Until you value yourself

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.    (M. Scott Peck)

I posted some little pearls of wisdom from the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck recently, but it is this particular quote that has stayed with me since then, so I know that it struck a chord in me. I have been preoccupied with this very thing since I started my blog in May of 2010—the idea that my time is valuable, that it is worth something and that it is important to use it well. Some of you may be thinking that this sounds strange. Didn’t I value myself and my time before then? The answer is yes, I did, but I often lived in an unaware state, perhaps thinking that I had all the time in the world to do this or that, to change my life, to pursue this or that hobby, or to get involved in this or that cause. But now I know better. Life is short. And my saying this is not about my being unduly or morbidly focused on mortality and a certain end, although that would be a good enough reason in and of itself to get up and get moving on the things I want to do and accomplish before I leave this life. It’s about being focused on living, on being a part of life, in all ways possible. It’s about living now and giving and getting as much out of life as is humanly possible. It’s about getting up off the couch and not watching too much TV or sitting in front of the computer for too long, it’s about not buying into everything that is written in the newspapers or in magazines, it’s about thinking for yourself and valuing your own ideas and creativity. It’s about not letting work take over your life to the exclusion of your family or your creativity. It’s not necessarily about parachute jumping or extreme sports (unless you really want to do that!—I don’t). But I do want to step up to my own plate—be present in my own life, be aware of the opportunities and freedoms that have been given to me. Because they are not few, I have realized that. We are given so many opportunities each day to be present to ourselves and to others. The question is whether we stay aware during our daily lives, or if we just end up doing things by rote, living according to worn-out routines, and not doing anything about it. There is comfort in old routines, that must be said, and I am not for discarding all of them just for the sake of doing so. But it’s important to figure out when to let go of things that don’t work for us anymore or when to let go of certain people who drag us down because they don’t want you to rise because it means that they might have to. And by letting go I mean, putting things and people in their rightful places and rising above their petty concerns, envy and negativity, not necessarily pushing them out of our lives completely. And that takes a change of mindset. It may not mean quitting your demoralizing job if you cannot for economic reasons, but it may mean separating yourself mentally from that job and rising above it in order to survive mentally and emotionally. It may mean a radical change in how you look at that job. It may mean a radical change in how you look at the people in your life as well. There are always some few people who are naysayers no matter what you do and say; instead of letting them get the better of you, just let go of their words. Don’t give their words any power over you. It is amazing how easily that can happen, almost as though there is a little person who lives inside each of us just waiting to be fed the negative words. We suck up the validation of ourselves as ‘not good enough’; we suck up the negativity and feel as though we deserve it--deserve the derision, negative comments, hostility, aggression or envy. We think that if we rise, it has to be at the cost of the happiness of others. It’s not true. This is negativity at work—this is what happens when we do not value ourselves. Because if we do not value ourselves and if we let the negativity in ourselves and from others win over us, we will not think about our time as something to be valued, and we will remain passive observers in our own lives because it will be easier not to rock our own boats or the boats of others. 

The turbulent Akerselva River---25 September 2011

We usually take a long walk up along the Akerselva river on Sunday afternoons. This is something we often do during the different seasons, but it is an especially lovely trip during the autumn months when the foliage is starting to turn colors. Oslo has had a record amount of rainfall during late August and most of September, and the Akerselva water levels are quite high now. The river is quite turbulent, especially in the areas where there are waterfalls. One of them is located near the Hønse Lovisa house which is in the vicinity of where we live, and this is where I took a lot of photos and video footage. It was so exhilarating to watch the water churning and bouncing along on its way to the Oslo fjord, creating a spray that reached all the way up to where I was standing with my camera. Normally the river is not as turbulent as seen in these videos, so it was exciting to witness it and to capture it on film. I did a lot of filming yesterday afternoon and evening, and I thought I'd share some of videos with you. This river has become very special to me, and I film it during all seasons. Enjoy the videos, and if you have any comments or feedback, let me know. I am new to the video game, but will probably be making more of them, because it's fun.......

All About Plums

Each year during the late summer and early autumn my husband and I take some time to make preserves or jams as they’re usually called.  He usually makes a big batch of strawberry jam, which can last for several years unless we give it away as gifts. A few years ago we made a big batch of cherry preserves, along with a cherry pie and cherry liqueur. It is both a challenge and a pleasure to make all of these things yourself, and the work involved makes you appreciate what our grandparents and great grandparents’ generations did for themselves; they had to, since there were no giant supermarkets offering nearly everything you could think of. We never made jams and jellies at home when we were growing up; my parents did make pies and Italian desserts together at the holidays, and my mother made some great pies and cakes otherwise, but we never as far as I can remember made our own jams and jellies. Of course we didn’t have to—they were readily available in the supermarkets. But the fun aspect is invaluable—it really is fun to ‘make it’ yourself. And after some years I have learned to make apple butter and my own applesauce with cinnamon, as well as different kinds of marmalades. But this post is about plums.

