Here and there and everywhere

Escaping Neverland

2009-06-07T16:55:00.000+03:00

All the roads and adventures taken
random moments
of exhaustion, misery
and the escaping ones of joy and passion
for the roads and the nights

on the verge, still, sometimes
of fleeing the cold world back to Neverland again
where everything is play
and the pirates are your best friends

For three years.

The time has come to escape Neverland
and say ciao to all the Peter Pans and Tinkerbellies
Could I keep the window open and let them visit at night?
Or just hear their stories and nevermind

---
No happy ending, but a sequel

Business as usual?

2009-02-21T14:06:00.005+02:00

On my 3rd cup of instant moccha, reading newspaper from “home”. Why do they make doing business so difficult, so risky? Once you take the plunge, you’re out of most of the support systems (and those, there, are one of the most extensive ones on this earth). And if you fail (as many did in the recession before the upcoming one) you lose everything and are marked for 15 years, being banned from doing further business until your credit is good again.

So why even bother - it’s safer to just work on the clock of someone else, for their profit; at least you don’t lose your house that way. Or is it? These days that country has no good news anymore and people whose sense of self-worth depends on their employment status are laid off en masse - definitely not good in a country with history of ultra-puritan work ethics.

Talking to a friend on an island, I’m mapping my organizational relationships. There are many, past, present, fledgling and potential ones. Even though these networks of mine might not provide for a roof over my head (yet?), their fluidity, their dynamics, sustain MY sense of self-worth - quite opposite of past workplaces where belonging was glued by cash and meaning lost.

The key for my sustainable life here - or anywhere: how to pull the strings of my networks and help them sustain me as I sustain them, now that I’ve made choices towards which my former home is hostile.

Walls of future

2009-02-20T15:17:00.000+02:00

I look at these walls
and wonder why am I here
the absurdity of it all
and the eternal emptiness to conquer

It’s oh so hard to just move on
when you’re still just barely there to BE
and the future is still all just promises

Sliding right back in

2008-12-18T17:57:00.006+02:00

walking down the street of my everyday
random encounters from my past
beeping away with my bus, library, bank card
knowing how life was, is and "should" be
just by looking at faces of people passing by
like I never left

not really having missed it all, yet
there's some strange comfort in the familiar
but I prefer the new unknowns
since even with all the uncertainties and being tired of the road
I'd still rather choose the adventure

Koop te koop!

2008-12-17T19:08:00.006+02:00

Koop partied down with mama!

Ladies like Koop!

Koop's ballad for lost friends

Keuruu <3 Koop!

Secrets of Koop's popularity!

Koop's victory also noted abroad!

Funnily enough, Finnish idols winner this year is half-Dutch, can't really escape the screaming headlines back here now. Oh well, at least I can actually read the headlines here, which feels somewhat refreshing, if not really all that warm and fuzzy anymore.

(* Koop for sale!)

Updates

2008-12-14T20:04:00.005+02:00

So much to say, so few words for it right now. Resorting to list format.

* I quit
* I spent some time hanging out with people
* I spent some time on the attic not talking to anyone
* I spent some time figuring out what it all means
* I spent some time letting go of things
* I spent some time playing in the snow
* I spent some time being sick
* I spent some time figuring out web servers & domains, Arch Linux, Drupal, Wordpress
* I spent some time co-starting projects for post-office life
* I spent some time being grateful
* I spent some money on Christmas presents. And food.

* I left the house
* I left Amsterdam
* I will be back
* I need a place in February
* I will host my own blog. And others' too, perhaps.
* I might attend Drupal Camp@Köln, Girlgeek dinner@Amsterdam, Fosdem 2009

Free hugs!

2008-11-10T01:17:00.006+02:00

Yesterday I & Robin tripped over to Den Bosch to get a whole another kind of free hug - this one was by Amma who's done like 26 million of them.

Hitching there was according to Robin easiest he's ever done - for my third time (&counting), I really have no frame of reference.

