First apple of the year from the appletree

Very sour, but i like them best as long as they are green

Some thoughts

I like warm evenings much better than cold. But there is one thing about warm evenings. It makes you drowsy. And when you get drowsy you start to think. (Atleast i do.) And when you start to think you continue to think until you`re almost overwhelmed with thoughts.

I wonder for instance why some things are so easy to think, but so difficult to say. Those words that makes you vulnerable, totally depended on the reaction of someone else.

I wonder if it is true that laughter originally was a defence mecanism, showing that everything was OK after some danger had been averted.

I wonder if i should change statusline on Facebook, but thinks that it is still relevant.

I wonder why i am writing this in my blog, but come to the conclusion that it is probably because i have always been more comfortable in writing. This is my domain.

I wonder about my contradictions.

I take a deap breath and look out the window, and notice that it is getting darker.

I wonder about small signs, and what they mean. I continue to believe that i am over-analyzing too much.

I wonder if it`s right to use the word “analyze” when the feeling is so much more emotional.

I wonder if i will stop thinking before i have to go to sleep, and look for a book to make my mind wander somewhere else.

I wonder about dreams, and how it would be possible to control them. And if you could control them, would they then be more real or just a subsitute for living?

I wonder about time-traveling and teleportation, and damn that space-time thing.

I wonder if this is it.

I wonder why i think that writing these lines makes any difference.

I get my socks and goes for a walk.

On a lighter note

We finally won a match this weekend. 3-0.

Then our best player got injured, he is now fighing with our ex-coach in the papers and the manager wants to buy some old players that i really think we shouldn`t.
But for a brief moment things were looking good for the club .

My reasons

Kristina writes in her blog about the reasons why she doesn`t drink. That sounds like a good theme for a blog entry.

I understand why people drink. I was drinking alcohol in a small period myself. And if i hadn`t come in contact with the temperance movement, i would probably be drinking now also. Drinking is so much part of our culture that it becomes something most people feel that they have to do at a certain age. (And interesting enough it is the same people who one year earlier might have been very clear that they should never drink.) After all, you want to be social and with friends. It`s the way it is.

As Maik writes in his comment alcohol is supposed to make you more open and relaxed. And for many it works that way, a self-forfilling prophecy. People feel that it works. It´s difficult to tell them that it don`t then. But i don`t think that this question of drinking or non-drinking really is a free choice before one has seen or experienced the alternative. How can any 15 year old who are at a party and is with friends who is drinking and has read in papers about “alcohol culture” and how everyone is doing it really be expected to make a “free choice” to drink or not to drink? So therefore we need some alternatives. Organisations and people who can create alternative experiences. (And experiences i think is the key word here.)
So i guess my standard reply to the answer why i don`t drink, lately has been that it is because that there is a need for an alternative. Also considering all the problems alcohol contributes in society.

Now, i don`t think that not drinking is the only way to prevent alcoholproblems. We need more than that. I also think that the temperance movement in the past sometimes has gone to far in condemming other people. That`s part of the reasons why we have a negative image some places. But i think it is the right thing to do for me. Sometimes i might feel a bit on the outside when the drinking rituals are a bit too visible, and people wants to talk about how great the wine is. But all in all i have no problems being sober, so it`s not a burden. That is what i feel today. Mostly people respect my view. It`s not that they stop drinking themselves, but hopefully they start to think a little about how alcohol culture works, and why we do the things we do.

The things dogs say.

Dante has gotten his own blog.

Welcome, Dante! Nice to see that the dogs are coming into the blogosphere as well. Should be an inspiration for those off you human who still hasn`t began writing! I wonder if i should make a blog for Heike, but i have a feeling that he won`t have that much nice things to write.

I also notice that dogs seem to speak differently in different countries. Slovakian dogs apparently say “Haf!” Another place i saw a Bosnian dog say “Huff!”. Norwegian dogs say Voff! or Vov!. Hope they understand eachother regardless. Or they can sniff on eachother i guess. Dogs has more than one way to communicate.

If i deceided

I wish there was some sort of way to give credit to what people learn out of school. Let`s see that i in my spare time had read a lot about civil society or agricultural innovations in middle age China, or the beginning of the universe. I should be able to make my own curriculum, go to the university, have it accepted, and then take some sort of test showing that i know these things.

I don`t mean that this should replace the ordinary education and seminars and such. We need all that also. And if you are planing for a certain job or a trade, there are some basics that you would need to learn regardless. But i really would like to have a bit more flexibility sometimes. Maybe there are cources that are never teached at the university, or some people really don`t have the time to go to all the seminars or there are other books than those on the curriculum that should be read. And then there are those who don`t really feel that they need another degree, but still would like to have it acknowedged somehow that they have some knowledge in an area. I`m sure that there are lot´s of practical problems with this, but i think it would be motivating for more people.

