Back in 2004 when I decided to move to Finland for the sake of it, despite the incredulous stares I get when I mentioned this, I remember getting all excited about the coming winter (I moved by mid August), so excited I actually decided by virtue of my innocence to go to Lapland and do my school practice there for two months. There I got to know what would become 5 years latter, the name of my tattoo studio, that is the "Kaamos". A word with almost no human translation...but it basically means the sun will not rise from the horizon from a long period of time, and I mean loooooooooong!!!
Anyway, I have to say I was actually dissapointed because I thought that would mean 24 hours of total darkness! Well it wasn't, you actually get about 4-5 hours of pale light, really weak but enough to spoil my first nordic adventure. After just about 5 days (if I try to appear positive), I was hitting my head onthe wall for my great idea and finally understood why we animals depend so largely on the sun, at least most of us that is (animal species).....
I have to add though, that on my very first night there I got the incredible luck of seeing what according to locals, was the biggest northern light's display of the year!! That experience itself made the whole idea of coming to Finland worth it for the rest of my existence,
if you haven't seen the Auroras you shouldn't be allowed to die yet!!But anyway, when I finally got back to Helsinki which I'm sure excited me more than Columbus when he saw land after months of sailing, the first thing that almost made me cry was being able to see that big fat reddish ball of fire on the sky!! And we are talking about the time of the year when it's dark at 9am and dark again at 4pm....still I felt I was going to pee my pants for being able to enjoy so "many" hours of light!!
Of course the magic disappeared when autum 2005 came out of nowhere, and from that, a long, heavy, shitty and antisocial depression hit me with no misery. From then till probably last year I expected and fear the next autum the way a smart kid who decides to watch Child's Play (me again) before he is ready fears to even watch under his bed. Everytime somebody asked me how do you like Finland? All I could spit out of my mouth was something like "yeah, well, if it wasn't for the darkness"....
Well fuck it! This year I just decided to ignore that fucker and learn to live with it. Definitely one of my latest addictions, watching the night sky and getting into astronomy and astrophotography more and more had helped, but seriously, I think I just got sick of listening to myself complaining about something upon which I have not the slightest influence. That kind of shit is being
bogging me my entire life and I think is wired deep down in our human brains, undoubtedly for survival and advantage (now the biologist me is taking control and I'm getting carried away...) anyway, the darkness, just as many other things around me that used to annoyed me, don't do it anymore because I don't let it do it!
I hear people complaining about stuff and doing a fuck about it, I of course do it on an everyday basis but I trying to get conscious about it and either change it or then ignore it. At least that formula has helped me with this almost suicidal darkness, worth giving it a try! Things we cannot control come along every minute of our dependable lives, is up to us how they end up taking control of ourselves....
I hear people complaining about stuff and doing a fuck about it, I of course do it on an everyday basis but I trying to get conscious about it and either change it or then ignore it. At least that formula has helped me with this almost suicidal darkness, worth giving it a try! Things we cannot control come along every minute of our dependable lives, is up to us how they end up taking control of ourselves....
R