I have been making plum preserves the past few years; they are easy to make and the jam is superb—mostly sweet but with a hint of tartness. No matter how much I make though, it is never enough. I have made preserves from several different types of plums, from the dark purple plums called Damsons to the more reddish plums that are the most common types of plums available. One of the women who used to work at my hospital had a lot of plum trees in her backyard, and she would bring in bags of plums for us—just gave them away, that’s how many plums the trees produced. I took them gladly. Besides the plum preserves, I also make plums in rum, a dessert that is heavenly and pretty simple to make—all you need are plums, rum, sugar and a big canning jar (if you have a kilo of plums then you will need a kilo of sugar and half a bottle of rum). You cut the plums in half, remove the pits, put them into the jar, cover them with sugar, add more plums, then more sugar, and when the jar is 75% full, you pour the rum over it all, close the lid, mix carefully, and then let the jar stand at room temperature for a few days until the sugar is dissolved. This is a great dessert, and when the plums are gone, the rum-sugar liquid is great as an accompaniment to vanilla ice cream. I made a jar of plums in rum today as well as a couple of jars of plum preserves. And I’m not finished yet; I still want to make more preserves. This is the kind of housework that is immensely gratifying; you see the finished results, it tastes good and the people you serve it to will be happy to eat what you made—what more could you ask for? And all of these food items make great Christmas gifts. Since it seems to be getting more and more difficult to buy Christmas gifts for friends and family (everybody has pretty much what they need), I have a feeling that I am going to opt for making food gifts for people—preserves, liqueurs, cookies, cakes and breads. They’re appreciated, they’re fun to make, and they come from the heart.  

Plum preserves

Plum preserves

Plums in rum

City Gardeners

During the last ten years or so, my husband and I became city gardeners, despite the fact that we live in a co-op apartment building without a balcony or terrace on which to set out plants and flowers. Of course we wish we had one, because we love to experiment with growing different plants from seeds as well as buying new plants at the local plant store or at Plantasjen, the larger garden center. Our kitchen, living room and dining room window sills are filled with different kinds of plants. My husband loves to nurture his orchids, and has about six orchid plants at home and about as many in his office at work. He is the only person I know who manages to get orchids to bloom more than once, and he has his weekly routines for spritzing them with water and keeping them happy. I prefer nurturing food plants; that is to say, plants that produce fruit or vegetables. I have grown tomato, pepper, orange and fig trees in our apartment, with some success. Right now I am the proud parent of an orange tree that is very fruitful, as well as a fig tree that manages to produce about three to four figs per season. My husband brought home a small cherry tomato plant at the beginning of the summer, and it has grown to some height and has produced (so far) about five cherry tomatoes. We also have a small coffee plant in the kitchen; the leaves smell good but we don’t expect to find coffee beans on the stems one day. But it looks nice in the window and one can of course dream.

The first vegetable plant I ever purchased was a small pepper plant; the peppers looked like small chili peppers but I don’t remember if we ever got more than the five or so peppers that hung on the plant when I bought it. In the summer of 2005 I grew tomato plants from seeds; only one seedling plant really took off though and I did my best to keep it happy. It even joined us on vacation that year; we rented a cottage on the sea, not so far from where we live, and I took it with us in the car and let it stand out on the large terrace that overlooked the ocean. It was there in the morning that it got a lot of sunshine. I think we may have gotten several tomatoes that year; the problem is that the plants don’t always get enough sun, or get it long enough. Summers are short in Oslo and it amazes me that my orange tree produces the numbers of oranges it produces. We got about twenty-three oranges off the tree the first year we had it; the second year saw only a yield of about four oranges, whereas the third and fourth years have been very fruitful—with yields of about twenty-five and thirty-five oranges (this year) respectively. The oranges are not large and sweet, they are small and sour, but they are beautiful to look at and during the flowering season before the oranges begin to grow, the smell in the room is wonderful. The white flowers that will produce the oranges produce an intense sweet smell that dominates the room. I use the oranges in the smoothies that we make from fresh or fresh-frozen fruit each morning, and I have used them in marmalades to add a kind of ‘bite’ to the sweetness. Last year I made pear/ginger/pineapple marmalade and added a few small oranges to the mix—it was a heavenly result and the marmalade disappeared rather quickly. I’ll probably do the same thing this year.

We often debate the advantages and disadvantages of moving into our own home; one of the advantages would be that we could have our own garden. We know for sure that we would fill the backyard with fruit trees and plant a garden, both flower and vegetable. So why haven’t we moved by now? That’s a good question. Part of the answer lies in the fact that we don’t have the time we would need to tend a large garden, at least not in the way that would be required. Also, we would like to live in Oslo and not commute into the city each morning; traffic is horrendous and we would like to avoid that. But to buy a house in Oslo is not really a viable option—houses cost a fortune; we’re talking upwards of 800,000 USD for a decent-sized house (two bedrooms, two baths, kitchen, living room). It seems a tad unrealistic to want a house in order to have a garden. There are so many hidden costs attached to owning a home. The garden has to supersede all the problems of owning a home in the city. Time will tell. In the meantime, we have our gardens in the different rooms of our apartment. I’m waiting for the day when there won’t be room for any more plants or any more room for us. I believe that day is coming soon.

