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[00:01:28] Hi and welcome to Fall Asleep with Henrik.

[00:01:36] I'm Henrik and you're sleepy and it is what it is.

[00:01:42] What happens happens.

[00:01:45] And right now there's nothing we can do about it.

[00:01:55] So let's begin.

[00:01:59] Hi sleepy.

[00:02:00] Hi.

[00:02:03] Okay.

[00:02:04] So welcome all you new sleepies out there.

[00:02:09] During the last week or so, there's been this huge influx in number of listeners.

[00:02:17] Generally I try to talk in a way that you will get the feeling that you're the only

[00:02:30] one who is listening.

[00:02:33] My experience is that that works best if I talk like it's just you and me here,

[00:02:43] not like thousands of other people.

[00:02:46] And I'm going to continue to do that but now and again I just have to mention

[00:02:54] that we are a group of people here and I guess it's fine.

[00:03:04] I guess it's a possible way of existing, like behaving like it's just you and me

[00:03:12] but not forgetting, not denying that that's not true.

[00:03:18] Actually there is me and there's all of you.

[00:03:24] So welcome to Fall Asleep with Henrik.

[00:03:27] All of you.

[00:03:28] New people and old people.

[00:03:32] Established sleepers and newcomers.

[00:03:37] My name is Henrik.

[00:03:39] I am a 48 year old actor in Sweden and I've been doing this for a living since 2018.

[00:03:51] If you already know what this podcast is, now is the time to, if you just can't stand

[00:03:58] me telling new listeners what this is all about, you could maybe skip ahead like one

[00:04:05] minute or so.

[00:04:08] But you don't have to.

[00:04:10] Maybe you need a refreshener.

[00:04:12] Maybe you need me to reconfirm what this is all about.

[00:04:22] So this is not a regular sleeping podcast.

[00:04:27] This is not a relaxation method.

[00:04:32] Not any established method anyway.

[00:04:38] It's not meditation, it's not hypnosis, it's not a self-help guidance system.

[00:04:49] I am some dude in Sweden and I am good at one thing, talking.

[00:04:59] Apparently this works.

[00:05:01] At least in Sweden where I live, where this podcast has been one of the big ones for

[00:05:09] many years now.

[00:05:12] I'm trying to do this in English and of course that's a different story.

[00:05:16] I don't know if this is even possible.

[00:05:21] But I'm going to try.

[00:05:23] Because the world is a wonderful place and I like to live in it and I want to reach

[00:05:27] out.

[00:05:30] So what you need to know really about this podcast is you don't have to listen.

[00:05:40] That's not something I just say, that's true.

[00:05:45] If you want you can listen but you don't have to.

[00:05:49] You don't have to even hear my words, you could just put me on like a distant

[00:05:55] mumble in the background if you want.

[00:05:57] I don't mind.

[00:06:00] I don't have any illusions of me being saying something profound or wise or even

[00:06:06] funny.

[00:06:09] I'm just going to talk.

[00:06:12] I'm not going to try to bore you, I'm not going to try to make you fall asleep

[00:06:19] with some hidden magical hypnosis method.

[00:06:26] I'm just going to speak the way I usually do.

[00:06:30] The only difference is that I now speak with a different tool set.

[00:06:38] The language is English and I'm not used to it.

[00:06:43] So that's all really you need to know.

[00:06:46] You have pushed, you have pressed play.

[00:06:49] Now your job for the day is over.

[00:06:53] That's what I tell my Swedish listeners all the time.

[00:06:56] You don't have to make a stand.

[00:07:00] You don't have to build an opinion about what you hear.

[00:07:07] You don't have to engage with me.

[00:07:14] This is in some sort of a strange way non-content.

[00:07:23] I don't produce content, I produce non-content.

[00:07:30] This is a new genre which I just came up with and I don't know if it works or not.

[00:07:37] It works in Swedish.

[00:07:43] With that said, if you like this tell me, write a review on the podcast platform

[00:07:49] that you're listening to this podcast and leave a like or whatever you do.

[00:07:58] You can find this podcast almost everywhere except for on YouTube.

[00:08:02] I thought I might take some time just to establish the facts around that.

[00:08:10] I am dependent on ads in the beginning of these episodes in the regular feed.

[00:08:19] You can hear ads.

[00:08:22] I have removed all ads from the middle and the end of the episode because I wouldn't

[00:08:29] want you to wake up to an ad.

[00:08:35] I wouldn't want you to sleep to an ad either.

[00:08:38] So, either.

