ready, set, go

it is remarkable what kind of a difference the weather can make on your mood. on a morning such as today everything does seem a little bit easier; when you can switch into the lighter jacket and run without your gloves on you kind of feel like a winner -- i survived yet another winter in this godforsaken country where no rational human being should live in.

these days when i wake up and go running the sun is already well on its way up; and when i look at the pictures i have taken during winter, when everything is dark and bleak and i can almost feel the cold oozing from them, it feels very distant. i'm really looking forward to it getting properly warm; and i know that it won't be long now.

the best season to run in this country has officially started, and oh boy, aren't i glad about that.

see-through

the perfect roundness of the rim of the wine glass was like an edge of a bottomless well in front of him. the way the light flickered on the glass was too bright, too playful; it was almost as if it had been mocking him. he stared down to the dark red liquid and wondered if the anxiety that ate him from the inside could be drowned into it so that it wouldn't wake him up anymore in the middle of the night or force him to clutch his fists until the small muscles of his hand seized. he certainly had tried; but so far it had not been what you could call a success and he had been rewarded only with an increasing amount of disappointment with himself.


 he sat there, holding the leg of the glass between his fingers, and at that moment the thin, translucent object in all its frailty was the only steady thing in his existence.

role playing

we all have certain amount of roles we toggle between in our daily lives, and they all come with their own parameters. if you  work as a doctor you behave differently than if you work on a construction site; and the way you choose your words depends whether you are with family or complete strangers.


some things you do because you have to, some because you want to; sometimes these things are one and the same.  that is the ideal situation; but we all know that it is not always the reality.  the real question is, do you sometimes have to want to do things? life is not always unfortunately as we would want it to be and things don't always go as we would want them to go, so it is rather naive to think that one could always have their way. but if you will yourself long enough, can something you previously didn't want to do or be become something that you do want? and does it then, in that point, matter that it wasn't what you originally wanted?

london 6am

i just came back from london where i spent three days on a work-related trip. i had a wonderful time -- london is one of my favourite cities, and having visited it about five or six times now i find myself to like it more and more every time i go. i know it's huge, congested, public transportation sucks, not to mention expensive -- but i simply adore it.


so i had a good time -- saw great and not-so-great buildings (i'm an architect so that is why we went there in the first place), had a lot of laughs (i'm lucky enough to have nice people as colleagues) and ate fantastic food (curries on brick lane, anyone?) but still my most favourite part of the whole thing had to be the mornings runs i managed to squeeze in.  


the first morning i ran alongside the river thames and was granted with truly remarkable views on the iconic buildings by it, such as the parliament, big ben and tate modern. the second morning i headed to regent's park, a one i haven't even been to before, and enjoyed the almost total solitude in the vast grass fields. and then the third (and sadly last) morning brought me to hyde park, which is my absolute favourite place in the world to run in. i simply love that place, always have; and on that morning, even if i had the weight of the previous days' running combined with what was mildly put an excessive amount of walking on my legs, i hadn't felt that light in ages.






river thames

river thames

regent's park

regent's park

hyde park

hyde park

part of my pilgrimage tour

word

“you never change things by fighting the existing reality.
to change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”


-richard buckminster fuller-

tone down

i spent a ridiculous amount of time this morning on my run. not because i would have done a long one, but because it was just that beautiful that i had to stop every five minutes to take pictures.


what can i say, i really like fog. it resonates well with the overall feeling that comes along with running in an early hour; the way it mutes everything down and seems to demand for silence. it is unimpressive and plain, almost dull; and yet is has this quality in it which could be categorized as dignified. fog also makes the air feel pleasant in your lungs and on your skin, almost soft; and you just slide through it and watch as objects emerge from it.


everything appears to be slightly different when the fog is thick enough, and the importance of details gains a bigger role in the scenery; in a way fog forces you to slow down your mind and focus on things you otherwise wouldn't necessary even notice. even when i run along the routes i have ran for years fog makes me look at things differently, and i see the familiar surroundings in a completely new way. it is quite peculiar a feeling.


i wonder, how to apply fog in one's daily life? it would be wonderful, at times, to mute the background down and just focus on the things that remain, whatever they may be.

attach: value

seeing things for what they really are -- is that even possible? and by things i mean places, activities, people, values, whatever you can think of that sparks some kind of emotion or feeling in you. is it possible to strip a thing down of the meaning you yourself have given to it and observe it as it is; and if it were, what would then be the essence of that said thing?


