And thus it begins.

Oh my, oh my. Where should I begin, blog?

Remember in february, when I wrote about feeling like I was being stuck in a sea of tar, just waiting to "pop", for everything to go "swoosh"? Well. The "swoosh" is here. I've finally popped. And i'm racing in three hundred kilometres a minute towards life at the moment.

In the past month I've moved to a new place, to a friends house, got accepted to a school up in northern sweden and recently experienced something truly magical. I don't know how to put my feelings in writing at the moment, but it's something like being hit with a sledgehammer and lightning at the same time, while thunderous rain is pounding my body and the moon is smiling bright and powerful above me although it could not possibly be there due to the heavy rain and while I stand there trying to regain my balance a  pickup truck made of rainbows hits me head on and I end up on the back of it as it drives full speed towards the horizon. Yup, something like that.

It's like when things start to go "swoosh", it all goes "swoosh" at the same time. While i'm quite happy about moving to my friends house, I get accepted to a school(the one where I get to live in the woods, grow my own food and stuff) i've been drooling about for quite some time and later I meet something I didn't really think I would meet. Or is it someone? I suppose time will tell and nothing is written in stone so therefore I will not mention any names or any possible outcomes or hopes I might have about this meeting. Only that the experience of that particular meeting has left me somewhat numbstruck. To put it mildly. Something truly beautiful could be in the making here. The only thing I will share with you, blog(I need to get something out of my chest, don't I?), is that this meeting, or she, is definitely within my span of attention. Oh, those eyes, those eyes. I tell you, blog. If I never understood the meaning of mesmerizing before, I sure do now.

What will be, will be.

I'm not complaining here, life is giving me all it's got at the moment and I love it! I really do, this is how life should be and how it can be if we only work for our dreams, follow that gut feeling that tells us to go out of the way for something. That nagging feeling in the back of our heads that whisper in our ears that the grass is indeed greener on the other side of that distant hill.

Yes, what will be, will be.

A letter from the front.

Hello blog.

How's it hanging? 
Everything good on your side of life? Please, tell me something that'll make my day. Make me smile.

What can I tell you, old friend? Sorry for not being so responsive as I sometimes wish I could've been. Life for me is going so-so at the moment. The sun can't shine all the time, right? Atleast I might be heading somewhere, instead of sitting around just for the sake of being in love with someone who isn't really healthy to be in love with in the first place. Well, things aren't really bad either. We can say that i'm recovering, but it's taking it's own jolly little time.

I finally sent those applications to them schools in the forests up north here in Sweden. Hopefully one of them will accept me so I can live in the forest for a year, learning how to grow my own food properly, how to maintain life on a small farm and such. Been around this city for far too long and even though I have some friends around here I just can't stand all the drama, the frenzy for alcohol every weekend, the stress, the fucked up state of mind that this society has brought up. I'm not gonna complain anymore about people or cities in this letter, been doing it quite alot to you, blog, and I feel that you deseve some happiness, some love from me. My old friend. You deserve to know that everything isn't despair and maddened tears of doom.

I'm taking steps towards my own so-called transformation, my big move out of this endless loop of, in my opinion, faulty situations. Or so I like to think anyways. I'm studying gardening and landscaping here in Gothenburg as a part of the journey. And I love it. I love digging in the earth, getting to know plants, flowers, bushes, trees and their names. Or the names that we, puny humans, have given them. I love going to school every day, seeing the faces of my schoolmates, hearing their voices as we make plans and dream of the future, of a different world where everything is more green and there is hope for a change in the world. I love the smell of the somewhat fresh air(which is ofcourse mixed with exhaust fumes and wet concrete) I feel every morning, I love feeling the morning dew clinging like spider web on my skin(Haha, not sure how to explain that feeling really, but you know what I mean). This education means hope to me. It means a possible positive future. It makes me dream. It makes me feel alive again. It gives me purpose and a sense of direction.  It gives me the confirmation I crave, that I need, that life is more than the endless grind of drama, broken hearts, alcohol, broken lives and dreams. Proof that one can actually do some good in this world.

