Stand tall in the stream of annoyance

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Hi, sleepy. Just a very quick note before we start today's episode.

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to listen to this podcast without the ads? Then you absolutely can.

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Just subscribe to Fall asleep with Henrik Plus and to do so,

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_01]: you can just click the link in the podcast description and it'll be fixed.

[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_01]: See you there.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Hi and welcome to Fall asleep with Henrik.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Henrik and you're sleepy and it is what it is.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_00]: What happens happens and right now there's nothing we can do.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_00]: So without further ado, let's go.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Hi sleepy.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You are so very welcome to this episode of this.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_00]: This is my podcast that doesn't really do anything except trying to make you.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to try to put you to sleep but I'm doing so without putting any effort into it.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't prepared what I'm going to say and I won't edit anything out.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So this might be nothing.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_01]: It may very well turn out to be something.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Nevertheless, you don't have to listen to it.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just some dude and I'm going to talk for an hour and I'm not going to think through

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: very much what I'm about to say.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So welcome.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, if you're new or if you've been listening to this podcast for a while,

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_01]: my not so secret anymore goal with this podcast is to reach one million people within a year.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And so far there are a few thousand of you.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you have it in you, if you like what I do,

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_01]: then share it on your social media or via the old fashioned mouth to mouth method.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Or do you really say mouth to mouth?

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_01]: That's not really how you share information, is it?

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Mouth to ear.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_01]: No, you say word of mouth.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_01]: That's how you do it.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So as you gather, I'm not from any English speaking country.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm from Sweden and I normally do this in Swedish, although recently or not so recently really.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Recently I began to do this in English because I want to reach a wider audience.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that my way of just talking without really putting any emphasis on anything I say

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_01]: can serve a purpose in the grander schemes.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for listening and for maybe leaving me a review.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to write to me, that's just fine.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_01]: You can reach out at any of my social media.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: My name is Henrik Stål.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And you can also email me at www.kirinaja.com

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_01]: That's my production company.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_01]: That sounds like this huge entity, but it's not.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just me.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought that once you have your own firm, your own company,

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_01]: that entity should have a name regardless of its size.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm recording this episode just a few hours before I'm going to release it

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_01]: In Sweden every episode is released on Tuesday mornings at 0300 hours.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Is that the term for it?

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_00]: 3 a.m. in the morning.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And so depending on where you are in the world, it's...

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm not even going to try to make this sound like I have like control over

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_01]: the time it is in different places in the world.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I still haven't grappled the a.m. p.m. thing.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And don't get me started on central time and east coast time or whatever.

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for my whole life, I've been living under my own time,

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_01]: my own clock.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And now since opening up to the world, different times are now being thrown out me as

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, whatever is being thrown at any given moment.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're new here, sometimes you're going to find yourself wondering what the heck I'm talking about.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's fine because I very rarely know myself what it is I'm doing.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't really have a plan.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't really have anything thought through.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have a strategy.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just driven by this overwhelming feeling of that this type of communication is right.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I believe and that's my aim if there is any that showing you me in this way will be beneficial for me and for you.

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure why that is, and I might be wrong.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I might be totally wrong, but I really believe in the concept of genuine communication.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I'm, I think I'm trying to be genuine.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to be like I am.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not going to try to make you feel anything and I'm not going to try to make you believe stuff about me.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_01]: That's not me.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Mostly I think I do this for myself.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I've come to find it very enjoyable to do this in English and I hope to continue.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I think this is my 22nd or so episode.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And many of you who listen write to me on a regular basis and I'm so glad for all the letters.

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad for all of you reaching out telling me about yourself and how you use my podcast and about your lives.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's still, that's still a pliable might I add.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And that I'm so happy whenever you write and tell me about your life.

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Some of you listen while commuting, other people listen in a certain environment when going to sleep.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Some people listen with their pets, dogs and cats.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And other people listen in all different sorts of environments and situations, awake and going to sleep.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all good.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to keep doing the same thing.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: That's by the way why I keep doing new episodes every week because I am, I'm sorry I got so distracted now.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I have this monitor in my studio and it just turned on like just to annoy me.

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And since this podcast is all about what happens, happens I'm not going to do anything about it.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So now I have a monitor in my studio and it's just, it's just in my face.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's just shown me this blank blue screen and I don't know why.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I think life is so much about tolerating stuff that hurts, stings, scratches, itches and annoys you in other ways.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just, you know the periods of time when you just are totally free from annoyance.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_01]: They're so short and there are so few of them that you might as well just get used to standing strong in the stream of annoyance.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's what I want to do with my life. That's what I want to do.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to stand tall in the stream of annoyance and I want to say to the world, come on, is that all you got?

