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Monday 28 July 2008

Helsinki - a city with problems. A step back in my journey

If anyone should know what a city with problems is all about, than one living in Bucharest, Romania is maybe the best qualified for the position. A city of about 3,5 millions suffocated by the litter most people carelessly scatter around and that administration is unable out of incompetence and corruption to pick up, covered by a dome of foul air generated by the relentless puff of archaic busses, trucks and the remaining industry at the outskirts, not to mention the literally tens of tons of dirt floating in the air, make it a true “connoisseur’s choice” in survival challenges. If I would also mention the rotten roads and hysterically violent road manners of people using them, maybe the picture of the traumatic experience that this city can provide it’s unfortunate inhabitant, would get closer to reality.

With this kind of haunting background not far behind me I instantly developed a kind of concerned solidarity when the lovely woman from Helsinki I met a day before and that was now sitting in front of me casually sipping her coffee, told me the town she was living in was facing some “serious problems”.

As myself had over the past days the experience of a rather relaxed, clean and civilized city, my mind rushed towards dramatic hypothesis of bloody night time gang wars painstakingly covered by police and mass media alike in an effort not to scare away the money spending tourists or unaprehended serial murderers or rapists, or even the ravages of massive suicidal waves brought on by nordic weather induced depression. With the egoistic consolation that even rich cities in civilized Scandinavia are not exempt from trouble I urged my companion to tell me everything about in minute detail. And she did...

To my unadulterated bewilderment she went on to tell me that rabbits, yes, you read well, rabbits are becoming one of Helsinki’s major problems. The little brown fluffy and always scared creatures seem to roam freely in the city causing unrest and sometimes panic among the population that sees in horror their bushes and flowers nibbled with insatiable appetite by these little monsters in disguise. Hearing this I did not know what to do: laugh hysterically or feel insulted. And then the primitive streak inside me expressed itself bluntly: ”why don’t you catch them and eat them?" I asked with a savage innocence. It was time of my companion to come up with a long and confused face that told everything about what she thought and felt about such a savage and brutal idea. It seemed to say: “What do you think we are, animals?”.

And things did not end here. As if to try out my ability to come up with primitive stupid solutions to what was perceived as a grave problem for the city, she went on to tell me that the rabbit menace was not the only one, that another vicious attack threatened almost the fabric of their calm, orderly and polite society: seagulls!!! The cheeky and always hungry birds developed, due to the absence of any kind of coercition or repression, such an inconsiderate attitude towards the principle of private property that they dived skillfully and fearlessly to grab whatever the victim of their choice was eating, be it a humble hot dog on the street or a juicy noble steak on the terrace of a fancy restaurant. What a pest!

So that was it: rabbits and seagulls, the two grave problems the city of Helsinki had to face. For the moment I just felt mildly amused but then I tried to explain this naïve shift in perception on something that hardly can be called a “problem” by any standards. Was it that by nature we humans can’t just enjoy our good luck and need to invent problems just to give ourselves a sense of struggle that will give us purpose and direction?. Is our recently acquired, at the scale of human history, level of comfort in contradiction with our deep rooted atavisms? It very well might be so. As a species we had to fight for our physical survival for so may tens of thousands of years than not even a full hundred years since we seem to get it more easy in this respect (at least a fortunate minority of us..) just can’t wipe clean a long memory of struggle.

I dare coming up with a suggestion to the issue: let people in rich countries get their fill of anxiety driven efforts not out of some ridiculously made up situations but by the ongoing drama that is still very present in so many parts of the world. It might very well give every one of us a new sense of measure in evaluating our own personal universe.

I know it is harder to feel more connected to the drama of people some thousands kilometers away than to the petty inconvenience taking place on your front lawn but the effort is well worth doing. The technological society is giving us the means to be in real time contact with even the remotest parts of the globe. Wouldn’t it be healthier for us as a race instead of wasting our time in think-tanks of what to do with rabbits chewing on our back gardens to make a sincere and real contact with realities in other parts of the world and learn about people over there and THEIR problems. This could be the first step to a wider frame of conscience that most of us refuse to develop by cowardly sheltering ourselves from experiencing of how an important part of the planet’s population lives. Even when we travel far form our insulated bubbles of comfort we do so in closed circuit resorts that look and feel aseptically the same all over the world, only to be left undisturbed in our indifference. If we go on like this let it be of no wonder that we’ll feel increasingly alone and unhappy in our soft cocoons. Only solidarity and the action into making a positive difference in the dire state of the world today can fill the emptiness people in western societies are confronted with, brought by the absence of a true sense of fulfillment and ultimate purpose.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Excellent perceptions my friend. I will save and re-read your thoughts. I am in Austin Texas. I am aware that virtually everything we have ever been taught about almost everything is a lie or misrepresented at least. Fear is a major tool of the puppet masters. We must break the chains on our mind. "Awaken we must" as Yoda would say. www.striketheroot.com