we all know the feeling of once being very much into something and later on -- can be a week or ten years -- that same thing becoming less important, irrelevant or even something to be disliked. why does this change occur? the thing in itself doesn't change, after all -- collecting stamps is collecting stamps -- but the feelings we attach to it do. it is fascinating then to think why we like or dislike the things we do; and where do the reasons for these preferences arise from. i don't know how possible it even is to step outside yourself and observe your choices; when asked why do you do  the things you or like this and dislike that, it is sometimes next to impossible to give a solid and unambiguous answer.


and even if you can give an answer, when thinking back to something that you used to like and no longer do, you probably would have had some kind of reply to that very same question back then, a one you would have found truthful at the time; and yet it is no longer relevant. so if we assume that the thing in itself hasn't changed, we can maybe deduce that you have; or maybe you were misinformed at the time and now that you know more, you see that thing in a more accurate light. 


but do you still see it how it truly is?

going places

for reasons undisclosed here i've been thinking about the significance of places for a while now. what is their relevance and how much of our identities are based on them; and are certain places important to us only through the meanings we give to them or do they have something in them that would in its own right make them special? identity of a place, if you will; where does that come from, and is it absolute or always subjective?


i came to think of this especially as i was visiting my parents during easter. i was running through the small town i grew up in on a quiet sunday morning, passing places that played a significant part in my childhood and teenage years; seeing them made me remember things i had practically forgotten, and when they came back to me, for a while i thought they were something i had seen in a dream; it was that far i had came from them. my memories were there but it was only the stimulus provided by these certain surroundings that evoked them; and i can't help wondering how much i have forgotten, how big a part of my memories is tied to things and places i don't anymore come across with?


the truth is that the importance of a place is often defined by what it once meant to you, or how you felt in it. every time i take a tram to work i pass the port through which i emerged back to finland one and a half year ago after living abroad; and every time i see it i feel what i felt then as if not a single day would have passed. so even if that relatively unimpressive building has no real value for me in itself, it still manages to trigger me because of what i associate with it -- so i wonder, when someone says they like certain city or suburb or whatnot, is it because of that location itself or because of something else? and what is the difference between the two?

really

sometimes i would look at myself in the mirror and wonder if it was really me. this face, this body; this posture and the way this skin contained everything that was to be considered truly mine. the division between my mind and physical being had always been something that bothered me -- i would have very much liked to be able to tell the exact point where one ended and the other one started, but yet had failed to do so.


but i knew the division to exist, was certain of it. how could i have otherwise explained these moments of such profound self-acknowledgment? that dizzying moment of clarity followed by the almost sickening feeling of realization that this was me, this body was what i had been put into, and that it would be the extent of my knowledge in this world. and it always drove me to question why i was the way i was and did the things i did, and whether none of these made any sense at all; and sometimes i would feel that i was on the verge of an abyss, of seeing or understanding something that could very well change everything.


and yet i could have just as well been the person sitting next to me in that overcrowded commuter train; and in fact i was, or would be, or had been; and i had to turn my eyes away from my reflection.

simple, no?

it sometimes -- well, quite often actually -- puzzles me why people, myself included, do the things they do. human behaviour is sometimes so irrational; we do things we know we shouldn't, we hurt each other and ourselves, we lie and cheat and steal. and yet we are also capable of so many wonderful, magnificent things; able to create beauty and to be honest, loyal and decent.

even if i am an avid believer of the concept of dualism and truly think it would be difficult if not impossible to tell the good from the bad if either one did not exist, it saddens me every time when i am faced with the downsides of being human. i guess it serves as a reminder and also as a motivator to try to do better yourself; to be honest not only to others but above all to yourself.      

the same idea has been put out so many times -- treat others as you would want them to treat you, be the change you want to see in the world, act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law -- that it has become sort of a cliche. 

and still, for some reason, it seems to be so difficult for the majority of us. 

a few things

things i don't like when running:


-black ice
-strong wind, especially when combined with rain
-people who walk their dogs so that the leash blocks the road
-dogs that try to jump on you when you pass
-not a fan of dogs in general
-big roads you have to wait ages to be able to cross
-cars that won't give you the right of way in pedestrian crossings (especially taxis)


things i like when running:


-the sound of my footsteps 
-rhythm
-solitude and peace
-seeing unexpected and beautiful things and places i otherwise wouldn't
-using my body
-that moment when the music you listen to fits perfectly either the scenery or your pace
-how the air feels and smells different every time
-other runners who greet at you like you were members in some exclusive club
-coming across a cat