[00:08:42] So the ads are first thing in these episodes and the ads are the only way I can make

[00:08:49] a living out of podcasting.

[00:08:52] You can subscribe to removing the ads and you can just click the description in the

[00:09:00] podcast's description.

[00:09:09] But YouTube has a different set of rules.

[00:09:12] So YouTube is a very good place for me generally.

[00:09:15] I like to work through there and I do a lot of content both on my Swedish and

[00:09:20] my English YouTube channel.

[00:09:24] If you want you can follow my English YouTube channel.

[00:09:28] It's called Fall Asleep With Henrik.

[00:09:31] You can also follow me on Instagram if you want.

[00:09:34] You don't have to.

[00:09:35] I'm not that important.

[00:09:40] I won't change your life.

[00:09:43] Really I won't.

[00:09:44] You will though and that's another story.

[00:09:48] But you can find me on Instagram as well.

[00:09:51] It's called Fall Asleep With Henrik.

[00:09:55] So whenever I post stuff on YouTube there's ads there and they are from YouTube.

[00:10:11] And whenever I post a podcast there's ads and those ads are from ACOST which is

[00:10:17] my platform.

[00:10:20] So ACOST and YouTube doesn't cooperate.

[00:10:24] They have their own claim to totally own the ads and the revenue from the ads.

[00:10:32] So that's why my podcasts aren't on YouTube because I'm on ACOST and ACOST can't share

[00:10:42] market revenue or what do you say?

[00:10:44] Can't share ad revenue with YouTube.

[00:10:48] Sorry for boring you with this.

[00:10:50] But I've got a lot of questions about this.

[00:10:55] So it's a problem for me because YouTube is a great platform and I wish they could

[00:11:00] cooperate but they don't at the moment.

[00:11:03] So that's where we're at.

[00:11:06] So you can find this podcast everywhere else but on YouTube.

[00:11:12] But I will do other stuff on my YouTube channel.

[00:11:19] Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who reached out and wrote to

[00:11:24] me through different channels and told me what you thought about this little experiment

[00:11:34] Fall Asleep With Henrik.

[00:11:37] And I've gotten letters from Greece, Spain, France, the US, England, India and Japan.

[00:11:53] So thank you so much.

[00:11:57] Maybe this sounds, I don't know, but it sounds maybe a bit naive.

[00:12:08] But I am a grown man and I've never, I've been in the public eye since I was in my

[00:12:16] 20s, my early 20s.

[00:12:20] I did my first TV gig when I was 21 and then I became a minor celebrity in Sweden

[00:12:28] when I was very young.

[00:12:30] So I've been in the public eye in Sweden almost my entire adult life.

[00:12:37] And the tickling sensation of suddenly being in touch with people from other countries

[00:12:52] telling me that what I do provides them with something.

[00:12:58] It's I can't really explain, I can't put it into words what it does to my,

[00:13:06] I mean, I feel like I'm 12 years old again.

[00:13:11] It's a fantastic feeling.

[00:13:13] One I wish everyone could feel.

[00:13:17] Maybe you don't actually need to create a YouTube channel and a podcast to and reach

[00:13:24] audiences outside of your own country to experience that.

[00:13:28] Maybe you could just start an evening course or something.

[00:13:33] I don't know.

[00:13:35] But it is, I mean, this is a very, very small podcast still and maybe that's all

[00:13:44] that it will ever be.

[00:13:47] But at the moment I feel like I'm on top of this huge wave sweeping across the world

[00:13:55] and I feel so excited because a few of you reached out and wrote to me.

[00:14:06] So please keep doing that.

[00:14:08] I am so happy.

[00:14:12] And yeah, that's it really.

[00:14:20] OK, so that was a bit more than one minute if you tried to skip ahead.

[00:14:26] But then again, you don't need to listen really.

[00:14:31] I will.

[00:14:32] I can't promise anything.

[00:14:37] What you hear is what you get.

[00:14:40] So I'm literally, I promised myself never to use the word literally because it's such

[00:14:47] a worn out word, especially in like entertainment context.

[00:15:03] My daughter Harriet, she's watching YouTube clips from different creators.

[00:15:10] There's a lot of artists and photographers and lifestyle channels and all of them are

[00:15:24] like around their 20s.

[00:15:27] And every one of them, at least if they're from Britain or the US or Australia even,

[00:15:36] they use the word literally, literally every sentence.

[00:15:42] And in Sweden we have this word, liksom, which is sort of our Swedish equivalent of

[00:15:52] kinda.

[00:15:56] So liksom means kinda.

