Serendipity

We have had a couple thunderstorms here the last few days. I have not gotten to see many of them in the last few years. I forgot how much I love them. Even just real rain is nice...not the misty stuff we get in San Diego or the never-ending drizzle of London.

The other day I had to go to a different library to get a book for my paper. I went out that morning to run an errand and it was super hot (60s probably). So when I went to the library I wore shorts and flip-flops. The new library is really close, but I need to put air in the bike tires so I just rode the train...two stops. As I was getting off the train it started pouring down rain so I ran up to the station and figured I would wait it out. It was one pretty small rain cloud surrounded by blue skies. After about 10 minutes of rain it started to thunder and lightning...and hail. I looked again and the one little cloud seemed to have joined forces with all the others, and now it looked like it took up most of the sky. I tried to figure out which way they were moving, but it seemed like they were all moving to where I was...no uniform movement. To make things worse I looked at the ground and the hail was accumulating.

I did not bring any books or anything with me cause I was just going to grab the book at the library and come back...so I had nothing to do. I sat at the coffeeshop and got a "cup of joe." I got my hands one of the free train newspapers, Stockholm City, which I can read about 1/3 of, and just waited for the rain to stop...I had overlooked one key tragedy...it was soon to be brought to my attention.

The girl at the table next to me said something in Swedish...I did not understand what she said...I have talked about the role expectation plays in listening. When I am expecting someone to talk it is still hard to know what they say unless I am expecting a set of possible things that they might say...close the field a little bit. When I am not expecting someone to talk it is near impossible. I have to realize that they are talking to me, then see if I heard the particular sounds they made, then try to make intelligible words out of these sounds, and finally see if I know enough of these words to understand what was said...this all takes a bit of time and by now I look either strange or very daft. Usually I will say right away that I do not speak much Swedish and then do this whole process on my own afterwards. I did not understand what she was saying...it must have been funny cause she seemed to think it was, and I thought I heard "shoes"...so I told her that I did not really understand what she said. She repeated in English, "At least I am not the only one with the worst possible shoes today."

I looked at her shoes, sandals...whats the big deal? Sandals are not bad...then it hit me as I caught a glimpse of the 2 inches of hail that had accumulated on the ground at this point! I was basically going to be walking through ice barefoot to the library...It was pretty miserable, but then when I got to the library it all changed. The library was great! and probably a 15 min bike ride from my apartment. This means I can skip buying a train pass when I get back from London in June and just get one in July...saves much-needed money.

Oh yeah, I am going to London on Thursday. I am dreading it. I have to be there for 16 days cause it was two expensive to get a flight for any less. It is good cause I get time to prepare for 5 days before my first test...but bad cause I have to be in London. On the bright side, as of June 17th I will never be in London again.

Quick note about speaking Swedish...Yesterday when I got off the train a guy asked me where a museum was (in Swedish) and I understood him and gave him directions in Swedish and he understood me! It was maybe my most substantial conversation in Swedish. I was also watching Swedish tv last night and if I really pay attention I can understand just a little less than I understand when I am reading. If I watch the news and already know the stories then I have the anticipation factor so I can listen for particular words. I also have a couple acquaintances here now who sometimes speak to me in Swedish because they forget I do not understand most of it, then tell me in English...I am able to pick up a lot of the Swedish when its spoken to me. We talk in a blend of Swedish and English.

A Revolutionary Commitment

I am leaning heavily toward coming back to the US at the beginning of August and returning to Sweden right after my sisters wedding. Why the change of heart? Several reasons:

1) It will be easier for me to get my dissertation done there with the resources of free printing, copying, eating, sleeping.
2) I will be insanely stressed and it will be nice to have friends, family, fishing (surfing) and maybe a gym membership to take my frustration out on.
3) I want to go to San Diego for 2 weeks, this is more palatable to those concerned (in Texas) if I am in the US for more than 3 weeks.
4) I will be running out of money by then and my money will go a lot further in the US than it will in Sweden.
5) I have to get a visa and this has to be done in either the UK or the US. I hate the UK, therefore it should be done in the US. My only other option is going to be spending almost a month in London doing the couch shuffle at various friends apartments. This will be expensive and intolerable for everyone involved in a thousand different ways.
6) If things go as planned then I will be in Stockholm for quite a while...so it will be nice to spend a little time in the US before returning to my adopted home for an indefinate period.