Ripe oranges

My orange tree

Our tomato plant

My husband's orchid plant

Times Square at night

Times Square in New York City has really changed during the past twenty years or so. It used to be a seedy, dirty, and unattractive area of Manhattan, but no longer. I was there for a few days in April 2009 when I visited New York for my high school reunion and I stayed in Manhattan for a few nights. I was together with a good friend and we walked around Times Square one evening--a particularly clear and lovely night. I took a lot of photos (as always). The medley of sights, sounds, colors, and shapes appeals to the eye. If it is possible to say that advertising can be beautiful in its own way, then that is definitely the case for Times Square. I love the light shows that advertise everything from candy to electronics to beer. I am sure that advertising agencies have understood the power of color and lights to sell their products against the backdrop of the dark sky. In any case, it all makes for some really cool photos. And I can again say (like the famous commercial)--"I love New York--there is no place like it." Enjoy!

What M.Scott Peck Said

M. Scott Peck (1936-2005) was a psychiatrist and the best-selling author of a terrific book called The Road Less Traveled. I read it during the 1980s and it had a profound effect upon my life in terms of helping me deal with my life at that time and in making some necessary changes. I recommend it because it contains some real wisdom and advice on how to deal with life and its trials and joys.While Peck himself didn’t always live up to the high ideals he espoused for others (he didn’t always practice what he preached), he was an inspiration and a man of wisdom, perhaps all the more so for his failings and weaknesses, and he shared his wisdom and thoughts in his writings. 

·         “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. ”

·         “The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

·         “Love is the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... Love is as love does. Love is an act of will -- namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”

·         “Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other.”

·         “Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. ...Conversely, it is not only possible but necessary for a loving person to avoid acting on feelings of love.”

·         “We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.”

·         Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another...The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness. ”

·          “The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behavior. ”

·         “Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity. ”

·          “You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time. ”

·         “It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. ”

·          “If we know exactly where we're going, exactly how to get there, and exactly what we'll see along the way, we won't learn anything. ”

·         “Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a PROFOUND tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there.”

·         “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

·         “There is no worse bitterness than to reach the end of your life and realized you have not lived.”

Vincent and Theo Van Gogh

I have been meaning to write a short post about the Vincent Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum - The Museum about Vincent van Gogh in Amsterdam - The Netherlands). My husband and I toured the museum in August; I found it to be one of the most interesting and emotionally-engaging art museums I have ever visited. I cannot remember that I have ever been moved to tears by an art exhibition, but this one had that effect on me. Van Gogh’s life lends itself to this type of reaction—he suffered from epilepsy, depression, and lack of self-confidence, and at the age of 37 shot himself in a wheat field in Auvers, France and died two days later. He was very close to his brother Theo who supported him at different times during his life; Theo died six months after Vincent and the two of them are buried side by side in Auvers. After Vincent’s death, Theo’s wife saw to it that Vincent’s paintings received the recognition they deserved; she came across in the exhibition as a generous and compassionate woman who had great understanding for her husband Theo and his close relationship with Vincent. 

I think the museum did a great job in depicting the emotional depth of the relationship between Vincent and Theo—you really felt and understood the empathy and love that Theo had for Vincent, and the utter humanity and frailty in their individual lives. I found myself thinking—‘there but for the grace of God go I’ as the expression goes. Because we all suffer from lack of self-confidence or from depression at times; and if you have experienced these then you have empathy for others who are weighed down or destroyed by them. By the time I got to the section that showed a photo of the gravesite where both brothers are buried, I was quite sad. I have never seen the Robert Altman film from 1990 about the Van Gogh brothers—Vincent & Theo—but I want to get a hold of it so that I can. It received very good reviews when it came out; I don’t know how I missed it--perhaps because I had just moved to Oslo and was not paying attention, or perhaps because the movie never opened in Oslo at all.

It is not easy to watch people you know and love sink into depression or mental illness. I have seen that happen in my own family and in friends’ families as well. It is terrifying to watch the descent into severe mental illness like schizophrenia; daunting to witness what chronic depression can do to a person’s overall health. It makes you realize that the brain is the last great frontier in a research sense—how the brain works, why do certain aspects of normal brain function go awry, what are emotions really and where are they based? There are so many questions that remain unanswered to date, and one can only hope that some of them get answered in our lifetime. 