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Come on bring it on, bring it on, give it to me.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I can take it, you know. And I don't want that to be some sort of self-proclaiming prophecy.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I want that to be true, that I can take it, that I am able to handle whatever is being thrown at me at any given moment.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still far from whatever is necessary to be able to say that that's true.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not there by a long shot, but I mean it's a good goal to have.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I would like to be free from the everyday annoyance.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Like when you wake up in the morning and you go up or maybe you go down, I go down.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_01]: My bedroom is upstairs so I go down the stairs, 13 steps I think it is.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And I go down and I make myself some coffee and maybe I spill some of the coffee.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I don't even spill it on my hands.

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I don't even get burned but I'm still like, I still feel like okay, so this is the end of my day, the end of my life.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_01]: The devastation and the irritation and the annoyance that one feels when something that random happens.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: That's just so unnecessary.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Why can't I just handle stuff like that?

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Whenever I'm bored or stressed out, I tend to do stupid mistakes like I was going to crack an egg and I don't particularly care for cooking.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_01]: That's not me.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And now I don't want you to rush off and just yell from the church tower then.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: This Swedish guy thinks that he can get through life without cooking.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he has a wife that cooks for him, oh my God.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I just want to say that that's not true.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_01]: No one in our home, no one in our household particularly care for cooking.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And I know that I have to do that.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I have a daughter.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I've got to make food.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And I do.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just that it's not my hobby.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not browsing through magazines, food related magazines, looking for new recipes to try out in my kitchen.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't spend hours and hours at end just experimenting with spices.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I just want to eat it, you know.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And if it's already prepared then I'm ecstatic.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was going to crack an egg and as I said I'm not really fond of cracking eggs or cracking anything really.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not really fond of mixing stuff in a bowl.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not really fond of stirring stuff.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not really fond of adding this and that to this and that.

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But still I do because I have a child and she needs food.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_01]: If it were just me, I would just eat yogurt all the time or maybe pizza every Friday.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But I don't.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I was stressed out and I was bored and I cracked the egg so hard that it just smashed on the counter.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And the level of fury that I feel at that moment.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean it's not even close to the actual issue.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It's so many levels above and I don't get it.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Why can't I just learn that your feeling should be proportionate to the actual problem?

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's just at that moment the whole world is entering my life through some unconventional entry point.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Like the Shimni or less original but like a window, a window that normally doesn't open.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_01]: That's where life comes in, makes a mess in the room and just says that.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is it for you.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_01]: You've had a good run but from now on your life has gone to be a mess.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_01]: You will never succeed in anything you try.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_00]: You will just be this, yeah, it'll be a shit show from here on.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So basically that's what I feel and the level of devastation and anger and frustration and despair that I feel at that very random, light-leveled moment.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a good way of spending energy.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I would like to be able to think straight and not just let life get to me in that way.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But it's hard, it is.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And I imagine all of us are struggling with this.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Not all of us are Buddhist monks being perfectly trained in methods to keep a leveled mind.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: To just be, be as is.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyhow that's what I'm trying to go for and that's, well maybe that is my sense moral in this podcast if there is any.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_01]: That if we can do anything like anything at all it should be to just at least sometimes during our hours on earth just leave things as they are.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of things that we can do.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean there are so many things that we can change both in our own lives and in others.

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_00]: But again there's also this huge clump of things, this huge reservoir of stuff that we can't ever do anything about.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And it keeps being refilled, this reservoir with stuff that is so random and so vast and so beyond our control that we can't really do anything about it.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And then why bother, you know, why bother worrying about what's eventually gonna happen?

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And when I was a kid and when I was younger I was like, I was really afraid of storms, wind, strong gusts of wind.

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_01]: There was this instant, instance, there was this instance when I was a kind, a kind.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I was a kind and that's actually your word.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_01]: No it's not, but I'm making it up as I go.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_01]: What I meant to say was that I was a child.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So when I was a child there was this huge storm attacking our house in the middle of a winter night.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And I come from, well not the northern part of Sweden but it's more north than where I live today in Stockholm.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So and I was brought up in the countryside so it was a lot of snow like everywhere.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And the starry night was throwing itself at my family's little house at the end of a gravel road.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I still think about that gravel road sometimes.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I have so many memories attached to that house and I'm so sad that it's not in my family's possession anymore because it would be lovely to

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_01]: be able to go there once in a while.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I think I was around 10.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_01]: No, I wasn't around 10, I was about 10, 10 years old that is.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember that the wind sounded almost like this being a monster of sorts growling and screeching trying to get into the house.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was so afraid.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time and it was totally, it was pitch black outside because it was winter and that time like in January I think it was.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And it gets dark like three o'clock in the afternoons.