I will pay rent here over that time to hold my place, so technically I am still living in Sweden but on vacation. This has the added benefit of staying on the good side of the Swedish government by not running too far outside the immigration laws...because respect of the laws, especially stupid and exploitative ones, is a major concern of mine as an attorney.

I am also fretting the decision of "what next" terribly. I love Sweden, and I like the idea of staying for a long time in another society to learn the culture, language, way of life...its a mind broadening experience. Let me give you a quick example...the country "Belarus" is called "Vitrussisk" in Swedish. That means, roughly, "White Russia." My roommate, who speaks Russian, told me that "bela" means "white" in Russian. So I got to thinking why it could be called that, and, although I have not verified, I think it may have to do with the civil war and the White army that the Bolsheviks (Red army) defeated. Had I not started learning Swedish that probably would have never occurred to me. And anyway, I have made no secret of the fact that I like the Scandinavian lifestyle and political/socio-economic landscape. I like the fact that I can work a 40 hour week here and not be threatened with half-time pay or the loss of my job.

The point though is that I need some perspective because this is a very big decision. I am getting to the point in my life that I have called the "inertia period." This is the time when your decisions and their consequences change qualitatively. A small decision for me as a student, moving to another country, becomes a huge decision as a professional because of the inertia factor.

Many people give up the "illusion" of freedom at this point in their lives, often inadvertantly, and tie themselves to commitments and obligations that tend to last the duration of their lives. I have one of those commitments that was made in the "spontenaity period," student loans. These start to assume their permanent color as you stand in at the threshold of the inertia period. I know that in order not to become completely devastated, in the form of having my life completely and irrevocably ruined, I have to hold a stable and high-paying job for a long time...for an indefinate time. This is the consequence of the two-fold phenomenon of being an American, and having to deal with our idiotic and stone-age education funding system, and the mistake of going to law school. This really compromises my life at the outset.

Sweden is very attractive because it allows me to hit back at this two-headed tyrant. First of all, I am considering leaving America because I am sick of it. I do fully blame our society for my debts...I do not know a single European who has a burden like I do and their education was no worse off for it. I think it is stupid and unjust beyond words that by the time I am allowed to vote I am also supposed to have entered into, or be entering into, higher-education, and consequently financing it. So any opportunity for political action on my part that may affect this life-determining event will come years after the fact. And it would not matter anyway because the credit agencies and their ilk are in bed with the legislature in addition to having the entire country in a strangle-hold (as I have said before, the poor have nothing, the rich have everything, and the middle class borrow their existence from the wealthy...do a rundown of what you "own" and see if it amounts to much more than credit card debt, a mortgage or rent, a car payment, university loans, etc...). Sweden also allows me to make a good salary in a good and stable job without the commitment to that job rendering void the rest of my life. I am a lawyer by accident, by a mistake, as a lawyer in America that becomes a 100 hour a week mistake until my (hopefully untimely) death...here its 40-50 and I can live a life I enjoy on the side. "Eight hours to work, eight hours to sleep, and eight hours to do what we will." That was the mantra of the 19th century labor movement in America, my how far we have fallen!

So I dread my potential lifestyle, and, to put it bluntly, I hate almost everything about the United States...this is a considered, personal, and educated hatred. So why is the decision difficult? Because I love my friends and family...and most of them are in America, and I love San Diego...thats it! Those two lines balance out the six paragraph diatribe from above.

I will almost certainly settle in Sweden for a while, if for no other reason than I want to learn the language and live in another society...there is no other time than now. But I need some time for reflection and I need some perspective. I need to go surfing/fishing with my friends, I need to watch Seinfeld with my dad and eat peanuts, I need to go see a movie with my mom and be brought to near tears of rage with the fact that she insists on keeping her cell-phone on vibrate during the film, I need to go outrun my little sister a couple times before she can outrun me, I need to continue shoving my little brother toward philosophy and away from Texas before its too late (the great agitator) and listen to him whine about how hard it is to squat 150 lbs, and I need to be involved in my little sisters wedding...so that is that...I think I will come back for two months!