[00:16:00] We use the word liksom almost as often as some of these young adult content creators

[00:16:08] use the word literally.

[00:16:13] I don't even know what literally literally means now because it's been used in so many

[00:16:20] different contexts.

[00:16:22] You can say, I am literally standing right in front of you.

[00:16:27] OK, so that has a meaning.

[00:16:31] That means something, right?

[00:16:33] That means that I'm actually standing right here and you don't seem to realize that.

[00:16:39] But you can also say like, this is literally what it says.

[00:16:50] OK, so maybe that's the same meaning.

[00:16:56] But you can, I mean, I guess literally stems from the word literal, which is

[00:17:04] another word for written, I guess.

[00:17:07] And written in this context is maybe a term for a fact, I guess.

[00:17:17] So using the word I am literally standing right in front of you means that the fact

[00:17:24] is that I'm standing here.

[00:17:29] OK, so that's one thing to keep in mind when using the word literal is it's common.

[00:17:40] I feel like an idiot now because I can't come up with any examples.

[00:17:49] And I don't want to be this grown ass man that complained about young people's language

[00:17:58] usage.

[00:18:01] I don't care.

[00:18:02] I don't care.

[00:18:03] OK, so I'm going to abandon this.

[00:18:09] I don't care or rather I care about the opposite.

[00:18:14] I care about the world being an ever changing place.

[00:18:24] I care about the evolution of language and culture as well as the evolution in other

[00:18:34] areas.

[00:18:38] I had this, I was at this lecture when I was in my 20s when I went to actor

[00:18:46] school.

[00:18:47] There was this elderly actor who had this lecture about the evolution of language.

[00:18:56] And there were a lot of elderly people there and of course me and my classmates

[00:19:02] at the Actors Academy.

[00:19:05] And the older people were all very, they were not pleased with the development of

[00:19:16] the Swedish language.

[00:19:19] Young people are ruining Swedish as we know it.

[00:19:26] And this actor, Henrik, he was actually called Henrik as well as me.

[00:19:30] He was actually he was OK.

[00:19:34] I've been telling this story many times in the Swedish version of this

[00:19:38] podcast but I'm going to come to this later.

[00:19:42] He was my idol for many years and every time we saw each other I just made this

[00:19:53] social awkwardness.

[00:19:57] I was just so awkward and every time we met was a disaster in a social way.

[00:20:02] But I'm going to come to that if I can remember it.

[00:20:06] Henrik, he said that isn't this what old people have been saying like forever?

[00:20:15] And I talked to my mother on the phone the other day and she told me that.

[00:20:22] She asked me how I was doing and I said that we had this community clean up

[00:20:28] project among the houses where I live.

[00:20:35] All the neighbors get together and we clean up our yards and the forest around our

[00:20:39] houses and we paint the swings on the playground and we talk and we have coffee

[00:20:50] and we eat hot dogs.

[00:20:51] And it's a nice gathering but I had a conversation with two of them and they

[00:20:59] were talking about TikTok and that young people today are just watching other

[00:21:08] people do stuff.

[00:21:11] They're not doing stuff themselves.

[00:21:13] They're just watching other people do it.

[00:21:18] And I immediately get very anti this sort of discussion because it's I believe

[00:21:30] how could we possibly know what this behavior, this contemporary culture will

[00:21:41] lead to in the future?

[00:21:42] How can we possibly know anything about what something we've only known about for

[00:21:49] seven years of human evolution?

[00:21:51] How could we possibly claim to know what this will lead to in the future?

[00:21:57] That's called extrapolation.

[00:22:00] You're using the tools of yesterday to measure tomorrow.

[00:22:04] And I mean this works in some situations but not in every situation.

[00:22:13] I mean we can't possibly know what kind of difficulties our children will face in

[00:22:19] the future because the future is not here yet.

[00:22:26] And we don't know what the internet and social media will do to humanity in the

[00:22:33] long term.

[00:22:36] And also there's another aspect of it.

[00:22:39] It's sort of an arrogant point of view to claim that me and my children and

[00:22:50] my father and my grandfather, we are living the right way.

[00:22:56] The kids today, every other kid, maybe not my own then but the kids of today,

[00:23:03] they are ruining language.

[00:23:06] They're ruining their own future.

[00:23:07] They're ruining it.

[00:23:08] I mean it's such an arrogant way of looking at development and humanity in a

[00:23:15] way.

[00:23:16] Imagine the generations growing up around the first or the second World War

[00:23:25] who were kids then.

[00:23:27] My grandfather and grandmother, my father's mother and father were kids.