Yes, one could say that the sun is starting to come out.  Only wish that I could learn not to fall for the wrong women, haha.

Well, blog, I guess this is it for this time. I'll get back to you in a few days or so, when I've found the time between my studies and those moments where I'm mind-gobbling myself to bits about life and how to live it. I really have to get my ass going to school. 

Yours sincerely 

Mattias
"Maitiú mac Faolchú" 

...out of the ashes...

We're all thinking of it. Most of the time we avoid talking about it. It scares us. It reeks of doom and death. The apocalypse. Cities laid in ruins, fires from the sky, the four horsemen riding across fields drenched in blood and decaying bodies. Seas poisoned, all life on earth extinguished, eternal darkness underneath a dead sun.
War. Famine. Pestilence. Death.

We've all seen the movies. The Road. 2012. Armageddon. Jericho. 28 days/weeks later. I Am Legend. The Mad Max trilogy and so on. Not to mention all the books on the subject. Most of those stories describing the apocalypse as a violent, deadly event. But also as an event filled with hope. A new beginning. A new dawn. Out of the ashes springs new life.
Some say it will be a shift of ages, as we currently are living in the age of Pisces and are supposedly entering the age of Aquarius around 2012, although some sources say we won't do that until yet another 100-500 years. Sources vary. They all do. This shift is supposed to awaken mankind. To bring an age of light and hope. An age of peace.

As the year 2012 is drawing nearer, the apocalyptic hysteria is growing by the day. Especially the stories that tells of our impending doom. Of our species extinction. The end of human civilization. The end of all life. The end of planet earth even. But why does it have to be and ending?
Is see it as a possible new beginning for mankind. A second chance. Do I believe in the apocalypse? Oh, yes.

We can all feel it, deep inside of us. Most of us are having a hard time seeing a future, especially in this so-called society of "ours, "our" civilization. Mother Earth is being ravaged, raped, drained and destroyed for minerals that creates the base of this society of "ours". A society we don't really need for our survival. Technologies which are supposed to make our lives easier, but are in truth only making us dumber, inhuman, deforming us, removing our basic skills of survival and adaption, our natural instincts. We are loosing contact with ourselves. Especially with nature. Unemployment is sky-high in third world countries where whole populations are starving to death, western countries are not far off. Overpopulation. Food shortages. Water shortages. Oil shortages. Pollution. War. Genocides. We are a disease to ourselves. To our planet. And still we are building more than ever. Digging, scraping the earth bare of its minerals. Killing species after species, poisoning the oceans. There is no future in this. We can all see that. It's not a matter of "if", but of "when".
How will this society, this civilization of man end? Through war? Through the awesome power and wrath of mother Earth? Or will it one day just cease to function? Alien invasion? We cannot possibly know. But we all know that this society, this civilization will end one day. Nothing lasts forever.
I believe we are in the middle of it. The Apocalypse. The civilization as we know it is crumbling on it's own foundations as we speak. I don't think it will be an instant event, but long and out-drawn. Numerous series of events which are currently taking place that will eventually lead us to our civilizations inevitable end. Note that I don't say our end, but the end of "our" civilization.

I do believe that whatever happens, mankind will survive. At a price. A very high price. I don't think I have to explain what that price really is do I?
What I'm thinking of is cities. I see them as living tombs. Cities of the dead. Necropolis. In my view, the only way for survival is to get out of the cities, out to the country-side, to the forests, the fields and the hills. If and when things go bad, and it will get bad, people living in cities are among the first to suffer. There is nothing prophetical about this, with a little common sense it's not hard to see or imagine. We will need to learn how to live with nature again. Build a new world for ourselves.

I do not view the apocalypse as a frightening event. I welcome it. It is exactly what we and mother Earth need in order to survive. It is not the end. It is a new beginning. A new dawn.

It is hope.

A life worth dying for.

Not even two months to go. Less then eight weeks left til I become free to follow the wind. Free as a bird. Free to decide the cycles of my life. Free from the chains of this society. Free from obligations. Free from stereotypical behavior. Free from arrogance. Free from ignorance. Free from my old self. Free to begin a new life.

