Steve wrote: Those Ice Hotel pictures are beautiful. First thing I thought was "There's no place to throw cigarette butts!"
Karin: No, we are such a people!! Perfect! Almost as angels?? How boring that even may sound. (Now I can’t help being ironic). Liking the nature, the clean nature. Or at least I do, a lot. Because I am an angel even more than anyone, with no addictions of any kind: not smoking or drinking... (observe the irony).
Maybe my "addictions" lie on another level, a much more subtle?
Dennis wrote: Karin, how do you view sports in regard to what you know about child abuse?
Karin: In fact I had a short discussion with a colleague today on that topic. I think it is horrible children are put in elite-training as early as they are today here. And that everything must be organized... Children are mush less concentrated today than they have been. They have too much to do. And some years ago they found that 12-13 year old children have beginning arteriosclerosis. The only reason to this they could think of was stress.
Young people behave as we grown ups, rushing around like mad. But young people have opportunities we didn’t have, to learn dancing for instance. My feeling is more of a gut-feeling against this; against phenomena in sports, so I am not sure I can verbalize it just like that. Maybe I have to think on this more, where I really stand in this.
Some initial thought though: young people try to be the best to get their parents “love”? Or to rebel and show that they really are worth something, want and/or need to show their parents this? The Swedish cross country skier Pär Elofsson is an example of an athlete training too hard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_Elofsson
You wrote about bullying in school in another thread. For the first time we music-school-teachers joined “elevvårds-“meetings (students care-meetings) for the students at the aesthetic-program at the high school (gymnasium in Swedish) this fall, that was very interesting… To see and hear how they are handling things. It felt as we can contribute with valuable things as we meet the students one by one mostly, and thus have a closer and nearer relation with the young persons than the other teachers have.
Hmmm, it feels as I would like to go into hibernation… Disappear and lick my wounds… From everything...
That about sports again: I grew up with five siblings, and we have really different interests… The fourth and fifth sibling in line, a brother and a sister, was very good at sports at school. That sister’s husband and kids are very sports interested. First and foremost in football.
Sport wasn’t my thing. Something happened when I was between 6 and 10… And this must have been preceded by something I am sure. Somewhere in that age I got scared for some things… For doing somersaults all of a sudden, get the head under water when I am swimming, I can’t dive. A bit handicapping, or in fact it was very handicapping. Instead I danced and rode horses… And we had a hobby-farm, so I have tried some “farming”… So it wasn't lack of all physical prerequisites?? I am that strong Northerner, with a very tired smile... Healthy, blushing cheeks, short but strong... (disgusting).
Our parents were no sport-fantasts at all. So it’s strange we have the interests we have, because for me it is important to use my body too… The students at the Conservatory in the town I live are lousy in visiting their sports-lessons, I think they have always been…
I guess there can be parallels to music, and high ambitions here... I think I rebelled against all this somewhere in the teens...
Per Elofsson got a sort of burn-out and quited skiing. Ingeborg Bosch writes in her book "Rediscovering The True Self" at page 249 about burn-out:
These symptoms much resemble what could be the result of false hope; to keep on trying to accomplish something that cannot be accomplished.
Kain