[00:23:36] They were actually born in 1907 and 1905.

[00:23:43] So they've seen two World Wars.

[00:23:46] Of course, they're deceased now.

[00:23:49] And they were kids during these eras.

[00:23:54] So I mean and of course this is, I mean maybe this is not a valid point of

[00:24:00] view in a way because I am from Sweden and they were from Sweden and Sweden

[00:24:05] was there was never a war here.

[00:24:08] It's not fair to compare them to generations being kids in.

[00:24:16] So imagine that you were living in Poland during the Second World War

[00:24:24] and that you belong to a minority.

[00:24:32] I mean this would be a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very

[00:24:40] I mean this would how you could say from a lot of perspectives that this

[00:24:50] generation of kids were ruined, you know, but they weren't.

[00:24:57] Generations face obstacles, traumas and receive gifts by time, society and space

[00:25:14] and stuff are taken away from kids all the time.

[00:25:19] But the kids today have tools that like that generations before us never had.

[00:25:28] The kids today are growing into a world exponentially more equipped, I believe,

[00:25:38] to deal with it.

[00:25:39] And they will hurt as much as every generation from one decade to another will or would

[00:25:48] or did, but they won't.

[00:25:55] They're not hopeless.

[00:25:57] Don't you agree?

[00:26:00] So I always get this, I always get very frustrated when I hear discussions like that

[00:26:09] I never got involved in the discussion because I didn't feel like I wanted to make a big

[00:26:23] debate out of it because I strongly disagree.

[00:26:28] I believe it's a fearful way of looking at humanity.

[00:26:33] We are really very adaptive and strong and we can do whatever we put our minds into.

[00:26:43] So I don't think that our kids today are ruined or will have a worse future just because

[00:26:50] they're on TikTok watching other people do stuff.

[00:26:55] I mean, when you say it out loud, it's just absurd.

[00:27:03] So I guess that's where I stand.

[00:27:06] And I told my mother about this and she said expectedly that I was wrong

[00:27:15] and that the ideal childhood, at least in Sweden, was around 1955.

[00:27:23] That was the best period to be alive in for a kid.

[00:27:30] And sometimes I have to bite my tongue because I get very frustrated and I also get like

[00:27:40] I start to laugh.

[00:27:42] I laugh at her because I think it's very hard for me to take that seriously because

[00:27:51] kids died of the measles in the 1950s.

[00:27:55] I mean, how would that be any better?

[00:27:59] If you were born outside of marriage in the 1950s, you were maybe an outcast of your own

[00:28:06] family.

[00:28:08] That still happened.

[00:28:14] If you were a woman and you were trying to pursue a career, you could of course

[00:28:20] in the 1950s, but it was frowned upon in many, many areas of society.

[00:28:27] I mean, I don't see how this could be better than what we have today.

[00:28:33] Today there's all sorts of dangers and traps and dark streaks in society and culture,

[00:28:44] but it's not better or worse than any other totality.

[00:28:49] I mean, totality being talking about this huge culture in a worldwide system like it

[00:29:00] was one thing because of course there were bad things in the 50s and there was also

[00:29:04] good things.

[00:29:06] Right now there's also bad things and good things.

[00:29:14] So I never got involved in that discussion and I'm glad I didn't, but now I'm just

[00:29:21] forcing you to listen to it, Sleepy.

[00:29:25] I'm sorry.

[00:29:30] Maybe you think it was better before everything.

[00:29:38] I get a feeling that a lot of my listeners have an issue with today.

[00:29:49] Maybe that's something that just, it's a state of our time so to speak.

[00:30:01] Maybe we are in a phase as a humanity, right?

[00:30:06] As a group.

[00:30:09] If we can talk about this billion headstrong mass of people, different hearts,

[00:30:18] different brains as one unison group, but it's maybe we're in a period of our

[00:30:31] common humanity.

[00:30:34] Common humanity being that questions a lot of stuff.

[00:30:41] Sometimes I feel, at least in the Western world, that we're in some sort of grown up phase.

[00:30:52] We have left the messy teenagers, the messy teenage period behind us

[00:31:00] and now we're in this waking up to smell the coffee kind of period.

[00:31:11] Like we were in our early 20s, maybe our early 30s, maybe that's even better maybe.

[00:31:19] We are discovering that stuff we've taken for granted for a long time isn't really valid.

[00:31:26] We are desperate for answers in all directions.

[00:31:31] We have been given tools that has never been owned before.

[00:31:41] I can make a podcast and someone in India can listen to me.

