I started writing this blog post

a year ago.

I have struggled to do anything art related due to world suddenly going straight to hell in a handbasket. And I’ve focused on protesting.

My participation in society used to be meme posting from my isolated bubble. But it has now evolved into out right activism, which is sort of a miracle for a person with a fn fatigue syndrome.

Originally I started to write about my art and

Why I like using eastern references so much

To explain. Why I don't use my own culture and tradition as a source of ideas in artmaking.

The subject happens to intertwine with the current events.

As we are living the peak of what is wrong with our culture.

At the end of the post you can find the art part. Mostly however I’m focusing on the change I want to see in the world.

That is also intrinsic part of my art.

My 'culture'

I was born into the culture of tv, popculture and consumerism.

The western culture.

I dont think it is a culture. It's just capitalism.

It's artificial.

It's a powerstructure.

Where culture is to be consumed. Not lived in.

It fails in the principle task of culture. To sustain life.

It fails to have real values. True knowledge.

Instead it offers a mindset to this artificial life as a part of the machine.

As the only option.

Culture can be a fun crafts hobby, so you can cope with a reality thats eating you alive.

Does the western culture give guidance to a balanced, selfsustaining, happy life and wellbeing in a safe and healthy environment and community?

No. It guides us to be a proper wheel in the unstoppable and violent Earth-destroying machine that western societies have become.

Where suffering, inequality, racism and death of innocent people is just part of the system.

Where the goal is to have more than you need. To take even what is not yours to take. For the detriment of others. Of Earth.

Goal is to win. And others to lose.

It's not a recipe to a healthy community and relations.

Western culture is destructive in the name of progress and profit.

What kind of culture progresses the population to it's own demise?

It disconnects us from our inherent belonging to life itself.

Disconnection from oneself and nature.

It prevents from living a natural human life..

It doesn't give meaning to life. A real purpose.

It's empty.

It's plastic decoration.

It celebrates things that no longer mean nothing but buying. Consuming.

Western culture is tv. You learn life from pretence. You form your thinking and behaviour based on illusion. Something that is’t even real.

Tv is part of the machine. It's the programming.

Keeping us controlled, brainwashed and distracted. Consuming what we are supposed to consume. Thinking what we are supposed to be thinking.

What about Finnish culture

First of all.

I feel like it has vitamine-D deficiency.

Finnish culture is small, ordinary and many times practical things.

It's going to sauna.

It's minding your own business.

Maybe it was lot of things and it just made way to modernity and western lifestyle.

I do love the spirit that still exists in small country towns.

And the using of excessive swear words. (Only if you mean it)

But theres nowhere to turn to when you want answers to your existential questions or guidance. Except get drunk, buy more stuff, take a pill and or distract.

Where do you go for answers.

Only thing I can think of is nature. And that I do use in my art.

I'm not sure we ever had wisdom and knowledge. Maybe we were to busy pulling rocks from potatofields.

Maybe if we still had culture I would know.

If the tradition and spirituality had survived the religion and modernity.

If we hadn't been ashamed of our rural simplicity that we had to trade for fake imported lifestyle.

Maybe finnish culture was mostly trying to get through life alive, since half the year is survival from darkness and cold.

I practise finnish culture merely by swearing, knitting and picking berries.

And loving nature and countryside.

I have never felt finnish choise of religion appealing or wise and knowledgeable. I've never been drawn to Finnish folklore. I have never been offered traditional wisdom.

To this day I have never felt like I'm called to read Kalevala and whenever I'm trying to familiarize with it, it feels more laborious than exciting.

Somebody once wondered why people in Finland are so into eastern philosophies while we have the same wisdom and knowledge here, in different form, since we used to have shamans etc.. He made clear he had learned about it and knows about it, that it exists, and then offered a course about it in exchange for money.

Now. Thats not how culture works.

Thats capitalism.

If there was a culture of wisdom here, we would know about it.

Complainymus Bosch

I grew up with the capitalist program, but I've never been able to be a proper wheel in the machine.

I think modern western society is built on a lie.

Western way of life is leading us to dead planet.

And dead people.

I can't think any reason why I would want to live and participate in this death cult.

Yet here I am.

Forced to live in it. I have to feed myself and have a place to stay as people do naturally gravitate towards survival.

What to do about it.

What did I do before I even realised I was doing it.

Resistance.

I did both good and bad.

I think staying sane while being simultaneously aware of whats happening in the world comes with a conscious choise.

You have to stop resisting who you inherently are, your natural true self. The inner voice that repeatedly says what the hell in disbelief when the circus show of power elite keeps getting wilder and closing in on real life hunger games.

And start actively resisting the system that is keeping it from living a natural life, while destroying lives of ordinary people, (literally and also by making life unnecessarily hard and unpleasant) and destroying our only habitat.

Find and/or build truer culture and community, in order to cultivate a healthier society on your part.

For a loner thats a puzzle but I guess community can be seen broadly these days. For myself even online community is a support.

This ship is currently sailing straight to hell and non other but ordinary people can change the course. Voting wont do it. I think by now people must see that. The machine protects itself from any real threat that would change its course.

Maybe one person can’t do much, but it’s a damn good feeling to know you’re not one of those holding the system of oppression and death in place. Complicit. Silent. Instead you’re acting on behalf of your values and humanity.

Even if it means you’re standing alone.

