My life in tropical Philippines has been rich, challenging, privileged and if I echo a famous film title.." living dangerously" on the edge. The weather was (and is) never a topic for conversation as everyone assumes that the sun will always rise in the early mornings and set at dusks. The exception to the general rule of perpetual sunny days for 365 days a year are the rainy months often visited by typhoons. This is all in my distant past - the stormy days, the dangers under an authoritarian rule, the excesses of the military, curtailment of basic freedoms of press and speech and worst of all, the sight of unmitigated poverty, unemployment and criminality.To start 2010 with a blog that defines the gap between the good places and the bad places to seek refuge from the extreme performances of weather, peoples, politics and economics does not auger well for the world we live in. The winter in Europe and some parts of North America has been the worst this year and many remember that it was in the mid-1980s, when a similar phenomenon took place.
For many non-Europeans, Sweden is a haven of goodwill and secured living because of its egalitarian welfare system. We pay dearly in taxes to secure a system that takes care of its citizens - both the productive and non-productive members of society. It is even possible that suspected terrorists enjoy social benefits that allow them to travel to "sacred places" where violence are a daily bread. On extreme cold winters such as this year, they enjoy the option of travelling home where the sun gives warmer days and family relations deepen keep emotions of love and affection alive.
It is weary to start 2010 with the same concerns that plague most inhabitants of this post-modern society. The physical body is battered by the extreme fall in temperature, the demands of career performance, the unsteady situation of the economy ( as seen through the volatile stockmarket and interest rates in housing loans), and private relations deteriorating from the burdens of living in a socially and economically demanding world.
Those who have passed the golden threshold of fifty years should slowly step back and leave the stage to the younger generation. But it is not always easy to fade away especially from an active working life. It feels like being deleted from the computer of life. How does life continue in harmony with one's age, the fickleness of weather, the challenges that remain and intellectual creativity that remains unshackled by age itself.
I stopped thinking about my age. I know that I have passed the cat's ninth. I merely look at my four children and two grandchildren whose lives are full of promise and commitment. Theirs is a future of many years - some which will continue to witness deep winters and splendid springs. Mine is many chapters ended and few more to open hopefully and I am sure that when I stumbled upon the virgin islands of Cape Verde - where the sun shines in temperate 25 plus degrees for 330 days, a gentle people who's free from scars of war and civil strife, an ocean teeming with fish and marine life, and where the national motto is " Land of No Stress" - then I felt that life is sustained as ever.#
