Ångest/ Anguish (Pär Lagerkvist)

"Anguish, anguish is my inheritance
The wound in my throat, my heart's plea to the world"
//Ångest, ångest är min arvedel. Min strupes sår, mitt hjärtas skri i världen//

This is probably the most famous prose (a short quote from the prose) in Sweden, or at least the most spoken of.
The author speaks of anguish, anxiety, as his only inheritance, the only thing that is controlling him and will be left of him when he's gone. It was publised in 1916, therefore many have interpreted the prose as a parallel to the first world war. In that context, we can understand just why the author wrote about such  horrible and paralysing feelings as anguish, anxiety and fear, especially of death.

But me myself can't help but wonder if death is really something to be afraid of. Death itself isn't that bad, one second you exist, next second you don't. Well, atleast your soul does not, or your consciousness or blood flow or whatever you call life does not. Without a word, you disappear, fade away, your body rottens and the memory of you will dissolve and eventually disappear.
What I'm afraid of is the feeling. Not the reason behind it, but the feeling itself. Anxiety. Anguish. Fear. What do those words mean to you? You get tense, breathing gets heavier, and maybe they give you some shivers.

Im afraid of fear. I'm afraid of anguish. Of losing control. Of getting hurt. Many people are. Does that make us weak? No, let me tell you what makes you weak. What makes you weak is trying to shut those feelings out. Caving in for them, and for yourself really. They are a part of you, a few electrical impulses from your brain through your nerves, hormones running through your blood, it is only your brain telling you to be afraid.

Don't shut them out. That does not make you cool. That does not make you worth of pity. That dos not give you the right to hurt other people because you feel that you're in control of your own feelings, because you feel nothing.

Embrace them. That's what makes you strong. It's hard, it's so very hard and paralysing. But embrace them, feel them, live them. Only like that you can control them and eventually crush them, making them fade away instead of yourself.

"Pain demands to be felt" - My fav. quote from The Fault in our Stars

Why are poems so boring?

Something I've noticed with most of my peers is that they simply don't get the fun part with poems. It's just a bunch of wierd guys high on LCD or Marijuana that wrote something down and called it a masterpiece right?

Maybe. But then what's so interesting with a bunch of nonsence that their poems have survived over the centuries?

Poems can be complicated. Poems can also be easy as pancakes. Poems can be understandable and crystal clear, and they can be blurry and irrelevant. That's what's so interesting with poems and philosophy. Everybody has their view of a poem, And through that persons interpretation of something, we can reveal just about anything about someone.
We can reveal how they think, how they feel, what they have been through.

How about those people that actually wrote the poems?
In just a few sentences we can get more information than seven books on a total of 7000 pages. Sometimes the message is explicit, sometimes it's not. It all depends on how society has tought you to think, what to believe, what's right and wrong.

I've heard alot of people talking about how they want to understand the human mind on a deeper level, what we are capable of, how we think and why we are who we are. The easiest way to do so is through philosophy, using one thing that distinguishes the human race from the rest of the animal kingdom: Our komplex thinking.

When you read a poem, it's impossible to not think of anything when you read it. You either think it's boring, strange, etc., but that is still a feeling about it. And there's a reason why you are feeling that way. It's this that the poets and artists love to use and play with, our feelings, our fears and our strengths.

Do you dare to face them?

Karin Boye - How can I say...

"How can I say if thy voice is beautiful.
I only know that it pierces me
and makes me tremble like a leaf
and tears me into rags and pieces.

What do I know of thy skin and thy limbs.
It only shakes me that they are thine,
so that for me there is no sleep or rest,
'til they are mine."

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Hur kan jag säga om din röst är vacker.Jag vet ju bara, att den genomtränger migoch kommer mig att darra som ett lövoch trasar sönder mig och spränger mig.Vad vet jag om din hud och dina lemmar.Det bara skakar mig att de är dina,så att för mig finns ingen sömn och vila,tills de är mina.