Today it’s been windy with a few scattered showers, otherwise sunny. Wind of these proportions are rare here in Oslo. Any wind at all is rare here. It felt reminiscent of home in many ways. And when I finally went out to get some groceries, countless old feelings rushed through my head. The sound of the wind, the humid smell and feel of the air, the changing light from small clouds blocking the sun and countless other impressions pulled strings in my brain that led way back, and all sorts of related feelings and half-memories popped up. I felt feelings I’d felt during similar weather back in my childhood, and I could picture it, but all pictures were general and possibly even generated in my head, and not specific memories.

Lately I’ve done this a lot with dreams, too; when I’ve had a dream worthy of writing down, I always get all sorts of flashbacks from other dreams while I’m doing that. Each flashback is related to a specific mood in a part of the dream, and then other flashbacks show up based on the same mood or even on a different mood in the dream of the first flashback. It’s very odd and otherwordly and I love it. The feelings I sense in dreams are always the ones that are furthest from ordinary feelings. And I find that the more the difference, the more interesting a feeling is. It always feels like sitting in a cave and getting to see an image of the outside world. Which is part of why I like these feelings. They shows me things, feelings, perspectives, that I’d forgotten. Part of the outside of my current box.

In each and every mood there’s another world, another way of thinking, another way of living, a separate meaning of life. And experiencing it all is part of my meaning of life.

Which, I coindidentally realized, is also why endings are my mortal enemies. An ending means the destruction of such a mood. I always need to find a perspective that hides the fact that it was an ending in order to deal with them. I hate the idea of the “emotional world” shrinking due to endings. Luckily, there are also always new beginnings. In the long run, this means that the emotional world will become something entirely different after a while, which does agonize me. But that’s the way of this world, and if you don’t manage to keep up with the change, then you yourself will end along with your own past moods, all alone. So the trick is to accept change and never stand still.

In fact, this just gave me a different perception of a human life. For one can always argue that if you change, you’ll eventually lose all you used to be and no longer be your old self. But you’re still you, so if you’ve become another person, which you is the “canonical” you; the old of the new? I say, you’re never the exact same person at two different times. Your mind is like the bank of a river, and who you are changes constantly like the flow of that river. Or more accurately, let the river be a long pool, and let time be the length of that pool. The water in the pool is you, but your personality — what others would call that which really is you — will depend on where one stands along the length of the pool. If the pool is long enough, you might be able to isolate different sections of the pool which represent completely different personalities. If we lived for hundreds of years, perhaps we’d change over and over, practically having lived the lives of several different people, except we’ve kept memories from it all (or perhaps not). All in all, what I’m saying is, a life doesn’t consist of being one person, but of being an infinity of transitions from one person to another, all melding together into a body of water that is the whole you.

After just a few more minutes on my bike, I stopped by a side road in the forest, by a small bowl-shaped miniature valley around a small stream, all covered in pine trees and clovers, yet sparse enough to let through some sunlight here and there. And incidentally, two squirrels went up one of the pine trunks just that moment. They glared at me and tried to look scary, but somehow, perhaps due to their fluffy tails, that attempt failed quite miserably. At that moment I realized I really need to get a digital camera. When I realized I might be scaring them, I walked further down the hill to look for four-left clovers for a while, but then I decided that this section of the forest was too dark to be staying in at such an hour.

I walked across the side road into the forest on the other side, which proved to provide even another kind of mood. No, several. First, this place was much more sparsely covered with trees, and there was a lot more grass and green bushes. Also, there were several rocks very reminiscent of the forests back home. All in all, the moods I found here were quite special in that I’ve felt them a lot before, in my childhood. No memories came to me because of this, only feelings stored from when I’d been in such forests before. It’s very interesting.

Before heading back, I also went some distance on another, dark side road, over another stream and up a steep, rocky hill where nobody could’ve been for a long time. Suddenly I was on another level of the forest, a kind of highlands, full of blueberry bushes and very sparse pine trees. Of course, though, there were paths up there, too. Nowhere is completely isolated in that forest, which is one of the things I don’t like about it so much, but which at the same time makes it gentler somehow.

When I’ve got my breath back from racing all the way back here, I’ll head down to the gym, after which I’ll read for my next exam for a while until I grow tired, buy a few eggs in the kiosk and head back home to make pancakes for dinner.

Myself, I wish to counteract that as best I can, by constantly introducing changes in what I do, how I do it and most importanly, what my mind is doing. Or else I’ll be too prone to fade into the gray again and live on autopilot, never knowing what I’m missing.

The last weeks, more or less since my last post, I’ve been exploring new directions, paths I’d forgotten and paths I didn’t know I’d used. I’ve searched for moods and feelings, both recent, old and ancient. But none connected to anything of my new daily routine. And that made me think. My theory is this: things you enjoy or feel are special might turn into their own feelings, but not until you stop doing them.

First, Blaizer – Weight made me recall a very special feeling connected to chilly winter afternoons. I remembered images of the yard outside the house where I grew up, and some places nearby, all covered in a seamless layer of snow, the sky either cloudy, making the air dark bluish gray and magical, or clear, making the snow glitter and the feel of winter even stronger. I also recalled the refreshing chill, the taste of the air, the numbness in my fingers and even several thoughts adding to the mood – the desire to make a snowman, the urge for some hot chocolate, the joy of sliding down a snowy hill. What amazed me it how all this came pouring into my consciousness like the music was a mental magnet. I didn’t seek out old memories; I recalled the feeling through the music, and with it I got hold of all the strings attached to that feeling.

The next one, although not that special, was an exciting surprise. Listening to Amphibiotica – Starwatcher, gamle oslo – Haukelifjell, Gargamel – Towards Compression, and even Røyksopp – Only This Moment, made me think of the past three years. Not in general, but specifically two things: driving a car and riding the bus to school, both under a pitch black sky. Those are some of the most magical things I experienced in those years. Only, I didn’t really think of it entirely that way until I recalled it now, through this music. It’s been made into a special feeling because it’s in the past, now (although that does in no way mean I can’t go back). Still, one of my favorite things this last year was driving, to school, home or anywhere, anytime. One of the best ways was in total darkness, preferrably night, where I could privately enjoy the quiet of the sleeping world while listening to some music (much of the sort that reminded me of all of this) and merely consume that special atmosphere. Before I got the license, riding the bus to school during the dark half of the year gave me some of the same feeling. That carefree moment – isolated from the rest of the world, isolated even from the world right outside the windows – brightened my mood and relieved my stress countless times.

That’s why I believe in my theory three paragraphs back. Such moods don’t come from reminiscence, it’s not that you felt things stronger the younger you were. When you recall moods from the past, you feel more the more your mind has changed since then, and the less you’ve thought about them. That’s why moods from your childhood might feel most special. But it’s nothing exlusive to your childhood. The reason you might not sense such intense moods from later years is because you haven’t changed that much. If you stop changing, then you’ll stop producing new moods, and all those you might recall will be from ages past. Also, I believe it’s incorrect to believe you experience fewer moods that you did before. Because moods never become clear until you stop doing what made them. That means two things: you’re exaggerating what you felt before, and what you feel now you might recall as being stronger once you’ve stopped doing it.

The moral: Music can be very good for you.