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was pitch black and all we could hear was the sound of the roaring wind.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And we had plans to go to my grandma, my mother's mother to have like this end of Christmas party that she threw every year.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And there was a lot of candy being served at those events.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And we, me and my siblings, we were like starved of candy because my mom really didn't.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, is it fair to say that she didn't believe in candy?

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that's the right way to put it but she was very much against it.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_01]: But she couldn't do anything about her own mother giving us candy so we were like, we were very keen on getting there.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And we were absolutely devastated that since the wind was so strong, we couldn't get to the main road.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Because the snow had covered all of our, the gravel road that led to our house.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: But then like sent from heaven my mother's sister's husband.

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't actually know his actual name.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_01]: His nickname was Boyan, like the boy in Swedish.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And he was very, he was not a boy.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_01]: He was this man, like this lumberjack guy.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_01]: He wasn't an actual lumberjack but he was like, you know, important meanings.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_01]: He was an actual lumberjack except for being an actual lumberjack.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_01]: He was a man, he was a macho man and he was a very safe and warm person.

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_01]: At least as far as I was concerned.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And he offered to come and pick us up out by the main road.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And get us to Grandmas.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And we were so happy.

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But then there was this issue.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_01]: We had to cross the gravel road which was now just a vast field of snow in this pitch black afternoon in the middle of this storm.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was going to prove to be a difficult endeavor indeed.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So we started our journey.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And I still remember that overwhelming feeling of this is almost at the edge of what I'm capable of withstanding at my young age.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_01]: It actually felt like I was going to be taken, like blown away.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was a sensitive child.

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I was afraid of a lot of things and of course this gripped me, this overwhelming force like that the wind is.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_01]: But I still wanted the candy, you know?

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So I endured.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I think some of my siblings were ecstatic, you know.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_01]: They felt like it was going to be an adventure.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_01]: My youngest brother at the time, Marcus, he was...

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_01]: The wind was so strong that my father held him in his arms and he, you know, he lifted.

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He flew in the wind like a flag.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_01]: At least that's what my father tells me.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember caring the least about Marcus and the other siblings.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to get out to the main road and then something terrible happened.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_01]: My cap, my hat flew off and just went out into the darkness in the vast field of snow.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And I screamed from the top of my lungs, my hat, my hat, it's gone, it's gone.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And the night just swallowed it.

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And at that time I had this grave issue of separating from stuff.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I got very overwhelmed and filled with angst when something ended.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And that included like throwing away stuff that was old and couldn't be used anymore.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_01]: For instance, if I've used an old toothbrush for too long and my mom told me to throw it away,

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_01]: then I just... I couldn't do it so I hid it, you know?

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I put a ribbon on it and put it in a box and just...

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_01]: by the way, I still really care about stuff being forever.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And that sometimes puts me in a bad spot because you can't keep stuff forever.

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing really is forever.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And I keep reminding myself that now when I'm going through this period of massive changes in my life

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_01]: and it's an important thing to keep... to carry with you in the back of your mind.

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_01]: If there even is such a thing as a back of a mind to carry that with you that everything changes.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Like existence is more like a wave than a road or a path, you know?

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01]: A path indicates that there is a beginning and a middle and an end.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And there is no such thing really in existing in general.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_01]: A wave is just an invisible motion that manifests itself in water from time to time.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So when you watch a wave, you watch the water but the wave is not the water, you know?

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_01]: The wave is a motion and the water is matter responding to that motion.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's better to think of yourself for your own existence or your own life as being a wave, you know?

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Something really mysterious manifesting itself through you at this time.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a fascinating way of just think about it anyway.

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, my head, it blew away and just disappeared into the night although it was a night, it was 3 p.m.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But we couldn't do anything about that.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_01]: We couldn't save it.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And I still wanted the candy really bad.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So we went out and we reached the main road and there stood the boy, the bearded boy with his massive, manly hairy chest

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_01]: like a shield against the wind.