Activism saves you from despair. Being part of the counterbalance in the greater scheme of universal movement towards if not harmony, atleast survival. And more just world. And there will always be others doing it too somewhere.

I think the depravity of our society affects and stains us if we stay silent and complicit. Life is so much sweeter with a clear conscience. When you can say I did what I could. Even if others think you lost your mind.

Activism is like saying: This world doesn’t represent me, we can do better.

Reminder: ‘It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’

Different forms of resistance

I have been writing this blog post for a year.

The palestinian fight for freedom started during it. And now I think word resistance is a really good word to use for many things.

Palestinians also showed us what exactly is wrong with western world. How Finland and Europe has none of the values and principals I thought it had. What they claim to have.

For the longest time, all my adult life, I have resisted the idea of what life has become here in the west.

Unsustainable life does not make sense.

Western lifestyle lacks meaning.

As for the system. We can now see clearly how it's purposefully arranged the way it is.

You don't even have to pay much attention too see its utterly inhumane.

It's insane.

And its held together by lies.

All this crap we perceive as norms. As normal. As preferred.

Just visit another country and you'll see norms are made up. The whole system is.

It doesnt need to be the way it is. It's just an agreement. Why do we agree to this I will never know.

Nature does not have to perish in order for us to thrive.

The opposite is true.

We are part of this planet and when Earth suffers, we suffer.

Other people dont have to die for us to have more .. and they sure as hell dont have to die for corporations, shareholders and US hegemony.

People are all connected, when one suffers we all suffer.

The other type of resisting

I resisted who I was and what happened to me.

I was disconnected from myself.

(Maybe due to the lack of proper culture.)

When my health started deteriorating and my body gradually stopped working over the years, life became torture.

In my capitalistic mindset I had no value anymore.

In the end I could hardly do few daily tasks. Couldnt even be a proper parent.

That lead to years of struggling with inadequacy and guilt.

Yet.

It was a portal to get the fuck out of this lie.

It was a time of transformation that needed to happen, also to deal with other detrimental beliefs and patterns.

It's the most difficult period in my life I ever experienced and there has been some.

Nonetheless it was a doorway. To a life outside the program.

Into living a life.

I had to learn to stop resisting what was.

Stop resisting change. To feel the most uncomfortable feelings there is.

Instead of fighting and resisting against who I was and had become and the conditions I was in, I started to shift my thinking.

And become more conscious.

And use the knowledge that had been given to me. Not by my culture, but by the eastern and the modern day modification of it.

Art of resisting

I never made a conscious choise of what kind of art I decided to do.

My subjects and style just formed by itself in art school when I started to use these random unintentional sketches I had doodled as practice works when I was learning the process of printmaking.

Ideas for sketches just pop into my head. They have their own mystique. And I originally got into contact them via opening the door to spirituality.

It's not a deliberate decision what subjects I use.

It's not about what I want to convey through art.

I can only guess afterwards.

I intentionally add stuff in the process of doing art, but the original idea is usually like a fish in a stream, I just spot them.

To me artmaking, creativity, creation, is growth, of something new.

New worlds.

Art can also be used to understand and translate.

It can be used to elevate.

These themes are something I've always been interested in.

In art school I read about the history of printmaking. As I was mostly into printmaking (and still think that I'm foremost a printmaker).

The earliest prints were buddhist charms, small texts and images of buddha.

I imagined the time when ordinary people couldnt afford art in their homes. And then printmaking was able to reproduce affordable images to elevate the spirits of ordinary folk.. Maybe just one picture of buddha on the wall. Maybe a prayer.

I like to think my art serves that same purpose. In essence.

To remind.

To elevate.

Maybe something just enough enigmatic to tickle the sense of wonder.

Maybe so many details to make a person stop for a awhile and spend a moment in the present looking at them.

I've also used writing in some of my artwork in the spirit of those earliest prints.

As decoration. As spells. Prayer.

So I like to think my art is a form of resistance too.

It's about what is missing in my own society and culture. The forgotten.

The other realm we kinda overlook here.

The one we can speak of with symbolism. And the subconscious.

It's about spirit.

Also.

Skill.

Wonder.

Aesthetics.

Mystery of life.

And meaning.

I have always sought for something else. Even before I was aware of what was missing.

Something that feels real.

Guidance. Truth. Meaning. Wisdom.

Reassurance that this mess had an actual purpose.

Other than copy what somebody else was doing.

Throughout the years I have found traditions that instinctively interests me and feels true. Traditions that come mostly from east.

That worldview and understanding of life makes sense to me.

Eastern traditions are rich with images too.

It's so interesting.

Art, culture and craft.

Wondering about why they ended up using certain symbolism.

Traditions wouldn't last if there was no truth in the teachings and people didn't experience elevation and benefits from learning them. Time after time.

I like to think about symbolism and how we have always sought for understanding.

And also passing on the stuff we know and experience to other people, in so many peculiar ways.

I think mostly my time on Earth has been involved with trying to figure out where I am at. And what am I supposed to do here.

I have tried to understand and know life.

To really feel it.

To some extent I have managed to do that with spirituality and art. And nature.

It would be so comforting to have a strong culture and tradition of my own, that would have given me the answers to those questions. And feel belonging to it.

Even though it's fun to explore all the interesting cultures, I can never feel the support of my own cultural heritage. Of my ancestors and their knowledge.

It's no longer part of life. The chain was broken and theres no real connection.