* hitch at traffic lights somewhere nearby Amstel station, with the first car we asked, to the next gas station just a few hundred meters away (walking is for wimps ;)

* At the gas station, I overcame some Finnish tendencies to ask two drivers - not a totally unpleasant experience after getting used to the idea. Unfortunately neither were going to our direction so once we spotted our co-hitchers getting to the station (walking! looosers!), Robin just decided to stop the first car he saw and boom, we were on our way to just after Utrecht.

* Coffee break, and while I was visiting the rest room, Robin spoke us up on a ride to... all the way to the sports center in Den Bosch. Our driver was soon-to-be Asia-traveler so tipping him off on hospitality networks felt like the right thing to do. (bewelcome was the one he kept repeating to himself)

100% score for Robin - three questions, three rides! (damn, I seem to be a rather good hitching-mascot, so in case you're hitching to wherever from here soon I might just tag a long as a good luck charm ;)

Hug taught me a few things and hopefully some of the energy felt by others also rubbed on me a bit. Give and thou shalt receive, ask and it will be there: I lost my hug-ticket, got one from Robin, just about to walk on the stage to receive my hug asked if someone could help him in as well, and received spare ticket from lady sitting next to me whose daughter didn't need to use hers. Magical.

Ride back was even easier. We were sitting happily watching the hugging go on and on and on, while pimping up our sign ever so more. Then somebody asked us "do you wanna go now, I'm ready to go". An hour and a half later we were dropped in front of the door at 4 am.

Thanks a lot, Random Roads! (need to follow you more)

Sustainable life

2008-11-04T22:10:00.000+02:00

It's done, I chose life. But now what? (first things first: sparkling wine & strawberries with the casa people :)

Realizing that I've pretty much done it all, workwise:
* from 4-person start-up to 50.000-head corporation
* from strawberry fields to beeping people's groceries to assembling computer motherboards
* from university research to banking applications
* from strict placing & presence requirements to time and location free telecommute heaven
* through three continents & four different countries

So far, all this hopping around seems to be mostly a positive thing on my CV - in fact I can't seem to get recruiters off my back :) - but in a few years will probably start looking really stinky.

It seems to be hereditary in my case, somewhat, this job hopping, so there's probably not much I can do with training myself to stick around in a place and an office for (forever) whatever time is "acceptable".

Besides the genetics, I am pretty much lacking the corporate drone training as well: I love learning but since 14 have rather chosen which classes to sit through (to put it nicely ;). And what else is school, in the end: learning to listen to someone else to tell what to do, and when to be there to listen to it. Repeat 12 + some years and there's probably not too much independent potential left.

So, what to do?

One solution I haven't tried yet is to create my own job (so obvious?). On the terms I want that are sustainable for me, so there's some longevity to my solution:

* freedom to choose where I live and how long - after leaving homeland no place is really better than the rest so committing to any one country long term seems a bit out of reach at the moment.

* freedom to choose the days and hours I work.

* freedom to choose the projects I work on, and freedom advance them how I best see fit.

Luckily this just might be the way to go, hopefully there's some wealth in my networks ;)

Freefall?

2008-10-31T21:35:00.005+02:00

So, I'm just about decided on the next exit, weekend should be insightful. Since the office life really is

a) making me bored, day in, day out (even with the short time I've been around)

b) stealing my sleep (due to options shut down because of it and the anxiety stemming from that decision)

c) total opposite of what I came here to do - with all the free as in whatever things I've been getting familiar with over the past couple of years, aiding creation and protection of intellectual property with subsequent use of it to most probably helping Big Pharma making necessary cures unaffordable

d) stealing ME of my personal freedoms of being able to choose where and how I use my daylight hours.

f) if I wanted to stay in an office, I might as well have stayed in Finland (where it was nice and cozy and I actually did like the office as well)

So, really, what's the point of me being there? Considering the following:

1) I can afford some more flextime for the time being, and have been given way too much opportunities than I can ever thank for to use it to finally find some sustainable long-term solutions for my life

2) I really need to be free to roam to meet up, build up my networks, free of space-time-constraints

3) I really don't have much to lose by exiting the cubicle-land sooner rather than later

4) Future might be brighter than I thought - quite a few interesting things are being pushed towards me, just a matter of starting to get shit done, finally!