[00:31:46] That's of course a huge, very potent tool.

[00:31:55] Very potent tool.

[00:31:59] As we get access to those tools, we grow I think in the long run at least.

[00:32:06] I think we grow maybe we sometimes regress as well in the short term.

[00:32:15] But I believe sleepy and I truly do that our smaller bigger world will benefit us in the end.

[00:32:26] I now I can't really really oh no there's a helicopter flying above my studio.

[00:32:36] This happens from time to time and maybe you don't hear it because the plugins will remove all

[00:32:40] the the rumble. I really I have two issues with the sound environment here in my studio.

[00:32:53] One of them being helicopters and airplanes sometimes flying low.

[00:33:00] Over my studio over our front yard.

[00:33:06] Then it's now in the summertime we have a lot of mosquitoes here.

[00:33:12] So they fly close to the microphone sometimes and I have

[00:33:20] right now knock on wood I don't have any mosquitoes inside of my studio but

[00:33:26] they will surely be here eventually.

[00:33:31] There's been an invite I sent out an invite so maybe they'll come.

[00:33:39] As you say in studio building terms if you build it they will come.

[00:33:45] They say so they will just arrive you know and then they will be here and they will

[00:33:51] fly around my microphone because they want to talk as well and they have a very nasal

[00:34:00] boring message to deliver. It's just please give me

[00:34:11] give me of your give me your blood like preferably all of it.

[00:34:17] Of course I won't be able to absorb all of it but I will I have friends I have like

[00:34:25] eight billion friends outside and they will come if I tell them to you know because you

[00:34:30] built it so we will come. So once in a while one of the mosquitoes will fly close to

[00:34:40] the microphone and most commonly all of my plugins will remove the noise from the mosquito

[00:34:50] but sometimes you can hear it and that's some sort of a little hiss maybe.

[00:35:01] So that's an issue and so then there's this other issue and this we have this

[00:35:07] I live at the end of a road so cars that have gone lost they come here they stop they go out

[00:35:19] and they discuss maybe where they are or maybe they go out into the forest that starts right

[00:35:29] outside my yard and they perform their

[00:35:37] naturally duty or whatever I don't know they pee okay they pee and sometimes I can see them

[00:35:46] okay now it sounds like I'm living in hell this doesn't really happen very often but

[00:35:52] when it happens it's always very I don't really know what to do because

[00:35:59] think people think that my studio is some sort of a storage barrack

[00:36:06] because the window isn't seen from the street so they run out in the forest believing that

[00:36:15] my studio is actually some sort of a

[00:36:19] unhabitable place where you put your summer furniture in the winter and then they

[00:36:31] yeah they expose the parts that need to be exposed in order to perform your naturally duty

[00:36:39] and then they stare right into my face doing that and that's of course very awkward for me

[00:36:47] and for them and they sometimes I get a feeling that they think that I'm doing this on purpose

[00:36:58] in a way that I just placed my container here just to be able to see people performing their

[00:37:08] cosmological needs not meditating in the woods but I assure everyone who's listening that I was

[00:37:16] here first the studio was here first the need to pee I mean of course been originating from

[00:37:22] the very dawn of our species or maybe earlier than that the need to pee right outside of

[00:37:31] my studio is not something that you have the right to per definition but because I work here

[00:37:39] you know so but I mean now it sounds like this happens all the time it doesn't really

[00:37:48] it's happened like two times the last hour no no I was kidding I'm kidding otherwise there's

[00:38:02] this is a very silent place I live in Stockholm so there's noise around us

[00:38:13] but our house is outside of the city and the main roads are not very close to us

[00:38:23] so of course I can hear traffic but it's like this distant stream

[00:38:33] it's not in my immediate attention span which is good oh yeah I was going to tell you about

[00:38:46] Henrik Holmberg the Swedish actor that was my idol for many years if you're a Swedish

[00:38:53] somna then you know what I'm talking about but if you've never heard this it's this is

[00:39:02] one of my more common stories from my earlier life you know when you meet people that

[00:39:12] you admire and you meet them and then something goes wrong

[00:39:18] you try to make a good impression you try to maybe tell them that you adore them in a way

[00:39:29] admire them and but something socially goes wrong there is a miscommunication the person

[00:39:37] misunderstands something and then there's this gap in your in the in the line in the

[00:39:47] communication strings between you and as as soon as that happens there's almost

[00:39:55] no possibility that you can re-bridge that it's always very very hard after you made the first

[00:40:03] social mistake because the the stakes are so high because you admire the person

[00:40:11] so maybe that person doesn't even realize that there's been an issue they just think that

[00:40:18] you're a very weird person you know and Henrik Holmberg he's an actor here maybe he is in his

[00:40:27] late 60s now I don't know he was an actor in Gothenburg where I studied to be an actor

[00:40:35] myself and one of my first weeks in actor school I went to see him in Romeo and Juliet where he

[00:40:45] played the the what do you call it the Wetners the oh I don't know the English word for it

[00:40:55] Juliet. Juliet retro up with this woman. She took care of her as a baby and now she's her

[00:41:07] confidant and Henrik played her and he did it brilliantly funny and gripping and dark and

[00:41:20] and also very, very, very funny.