Sopranos (Spoiler Alert)

For those of you who are proceeding through past Sopranos episodes at a one a month rate, I am not sure where you are so I may reveal some secrets. I have been going from season five back to season one the last few weeks. I just started season three last night...watched the first four episodes (not a tough feat when you go to bed at 7 every night cause you have no friends on the continent you live on...if you did not get your invitation to the pity party it may still be coming, postal service in Sweden is tricky what with the reindeers, wolves and things). Season three is one of my personal favs.

When I watch the show fast like this I notice a few things I am not quite as aware of in regular speed. As a viewer, your emotional involvement with the characters changes like a rollercoaster...maybe this is just after the 4th or 5th viewing cause I do not remember such ambiguity the first time through. I find myself thinking a character is despicable who, just the night before, was one of my favorites. Then you have moments where you have to remind yourself that these are all basically terrible human beings. You enter a world of such moral decenteredness that you lose awareness of this. Sometimes the show will insert little reminders of the ethical absurdity you are moving in now. One of the best lines is in season four after Christopher comes out of rehab and Adrianna is talking to an FBI agent. The agent asks about their relationship and Adrianna replies, "Christopher is afraid he cannot be a good father now after killing my dog." The FBI agent looks like someone slapped her in the face. You get the irony I am sure, given who Christopher is (oddly, he remains, throughout the show, one of the more sympathetic characters).

Sounds like the stupid cats just got into something again. I look forward to getting out of here every morning because then their destructiveness is out of my hands. I used to be ambivalent toward cats, I think after these cats I will never be friendly to another one again.

Today I will try for the third time to mail this stupid package to Norway. If it does not work this time I am going to buy a big pigeon and strap this to it. Or, maybe I can put the package on one of these cats and through them outside to make their way to Norway. With all the water between here and their I cannot see them making it there though...that has its positives and negatives I suppose. After that I have to work on more school stuff all day. School is making it impossible for me to get accustomed to here or to practice Swedish. When you have to sit in silence all day with books you do not care about at all, a social life is not easy to develop. I am about to give up on it all at this point. I am getting really sick of living in Europe. Mostly I am sick of not being able to surf, I am sick of school, and I am sick of moving around all the time. I like it here a lot, but I have no confidence that I will make any progress on the language. For me to learn a language I would have to completely change who I am...I do not make small talk with people, actually I prefer not having to talk to them at all if I do not have to.

Power

It seems that the Padres have moved past the disAstros in the power rankings. Come out to a real division like the NL West! Then we will talk. I found out that my apartment complex has a small gym. I still have to check it out and I am sure its not much, but anything is a qualitative improvement at this point. For the second day I tried to send a package to Norway. This is like sending something to the Space Station at this point. I am thinking about just renting a car and taking it myself. Half the front of the package is covered with stamps, today they told me that I needed to buy more stamps, but I did not bring enough money or my ATM card. So I went all the way to the city for nothing. Now the package will be even later than it would have been...fortunately nobody expects me to do things on time anymore. Actually I do not even think people expect me to do things anymore.

Tio

I have not been able to write on here much lately. For the next week or so I will also not be able to because I have a million and a half things to do. I am also not on the Internet much anymore because I am working on papers on my laptop.

So what is with the Internet anyway? I would say that my peer group spends 10-15 hours a day on here just blowing time. This is not counting time spent at work. I am just talking about people that come home directly to the computer and sit there in front of it all night.

I do my things in the morning now because the computer is in use here all night. This morning I checked my email, read the news, and checked two webpages I check daily. This took me 30 minutes. Now I am bored out of my mind and ready to shut this thing off. How do people spend an hour on here, much less 10?

Admittedly, I am not, nor should I be, the social paradigm. I am less socially engaged than most people I know even in non-debased or perverse forms. Can we all agree that there is still something fundamental to being physically with the person you are engaging with? Having a conversation with someone sitting across a table from you?