So, freefall or not? To let go, and see what happens, with a little bit of patience and stamina and an awful lot of randomness and inspiration.

Choose life

2008-10-29T19:47:00.006+02:00

16th floor

Getting by
day by day
setting goals
planning for yet another
sustainable exit

Fingers crossed.

I'm back at a familiar roundabout, back from exploring some of the roads after the exits and now speeding, spinning, getting dizzy with the circular motion, unable to choose another direction - life, work, location. Hoping I won't crash or hit someone with my recklessness in indecision. Or find out, after spinning for far too long, that all my exits are blocked.

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

I want a life, not a career.

Time, space and hospitality

2008-10-22T22:04:00.003+03:00

Even though my hospitality exchange profiles may testify otherwise, it's has never really been a walk in the park for me, all this sharing of space and time with strangers.

But then, I like challenges: in the spirit on Ronja, the Robber's Daughter - who practices fearlessness and being wary by jumping across chasms between parts of castle separated by lightning on the night she was born, and balancing on top of waterfalls - I chose to overcome my natural habitat and genetic pool of forest-dwellers to meet up with the world.

It's been beyond my once-had expectations of life to come: finally meeting those creative, intelligent, wonderful people I wasn't lucky enough to be surrounded when and where I grew up. Or just meeting people, period, as Finland really makes it hard after the organized activities of growing up are over and life defaults to 40 years of wage slavery, and very few opportunities for launching a social life beyond drunken weekends exist.

The challenges arise when the natural tendencies, after a while, overtake the bravery it took to overcome them.

My country has nothing but vast empty spaces, in which to dwell in silence and solitude, taken for granted, and 50cm is too little space between two people. But then again, I didn't grow up having much space, so I am overcompensating by becoming possessive of my designated spaces since 13 years ago I first claimed my first one.

My time now is divided into little chunks filled with routines more geared towards building a future than satisfying the present. The few little free bits these days are getting harder to share, and the less the less space I have for my thoughts otherwise.

But "You take what you need and share what you want" says the house wiki. So can I with good conscience take the space and time I need or some fraction thereof, before I am fully prepared to move on?

FreedomTravelWorkLife

2008-10-10T12:46:00.010+03:00

Location: Middlesex, UK

Just a few beginnings of the many thoughts / things / mess going through my head lately.

Degrees of Freedom

How to define freedom? To each their own, I guess. No money but with freedom to roam wherever, whenever or then the money that comes tied to a desk at an office and you only have whatever freedom is left after all-day-all-week-all-year daily grind.

The Freedom Continuum as personally experienced - the free spirits, hobos, tramps, travellers, hippies vs the corporate asshole. Must I choose a place somewhere on this scale or is it possible to mix'n'match the definitions and just surf all over the scale with whatever suits the mood best? Take the best of both worlds without sacrificing either?

From observing the lifestyles I've had lately and those of others' it's been possible to define where my personal limits are. I could never live the life where "free as in beer" is a prerequisite for survival, but neither could I dedicate my life to serving some corporation just for the €€€.

Transit value

Items taken for granted at home, but whose value increases disproportionally on the road through the time and effort to obtain them when you don't know when, how and where you will be able to do so.

Examples:
* cellphone kaputt just before landing the US of A where contracts are the way to go, prepaid comes with a phone and craigslist is just a tiny bit too slow for the wanderer.

* Stolen medication in a country which doesn't sell anything equivalent - and neither does the nearest-by continent.

* Tank top & shared house. Nothing special that can't be replaced, but if it's the only one you brought, it sort of sucks when it's sucked by the laundry-drying-get your shit cycle.