[00:41:25] And I was so shy in the beginning.

[00:41:30] I felt like I was like nine years old and all the other, all my classmates were these

[00:41:38] experienced wolf-like creatures with beard and long hair.

[00:41:44] And this was in the nineties and every man who was something looked like a monster really.

[00:41:53] In Sweden we had this bad boy theme going through all male actors.

[00:42:00] You had to look like you could beat someone up for farting, you know,

[00:42:07] or for coughing too loud or something.

[00:42:09] And of course you had to have a drug problem.

[00:42:13] So all of them, no, I'm not going to say that all of them did,

[00:42:18] but it was a lot of drinking and using other stuff.

[00:42:22] And I was new to all of that and I felt I was only 20 years old and I felt like I was a child

[00:42:33] and I felt left out and I didn't drink.

[00:42:36] At that time I never used any drugs.

[00:42:40] So I immediately got left out of that club, you know, and I felt like a dork, you know,

[00:42:53] like a geek.

[00:42:56] And I went to this performance of Romeo and Juliet and afterwards we got to talk with the

[00:43:03] actors, my classmates and I.

[00:43:05] And I went up to Henrik who played the wet nurse and I wanted to say to him

[00:43:14] that I thought that he was brilliant, but I was in this environment of being cool.

[00:43:24] You know, you couldn't just run up to someone and say,

[00:43:30] hey, I thought that you were really good and you really inspire me

[00:43:34] and I want to be just like you when I grow up and stuff like that.

[00:43:38] You can't say that, you had to come up to him and say something very clever and wise

[00:43:43] and maybe diss him a little bit, you know, because you needed to be cool,

[00:43:49] because we were the new hope of acting in Sweden.

[00:43:54] That's how we were supposed to look at ourselves.

[00:43:57] And my classmate Ola, he said that this is a fucking boring play about two teenagers

[00:44:05] climbing on vines.

[00:44:09] I mean, and he said that about, I mean, everyone laughed and we all agreed presumably

[00:44:17] that William Shakespeare was like this very extraordinary bad playwright, you know?

[00:44:27] Because we were going to change the world or whatever.

[00:44:32] And I'm sorry for saying it, but I mean, why did we have to be idiots?

[00:44:38] Why?

[00:44:39] Why is it that when you're in a certain development phase,

[00:44:43] why is it like a rule that you have to behave like an idiot?

[00:44:48] So all of these cool actor students went over to the actors and we had this conversation

[00:44:56] and I went up to Henrik and I said to him,

[00:45:01] well, I wanted to say stuff like, I thought that you were really good.

[00:45:07] I laughed genuinely for so long and you gripped me because you were playing this old lady

[00:45:17] and it wasn't just a man in woman's attire.

[00:45:22] It wasn't like that because I always think that it's kind of cheap to do that

[00:45:28] because it's just easy to laugh at a man who dresses in like a gown or an apron.

[00:45:38] But so that wasn't it.

[00:45:42] You really captured some weird person with very own motivations.

[00:45:52] And of course, very funny and with really a comic relief in this very tragic play.

[00:45:59] So it was wonderful to see because I'd never seen by then,

[00:46:04] I'd never seen humor in any Shakespeare tragedy being performed.

[00:46:12] The tragedies were really just tragic and I don't think that Shakespeare would approve.

[00:46:18] I think that his tragedies were really filled with comic relief

[00:46:24] because how else are you going to make people stand up and watch your play like twice a week

[00:46:31] in like the 1600s, 1700s? I don't know, 1600s.

[00:46:43] But I couldn't speak because I was so shy.

[00:46:51] And all the courage I had was exactly enough for me to get his attention.

[00:47:00] Like, hey, and then all my courage went away.

[00:47:06] But now I already had his intentions and he was looking at me like,

[00:47:10] yes, what were you going to say?

[00:47:13] And I couldn't come up with anything to say.