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And he took us under his arms and he shoved us in his car.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_01]: We sat there and we must have looked like frozen small tortured birds seeking shelter from wind and violence

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_01]: from bigger birds or something.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And off we went.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And the car ride was even more eventful than the wandering over the snowy field

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_01]: because it was chaos on the roads.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Two cars ran off the road in front of us and the road was barely visible.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So the boy, he really risked his life and our life by picking us up.

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was like 30 kilometers to Grandma's house.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And we went there and we got the candy and we had the party and I was for a moment there, I forgot about the storm and the roaring wind

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_01]: but then it was time to go back home.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And I still to this day can't think of a reason why we just didn't stay at Grandma's.

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_01]: We have to go home.

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a shame that both Grandma and Granddad are dead because otherwise I would ask them why couldn't we just stay there until there was no storm outside.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_01]: But I believe it must have been because my mom was at home.

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I think she wanted us to come home.

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't think of a better reason.

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And as every time, as usual when mom says something that becomes reality.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So we went home.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_01]: The boy drove us home again and I don't remember the journey back over the snowy field

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_01]: but I guess the sorrow and anxiety over my last hat became evident again.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I must have been such a pain sometimes when I was a kid.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I just couldn't let it go.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I just couldn't reconcile.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I just couldn't accept the fact that something was lost to me.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I just couldn't accept the fact that stuff ended and stuff got lost, you know?

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I felt sorry for the thing that got lost as well or got thrown away.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_01]: If I were to throw something away like some old homework paper or something,

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I could get into the trash and pick it up again and kiss it and whisper,

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry to it before throwing it away again.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_01]: There's this old story of me.

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I only remember fragments of it and maybe I don't even remember it.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I just remember the stories.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01]: But me and my siblings had gotten each of us had got this marzipan frog,

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_01]: like a treat.

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And as I said, we weren't very spoiled with candy when I was a kid

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_01]: because mom was really against all sugary things.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_01]: She was like this very strict mom in that sense that she didn't want us to watch video.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_01]: She didn't want us to eat fast food like hamburgers and pizza.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And she didn't want us to eat sugar.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So that was the three main thing.

[00:36:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And also she didn't want us to play with toy guns.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course that was all we wanted me and my brothers,

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_01]: like we wanted toy guns.

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_01]: We wanted fast food.

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_01]: We wanted sugar.

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You know?

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And we couldn't swear either but we did and so did mom.

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_01]: That was like the rule.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_01]: That wasn't the rule.

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And I quickly discovered that I could swear that it was totally okay because she swore.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was like almost an enjoyable thing to do because I knew that I could get away with it.

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't get away with, you know, she was really scared of video.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Shane saw Massacre was out and in Sweden we had like

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_01]: debates on television, state television that told people about the dangers of video that

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_01]: in the future the kids growing up will run around killing people with chainsaws.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember like there's ever been a spike in chainsaw related murders in any part of society before or after those films.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I just can't see it statistically anyway.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So whenever I told her that I've watched video at a friend's house, she, yeah well she reacted.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And but the swearing was like it was like her Achilles heel.

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_01]: She just couldn't control it all, you know and please don't run off.

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And yelling from a church tower that

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Henrik had this very controlling mother who made his life miserable during his very formidable years.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want you to think that although of course that's true.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But I love my mom and what can you say, what can I say?

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_00]: It's I mean I'm a grown man.

[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I need to take responsibility for my aspects, my traits, my habits.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You can't blame your parents forever you know and I really love my mom and I really love my dad.

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And mistakes were made when I was a kid as in every family as with every parent.

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_01]: As with me, with my own daughter although I don't know it yet.

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_01]: That's something I really worry about.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I keep track on what I lack as a parent I think but I think that I'm going to be surprised when she tells me in the future.

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I don't think it'll be anything that I think right now are my failures as a parent.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the scary part, she will just come up to me one day and tell me that you never were the color blue.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_01]: That really triggered me, that really traumatized me or something.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Something I've never even in my wildest imagination have thought about.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I went to bed that night listening to the wind trying to tear the house apart at least that's how I experienced it.

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember my dad being irritated with me because I couldn't stop whining about it.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I am really, when I worry about stuff I tell people.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I tell them about what I'm going through and when I was a kid I just couldn't, there was no end really.

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I needed constant comfort and well it deserves to be known that my parents in total are the parents of six children.

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Although not all of them was born at this time.

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, they can't put like all the energy on one kid.

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So I remember them being rightfully so irritated with me for not being able to shut up and go to bed.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And trying to endure the storm.

