Cruel town
”this town has got the youth of me
all eyes turn hollow”
Listening to the Anna Ternheim's cover version of "Shoreline". Behind me I have another day of work in the library, for the moment with an article to be published in Environmental Science & Policy.
Being here in Kalmar for longer tends to spark a reflective process in my mind, I come to think of my teenage years and what was really there and what was just my own self-imposed constrains and prejudices.
Last night I was again having a drink at Byttan, this time with a childhood friend. The guests, the waitress, ourselves, you so much wish there to be more to it than what you see or are able to articulate. In some cases you know there is, other times you are afraid that life is occasionally truly reducible to The Sims. As a humanist you want all surfaces to hide worlds of internal marvels: that people read novels by Hermann Hesse, that they have their secret apple orchards which they care for or that they are just about to set off for a year in Paris.
At the same time, and in no uncertain terms, small towns are dreadful, especially if you grow up in them. Back in school I dreamt of university towns, cosmopolitan cities like Vienna, New York or even Stockholm. Still today I can experience that sense of euphoria when I talk about the urban and its emancipating potential. Of course, I know it is not all that simple, with age or a family of your own comes different values. But that insight does not persuade me about the soundness of spending billions of euro every year to artificially prevent further urbanization.
all eyes turn hollow”
Listening to the Anna Ternheim's cover version of "Shoreline". Behind me I have another day of work in the library, for the moment with an article to be published in Environmental Science & Policy.
Being here in Kalmar for longer tends to spark a reflective process in my mind, I come to think of my teenage years and what was really there and what was just my own self-imposed constrains and prejudices.
Last night I was again having a drink at Byttan, this time with a childhood friend. The guests, the waitress, ourselves, you so much wish there to be more to it than what you see or are able to articulate. In some cases you know there is, other times you are afraid that life is occasionally truly reducible to The Sims. As a humanist you want all surfaces to hide worlds of internal marvels: that people read novels by Hermann Hesse, that they have their secret apple orchards which they care for or that they are just about to set off for a year in Paris.
At the same time, and in no uncertain terms, small towns are dreadful, especially if you grow up in them. Back in school I dreamt of university towns, cosmopolitan cities like Vienna, New York or even Stockholm. Still today I can experience that sense of euphoria when I talk about the urban and its emancipating potential. Of course, I know it is not all that simple, with age or a family of your own comes different values. But that insight does not persuade me about the soundness of spending billions of euro every year to artificially prevent further urbanization.
Labels: research
posted by Rasmus Karlsson at 23:19
2 Comments:
Räcker det med att i tanken vara den typen a person? Är man en "intellektuell snobb" om "you want all surfaces to hide worlds of internal marvels"? Jag är likadan och jag måste erkänna att ibland när jag möter människor som inte tycks ha denna typ av drömmar, ambitioner eller vilja till något mer så förstår jag dem helt enkelt inte. Jag respekterar dem men förstå känslan av tillfredställelse av att bara nöja sig med enklast möjliga inre och yttre liv, det gör jag inte. Är det inskränkt?
Hur man än vänder och vrider på sådant här tycks det alltid bli "patronizing", jag vet inte själv, kanske är det som med saligheten, tänker vi på den förlorar vi den typ.
Nu ska jag i alla fall ut och springa.
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