[00:47:16] And the class was watching me and the other actors in the play, Romeo and Juliet, were watching me

[00:47:26] like these two young, very good looking,

[00:47:29] newly examined actors from the same school I went to.

[00:47:34] They all looked at me and then I pushed my lips together in a kissing mime.

[00:47:44] And I just did this kissing noise in the air against him.

[00:47:51] And there was this complete silence.

[00:47:57] And Henrik Holmberg said, well, yes.

[00:48:04] And then people started talking about other stuff and maybe Ola said that this is a very bad play

[00:48:11] and everyone agreed, you know, and I wanted to really jump off a roof or something.

[00:48:23] And then it was many years wherever I met Henrik Holmberg,

[00:48:30] there was this very awkward encounters because I had this first encounter in such a vivid

[00:48:38] recollection.

[00:48:42] And then the last time I remember seeing him was at this lecture that he held about

[00:48:48] the development of the Swedish language and the under meaning that it's okay for everything to change.

[00:48:58] It's okay to change, it's okay to watch stuff happening,

[00:49:03] to watch stuff change in front of your eyes because what can you do?

[00:49:08] The world is constantly changing.

[00:49:11] Why would you want to cling to something that can't be clingable?

[00:49:16] Or maybe you can cling to something but then do that and just enjoy it while it's there

[00:49:23] and accept it when it goes away.

[00:49:26] And most of all, let people do as they please.

[00:49:32] Please don't make other people cling to your value.

[00:49:36] You can go your own way.

[00:49:40] If you hate TikTok and smartphones, you can choose to live a life where TikTok and smartphones

[00:49:48] aren't an ingredient.

[00:49:51] That's a perfectly legitimate choice.

[00:49:56] It has of course consequences like every choice and then you can choose whether or not this

[00:50:08] choice is acceptable to you regarding the consequences.

[00:50:13] They could be big, they could be small.

[00:50:18] Anyway, me and my schoolmate Danilo and Henrik Holmberg, we joined together

[00:50:31] as we walked from the school downtown.

[00:50:35] We were going in our different directions but we accompanied each other on the way down.

[00:50:42] And we were talking or Danilo, which is a very socialist, no he's not socialist.

[00:50:52] He's very, wouldn't it be funny if I just now happened to mention that my friend

[00:50:57] Danilo was a socialist and then not commenting on it anymore?

[00:51:01] No, I'm sorry.

[00:51:02] He is a very social person.

[00:51:05] He's very socially competent and everyone likes him or at least they did.

[00:51:12] And he was talking and Henrik was talking and I went quiet because I knew that as soon

[00:51:19] as I opened my mouth, I was going to say something stupid.

[00:51:26] So we went down and we walked down the street.

[00:51:31] This main street in Gothenburg called the Avenue, Avanin in Swedish.

[00:51:38] And we passed McDonald's and I thought maybe I should go and comfort myself with some

[00:51:51] fast food.

[00:51:52] I've always had that escape road.

[00:51:57] That's sort of an escapistic move for me to eat fast food.

[00:52:08] I tend to do that and especially since I quit drinking, I tend to flee into fast food.

[00:52:18] So when I have a bad day, I want pizza, I want milkshakes, I want burgers, I want

[00:52:24] McDonald's.

[00:52:25] And I was in a bad place because I thought that I was really a dork, a geek, someone

[00:52:31] who's not worthy of taking serious.

[00:52:34] So I told Danilo and Henrik that I'm going to go in here and have a supper.

[00:52:41] And they looked at me like, I mean, of course this is my interpretation.

[00:52:45] I don't know if it's true, but they looked at me like, because I went there

[00:52:51] all the time.

[00:52:53] Henrik didn't know that, but Danilo knew that.

[00:52:57] I always ordered a quarter pounder with cheese and a Coke without ice.

[00:53:07] So they knew it when I came into that restaurant.

[00:53:10] They just said, QP and cheese, Coke without ice, which is like ice in Sweden.

[00:53:22] So I knew when I saw Danilo's face that, why do you keep going to those places?

[00:53:28] Why don't you join us and we can go and have a beer somewhere or just talk.

[00:53:34] But I really despised myself, I guess.

[00:53:39] And I wanted to leave before I made a fool out of myself before this man who was my idol.

[00:53:46] And I said, I'm going to go in here and have supper.

[00:53:51] And then I went for a while and then I turned back and I was going to say like

[00:53:57] something cool to bid them goodbye.

[00:54:02] And I watched, I looked him, Henrik right in the eyes and I made this again,

[00:54:11] this kissing thing.

