Rememberment

  "The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good." (Proverbs 15:3) Looking back to my preteen years, I think it's safe to say that my sex education was a bit off. We watched a film at school. It was titled "How Life Begins" or something like that. Before playing it, our teacher was even more tense and stern than usual, and told us that during the film there would be absolutely no talking. Then he switched the lights off. I can't remember anything specific about the film, only the nervous atmosphere in the class during the time it played. And when it was over, our teacher switched the lights back on and told us that we were dismissed. If anyone had any questions about the film, they sure didn't have the nerve to ask; everybody just buggered off in silence. To be fair, I wasn't entirely clueless about the subject: even without the Internet, there were some sources for information. I had found some interesting comics wh...

Despite being the most natural thing there is, death has been an endless source of inspiration for philosophers, religions, cultures and artists throughout history. It remains an intriguing mystery; not because we don't understand what death is , but because it's something we can't truly experience and report back on. For a species so centered on solving problems, death is the ultimate one. The current vibe of my readers, who came for something uplifting to shed their Monday blues. Reflecting on death is an effective way to understand life. Mortality gives shape to our existence; for an immortal being, concepts such as youth, urgency or a retirement plan would be meaningless. Time, our most precious currency, only has value because it's in limited supply. Death is all around us. Without it, we hardly would have any entertainment either. It's our most powerful tool for creating drama and excitement in films and literature, and you can only win a game if there's a...

I always enjoyed car rides with my dad. During spring, we would sometimes just drive around visiting car dealerships and test driving new cars. It was just the two of us, so I got to sit in the front. Dad also taught me how to shift gears for him when he gave me the signal to do so, which was fun for both of us. He said it was almost like driving with an automatic transmission. The car dealers often gave me balloons or candy or perhaps a cookie, and that wasn't too bad either. Dad also never skipped the chance to pick up hitchhikers; it was still a pretty common occurrence back then. Whoever got the pleasure of riding with us would then receive a full dose of Dad's most apocalyptic gospel songs from the cassette radio. I didn't mind it when I was a little kid, but as I got older it made me feel embarrassed. I took great care to not show Dad how I felt about it though, lest I get a dose of the Gospel of Mark: "Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adultero...

In 2021, William Shatner, the actor famous for his role as Captain Kirk in Star Trek, became the oldest person ever to fly in space at 90 years of age. But when he came back down and was greeted by the media, he wasn't joyful. He was in tears, because seeing how fragile our Earth and its thin atmosphere looked against the blackness of space had filled him with grief. What he experienced is familiar to astronauts, and is called the Overview Effect - a profound feeling of awe and appreciation for our planet, a sense of connection to its people and nature as a whole. In his 1974 memoir, Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins said: "I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of... 100,000 miles, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced." Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14) was a bit less eloquent, stating that you want to "grab a politicia...

Spider-Man was still my favourite comic book hero, but the X-Men (and particularly Wolverine) were right up there. In fact, as long as it was a Marvel comic it was almost certainly great. As for cartoons on TV, there was no question that Disney was the best, although I wouldn't mind getting the occasional dose of Bugs Bunny or some other Warner Brothers classics. Whenever we went out to rent a movie, it was nearly 100% certain that it was going to be an action flick starring Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris or maybe even Burt Reynolds. It was the same with television shows. The biggest music stars and most video games were also American. For a pre-teen living in the 80s, there was no question where all the good stuff came from. It still wasn't okay to speak ill of the Soviet Union in the Finnish media, but all the kids knew that they were the bad guys. Thanks to this guy, we also knew exactly how they should be dealt with. Along with their evil Vietnamese...

"I'm too poor to buy cheap things" is an old wisdom. It's famously illustrated in Terry Pratchett's book "Men at Arms" where the story goes like this: A poor man buys boots for $10. They're good enough to last for a season or two, but then they're worn out and start to leak. Meanwhile, a wealthy man buys a pair of $50 boots. Those will still be in good shape after 10 years. The end result is that the man who always buys those cheap boots will easily end up spending twice as much money as the wealthy man, and would still have wet feet. This is called the Sam Vimes "Boots" Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness. Paradoxically, life is in many ways more expensive for those with lower income. Those with money can afford to buy in bulk, and so end up paying less per unit. Banking fees are lower (or free) if you have enough money, while exceeding one's balance incurs costly "insufficient funds" fees. Borrowing money is more costly i...

I was still very much into computer games and whenever I visited my friends (or cousins) we spent most of the time playing on their computer. And by computer I mean the Commodore 64, because that's what everyone had. So why did they all have the C-64? There were two simple reasons. The first was that it had the best selection of games for it, the second being that it was rare for anyone to actually purchase them. Piracy was absolutely rampant. I kept begging my parents for a computer of my own, even though I wasn't very hopeful. But I made sure to always stress that if such a miracle were to happen, the computer specifically needed to be a C-64.  It was a day like any other, and my dad was picking me up from school. He was grinning at me when I approached the car. When I opened the passenger door, I saw a big box. "There you go, son" Dad said happily. "It's finally yours". I looked at the box; it was definitely a home computer, but certainly not the C-64...