A Decade of Mourning

Ten years ago today, around 3pm Norwegian time, I was at work and one of my colleagues met me in the hallway of our research institute and told me that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. I remember standing there in the hallway looking at her for a few moments in disbelief, and then I quickly ran into my office to check the internet for news. And then I called my husband and asked him to pick me up earlier than usual so that we could go home and watch the TV news. That was the beginning of a long period of nearly uninterrupted TV watching—where the news became something to dread rather than to look forward to in the evenings after work. But I sat there glued to the TV anyway—my connection to my home state and to the country of my birth. No matter where I turned, 9/11 was there. After the disbelief came shock, then tears, more tears, an explosion of emotions I never thought I had, grief, and then more shock when I talked to those people I know in New York who had lost someone or who knew of someone who had lost someone or many people. My sister knew a man who had lost most of his employees who worked at the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center. My brother knew several people who had witnessed people jumping from the Towers and who were forever haunted by that sight and by the sounds of bodies hitting the pavement. Besides the sheer tragedy of horrific deaths that smashed into us that day and destroyed whatever feeble walls of defense we had, the sight of the Towers themselves crashing down is a sight I will never forget. To this day, I cannot watch this footage without becoming emotional. I guess this was how it was for our parents’ generation when Pearl Harbor was bombed. All I know is that the unthinkable became reality on 9/11. It changed me forever, and I was thousands of miles away from the tragedy that unfolded. So I can imagine how it must have been for those who experienced it firsthand or who lived in the area around the Towers or who lost friends and family on that day. My first instinct was to want to take the first plane back to the States to help, in any way possible. But I couldn't do that for economic reasons--that was the same year my mother passed away (in March) and I had already flown back and forth to New York several times in connection with her illness and death. I remember my sister and me talking after 9/11 and saying that it was best that my mother had passed before the events of 9/11. She was spared that atrocity. I still feel that way.

The American Embassy here in Oslo had a small memorial celebration today to honor the tenth anniversary of the events of 9/11 and to pay homage to the dead. I wanted to go and then I didn’t want to go, was very ambivalent right up until it happened, and ended up not going. I am not sure how I would have reacted to being there, and I was not sure that I wanted to feel again all the feelings of that day and the time afterwards. I feel sometimes like we have been in mourning for ten years, as a country and as individuals. I know that I feel that way personally. That day had a momentous impact on me, in part because I was not there when it happened, and that made it all the more poignant and intense. It was also the year that my mother died, and the grief of that year will stay with me for always, indelibly imprinted on my mind and soul. Although the news coverage of 9/11 faded in Europe sooner than in the USA, it was intense enough so that my feelings were always right on edge. It was impossible to get distance from the happenings, and that’s a good thing. But now that a decade has passed, it is a good thing to have some distance, without having become blasé.  It would be impossible for me to become blasé because I am very much wrapped up in what happened that day in New York and in what happens in the USA generally. I may live abroad but I never think of myself as anything other than a citizen of the USA, for better or for worse. And now that Norway has experienced its own 9/11 (the terrorist attacks of July 22^nd), I understand even more how it must have been for those I know who witnessed the events of 9/11 firsthand. The past decade in the USA appears to have been characterized by a focus inward—trying to figure out the whys and the meanings of that fateful day in September 2001. For my own part, I don’t know if the whys will ever be answered. There is evil in the world, and each generation has seen it—seen the atrocities resulting from the specific evil, be it world wars, or the Holocaust, or the destruction caused by the atomic bomb. Every time I think that evil does not really exist, I need only think of these events, and then I know that it does. After ten years of trying to come to some understanding of evil, it is time to move toward the light again, to focus outward. Because too much focus on trying to understand evil will not lead to much good. It is the same in Oslo after 7/22—there is no point in trying to understand the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik’s twisted views about immigration and the world—they will only drag us deeper into despair about what is happening in the world, and despair can immobilize us. That is why it is heartening to read the stories of 9/11 heroes like Jeff Parness who reached outward—starting an organization like ‘New York Says Thank You’, which sends volunteers from New York City to disaster-stricken communities every year (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/04/21/cnnheroes.parness.new.york/index.html), or which has gathered volunteers to help sew back together the tattered American flag that flew at the site of the Towers (http://national911flag.org/?page_id=37). These are positive and uplifting endeavors that move us toward the light—for those actually working in these organizations but also for those reading about them. As I read about these efforts across the ocean here in Oslo, I am filled with hope, hope that the decade of mourning will evolve into quite something else—a new spirit of empathy and activism and a real desire to eradicate hate and pain in the world. It is, as the old Chinese proverb says, ‘better to light one candle than to curse the darkness’.

Musings about science and scientists, and the weather

I’ve been at a scientific conference (dealing with the cell cycle and regulators of cell proliferation) most of the week; it started on Monday night and ended this morning. I wasn’t able to attend all the sessions each day, but I managed to be present for some really top-notch lectures delivered by Nobel prize winners and international experts in their respective fields. That’s always an encouraging and inspiring experience; it reminds me of why I chose this profession—a scientific research career, when I hear top speakers talk about their work. Many of the top speakers were older men who more or less summed up their research careers in their lectures. I have more appreciation for that type of lecture now—maybe because I’ve been in research a long time myself. I know the ins and outs and ups and downs of this business, and I appreciate hearing the opinions advanced by these speakers, because they know what they’re talking about. So when a few of them talk about the importance of small research groups as opposed to large ones, I’m suddenly all ears. I agree with them. Small groups are the places where innovative ideas are born. We should not be getting rid of small research groups. We should not be discouraging younger people from pursuing academic careers. But the granting powers that be are doing so. By not funding scientists who lead small research groups, they ensure that younger scientists cannot continue because they will never get the chance to start their own small groups. By not encouraging younger scientists to fly free rather than clipping their wings which happens all the time now, we are eliminating the pool of future scientists that each society so absolutely requires. Younger scientists are leaving academia. There is no place for most of them. There are no jobs for them and there is no real future for them. This is confirmed for me at most conferences. Younger scientists in this country (post-doc level and above) are little more than slaves for their group leaders. They are doing two and three post-doc periods and finding themselves without any prospects after they finish. They are not being offered staff scientist positions or group leader status. They’re rather told that they’re too aggressive or too independent. And they are, of course. Who wouldn’t be after three post-doc periods? That’s the point of post-doc periods—to create independence and self-sufficiency in intelligent and enthusiastic scientists. But their wings are being clipped in huge numbers, and the granting situation for the future will ensure that there will eventually be no post-doc or staff scientist positions at all. But there will be a lot of PhD student positions. God knows what this country will do with all the new PhD recipients. There aren’t jobs for them. And little is being done to create new jobs for them. Many of them will end up as salespeople or will leave the profession for greener pastures. The only reason there are currently so many PhD positions is because the principal investigators who run research groups need slaves and lots of hands to do their work for them while they are busy writing grants and networking with their fellow group leaders. They know there is no real research future for the PhDs they’re turning out, either in academia or in industry. And industry is not really stepping up to the plate to meet the future needs either.  