One of the more subtle and difficult things to get used to when living in different societies is the implicit social coding on meeting/conversational etiquette. This seems to be more dramatically different than most other things. Pop culture bleeds out of California, the market is global, media and communication is international, English is almost universally spoken in Western Europe, but one thing that remains localized is the physical component of social engagement.

People in different places greet each other differently, they comport themselves toward each other differently and stand at different distances from one another. A lot of this you do without knowing, you are not taught these things explicitly. If you violate one of these little rules you make the person with whom you are engaged subtly but pervasively uncomfortable...your social currency goes through the floor. This is very important I think...the rules are coded, but the ill-at-ease feeling you get when you are engaged with someone who is not well-habituated is instinctual I think. It is a way that the herd animal tells itself that it has met someone who may not be a member of the herd, or may be a wayward and potentially dangerous member, or perhaps simply unfit and therefore unworthy of your time. This series of stimuli and the reaction is undercut by virtual interaction...there is no coincidence in the number of abnormals and inept people who frequent Internet society. This was a first refuge for the refuse of the social, and now with the mainstreaming of such society we are coding for abnormality in the herd itself.

I am not very engaged, but I am an avid watcher of people. I see how people around me engage and it is usually easy for me to replicate. I also know a wide berth of useless things, always ready to deploy in the kind of yacking that goes on in casual talk. Swedish people are notoriously rigid and distant. They are very friendly, but they are not easy to meet at all.

Anyway, the Internet is destroying the world. We are now becoming disembodied awkward animals. We actually need real engagement to sustain the species I think. Imagine a dystopic future where the body has been rendered completely void by computer communications...does anyone want to live in that world? That is the world I envision us going toward. I would even like to see people spend more time on the couch watching TV. Anything to break the death grip these boxes and the aspatial ether world have on our species.

Just a Variety of Matters

When I had to go back to London a few weeks ago I missed the last train to the airport. It was at 6 pm, my flight was at 9:30...quaint, adorable little Scandinavians believe in working regular workdays so they can spend time with their friends and families! So things all close early. I think restricting the creation of wealth to enjoy your life is ridiculous, but who am I to impose my views on another culture. Anyway, I come from a country that manages to theoretically balance its belief in the ideologico-normative "family" and unrestrained destructive laissez-faire capitalism, the "invisible hand" and the "nuclear family" (try to envisage an invisible finger on the ideologically normative red button). Now I am not going to kid you, we do favor one of them over the other, but I am not going to say which...I do not want to spoil it for anyone who has not been there. Well, I missed my train and so did a Swedish girl who was also flying to London so we split a cab for the one hour drive to the airport. We were talking about possible hobbies I could pick up in Sweden (I have mentioned this to some of you). I told her I am dying for some activity, I like to be outside, and I like the water. Now, she is not from Stockholm...she is from north, north, north rural Sweden. She mentions that one of her favorite hobbies is....ice-fishing! See if you can imagine the disorientation of talking to a pretty, 24 year old medical student who tells you that ice-fishing is one of her favorite things to do! Only in Sweden.

Tim: "Isn´t ice-fishing sitting for hours in a tent on a frozen lake with your line in a hole you drilled in the ice?"

Swedish Ice-Fishing Girl: "Yeah, well it sounds boring if you put it like that but its actually really fun."

Tim: "I am sure it is, but that is not really active, its technically inside, and it involves ice and not water."

I already have a winter hobby in Scandinavia anyway...sitting inside and whining about how cold and dark it is. This year I hope to hone my skills in that department so I do not want to be distracted.

This gets to my point though, and no...I do not have a point. What do people do when they do not surf? I am serious...some ideas. I was thinking today that I actually do not enjoy anything but surfing. Reading was pretty good until about year five of university...now I am sick of it. Running is really not fun...especially when you do it in the midst of 18 hours of sitting on your butt and 6 hours of sleeping. Basically, if you way of life does not require you to move at all, then when you are enjoined to move running is not preferable. I have to find something to do though cause I am sick to death of reading and writing papers.