* Water, food and sanitary towels on a 8-h busride only stopping at McDo and you don't have the currency required

* That shower you know you should have taken this morning only after the dude next to you decides to favor restaurant car for all of journey.

Yuppie pack*

In hands-on reality, since the last time I've gotten a job and a bank account. How did that happen, I wonder... still questioning if I made the right choice, but after considering the inputs from around me, and some (minor) soul-searching, it does feel like the best option to choose (some) security to get myself sorted out in this new environment, without needing rely too much on others providing for me - as place-hunting in Am*dam can be a bitch, and money DOES help. Advice from the tru(er) nomads is also golden: when things get too sucky, just take the money and run! :D

*Yuppie pack is a Young Professional Package that my bank two days ago graciously gave me. Keychains and pens and initiation to financial life as a Dutch and a big green all-plastic shoulder bag. Perfect for the house dumpster diving missions - I imagine NOT the way they wanted to brand the bank ;)

Borders

Two weeks back, on a bus journey, reflections of being Euro-happy and Tiara's comment. My bus was stopped at the border, german official dudes checked the passports, papers, of everyone on the bus, mostly filled with seemingly "non-Europeans". Observing nearby transactions, I was the only one getting passport back straight away, and that just felt unjustifiably.... lucky.

Increasingly, being outside of my "home" (ironically the one I chose to leave), realizing borders can really break things apart and create hassle where none should exist. Why does being born to a place entitle you, and not others to stay, live, travel, work?

Media consumed

* Punishment Park - prophetic of many goings-on in modern-day America and elsewhere, best enjoyed @ Cinemanita, Amsterdam, with two Americans, Romanian, free sparkling wine and "stroopwoffels" :)

* Into the Wild - the story of "Alexander Supertramp" - a real-life hobo, tramp, traveller.

Unpacking

I'm getting to a point where I need to physically and mentally unpack all my belongings someplace. Sort of hard with house full of (wonderful) people - you constantly *want* to be in contact, in touch, feasting upon the connections. So it becomes harder and harder to separate self from the house, and the thinking from talking. Externally many things happen, the stream carries you, internally there's no time, no space to defy entropy.

Unterwegs

2008-09-30T01:21:00.005+03:00

My share of the housenews

Posted September 28th, 2008

We're all connected - chocolate delivery mystery moons ago and half the globe away resolved with late-nite living-room music, with lyrics to match.

tui!
Posted September 29th, 2008

Hallo from no-so-random roads, 191 km from a'dam now, car with 2 more surfers & another traveled-one. if there are housedinners this week slightly considering invitations? hope someone is home when I get there, should be 5-6, maybe. tui!

Zurück
Posted September 29th, 2008

Es war gut unterwegs zu sein but nice to be back as well. Unfortunately my tonight has to be spent on a bit of hacking around, for some more professional purposes this time! Lucky thing a friend actually needs this piece of whatever I'm trying to ship out ASAP, so it's not all for nothing. Just would rather help out with the dinner and chill out before some more professional things coming up tomorrow.

Sleepysleep
And here's for the now - the workthing is sorted for tonight, and tomorrow shall tell more. In the meanwhile, enjoying the tiredness enabling me to stay asleep for long enough to tackle the whatevers of tomorrow (a blessing, really, being actually tired and sleepy after years of on-off-insomnia)

Lekker!

2008-09-25T16:12:00.007+03:00

Happenings at a much faster pace than back in the North, or so it feels. Every day even when I don't particularly try brings something new and things just advance on their on weight, without pushing. I'm not totally sorted out with life arrangements like working for a living and having fours walls of my own but tips and opportunities are floating by, to be grabbed, it feels.

My exprience with the bureaucracy here so far is far better than what Finland had: a few calls, mis-visits and appointments and I'm a registered part of the system, allowed to whatever social benefits EU citizens should be enjoying within the region (and at the same time being told by some now-named authorities back in .fi, after 2 calls and lots of ranting, that promised-for situation with employment issues is not to be after all. Grrr!)