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And when I woke up the next morning because I eventually fell asleep.

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_01]: The wind had stopped and on the back of our house like in the backyard which went into this field.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_00]: This yeah, cows were there in the summer.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And the wind, it was uphill up to our house and the wind had pushed like this huge amount of snow into this stale frozen wave.

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Of super hard super thick glittering snow.

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it looked like this surfer wave frozen in a moment in a second.

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was so beautiful.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It looked like exactly like this huge ocean wave but like a statue of an ocean wave.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And we went out and we were you know the details, the tip of the wave was so pointy.

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was almost like it had been sculpted by someone.

[00:43:04] [SPEAKER_01]: But it was the wind, it was just this brute force of nature that had created something so beautiful.

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course we played on that frozen wave for I mean it stayed that way for like a month or something.

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It was so beautiful.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I wish we could have taken a picture of it.

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Taking a picture by then back then was like it all depended on whether or not you had film for the camera at home.

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And well apparently we didn't because there is not a single photo of this phenomena at the back of our house in like 1985 1986.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And then after a few hours my dad came home and he said,

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Henry I found your hat out in the field.

[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So then everything was fine again.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And now and again I think about that wind and I think about how it all went well.

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And regardless of the fear that I felt and the endeavors that we had to put up with that we had to go through.

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_00]: It all turned out well.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And also in a way changed happened for the better.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Because the day after the big windy stormy commotion we had this beautifully shaped wave in our backyard.

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And we got to play with it for like a huge chunk of winter and that's beautiful.

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's almost like this snowy frozen statue of a wave became synonymous with the actual wave, you know.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_00]: The wave of change like a sign of life being always in motion.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Existence is being in this perpetual mode.

[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh I don't know if I'm using these words right.

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Perpetual motion. Can you say that?

[00:46:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Perpetual is it like ongoing?

[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Is that the word for it?

[00:46:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you know what I really love about doing this in English is that I don't know half of the words that I'm putting out there.

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just speaking and I love it and it's so fun.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's so fun to do this in another language.

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_00]: It feels like there's this whole totally different part of my brain doing this.

[00:46:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel free like I can use.

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I can go either way here.

[00:46:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I've just been talking about this storm and I just felt compelled to make it a sense moral about, you know, motion and time and change and stuff that you find scary is really just a symptom of metamorphosis.

[00:47:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, change hurts.

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Changes are supposed to be painful because it hurts to be born again, you know.

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And then I thought that that's too easy.

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I should complicate things.

[00:47:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to do it like this.

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to make it easy for me and I like to twist and turn so that the sense moral doesn't become a sense moral, you know.

[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So I could change topic and that all together now and I could just start talking about trucks and lorries.

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And when I was one, when I turned one, I well they tell me that I got this lorry, this truck made out of wood.

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So this must have been in 1976, ancient times back in the like the Middle Ages.

[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I got as a present a huge wooden truck with gray plastic wheels and the rest of the truck was made out of wood.

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And I wonder why they gave me this huge wooden truck.

[00:49:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I wonder how what they thought that would give me because as a one year old child, I don't suppose I like that more than the paper it came in, I guess.

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Why did this truck appeal to my parents when they bought it?

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It's still in the attic as we speak.

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I still look at it from time to time and I still think about what they were thinking when they gave it to me.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not a bad gift.

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just that why would you want to give a car to a one year old?

[00:49:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I haven't ever since then either expressed a particular interest regarding cars and a vehicle really.

[00:50:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just not interested in cars and I'm not saying that they did something wrong or anything.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just I'm curious what of course they didn't really know me back then.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I was just one not just been in their possession or whatever you call it for a year.

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Not counting the years in my mother's belly, but it's still really weird because I'm there's this super eight film.

[00:50:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Silent film taken off me at the time and I'm really more interested in the paper than I am of the actual.

[00:50:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Car I also I also got another car like this.

[00:50:51] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the type of car that you can sit on with a steering wheel and just kick yourself over the floor and that's not that car is gone.

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know where it went.

[00:51:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even remember it so maybe it didn't last long but I don't they lift me up.

[00:51:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And they sit me down on it on the car with a steering wheel.

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_01]: But I don't seem to be very interested in it.

[00:51:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm I also get this pet lion.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's not actual an actual lion.

[00:51:36] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a toy and that I seem a bit more interested in.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I hug it and I kiss it.