Learning languages is hard when you are the kind of person who only averages about 3-5 minutes of conversation per month. It kind of undermines the whole practice thing. I barely even speak my own language, much less Swedish...I need to start class again soon. That brings up part of why living abroad is hard for me. First of all, I am only really content by the ocean, so other things are hard. I am a picky eater so it is difficult to get adjusted to food in other countries. It takes me about 8 years to make friends so moving every few months is certain loneliness.

I am starting to hate these cats. They are mischievous and extremely disobedient. Especially one of them. It seems to do precisely what I do not what it to do and for no discernible reason except to bother me. It goes in my room only if I close the door (it can open the door). When I am preparing food it jumps on the counter and puts its disgusting face in my food. If I have my computer out it crawls all around it. The other one pretty much leaves me alone so it is ok...but the evil one is my arch nemesis. To its credit, if it were not for my relationship with that cat I would not relate to another living entity in the world these days.

On TV right now is "Top Model Sverige"...the incredible thing about this show is that they must have found the 6 unattractive girls in Sweden, and none of them look Swedish! On my half mile walk to the train station in this one-horse-town suburb I see a dozen girls on average that look like models. On "Top Model Sverige" I do not see one! What a let down...

Strike Action

This is a warning from the beginning...this is a political post, it will be long, the great majority of people will not agree with me. With that said, I do not care because most people will not read it all the way through anyway.

Yesterday, May Day in much of the world (a day that originated in the US, but more on that later), was marked in the US by large-scale demonstrations. I feel privy to speak on these because I am an undocumented immigrant living unassimilated in a foreign country. Fortunately I am not hated here for this very reason, but who cares for details anyway. I also feel like I should speak on this because labor issues in an internationalizing economy, community, and identity are essentially my area of expertise.

I read a few reports on the demonstrations yesterday and one caught my attention, a column by Lou Dobbs on CNN. The reason this particular article caught my attention was because of its reference to "radical groups" leading the demonstrations. This is, for those of you that do not know, a typical move made to marginalize popular movements in America...its sort of a catch-all buzzword that brings up negative connotations in the American mind. First of all, effective radicalism in the US is a non-issue, and on this I can speak from first-hand experience, so you can loosen the grip on your TiVo remotes and start enjoying that cheap immigrant cultivated dinner again. Secondly, in an issue as hopelessly short of ideas as American immigration why not a radical approach? The infusion of the same non-approaches for decades has done nothing but make the problem worse. Besides, who in their right minds (pun, sorry) would not suggest that armed citizens patrolling the borders (minute men militias) are radicals? Often a radical approach from both sides suggests an acceptable middle way for the queasy American stomach.

Just who are the "radicals" that have managed to tap such a widespread nerve in a country hardly known for Progressivism? ANSWER, an organization ostensibly aimed at "ending racism" (another formerly radical idea in America). ANSWER is accused of being a front organization for a radical leftist group. It is essential to point out that a legitimate public action can be hurt by reactionary populism in America, and on the other side it can be hurt by bad leadership. These kind of "front" organizations do exist and usually they are headed by a bunch of out of touch buffoons who moonlight as activists after their day job of arguing whether "permanent revolution" or "socialism in one state" is the right approach. In other words they are impotent dinosaurs. I do not know anything about ANSWER and they may be of that ilk, but I should point out that radical left groups would support movements like this without "leading" them. A short history lesson, the first group in America to begin to bring cases to the courts and organize demonstrations against segregation was the American Communist Party. It is a non sequitur to suggest that involvement of obviously allied radicals in a good movement makes the movement bad.

What is the make up of this "radical" front organization? They are really a "Stalinist" political party! Oooooh! Are you kidding me? Are we really still having this conversation? We really need to work on some new public bogey men if Stalin is all we have when the alleged foe does not look like an Arab. May I suggest also that it is all too convenient in a world where 1) Stalin is dead, and 2) Stalinism has been dead for over 50 years that anytime a protest that threatens American conservative hegemony crops up all of a sudden the frightening Stalinists start crawling out of the woodworks and are found to be "heading" the demonstrations. Please, please, please! Think for yourself, and think about how stupid this sounds.