Globalization (or whatever the term would be for transnational institutions) critics be damned in this case: for undecisive nomads like me and a plenty of friends, it's really much better to lower the artificial boundaries between countries - currency, visas, work permits, and so on and so on - than to have them up, as we've long ago surpassed our respective national identities anyway, with social circles reflecting the fact. Simply said: be free to be wherever atmosphere and the people best suit us.

Also, gotta love the interwebs: A) my laptop battery has been dead since a few months, and being my slow-ass self I just didn't get around to ordering a new one until after 1) prices going up to 130€ 2) them going out of stock globally & totally. So a few searches later ebay gets me one from China, I pay it with leftover Paypal cash, it gets shipped to Finland first and should now finally be on the way here. Yay for no cables, soon! (fingers crossed the battery is in fact authentic enough to be usable...)

B) Rideshare with mitfahrengelengenheit taking me to Hamburg this weekend, to a housewarming party of someone whose privacy settings I respect enough to not reveal identities :P this all costing 45€ for the rides (despite co-webmastering a set of hitch-hiking initiatives I'm still a bit intimidated of hitting the road on my own), nada for accommodation... and the world smiles again :)

Oh, and this house seems to have a mind of its own to create things, so go meet it online (address updated)!

Week in a flash

2008-09-23T18:58:00.006+03:00

By popular request (hah, no, just my sis who's wondering what the hell have I been up to over here!), some updates:

It's been an interesting, tiring, inspiring, busy yet idle set of days (counting 8 so far) - to summarize the atmosphere. But the details are hard to describe, for some reason.

I'm staying with a house that evolves with its inhabitants, inhales their brainwaves and exhales ideas, ideals and hopefully many other beautiful things yet to be seen. Things like this which just somehow get created when the right people are present.

My days so far have been filled with rest (after the month-long life-packing marathon), finding things for myself and the house in the city, helping with moving friends' stuff around (just because I still remember how hard the process is, even when you don't have to get rid about every last shred of it), a few outings, social dinners and some wonderful moments of co-creation (just the beginnings of that for me, as I do need to recuperate and find out about the rest of the life arrangements before diving right in). What can I say, I just thoroughly enjoy people on the same randomness overdrive I am :)

Then, today was interesting and a bit soul-wrenching at the same time. I made a trip to Den Haag (The Hague / Haag / whatever else for you non-Dutchies ;). Interviewed with some people, who seem to think I'm the next best thing since sliced bread for that position. And in fact, hearing more about it, I can't say I'm not intrigued. Interesting-sounding work in a field I thought I'd left behind, a good team, international environment, career opportunities, moving beyond the daily grind of coding, a pretty nice paycheck... all the jazz (heck, they even threw in a company-provided Dutch course - these people sure know how to woo their recruits :)

The dilemma however is, this is not what I came here to do, and it's not enough of a life-changement for me anymore to just change countries outside the office walls. So I'll be juggling between embracing my newly-found freedom (and the responsibilities it brings) and taking the scenery lift upstairs a glassy-steely building once again.

Day 1

2008-09-15T22:36:00.006+03:00

Waking up to sunshine and school kids outside. Stretches, happily lounging, shower, coffee, raiding the fridge and digging up some clothes from the 20.8 kilos the airline let through.

Some reality checking, always good even when it hurts a bit. Slight befriending with a stranger and a goodbye right thereafter, after failed attempts to locate a combination of keys and a bike whose lock those fit.

The center is left, left, left and left again I remember from the last time, and without a map find my way towards. Thoughts of needed items rapidly manifest into discoveries, and so begins the linguistic immersion. Food and transport are also there when needed, and after some happy tram-misadventures, back at the starting point.

Room with a skylight, to be pimped by me for those who come later. Green-on-white patterns I think, and that's okay. 20.8 travel upstairs and I'm where's to be called home, for now.

Clean-up, dinner, laptop time.

Living in the moment since before is now gone and after is not there yet.

It's that time of the year again...