Free.

In ways I have a hard time grasping it, sometimes it's as clear as a blue sky on a hot summer day. Sometimes I bang my head against the wall, questioning my own decisions and actions. I am throwing away everything that I have been brought up to believe to be safe and security. Job, home, friends, familiar surroundings, stereotypes, subcultural belonging, things, everything. I cannot fully explain how liberating it feels. To finally be in control of my own life. To follow my dreams. My hopes. Making them come true. To live my life as I've always wanted. To travel the world. As the nomad I have always been, craving to travel the world, gaining knowledge and experience.

When I look back at my life, what I have always viewed as twenty seven years of hell, it led me to this point. In a way preparing me. Gently kicking me in the teeth, telling me to let go.
I've always been a lonewolf, more or less, always drifting from place to place. Orphanage to foster home to juvenile institution, year after year, never more than two years at one place. A few months there, a year there and some random weeks or weekends there. Always moving, never still. And always on my own. Everyone I have truly loved have been taken away from me. Grandparents. Mom. Dad. Several friends. Dead and gone. I have no real family to speak of. No connections.
For years I hated my life, questioning it, constantly asking why I had to go through all those experiences. Why it happened to me. Why? why? Why? But now I don't ask why anymore. I know why now. It led me to this. I see that now, like reading chapters in a book, like following a thread. There's a quote by Bernice Johnson Reagon which describes what I mean pretty well: 

"Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are."

Am I scared? Of course I'm scared. Seriously, I'm leaving familiar ground here, jumping right out of a cliff, treading on thin ice. But I'm not letting it paralyze me, I see it as a challenge. For every time we overcome a fear, we grow as person, become stronger mentally. We realize that nothing is impossible. That's why I know I can do this. Break free from this society of "ours", become a nomad, a vagabond, free to roam the world.

I've paid a high price for this. I've gone through insane changes in my life. Still am.

I remember when I decided to go to Africa, it was about a year ago, and since then I've been working towards that goal, going through severe changes, physically, mentally and spiritually. Initially I had only planned to check out the South African punk rock scene for a month or two and then head back to Scandinavia, eventually even moving back to Sweden. But then I had my mental breakdown in december 2009 and everything changed. That breakdown told me to shape up and grab a hold of myself, take charge of my own life and follow my dreams. So here I am, planning to travel the world as cheaply as possible. I have no idea what awaits me and i'm leaving with an open mind. Will I move back to Scandinavia? Maybe, not this year though, perhaps not even in ten years. My dream is to travel as much as I can, to live life as fulfilling as I possibly can, to become happy. And who knows? One day I might find that "magical" place where I want to settle down. Where I can feel like home. I know I will. I've opened my mind to my surroundings, noticing all the people around me. I have let go of my stereotypical beliefs and narrow-minded views on the world. I've let go of all the hate I carried inside of me. I've let go of all my material belongings, except for what I can fit into a backpack. I have gone through what can be called a "cleansing".
In order to start anew, I must kill myself, my old way of life, and I have. I suppose most of you have heard Ozzy Osbourne singing the phrase: "Killing yourself to live"? He's not singing about suicide, he's singing about creating a new way of life, of breaking free, giving yourself a new chance to live life as life is meant to live. A cleansing.
And since I decided to start anew, i have met and come in contact with several people who are about to, who are or who have followed their own dreams, reclaimed their lives. Helping me gain insight and understanding of my own situation. Making me realise that I'm not alone on this. There are hundreds, if not thousands of us out there. Waking up and taking back control of our own lives.

Things are finally going my way. A few years back I had to kick down, or smash through one door at a time in order to get somewhere, since every door in front of me was firmly locked. But now I stand at a crossroads, with several doors wide open, all of them screaming at me to enter them.

A few years ago I feared the future, in fact, I saw no future at all.
I saw only darkness.
But now I see a future vibrant with possibilities. I look towards the future with hope, with great anticipation and with excitement. It might not make me rich and wealthy in the sense of money, but it will for sure give me the experience of a lifetime.

A life worth dying for!