The next thing that caught my attention was when Dobbs did his short and wrong explanation of May Day, keeping with the prevailing theme of the Red menace guiding this existential threat to American bigotry. Dobbs argues, "it is no accident that they chose May 1 as their day of demonstration and boycott. It is the worldwide day of commemorative demonstrations by various socialist, communist, and even anarchic organizations." For the real truth about May Day read the following article on Slate, http://www.slate.com/id/2140846/. Briefly though, May Day began in America in the 19th century to commemorate the American workers victorious demand for an 8 hour work day (a lot of good that has done). We switched from May Day to Labor Day as a propaganda move to separate the American labor movement from the European, Asian, African and Latin American labor movements...a blow that labor has not yet recovered from. I will point out that despite the fact that May Day is so obviously an evil conspiracy of the haunting specter of world communism it has often occasioned movements for liberation from under that very specter...but who needs the truth anyway?

I got an email from someone suggesting that in order to demonstrate against the immigrant demonstrations I ought to buy an American product. Leaving aside the fact that I do not live in America, I will address this issue. I support the idea, but I call for care and a slight extension. Buy an American product, but make sure, make positively sure, that there is no foreign labor involved anywhere in the process. Be certain that the raw materials did not come from another country, that the factory is not located in another country, that the companies call center is not in another country, that their local warehouses are not staffed by immigrant labor, that they are not delivered and retailed by foreigners. The point is, it is not the 18th century anymore, you will not find a purely "American" product on the American market. If you could find them then the cost of commodities would quickly outstrip our inexhaustible appetite for consumption in America. How about you buy a product that does not involve exploited labor anywhere in its process of production and marketing? Good luck.

The cries for "assimilation" bring up the same issue. There is a two-fold and contradictory demand being voiced. Assimilate to allay our xenophobia, but stay foreign to keep the prices down. If the foreign element in our goods and services were to be Americanized then their demands for labor protection, and basically to be treated like human beings much less Americans, would crush the American commodity market. An American without commodities is not American at all! So much for assimilation. Put your money where your mouth is!

This issue is crucial for the future of global socio-economics and politics. I am not surprised that a mass movement came about, I did not anticipate it, but in retrospect it is obvious. Again, refer to the slate article above. The international element of the American labor movement was effectively wiped out by our government a long time ago. This built a million contradictions into our economy. Our economy is absolutely not purely national, but our labor movement is. The problem with this asymmetry is evident in the misunderstandings and fear aroused by "immigrants taking our jobs" and "outsourcing our jobs" to other countries. Here is a bit of news for anyone who may not know, in capitalism you have no "right to a job." An alienable labor market is essential to market liberalism. For a contrast see the French demonstrations this year where the students were protesting proposed changes that would take away the X-year minimum job guarantee they have. The new scheme would create limited "at-will" employment, the kind of labor characteristic of a capitalist labor market, and characteristic of the American economy in an "unlimited" form, where labor can be freely alienated at any point.

This issue is a bottom-up reflex against the untenable situation that has come about given an international market and a nationalist labor movement. We thought we had disproved Marx with New Deal labor reform and persistently cheap goods. The secret was that we had cheap and dehumanized labor in American women and African-Americans. So with the equality of women and racial equality (if you believe this then I should offer you my beach front condo in Nebraska) and still persisting cheap goods we had proven the flawlessness of American capitalism, right? Wrong again! The market began to globalize and pockets of exploitable labor arose (persisted) in foreign and undocumented labor.

Several things have happened in the last few years that should strike Americans as fundamental heralds of a new era. First of all, we were attacked in our own nation...we are vulnerable to heinous and large-scale attack from abroad. Second, a hurricane devastated an American city and what we saw in the aftermath was a desperately poor population of Americans living in our midst. Third, the illusion of American military potency has been shaken. A man in a cave with a walkie-talkie and a rifle has alluded us for years now, semi-organized villagers in a "developing country" have killed far too many of my peers and ground the most powerful military in the world to a halt in a desert half way across the world. Finally, the ground is shaking in America and the sound, if you place your ear to the ground, says from both sides that our systems of identity and production are untenable. New ideas, or our fate may be sealed.