2008-09-11T10:40:00.004+03:00

With falling leaves and minutes away from departing from my earthly possessions here, things are changing once again. Not just for me, some friends are also making their moves into new realities.

Aparna made a very un-Indian move and took a sabbatical to do some Capoeira all over South America - with some sweet corporate sponsorship no less :-o

Elsabear whose Frenchness can't be denied despite her stays a bit all over the place is learning her Tabarnaks in Quebecois.

The Very Lovely Kiwi Kirsty Sarah is on her way towards Shai's Big Fat Indian Wedding.

With friends like this, who needs a TV :)

Comfort Zone

2008-09-01T19:40:00.003+03:00

comfort zone, originally uploaded by narnua.

This post has been on the back of my head for a while, maybe about a month by now. It's been a busy month with lots of emotional ups and downs, at times scared, at times excited of the consequences of decisions already made. Finetuning expectations and setting up a firm(er) base for my future.

Why so difficult?

It comes down to this: after getting back home, I've thoroughly enjoyed the peace and quiet and a place of my own after very nearly a year of basically not having had either. Tried a few things, moved on from some, and found some that I might want to stick with. I've built a nest, and become comfortable with it.

Which should be good, right?

Well, the thing is, whereas it's been a lullaby and soul-soothing to experience this, there's something missing: life, dynamics to keep the spirit alive (to be fair, I didn't really give life here much of a chance this time, but how much harder and longer should you really keep trying - forever?). I've become so comfortable with my surroundings I've almost forgotten I ever even wanted more from life. Almost forgotten how to learn, to grow, to challenge the status quo, to move forward, to a place that is somehow more stimulating, nutritious for my curiosity.

Almost.

After every trip out, I got reminded of a different kind of life, a different kind of me (the parts of which I only began to discover on last year's big trip), which little by little gets buried once I get back. They were quite troublesome, those post-trip readjustments to surrounding "real" reality, sometimes with pretty harsh consequences as well. During the latest time-out adjustment period, one day sitting at the office, doing what people at offices do, mulling over my possible futures with some not-here buddies, I just decided to hang on to the momentary feeling of braveness I experienced there, that day. Hatch out of my comfort zone, take a leap of faith.

To find my future.

Imagine no possessions

2008-08-17T12:55:00.007+03:00

Having finally wandered up to the scary attic to take a look at all the things I need to leave behind, thoughts of how much of our lives can we really claim is ours?

Our jobs given, dictated and taken away by whoever got the top spot.
Our money borrowed to us just expected to be consumed again as fast as possible (or else you're just a loser in this consumerism-crazed world)
Our relationships at the mercy of the other party as well as our own fleeting interests and need for boundaries
Our gear, only usable until the first day after the guarantee ran out
Our data, floating somewhere on the clouds of the internet
... and then there's the tangible, land, house and stuff (in the touchy-feely sense unlike I usually overuse the word), those real-world objects that can't be copied, shared, uploaded.

The real-world objects I can't take with me. That I would be happier without at the moment of having to let go. It was a strange feeling at this attic of mine just now.

Ten boxes, 3 big black plastic bags, some furniture, 12 13 years - almost losing count already - and 5 flats on since I claimed my own space. Including my collection of Elfquests (30 year-old indie comic, now available online, for free) - memories of wandering out to the city, dusty comic stores, and conversion rates of $1 = 4 Finnish Marks, 12-year-old being mystified words like "heal", "preserver" and "Forbidden Grove", and feeling of not knowing anyone else who even knew these things existed, back in the pre-Internet stone age. Notebooks, diaries, letters, postcards, printed photographs - to keep memory of mes gone by. Books that were worth buying instead of just temporary visitors from the library, or those given to me early on. Books, piles of paper with notes on French, German, computer science, genetics, language theory. White & black student hat and the party-on overalls for partaking in drunken mayhem of post-highschool education. C-cassettes of school concerts and mix-tapes without devices left to play them on. Clothes that I once loved but wouldn't ever wear again, style-sense and waistline having moved on. I am not my stuff, but yet something is said by my possessions.

