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Not active anymore. Imported all posts to runarolstad.wordpress.com

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Conventions, forms & rituals

“Rituals performed without respoect, mourning without grief, I cannot bear to see it,” Confucious exclaims (An. 326). Human psychology, not least in our emotional dispositions, functions better with a guide or road map. This is especially relevant at points in life that are particularly significant (the birth of a child, the coming of age of a teenager, family reunions), or or during episodes that prove  taxing or stressful (the death of a close relative or friend, separation). Rituals offer certainty in periods of uncertainty. In times of rupture, shock or emotional crisis, it helps to be able to rely on form and formality: being told how to walk and talk, how to dress, what to eat or not to eat, what prayer or song to recite and when, how or whom to condole. Such formal pointers offer comfort and help us stay on our feet both physically and mentally. (Excerpt from the book “Chinese Thought From Confucius to Cook Ding” by Roel Sterckx)

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Do not be concerned about whether or not other people know you; be concerned whether or not you know others

Confucius

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Dao

“Imagine yourself lost in the middle of a busy city. As much as you might admire and want to spend time enjoying the architecture of the buildings and squares in front of you, it is secondary to your wish to find your way out of the city. (..) The only way you will ever know where the road you are on will lead you to is by walking along it. But you have finally realised that the fun lies in the walking, not in analysing the map or even following the road to the end.” - Roel Sterckx (”Chinese Thought From Confucius to Cook Ding”)

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The German adage "Stadtluft mach frei" (city air makes you free) derives from the late Middle Ages; this saying promised that citizens could be freed from a fixed, inherited position in the economic and social pecking order, freed from serving just one master

Richard Sennet

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Week 3: On the road We went to see the most popular sceneries around the so-called Golden Circle and along the southern coast of Iceland.

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For the only safe harbour in this life's tossing, troubled sea is to refuse to be bothered about what the future will bring and to stand ready and confident, squaring the breast to take without skulking or flinching whatever fortune hurls at us.

Seneca

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Week 2: Not diagnosed A lot of restaturants and excursions are cancelled due to the lack of tourists coming in. So we had to postpone some sightseeing for next weekend. Hopefully the weather willl be more predictable and stable then.

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Week 1: The Quarantine

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Willem van de Velde the Younger's “Gouden Leeuw at the Battle of the Texel, 21 August 1673” 

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“And so there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hair or wrinkles; he has not lived long - he has existed long. For what if you should think that that man had had a long voyage who had been caught by a fierce storm as soon as he left harbour, and, swept hither and thither by a successon of winds that raged from different quarters, had been driven in a circle around the same course? Not much voyaging did he have, but much tossing about.” Seneca, Chapter VII (On the Shortness of Life)

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Brian Eno - Weightless

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See the lonely boy, out on the weekend Trying to make it pay Can’t relate to joy, he tries to speak and Can’t begin to say   Think I'll pack it in and buy a pick-up Take it down to L.A. Find a place to call my own and try to fix up Start a brand new day The woman I'm thinking of, she loved me all up But I'm so down today She's so fine, she's in my mind I hear her callin' See the lonely boy, out on the weekend Trying to make it pay Can't relate to joy, he tries to speak and Can't begin to say She got pictures on the wall, they make me look up From her big brass bed Now I'm running down the road trying to stay up Somewhere in her head The woman I'm thinking of, she loved me all up But I'm so down today She's so fine she's in my mind I hear her callin' See the lonely boy, out on the weekend Trying to make it pay Can't relate to joy, he tries to speak and Can't begin to say