marraskuuta 15, 2007

I wanted a Monty Python quote for a title, but couldn't find a fitting one

This German experience is really one of the best things I've ever done. Except for the summers I haven't been this content with life in ages. Yay for the peace and yay for all the activity; yay for writing and yay for concerts, yay for traveling and yay for inexpensive cafes. If only one could live this stress and pressure free always, with no worries of tomorrow.

I walked to town again today. I took a different route and just followed the skyscrapers, without even really checking the map. That is a nice feeling, not really knowing where you are, but yet not lost, because you can always see the big things there reaching towards the skies.

I had planned to end up at the railway station. Practicing my usual caution I wanted to find the spot where I need to catch the bus to the Hahn airport on Saturday morning. Walking without a map does have its downsides though and I ended up too far east. Instead of going back I decided to alter my plans and go first to the cafe where I had planned to go from the station.

So I sat there again - in my usual Cafe & Bar Celona - had tomato soup and ice tea and coffee and read Miller once more. I like that place. I like that book. He can even make me laugh sometimes - the way he writes - and when has that ever happened when reading a "work" book. Presumably never.

It is a fascinating topic anyway: honour and power. How much people are willing to do to protect the one and to gain the other. The lengths they are ready to go to to machinate events in order to reach their goals. The forms those desires take in different societies, the extravaganzas they produce and the whys behind them all. Totally fascinating.

One can even get glimpses of those processes and thought patterns in my cases. That one judge arguing questions of precedence with the representative of the county governor; a dispute about giving way to officials on a country road, the importance of the stylus curiae... Not to mention the fights or the cases of infanticide. They lurk even there, in my relatively boring cases, these questions of honour and reputation and defending one's place in the society. They do not result in feuds like in the saga age, but they are always there - in every age including our own. Just getting different forms, being played out in different arenas: sometimes in judicial ones, sometimes not. More or less prevalent attributes of the society....

Bugger. I think I really will use some of those four years of mine to read some honour stuff. There are threads in my head already, like there have never been with my current topic. And I will so write in English, because this language flows so much better than Finnish. Ooh, yeah.

I am really loving this German experience, I am.

Currently listening to: Baroque radio (yes, again, but I rather like this...)

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