The meeting was held at the Holmenkollen Park Rica Hotel at the top of the city of Oslo, literally. On a clear day, there is an amazing view of the fjord and of the city from this vantage point. But of course, the weather this past week was not cooperative, so the hilltop and hotel were mostly shrouded in fog, and when there wasn’t fog, it was raining. I cannot remember a summer like this one—it has rained steadily, if not daily, at least several times per week. The non-Norwegians at the meeting were asking me if the weather was always like this. It isn’t. Today was a perfect example. The last day of the meeting is of course when the sun chose to reappear and blue skies took over--just perfect for walking. So I walked to work from the top of the city to my hospital. It took me about an hour door to door. Relaxing and enjoyable to walk downhill for the most part, take in the nature around me, and just enjoy being outdoors in the sunshine. It was a sharp contrast to Tuesday night, when the entire meeting was treated to a boat trip on the fjord. It happened to take place on exactly the one night of the summer when a storm (remnants of Hurricane Irene in fact) blew into Oslo, causing flooding and all sorts of other problems. We did sail out on the fjord though—the trip was not cancelled. We stayed more or less on the inner fjord, so the waves were not very high. The boat was quite large so it was actually not a problem to be out on the water. But the wind whipped the sails about and the rain was unrelenting, so we were forced into the boat’s innards where dinner awaited, and that was cozy. People had a good time and that was the most important thing. I know that the foreigners at the meeting will remember this particular trip. It’s not often you get to sail on a boat during a fairly intense storm.

It was heartening to meet a lot of the scientists who were at this conference. For some reason, most of the top scientists who attended were actually quite down-to-earth people—friendly, interested in others, and interesting to talk to. It made me wonder about the correlation between real intelligence and humility. If you are really intelligent, perhaps you don’t need to flaunt it or to treat other people poorly. So perhaps this is one explanation for what I see in my workplace—several rude people who think they are intelligent (but who really are not), and who need to be arrogant and rude to others because they are insecure about their intelligence. They need to make others feel inferior in order for them to feel superior. Kind of makes sense to me now. This has been reinforced for me by some of the lecturers I have had the privilege of listening to at the Science library at the University of Oslo. They have been given by some really incredible human beings, people you’d be proud to know. This gives me hope for the future of science generally.

Crazy summer skies in Oslo

It's been a rainy summer here in Oslo. Accordingly, there have been some interesting skies to look at. I usually photograph most sky views from my kitchen window, and have been doing this for many years and during all the seasons. This summer there have been some really interesting cloud formations in connection with thunderstorms and regular rainstorms. Many of these are followed by beautiful rainbows. I don't think I have ever seen so many rainbows in my life as I have just during the past several summers. Some of the cloud formations shown here look so ominous, a portent of dark things to come. I often wonder as I watch the clouds swirl and move and shift and gather--how does the start of a tornado or hurricane look? Sometimes it seems as though the clouds will form a tornado. But they never do. We are not in a tornado alley. Oslo doesn't really even have hurricanes, although it can have some severe thunderstorms, especially during the past few years. But you cannot beat New York for lightning and thunderstorms. They are intense there. I've tried capturing lightning here with my camera, but it's difficult. I've gotten a few good shots but not close-up enough. I'll keep working on it. In the meantime, enjoy the shots............