It's all a bit sad, letting go of 7 / 10 boxes (up for grabs for anyone nearby Helsinki throughout the next month!), but refreshing at the same time. Being able to define the essence of me, and letting go the rest which I don't need and haven't missed, in order to leave room for something new.

(dis)connecting

2008-07-21T23:27:00.008+03:00

"I need those who have settled down, and everything they have built. I wouldn't survive if I didn't stop every once in a while, and only the calm, deeply rooted communities offer a chance for a break.

Sometimes we don't really understand each other, me and those who settled down. Some of them get their feelings hurt when I don't want to live where they couldn't imagine moving away from. I may wonder how they can live without ever discovering anything entirely new. I understand it might be a great pleasure to stop, even for a bit longer, to build up something beautiful - but what about when it's all complete?!

We always keep each other at a certain distance, that somehow feels natural. Sometimes we wish we could alter the distance one way or the other. We might envy each other but we would never trade places, for any price."

Another one by someone else, translation by me

3 years down the road

2008-07-11T22:45:00.004+03:00

It was 3 years ago today when I first found out (and eagerly joined) Couchsurfing. Looking back, feel the experience, even with the bitter stuff in between, still makes an overall a positive experience.

Now, of course, my priorities have shifted and I can't really look back at it all with just CS in mind. Instead, these days it's the essence, the philosophy, the ethos of the hospitality movement (or at least some brands of it) that I cherish the most - the wondering, and the wandering, and the ways of seeing the world that it has opened up for me.

Rather than "just" hospitality, I think since the beginning for me the attraction was about the possibility of diverse connections to be made: random encounters in random places, enabling ideas to flow and friendship to evolve across time zones, oceans and national borders.

I can honestly say this, despite all that's past: thank you CS, my life would be very different if it wasn't for you. I learned a lot, lived a little, made some of the most amazing connections with people I would have never met otherwise, and had far more than my fair share of random fantastic painful fun adventures literally around the world.

What's next?

I hope to make myself useful in little ways and with a more balanced approach and more back-seat driving where it's still possible for me - just to make sure the spirit that attracted me in the first place will have more alternatives to be spread out. It's not totally unproblematic to be involved there either - growing pains - but at least this time around thanks to many other similar experiences by others, there's probably far less of a chance of waking up to a feeling of having had your heartfelt contributions abused and demeaned at the end of it all.

Personally, I'm again at crossroads, with a few choices to make and possibilities opening up whenever I sort of start wishing I need them. A very happy thing, but as always, it's the toughest thing of all is to make a choice before one will be made for you...

Song of a Gibbon

2008-03-27T15:20:00.008+02:00

Besides some unbloggable journeys within, I've apparently read a bit too many feeds - this one inspired by the wonderful random things @ Boing Boing.

I spent a Sunday afternoon some weeks ago at a local flea market to show my artist-hitchhiker-visitor friend from last year's journeys a bit of our version of the alternative life. There was a book (in Finnish) about wildlife in Asia, from early on the past century, beautifully illustrated, and including some musical contributions of gibbons living in the Indian jungles. Might make an original ringtone ;)

(Somewhat of a translation of the text: "At dusk and dawn gibbons sing loud and clear, the song can be heard as far as 2km away and can wake sleeping humans. Their song definitely has musical elements and some of them can even carry a tune, making them the most musical mammal besides human, at least in the ears of the researcher Brehm".)

Pyyheliina ympärillä ei oikein sovi suomalaiseen mentaliteettiin

2008-02-27T13:19:00.008+02:00

I visited a new-old friend up in the heartlands of Finland this weekend. We went for a sauna and swim in the hole in the ice ("avanto"), and I was minding my own business dipping into the hot (+80-90C) and cold (-2C) time after time. Staring way out on the lake, and enjoying the snow after not seeing any for almost two years (Helsinki still goes without), wearing a towel to counterfeit the cold benches and hiding my old, too small bikini underneath, wondering when I would next be able to enjoy this age-old tradition of my country - very much in the saudades spirit, sucking in each moment to remember for times to come.

