Kategori: In English

(Previously in Swedish on this webbsite 2016)

Discussions about racial and crime are as usual under discussion. There is no doubt that immigrants are generally over-represented in crime statistics. This can be explained in different ways, for example that people from some cultures are more likely to commit crimes or in terms of different genetic dispositions. These reasoning is relatively easy to puncture with emperi. Most of the over-representation of immigrants in crime statistics can be explained by socio-economic factors, immigrants are simply poorer, which explains a large part of the overrepresentation. In an article in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter on April 27 (2016), criminologist Jerzy Sarnetski discusses this. Regardless of the explanation for the immigrants’ higher crime rates, however, this does not affect the total crime rate in Sweden.

However, there is one ethnic group whose over-representation in crime statistics significantly affects the overall level of crime. These are men (men differ from females significantly more than immigrants are different from Swedes). Men, regardless of which countries or cultures they come from, are vastly overrepresented in crime statistics, when compared to women. Men account for about 80 percent of all crimes and in the case of little more serious crime, the men’s share is even higher. This overrepresentation is far more interesting and relevant than the overrepresentation of immigrants. The difference between men’s and women’s crime can only be explained by gender. If we could reduce men’s over-representation in crime, this would have a dramatic impact on the general crime rate in society and thus significantly affect everyone’s quality of life. In addition, this would mean that the large expenditure we currently use for law enforcement, correctional services and more could be used for other important things in society.

(Previously in Swedish on this webbsite 2016)

The mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik (he murdered 77 and injured 315 people, most of them children and young people, in and outside Oslo in Norway 2011) had a personality disorder as a child has been known before. But in connection with a trial between the mass murderer and the Norwegian state that was underway 2016, more information is now emerging from the investigations that the State Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (SSBU) made of Anders as a young child.

Anders’ mother became pregnant with him at the age of 17 and was reportedly complained about the baby during her pregnancy. According to the investigation, she said she perceived the child as evil. When her son was born, she stopped breastfeeding him because she felt he was ”sucking the life ” out of her.

Documentation shows that Breivik exhibited a disturbance when he was two-year-old and that he was rejected by his mother, who called his young child evil and mean. She was also judged to be trying to project her sexual fantasies onto her son. Anders’ mother, in turn, came from a troubled childhood. Her mother had polio when she was born and became lame from the waist down. She developed schizophrenia and, according to medical investigations, blamed her daughter for the disease. For SSBU, Breivik was a typical third generation. In the police investigation, the psychologist develops this:

”At this time, they were working on something called the third-generation principle. You have parents who have had a difficult childhood with their parents and then are unable to relate to their own children and then it will go really crazy for this generation.”

In 1983, the family, which also consisted of an older sister, was admitted to the SSBU Family Department for Observation. Anders was diagnosed as a ”difficult child” and lacked the joy of life that a normal four-year-old usually exhibits. Breivik told her son, ”I wish you were dead.” She was deemed to be on the verge of psychotic. While she rejected her son, she tried to cling to him.” Anders falls victim to his mother’s projections of paranoid aggressive sexual fear of men in general” and ”she projects her primitive aggressive and sexual fantasies onto him”. The SBBU believed that Breivik should be placed in foster care, but social services said no.” An incompetent Barnevern (equivalent to social services) and the mother’s aggressive lawyer prevented this,” said the psychologist who was questioned by police ahead of the trial. The psychologist noted that it was obvious that Anders was at risk of developing difficult problems, but that SBBU could not do anything because it was the social service who had the last say. The psychologist said: ”It is tragic that nothing was done about the care situation at the time, because then Anders’ development would have been completely different. It’s an extreme expression of the price society pays for having a weak social service.”

No matter how terrible Anders’ act is, it’s still hard not to feel sorry for the child Anders who must have lived in hell. The worst part is that this was known by the authorities, but they did nothing to help him out of this. The consequence of this is terrible. The Breivik case should be a reflection at a time when we are cutting back on health, education, and social care, not only from the perspective that the children affected by the cuts may later in life become a burden on society, but also from a purely humane perspective, it’s about children who get hurt.

(Previously in Swedish on this webbsite 2016)

Complaining about things in life, without trying to do anything about it, is a waste of time and energy – either you should try to change what irritates you or accept the order of things. Things that cannot be influenced, such as the weather or the global economy, should not be put into annoyance at all.

Complaining takes energy for those who complain. Complaining is a passive drug, but like other drugs, complaining plays a role for the ”user”. It can lead to attention and ends up the complainer at the center in relationship with others. The complaint itself becomes a way of taking up space. For those who listen to the complaint, on the other hand, the complainant must have an audience, this relationship becomes energy-draining and frustrating. Often it can be difficult to interrupt or contradict the complainant because it may in some way seems to be a real problem for him. Complaining is a way of life for some people. We have probably all met people who egocentrically constantly talk about all their problems and thereby take all their place in the room. It is frustrating and tired up us.