[00:51:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And ever since I've been overly interested in kissing lions and I've dedicated a huge portion of my life in chasing down lions on the savannah kissing them.

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And it almost cost me my life and my savings and my sanity.

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, I am obsessed with kissing lions.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_01]: What can you say? What can I say?

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And at some point you just have to indulge in whatever your poison is and kissing lions.

[00:52:24] [SPEAKER_01]: That's my poison.

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't particularly care for stuff that people normally treat as their poison like stamp collecting horseback riding.

[00:52:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Crockay or do you say Crockett and tennis.

[00:52:51] [SPEAKER_01]: One arm casino playing, you know, blackjack.

[00:52:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Fine wines, whiskey, gin and trip hop.

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't care for that.

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I care about kissing lions.

[00:53:12] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter what type of lion or what gender the lion is.

[00:53:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I just want those lion lips on my own and preferably without them biting me, but that's the my biggest issue.

[00:53:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Because whenever I embrace the lions, huge skull pouting my lips, pressing them against the lions beak.

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I know that lions doesn't really have beaks in a traditional sense, but that's how I choose to express myself right now.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_01]: The beak of a lion is the beak of a lion.

[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Please print that on a t-shirt.

[00:54:04] [SPEAKER_01]: They tend to bite me because they don't generally want to be kissed.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_01]: That's weird, you know? Who doesn't want to be kissed? I know I do.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So why doesn't lions want to be kissed?

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the question for the ages, isn't it?

[00:54:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean books and books and books could be written about that subject yet there's nothing being written about it.

[00:54:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing. I don't know why.

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Why?

[00:54:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Why aren't people writing like pages after pages after pages?

[00:54:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Why doesn't scholars make it their lives, their profession, you know?

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_01]: The calling of their whole careers to just answer the question why doesn't the lion have the same urge to be kissed like, well for example human beings or leprechauns.

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, well leprechauns that's another story. I mean they are really interested in being kissed but that's a whole different, you know, bull park.

[00:55:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Leprechaun kisses are also, I mean that's how they... shit!

[00:55:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So sorry, I'm so sorry.

[00:55:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry.

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's really late when I record this and the episode is going up like any minute now.

[00:55:44] [SPEAKER_01]: No, not any minute but like within a few hours and I'm normally, I'm normally never this late in recording the episodes but I've been on a road trip.

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I recently took my driver's license as many of you know and I've been doing my first really long road trip back to my birthplace in Dalekalia

[00:56:15] [SPEAKER_01]: and except for one major incident where I went into a tunnel in the wrong direction which could have ended my life, I know.

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_01]: But it didn't. I managed just fine and I'm glad. I'm glad it happened because now I will never do that mistake, make that mistake again.

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So I've been out on the roads and I've actually enjoyed it so much except for the tunnel incident and that's why I'm late with this episode.

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Normally I record them in advance, maybe a few days in advance at least but it's fun to be this close to publication, this close to deadline.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay so to summarize this episode, I have been talking about my, that I want to stand tall in the stream of annoyance.

[00:57:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess that could be the title of this episode. I don't know. I leave it for my future self like myself 25 minutes from now to decide what to call the episode.

[00:57:45] [SPEAKER_01]: But one alternative could I'm just saying, I'm just putting it out there that one particular, one particularly good title for the episode could be

[00:57:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Stand Tall in the Stream of Annoyance. But I mean what do I know? Maybe when I listen through this episode I will find 25 different other much better titles.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I talked a lot about wind and change and my fear of change and my fear of overwhelmingly strong forces.

[00:58:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Like when you meet a troll out in the forest and the troll is on the run, you know.

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And the troll, maybe the troll's name is Alikin and Alikin just so and such an overwhelmingly powerful troll that it just knocks you off your feet, you know.

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not necessarily dangerous. It's just so overwhelmingly that like when it's almost like the storm, you know.

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But if you say yes to the storm for a while or at least you don't even have to say yes you just have to endure it, you know, while it's at its most intense phase and then something really beautiful can be created.

[00:59:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's like, that should be the goal of everyone alive.

[00:59:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So what I would like to do right now, sleepy if I may call you so, is to say if you meet a troll or if you meet a storm or if you find yourself facing a wave larger than you.

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And you can't do anything particular to change its direction or its qualities.

[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Just say OK, just say yes and see where it takes you, you know.

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's not necessarily a dangerous thing.

[01:00:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You just leave something as it is for a moment.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not particularly dangerous at all.

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just sometimes a very vast process and that's fine because it's still life.