Some days

Some days are just not mine. I think i`ll go home, make some eggnog and hope it get`s better.

0 – 4

Every weekend it`s the same. Whatever good feelings i have worked up ends sunday evening after the football match. This sunday we lost 0 – 4, it could have been 7. This is really not going good. We`re second to bottom after half of the season is finished. I`m trying to find good things about playing in the Adecco league (2nd division) next year, but it`s not really convincing. They have after all been in the top league since 1975, longer than anyone else. I don`t know anything else than having a top club in my town. They`ve always been there since i got interested. Please send some good thoughts to my team, even though they don`t deserve it…

Drinking-friendly roads

The vice chairman (yes, they still have chairMEN) in the norwegian Progress Party, Per Sandberg, want roads that makes it safer for people who have been drinking or are talking on their mobile phones while driving. Even if people who have been drinking drives out of the road, the roads should be so good that they have a decent chance of surviving Sandberg means. OK, i see the point. But the easier solution would perhabs be not to drink before driving? And politicans should perhabs encourage such behavior also?

I`m not sure if this means that we should straighten out all roads either, or have more curves trying to follow the driving of a drunken driver. And whatever happened to personal responsibility? – vice chairman in a party which claims to be liberalistic. Unbelievable that one third of the population now says that they will wote for these people. Or perhabs not. Sigh.

Exit, Voice, Loyalty

Albert Hirschmann is an american economist who in 1970 wrote a book called “Exit, Voice, Loyalty”. It`s how indivuduals can choose to react to organisations or companies which they have disaggrements with. Maybe especially organisations in decline, or who has troubles in other ways. (But the concepts have also been used in other circumstances like towards building of nation-states and people as consumers)

The Exit-choice is to leave the organisation. Voice means to stay and and show their disaggrement about the development and try to change it in different ways.

Exit is not always a choice. Sometimes a company has sort of a monopoly on doing a task, and if you still want to do that you do, you have no choice than staying. Choosing to exit becomes a question about what sort of alternatives that are nearby, and what it will “cost” to leave. For an NGO this can be anything from the possibiliy to make a difference, to what friends might say. Voice has of course also some costs. It`s not always so easy being the one who says the things people don´t want to hear, or fighting against a majority. Sometimes the organisation or individuals makes it even harder to voice an opinon. Then the exit-option seems closer at hand.

Hirschman has one third concept – loyalty – which kind of balances it all. If there is some sort of build loyalty to the organisation people might choose to stay even though they don`t agree with how the organisation are being run, or how processes in the organisation works. Some would probably also say that using the voice-option might strengthen that loyalty. Atleast if they feel that they are been taken seriously.

So – to sum it up. The bigger the exit-possiblities the bigger reason to keep the voice-option open and to build loyalty to the organisation in different ways.

Now – what does all this mean? Well. Some people think that we are in the “same boat” working in an organisation. I doubt that. Atleast in the way that the “barriers” for exit are equal for everyone. We are much more vulnerable. The exit-possibilities from a voluntary organisation today is all to big, but still too often i see that people feel that their voices arn`t being heard or that the effort that they put into a job arn`t appreciated. Loyalty is not something that comes automatically, like respect it has to be earned. And any voluntary organisation today are vulnerable because the possibilities to try to do something outside the frame of the organisation have become much bigger than earlier.

Therefore – there is nothing wrong with debate. An open dialog in an organisation is not just right for democratic reasons, It`s a necesery condition for the survival of the organisation. People will leave if they don`t feel that they are being heard or don`t have any possibility to move the organisation in a direction they agree with.

Keeping things secret will almost always backfire (i`m not thinking of cases where something are being kept confidential to protect someone or for some legal reasons). Openness is almost always better. And conflicts needs to be handled quickly. It has a tendency to get worse the longer it goes on.

And it`s important to appreciate the work people put into a job, also if you disagree with them. When we see commitment and enthusiasm for something this is something that needs to be nurtured. In the long run it`s one of the most important resources an organisation can have. Which doesn`t mean that we should stop having our own options or don`t debate eachother. Struggles and different agendas are part of life in an organisation. And organisations are made up by people, and therefore far from perfect. But in the end most members do think they do what is best for the organisation. Atleast they don`t purposely want to destroy it. Peoples commitments must be taken seriously, sometimes that is actually even more important than the outcome of the vote.

In a way this feels self-evident when i write this. But still it`s difficult to live up to it. Please remind me about this blog-entry if i should ever forget this. And use the voice-option as long as it feels meaningful.