Synchronicity and "The first 1000 are the most difficult"
A friend forwarded an email to me today from a fellow blogger. He says, "For years I've been explaining to people that daily blogging is an extraordinarily useful habit. Even if no one reads your blog, the act of writing it is clarifying, motivating and (eventually) fun" - Seth Godin. I am going to have to take Seth's word for it as this is only my third blog post. I have a long way to go before I can speak from experience about whether or not Seth is right. Which is great, because it's all about the journey, not the destination, isn't it? Time will tell.
I will now share something that may be a total coincidence, or may be an example of what C.G. Jung called synchronicity. This is when two apparently unrelated phenomena seem to be connected in some way, it seems illogical, it's not possible to prove the connection, or to understand the nature of the connection, but there seems to be one.
At lunch today I am sitting at the same table as a little boy who I see at school every day. Suddenly I remember that he was in a dream I had last night! In the dream he is with his older, teenage sister, they are playing and joking and having fun together. That's all I remember. Why did I dream of this particular boy? Does he even have a sister? I decide to ask him:
"Olle, do you have any siblings?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"One sister and one brother."
"Are they younger, or older than you?"
"Both older."
Hmm.
"How old is your sister?"
"17."
Olle is 7, one of the first-graders I work with. I knew nothing about his family until lunchtime today. Yet I dreamt about him and his older sister last night! That's the first synchronistic happening I wish to share in this post.
The second relates to the possible beneficial effects of blog writing per se. When I decided to write daily blogs, all of five days ago, my social life was in the doldrums. I was finding it hard getting to know people. My cousin Bodil and husband Per had been enormously welcoming and hospitable. Meeting me at the airport, inviting me to stay at their home, taking care of Monty when I went to England to visit my mother. Other relatives had also been really welcoming, encouraging and helpful.
But now it was time for me to make friends of my own. I chatted with colleagues at work. I joined a choir, attended a course for people who want to start their own business, sent Facebook friend requests to people who didn't respond. What next? How does one make friends these days? It doesn't seem as easy as it once was, something to do with aging perhaps? Maybe connected to the fact that I live 14 kilometers from town, down a winding country road, surrounded by empty summer houses, with an aging dog?
I was asking myself questions like this when I wrote my first blog post five days ago. Since then I have had the most social and multicultural week since my arrival here three months ago! Last night I met Bodil and Per in Norrköping, the "big city" 31 kilometers from here. We went to an amazing concert at the beautiful DeGeer Concert Hall.
A musician named Mohamed Sharara, of Egyptian heritage, combined Arabic music played by four soloists including himself with Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, in C major, Opus 48, played by the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. To hear the familiar and mellow sounding serenade combined with the rhythms and microtones produced by the Arabic musicians with their instruments was quite fascinating and beautiful. If only those who think they want Sweden to return to the way it was before foreign immigrants came here could hear this music, perhaps they would change their minds?
https://www.folkbladet.se/kultur-noje/arabisk-ton-pa-de-geer-om5537194.aspx
After the concert we went and ate pizza together, then Bodil and Per took the train home and I drove myself home, it was a great evening.
Today was a satisfying day at work. I was asked to help more closely with a girl from The Congo who has only been in Sweden for 4 or 5 months and who doesn't speak. She seems content and she plays with her younger sister who is far more outgoing and communicative. I don't know anything about how she was before the family moved to Sweden, and look forward to getting to know her better. I can only imagine the culture shock of moving from The Congo to Sweden.
After work I met up with Anna, Marika and Sara at Habiba's Café, Crêperie and Bistro in Söderköping where we enjoyed beetroot late, Earl Grey tea and semlor (a traditional Swedish cake deserving of its own post, for a picture, see Facebook) What an innovative and international combination!
I am writing this post so late because my busy social life doesn't allow me to do it earlier in the day! I think Seth Godin is right, "daily blogging is an extraordinarily useful habit."
I will now share something that may be a total coincidence, or may be an example of what C.G. Jung called synchronicity. This is when two apparently unrelated phenomena seem to be connected in some way, it seems illogical, it's not possible to prove the connection, or to understand the nature of the connection, but there seems to be one.
At lunch today I am sitting at the same table as a little boy who I see at school every day. Suddenly I remember that he was in a dream I had last night! In the dream he is with his older, teenage sister, they are playing and joking and having fun together. That's all I remember. Why did I dream of this particular boy? Does he even have a sister? I decide to ask him:
"Olle, do you have any siblings?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"One sister and one brother."
"Are they younger, or older than you?"
"Both older."
Hmm.
"How old is your sister?"
"17."
Olle is 7, one of the first-graders I work with. I knew nothing about his family until lunchtime today. Yet I dreamt about him and his older sister last night! That's the first synchronistic happening I wish to share in this post.
The second relates to the possible beneficial effects of blog writing per se. When I decided to write daily blogs, all of five days ago, my social life was in the doldrums. I was finding it hard getting to know people. My cousin Bodil and husband Per had been enormously welcoming and hospitable. Meeting me at the airport, inviting me to stay at their home, taking care of Monty when I went to England to visit my mother. Other relatives had also been really welcoming, encouraging and helpful.
But now it was time for me to make friends of my own. I chatted with colleagues at work. I joined a choir, attended a course for people who want to start their own business, sent Facebook friend requests to people who didn't respond. What next? How does one make friends these days? It doesn't seem as easy as it once was, something to do with aging perhaps? Maybe connected to the fact that I live 14 kilometers from town, down a winding country road, surrounded by empty summer houses, with an aging dog?
I was asking myself questions like this when I wrote my first blog post five days ago. Since then I have had the most social and multicultural week since my arrival here three months ago! Last night I met Bodil and Per in Norrköping, the "big city" 31 kilometers from here. We went to an amazing concert at the beautiful DeGeer Concert Hall.
A musician named Mohamed Sharara, of Egyptian heritage, combined Arabic music played by four soloists including himself with Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, in C major, Opus 48, played by the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. To hear the familiar and mellow sounding serenade combined with the rhythms and microtones produced by the Arabic musicians with their instruments was quite fascinating and beautiful. If only those who think they want Sweden to return to the way it was before foreign immigrants came here could hear this music, perhaps they would change their minds?
https://www.folkbladet.se/kultur-noje/arabisk-ton-pa-de-geer-om5537194.aspx
After the concert we went and ate pizza together, then Bodil and Per took the train home and I drove myself home, it was a great evening.
Today was a satisfying day at work. I was asked to help more closely with a girl from The Congo who has only been in Sweden for 4 or 5 months and who doesn't speak. She seems content and she plays with her younger sister who is far more outgoing and communicative. I don't know anything about how she was before the family moved to Sweden, and look forward to getting to know her better. I can only imagine the culture shock of moving from The Congo to Sweden.
After work I met up with Anna, Marika and Sara at Habiba's Café, Crêperie and Bistro in Söderköping where we enjoyed beetroot late, Earl Grey tea and semlor (a traditional Swedish cake deserving of its own post, for a picture, see Facebook) What an innovative and international combination!
I am writing this post so late because my busy social life doesn't allow me to do it earlier in the day! I think Seth Godin is right, "daily blogging is an extraordinarily useful habit."
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