The 'homework' cloud

It occurred to me recently that certain aspects of my work life remind me very much of how I felt in grammar school. I live with what I call the ‘homework’ cloud over me. I cannot seem to shake the nagging feeling that I have homework to do after a full day at my job (and how many years have I been working?), and that when I get home I need to be focusing on some work-related project in addition to everything else that awaits me when I come home—shopping for dinner, making dinner, cleaning up. The reality is that I don’t have homework and that there is no one waiting for me at work the next day to evaluate what I did last night for work. It’s just that the habit of homework became a lifelong affair along the road of my life, and I don’t really think it is a good thing, because it also occurred to me that this is one of the reasons I never feel completely relaxed at home. It hasn’t helped that we have taken our work home with us throughout the 1990s and even into the new century. I stopped doing this about four or five years ago, but the guilt about not doing so still rides me. So that when I do find myself relaxing at home, reading a book or article for pure pleasure or puttering around my kitchen, the thought suddenly strikes me—do I have something to do for work that I have forgotten about? The answer is usually no these days, but it jars me nonetheless. I never feel like this when I am on vacation. I manage to put work in a box and store it away someplace until I’m ready to open the box again. I don’t know if other people my age feel this way. Do more women than men feel this way about their jobs? Are we overly-driven, and if so, why? Is it because we were the homework generation? We should be able to leave work at the door. We should be able to relax at home. And yet, how many people really do? I know many people who work the whole weekend long. The teachers I know have to work on the weekends—it’s the only time they have to prepare their lesson plans. Academicians don’t have to work on the weekends, but they often do because that is the time they use to read articles and update themselves on what is going on in their respective fields. My husband and I have done this for years; he still does occasionally, but I no longer do.

You would think that weekends would be like little mini-vacations for most people, vacations from work. Indeed they should be. My parents’ generation was better at relaxing on the weekends, better at leaving work at the door. Sometimes I manage to make my weekends feel like mini-vacations; other times I just feel like I have a list of things that need to get done. The list includes housework and other house-related things that are also ‘work’. Perhaps that is when I stop relaxing—when I am living my life according to my list and not according to what would be most relaxing. We should also be able to free ourselves from a chore-driven life so that we don’t continually berate ourselves for not doing this or that chore or project. I think the problem is that we work too much and have worked too much, and that carries over into the home environment. My generation grew up with a strong work ethic, and it stuck. And that’s fine, except that somewhere along the way it turned into this—that too many hours of our lives went to our jobs, and not enough hours to our homes and families. I don’t believe in the concept of quality time. I just want enough time to live in harmony with myself and the people around me. Five days a week, ten or more hours a day devoted to work is too much, and it detracts from a harmonious life. And yet it’s expected of us. So why then do I feel guilty for not giving my workplace my nights and weekends too? I think it’s part of our generation too—to feel that we would like to do it all, have time for everything, but we know deep down that we will never achieve that. It’s not possible. If we use fifty or more hours a week at work, then we don’t have a lot of extra time to do everything else we would like to or have to do. That’s life. Perhaps the best thing would be to start letting go of ‘having’ to do something every weekend—letting go of the lists that make us feel guilty when we don’t achieve the tasks listed there. I don’t know the answer; I only know that I would like to reach a state of harmony inside myself—where I can truly enjoy living in the present without worrying about what I have to do, either at work or at home. And I want the guilt to disappear. 

Amsterdam coffee shops, head shops, sex shop and oh, an American hot dog stand too

My list of favorite fantasy/science fiction/horror authors and books

I have been a fan of fantasy/science fiction/horror literature for years, as I have mentioned in previous posts. There is something about this genre of literature that never ceases to fascinate me. I know many people who are completely uninterested in it, who find it boring because they say these types of stories are not real or logical. I have come to the conclusion that you are either a fan or you are not. There is no middle ground. I am a staunch fan. My mind was always stimulated by this type of literature; I had an active imagination as a child and could scare myself silly just thinking about the deformed creatures that were waiting for me behind the bedroom door or in the bathroom mirror. You would think that this fear would have stopped me from reading these types of books about alien worlds or strange creatures and the like. But it didn’t. And it was cool to imagine what other planets and worlds might look like, or how it would be to travel there and communicate with their inhabitants, even if it proved to be quite dangerous.

Some of the first books I can remember reading were fantasy novels for children, e.g. books by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; James and the Giant Peach) and CS Lewis. We read Edgar Allan Poe’s morbid tales of horror in grammar school and would discuss them at home around the dinner table in the evenings. Our teachers even organized movie sessions for us where we would watch films based on his books—Murders in the Rue Morgue comes to mind as a particularly violent story, although I believe we saw this in high school if memory serves me well.  As a teenager I became fascinated with the books by Ira Levin and JRR Tolkien as well as by Ray Bradbury.  I was drawn more and more to the idea that there are alternative worlds that we do not understand much about or that we cannot inhabit for one reason or another, or that there is alien life. That is the appeal of science fiction/fantasy to me. I don’t need to have this proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt. I am not really interested in proof at all, although I think it is cool that much of science fiction is based on real facts. It is sufficient to me that these strange worlds and creatures exist in one form or another in the minds of their creators. I am interested in how the science fiction/horror/fantasy writers dreamed up the worlds they did; the fantastic stories about space and time travel, or how they managed to describe on paper the monsters that lived in the deep recesses of their brains. It is the creative process that interests me yet again. We are profoundly influenced as children by what we read, and I know that this is true for me. My parents never discouraged us from reading these kinds of books, hence the continued interest in them so many years later. I am including a list of favorite fantasy/science fiction/horror authors and their books that I have read and enjoyed during the past years.