[00:54:12] I don't know why I keep doing that, but this time I kissed my hand and I waved it at him

[00:54:20] like this, I don't know what you call it, like you throw away the kiss, you know?

[00:54:26] So I threw him a kiss and then I was going to say something cool like

[00:54:35] good day folks.

[00:54:37] I don't know what I was going to say, but the words that came out was

[00:54:43] hello, ajo.

[00:54:46] And ajo was probably some sort of twisted variant of the Swedish word, ajö, which is a way of

[00:54:59] saying goodbye in a more mannered way.

[00:55:06] So I turned to him, threw him a kiss and I said, hello, ajo.

[00:55:10] And it went quiet and he looked at me and he said, very confused, yes, yes, hello, ajo.

[00:55:19] And then I turned around and rushed into McDonald's and I stuffed my face with

[00:55:26] whatever empty carbs that I could find, empty calories that I could find.

[00:55:33] And then I took the trolley home.

[00:55:36] So that sleepy was a very, I've told this story many, many times before, but never

[00:55:49] in English.

[00:55:50] This was a very exciting thing to do.

[00:55:55] You're probably asleep now anyway.

[00:55:59] So I guess my secret will be safe yet again.

[00:56:05] I'm thinking about you right now.

[00:56:07] I'm thinking about where you are in the world and I'm not going to stand between

[00:56:15] me and my own childish fascination for the fact that we are in different parts

[00:56:20] of the world together right now.

[00:56:24] I mean, of course, this is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very

[00:56:31] I mean, of course this is my now.

[00:56:36] It hasn't happened for you yet, but as you listen to my voice, you and I are in

[00:56:44] the same space, in the same universe, but still on different continents maybe,

[00:56:51] different parts of the world.

[00:56:55] And I mean, it's a very deep that we can share something quite intimately

[00:57:04] really.

[00:57:06] And at the same time be separated by both time and space.

[00:57:16] It's an alluring feeling.

[00:57:21] I wonder where you are sleepy right now.

[00:57:27] I mean, you are in a place that's it could be, it could very well be an

[00:57:33] exotic place as far as I'm concerned.

[00:57:37] You could be in a place like I've never even, I've probably never been

[00:57:51] where you are except if you are on a place where I've been, but you could be

[00:58:01] in a part of the world where you hear noises that I would think of as very

[00:58:07] exotic.

[00:58:10] That's amazing.

[00:58:11] It's an amazing feeling that I can talk to you.

[00:58:16] It's almost like we're on different planets, but we're not and that's the

[00:58:20] gift of today, I guess.

[00:58:23] That I, Henrik Stål, which has lived almost his entire adult life in some

[00:58:32] sort of variant of a public eye here in Sweden, can sit here and feel

[00:58:38] awe.

[00:58:39] I feel in awe of you and what you stand for and where you are and what this

[00:58:52] means.

[00:58:53] And I can be so grateful to technology and to today and the future

[00:59:01] generations, which makes this possible.

[00:59:04] Time makes this possible.

[00:59:09] Imagine having this, imagine having this power.

[00:59:15] Imagine having this power talking to someone on the other side of the

[00:59:21] world.

[00:59:22] If that's where you are, you could be next door.

[00:59:24] I don't know.

[00:59:28] Imagine being able to do that like 50 years ago.

[00:59:35] That was something you could only do if you were a major, major star

[00:59:42] or a top tier politician or maybe a higher ranked official in the

[00:59:48] military in some rich country.

[00:59:53] And before that, not many people and before that, kings and emissaries

[01:00:07] and it happened at a very high personal cost, traveling for years.

[01:00:14] And before that, no one, absolutely no one could do what I do now with

[01:00:23] such ease.

[01:00:27] And I mean, it gives so much space to humanity.

[01:00:32] We are afraid of technology, but and of course, maybe there are valid

[01:00:37] points to this fear, but imagine all the time and space we have to be

[01:00:44] humans when technology makes it so easy for us to reach each other.

[01:00:51] I can reach you and you can reach me with such ease.

[01:00:55] We don't have to be experts in any field.

[01:00:59] We could just be humans and sleepy.

[01:01:04] I think that that's so beautiful.

[01:01:09] You are beautiful.

[01:01:11] And I guess I am as well, even though I have a more complicated

[01:01:15] way of looking at myself than looking at the image that I have

[01:01:19] of you.

[01:01:23] Good night, sleepy.

[01:01:25] This episode is now over.

[01:01:28] We'll talk again next week.