My strategy is to try to think through what I see as a problem and decide about whether to try to do something about it or let it be. If I decide to let it be, I must accept what I don’t like. I try to avoid burdening others with my problems if I don’t see others as part of the solution or my handling can help others solve similar problems.

In other words: act instead of talk and don’t use worries and problems as a means to take attention and put yourself at the center of others. And try to cut off relationships with people you feel drains you of energy by trying to pass their worries on to you.

(Previously in Swedish on this webbsite 2015)

What goes on in the minds of all those people I meet rushing towards the street or sitting on the subway looking out through the window at the darkness in the tunnel?

All I know is that there’s a lot going on there, our brains are always working. We all think about something all the time, but none of us know what’s going on in someone else’s brain. We all live in our own worlds, and we should probably be grateful that we don’t have to investigate other people’s minds. Most people probably have thoughts and ideas that they don’t want to share with their surroundings. Those who talk a lot and often, those who ”talk before they think”, probably show more of their inner world than those who are cautious and weigh each word on a gold scale. So to say, be careful with the silence ones.

Another thought is how we who live today differ from those who lived 100 years and back in time. Today, we spend very little time just doing nothing. When we have nothing to do, we pick up our phones and play a game, listening on music or an audio book, watch some serie or look at the television. We occupy our brains with external impressions. 100 years ago, they usually just had their own thoughts and ideas as company when nothing special happened.

This must shape us and our inner world of thought into something different than that of previous generations. I think it’s hard to imagine how big this difference is and how much this must shape us into a different kind of humans. Try to think of a world there the only kind of music is your own singing and a friend playing an accordion.

(Previously in Swedish on this webbsite 2018)

I often think about the meaning of what I do. Most of what I’ve done in my life seems pointless and a waste of time. In the moment it’s easy to get carried away and see something big and important, but with a little perspective I haven’t changed the world…

I like to see my own role in life as central, that my actions lead to important results and changes, but this is usually an illusion and self-deception. But perhaps it is this kind of self-deception that gives our lives a sense of purpose. Perhaps we would not be able to cope with life, we in the Western world who do not have to make an effort for our daily survival, if we could not build up a sense of meaning. However, this is a game that we must play together. Anyone who questions the rules of the game will be expelled from the warm and reassuring community.

The only meaningful thing I’ve done in my life is to have my children and the meaningful thing I have in front of me is to try to help them have the best life possible.

(Previously in Swedish on this webbsite 2018)

I am aware of several actions in my life that I would particularly like undone. It’s usually what I’ve said and that I think has hurt others. In addition to these actions, I have of course also said and done countless other stupid things in my life and certainly countless of things I don’t remember or that I did not perceive to be hurtful, but which perceived as hurtful by a counterpart.

But perhaps this is partly about a slight hubris and overconfidence in my own importance? If others attach importance to, and react to, what I say and do, both the negative and the positive, means that I am a significant person to them. My anxiety then becomes more of a desire for attention and recognition from others. The opposite, that no one paid attention to or cared about what I said or done, then becomes something much worse.

But so is unfortunately actually the case. No one is as important to anyone else as he is to himself. We are all so focused on ourselves, what we say, what we do and how we think others see us, that we not really see other people. Moreover, the idea of how other people react stems from how we ourselves would react to what we said or done. It has quite a little to do with other people’s reactions. We see and judge ourselves thru other people. We are all egocentric and can’t be any other way.

(Previously in Swedish on this webbsite 2018)

Loneliness is experienced differently by us humans and basically, we are all existentially alone. Some people depend on constantly having others around them to try to counteract this loneliness through an external affirmation. If they do not receive the recognition and confirmation of others, they experience a bottomless emptiness. They lack a perceived inner value and therefore needs an external confirmation. These people often take space from others in their search for attention and recognition and can therefore be left alone, a loneliness that is frightening and total.

The most important thing in life is enjoying your own company, that you feel your own inner value. The need for external confirmation decreases and dependence on others is therefore not so important. If you can appreciate yourself, you don’t need others for your own sake and can therefore see and care about your fellow human beings, not to get something out for yourself, but because you really care about them. This leads to more real friends.

(Previously in Swedish on this webbsite 2018)

It should be forbidden to be bored, that is, to define one’s spent time as boring and wasted. Time is our gold that slowly flows out between our fingers and cannot be held. Time is something incomprehensible and something sad because it becomes irrevocably consumed and can never be replaced once it has been experienced. Time can never be saved for a ”better” time. Time also passes quickly, when the summer is over, we are just ahead of the next and one year has passed.

Time do we only know something about afterwards, the time ahead we know nothing about, not even whether we will experience it or not. Time will always be there, but my relationship with it is very limited and uncertain.

It is easy to imagine that we can live our time richer by learning and comparing ourselves to others. We can’t do that! The time of life is something individual and subjective and its value can never be compared and when the time is up, the painting is erased.