1.       Aldous Huxley—Brave New World

2.       Bram Stoker—Dracula

3.       Cormac McCarthy—The Road

4.       CS Lewis—The Screwtape Letters; The Chronicles of Narnia; Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength

5.       Doris Lessing—The Fifth Child

6.       Douglas Adams—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

7.       Edgar Allan Poe—The Fall of the House of Usher; Murders in the Rue Morgue; The Pit and the Pendulum; The Premature Burial; The Tell-tale Heart

8.       George Orwell—Nineteen Eighty-four; Animal Farm

9.       H G Wells—War of the Worlds

10.   Ira Levin—Rosemary’s Baby; This Perfect Day; The Stepford Wives; The Boys From Brazil

11.   Isaac Asimov—Fantastic Voyage

12.   JRR Tolkien—The Hobbit; Lord of the Rings Trilogy

13.   Madeleine L’Engle--A Wrinkle in Time

14.   Mary Shelley--Frankenstein

15.   Michael Crichton—The Andromeda Strain; The Terminal Man; Timeline; Prey

16.   Neil Gaiman—Coraline; The Wolves in the Walls; The Graveyard Book; Stardust

17.   Ray Bradbury—Fahrenheit 451; The Martian Chronicles; Something Wicked This Way Comes; The Illustrated Man

18.   Richard Matheson—I Am Legend

19.   Scarlett Thomas--The End of Mr. Y

20.   Stanislaw Lem--Solaris

21.   Stephen King—Salem’s Lot; The Shining; Cujo

22.   Tim Powers--The Stress of Her Regard

At the mercy of the weather

I’ve been following the TV and internet news for information about Hurricane Irene and when she will hit the east coast of the USA and New York City. Predictions are for tonight and tomorrow morning in New York. I am hearing from friends who live in NYC, who are evacuating the city as I write this. My friend Gisele, who lives on Long Beach on Long Island, left for the ‘mainland’ yesterday. New York City may close down its subway system (historic) and hundreds of thousands of people have been urged to evacuate. As I wrote to my friend Bernadette, it’s heartening to see the preparedness on the part of city officials—they are taking the hurricane warnings seriously and in doing so, have probably saved some lives. And even if the hurricane gets degraded yet again to a storm, it is still good that everyone took the warnings seriously. Because you can never know how intense a storm it might end up as.

There have been some intense storms in Norway of hurricane-like intensity, but they occur mostly on the west coast of Norway, a part of Norway that faces out toward the open sea (Atlantic Ocean). I cannot remember a really intense storm in Oslo since I moved here; by intense I mean over 100 mph winds combined with sheeting torrential rain. In recent years, we’ve had more torrential rainstorms (a result of global warming?), that’s for sure. We’ve also had a few severe hailstorms in the summertime, with accompanying drastic drops in temperature. We have been out on our boat during summer storms that suddenly come out of nowhere and turned the fjord into a black churning mess of froth and high waves that scared the dickens out of me. That has happened to us twice; one time we managed to find safe refuge ‘behind’ an island that bore the brunt of the storm from the front side. The other time we made it back to port in the nick of time. I am insistent during such times that we don’t try to make it back to port unless we are so close that we can manage it within five minutes or so. That is what happened to us the last time we got caught in a storm; we made it back to port and then all hell broke loose. It was cozy to be inside the boat, I’ll give you that, but only because I knew the alternative would be to be out fighting the wind and waves and that is not a good feeling.

I like calm oceans and peaceful skies—glassy water surfaces, few waves, no storms, clear blue skies, a gentle warm breeze. In other words, I am not a real sailor. I only want to be on the water when it’s behaving. I have no desire to cross an ocean in a boat unless it is the size of a cruise ship. Boats do sink, just like planes do crash. Rogue waves do exist and can cause problems for boats. But it is the unpredictability of the weather in the world that gives me pause. I must say that I am amazed at how many people traveled to and from Europe (to the USA for example) by boat years ago before plane travel took over. They endured storms and winds, seasickness and all the rest. I don’t get seasick as a rule, although there have been several times when on board an ocean ferry on the way to Denmark that the long slow rolling waves got to me. I found myself a Coke to settle my stomach and the trip went on. There was no way I could get off the ferry if I had wanted to. I remember being on the Oslo fjord (west side) off the coast of Stavern (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=oslo+fjord+map&gs_upl=4104l4587l0l4896l4l4l0l0l0l0l221l662l0.3.1l4l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.&biw=1440&bih=775&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x464148f14761d749:0x35b0a920dd1737fd,Oslofjord&ei=RuZYTvqsHofvsgaf0vXICg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q8gEwAA) back in 1999, and there is a part of the ocean there that is just wild—huge waves, choppy water, in short, very unpredictable and very scary to navigate in a small boat (even a 35-foot long boat like we have). I have to say that I was of no help on that trip; the waves terrified me and panic set in. Luckily my husband is a seasoned sailor and copes with situations like that. I just did as I was told—battened down the hatches and then found myself a small space on the floor of the boat and prayed as the waves washed over the top of the boat. I prayed that the boat would not lose power. Motor stops are the worst thing that can happen to a boat, just like in a plane, because then the wind and waves will move the boat toward land and then you can end up smashed upon the rocky shore. This year, my husband and his friends returned by boat from a blues festival in Notodden, and they had to navigate through the same area off the coast of Stavern. And this year they had intense waves to deal with, as they sailed through the area shortly before a storm was predicted for that area. That is the thing I don’t like about being out on the ocean. What happens if you get caught in a storm?

