How distant are we? Do we know each other? What is the distance between us? The actual length? What kind of journey does one have to travel to get here, to get there?

Distance is guilt. Distance is how you look at things. It is to forget and it is a physical fact. How well do we admit that we are unable to take over distance. How much are we unwilling to acknowledge our incapability to rule completely distance, conquer length and void of an area as material and immaterial. To acknowledge distance is to make immaterial visible.

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