Later at the dressing room I then hear some lady saying this: "Pyyheliina ympärillä ei oikein sovi suomalaiseen mentaliteettiin" (Wearing a towel isn't really suited for the Finnish mentality*). And felt right back out of place.

*Finnish mentality being sauna is ideally taken naked, and in this case since it was a mixed sauna and with the hole in the ice located outside, with swimming suits - towels, apparently, are very much frowned upon regardless of what might be hiding underneath

** Picture: one of the two public saunas with outdoor swimming capability in Tampere, Finland

Freedom

2008-02-26T05:34:00.004+02:00

"I'm still unfinished, of course. I still carry memories of the chains that I thought I had unleashed myself from.

I don't know how to enjoy that, which sometimes has without questioning been proclaimed madness. I can't be sure that it really wouldn't be. Maybe the chains were meant to keep from madness those who wouldn't have been able to keep themselves from it otherwise. Maybe it would be worth the most to keep from madness fully out of your own will?! Prove to everyone how irrational the chains are, and that even without them you can be a good person?

Those who have always been free, laugh at me, and I'm frowned upon by those who have never been free, even in their own minds. Some from the both sides think they know everything about me. "Oh, free", say the chained ones and mean that I'm immoral, degraded, crazy. "Oh, so you don't want to try this", say the ones born free and mean chained, repressed, no fun.

They all want others to be predictable packages, bundles of features. How you were born, that's how you are. Or if you change something, you change it all."

Written by someone else, translation by me

What do Finland and China have in common?

2008-02-13T22:29:00.007+02:00

Any guesses?

Seems we are also starting off on a slippery road towards limiting free speech online. Which is not how I would have pictured happening HERE, of all places

The story goes... a bill was passed here late 2006 that would mandate ISPs to filter (as in, block access from their subscribers to) child porn sites. The list of such unacceptable sites was to be collected by the police, passed to ISPs and kept secret from everyone else. This was only supposed to contain non-Finnish sites of that particular category, and filtering was to be "voluntary" (with a thinly veiled threat by the government for some more legal action unless it was embraced by the ISPs). The opposing voices of course were worried about the blocks spreading, but the government reassured they wouldn't.

Filtering started at the beginning of this year, without much publicity outside the local IT circles. A few concerned citizens voiced critique over the further implications of the list: once you open the door to censorship the easier it gets to start limiting free speech in all areas. Not too far-fetched indeed, recent demands by some folks in high places of types of content to be filtered (local computer magazine asked our party leaders, who mostly seemed in favor to the below):

pages with violent content
pages with copyright-infringing material
online poker and other gaming sites (we have a government monopoly for those here, profits go to charity)
pages encouraging terrorism
"other" types of damaging or criminal pages

Right. No wonder the bill passed in the first place. (A bonus: local "IFPI" jumped on the chance to block Pirate Bay, "like they do in Denmark" (see Slashdot etc))

One local activist had systematically checked through websites, and compiled a list of his own (once you see the police signs you know you hit something you're not supposed to see ;), and successfully pointed out the list did contain perfectly allowable sites as well, like your run-of-the-mill gay porn including google's top hits. Which clearly shows that even for "the really really bad stuff" the list contains items that shouldn't be there - what would then happen for the rest of the things they want to be filtered? (forget civil liberties, forget free speech, eh?)

The seemingly hot potato even in the oh-so-silent Finnish big media being, that as of this week his site is also blocked here by the major ISPs (but has been mirrored by local activists, eg. here). Thankfully at least the comments, if not the media itself seem to be able to get what's wrong here...

(excusez-moi the crappy writing and tons of missing references, they would be in Finnish anyway... it's a bit too late for me today to be writing anything at all, just that I'd like to get some second opinions from people who know their digital rights issues far better than I do :)