This year on my annual trip to the USA, the plane from Oslo to Newark was delayed by four hours due to a tornado watch along the northeast coast of the USA the previous evening that delayed all planes leaving for Europe that particular evening. As it turned out, they found another plane to get us to Newark, but it made me think how fragile and inconsequential our lives really are in the context of the weather. How dependent we are upon the weather to travel, to get where we’re going, especially if we are traveling long distances. Commercial passenger planes have enough to deal with in terms of turbulence without adding tornadoes and hurricanes to the mix. Boats have storms, high winds and high waves to contend with. Both are dependent upon accurate reporting of weather systems, turbulence, wind strength and so much more. I am thankful for modern transportation that gets us where we want to go, but it’s not without its perils. Luckily, the perils are infrequent, but when they happen, they make me remember the past and consider how many people probably lost their lives years ago due to the lack of such systems. We have come a long way, but we need to come even longer in our constant battle with the elements. Because I have a gut feeling that global warming is only going to lead to more storms, more flooding, stronger winds, higher waves and more turbulence. And since we probably won’t let those things stop us, we’ll just have to learn to better navigate around them. 

How some companies go from good to great--a book by Jim Collins

I am reading the bestselling book ’Good To Great’ (published in 2001) by Jim Collins, who is the author of ‘Built To Last’, also a bestseller. I emphasize “bestselling” because they are books about the business world, and it surprises me that there is enough interest in the business world to guarantee a bestselling book. But apparently there is, and given the state of the economy during the past ten years, perhaps interest in these types of books is not that surprising. I for one find such books fascinating; I never get tired of reading about companies, their employees or leadership issues. Both books deal with companies, workplace leadership, greatness and longevity. ‘Good To Great’ discusses why some companies manage to become great companies starting from the level of good companies, but it also discusses mediocre and even bad companies and the likelihood of their achieving a ‘great’ status. I like the book so far because Collins is not just presenting his subjective opinions; he and his research team have done extensive research on what are considered to be great American companies, and have come up with some ideas as to why they became that way. They uncovered the qualities and characteristics of greatness—why some companies manage to become great while others don’t.

Here is his opening paragraph in Chapter 1: “Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good—and that is their main problem”. The opening paragraph draws you into the book and makes you want to explore the topic further. His premise is interesting. But what is a great company? How does Collins define ‘great’? His book is not a primer on how to get to greatness. It is more of a scientific treatise that describes the qualities of companies and of CEOs that have achieved greatness and maintained those results for at least fifteen years. And that by itself makes it an exceptionally interesting book, because it is steeped in objective research about the issue.

Here are some of the ideas that Collins brings up and discusses:

·         “In a good-to-great transformation, people are not your most important asset. The right people are”.

·         Who are the right people?  Collins writes: “The good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience. Not that specific knowledge or skills are unimportant, but they viewed these traits as more teachable (or at least learnable), whereas they believed dimensions like character, work ethic, basic intelligence, dedication to fulfilling commitments, and values are more ingrained (sounds like integrity and emotional intelligence are prized highly in both leaders and the right employees)

·         He argues for rigorousness in finding and keeping the right people and in letting go of the wrong people or shifting them to positions where they may be able to blossom.  It’s not about mass layoffs and ruthless treatment of employees. He says: “To let people languish in uncertainty for months or years, stealing precious time in their lives that they could use to move on to something else, when in the end they aren’t going to make it anyway—that would be ruthless. To deal with it right up front and let people get on with their lives—that is rigorous”.  He doesn’t argue against laying off specific people but he also discusses the possibility of shifting them to other positions to give them a chance to develop their true potential. This takes emotional intelligence and common sense on the part of company leaders in order to figure this out.

Collins also discusses ‘Level 5 leadership’, which he describes as a “paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. Level 5 leaders are “ambitious….., but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves”. They are “modest, self-effacing, understated, fanatically-driven, diligent, take responsibility for failures and give others the credit for success”. In my book, this is the definition of people with integrity and emotional intelligence. He is quite clear on one thing—that “every good-to-great company had Level 5 leadership during the pivotal transition years”; this conclusion is unequivocally supported by his team’s research data.

My questions are—why is there so little emotional intelligence in workplace leaders? Ditto for integrity and ethical character? Why aren’t they reading these kinds of books, or if they are, why aren’t they learning from them and putting their newfound knowledge into action? And why aren’t more potential Level 5 leaders being tapped for such positions? Why is it that there is so much mediocrity in workplace leaders at present? Potential Level 5 leaders are stifled into silence, bypassed, ignored, encouraged to leave or simply fired. Strange behavior on the part of companies whose visions are to be ‘the best (company, university, hospital, etc.) within the next few years’. I’m hoping for a renaissance of sorts—a new focus on integrity and emotional intelligence in workplace leaders.