Smiling Warrior: A True Swedish Tale Of Breaking Free And Remembering Awesomeness.

By Sven-Alex Trygg

This is your wake-up call. Are you ready to remember?

A necessary - and timely - tale of how amazingly powerful we humans truly are once we dare to remember our awesomeness.

With down to earth-honesty, irony, wit and love, the author openly describes the journey of remembrance, self-exploration and transformation he embarks upon when he finally has the courage to break with societal norms and expectations.

From being a happy young lawyer with a promising career he is, to his surprise, starting to experience typical signs of being burnt out. Anxiety attacks haunt him, and he is broken down to the point where he finds himself crying for no apparent reason. Depression wraps itself around him and going to work suddenly feels like committing suicide.

When he finally is desperate enough to resign, sell his belongings and move out into a small cabin in the wild, he understands that the anxiety attacks was his wake-up call - a cue to act - and that his resignation was the passing of some sort of challenge. Alone in the wild the adventure truly begins, as he gains access to what is best described as a massive backup of his true nature, telling him what he truly is, where he comes from and what he came here to do. He is told that he is one of many "sleeper agents" that infiltrated some sort of cage enclosing Earth, and that the global increase in anxiety and depression in these times simply is a sign that the time has now come for us to access the backup and remember.

Your backup is awaiting your command. Are you ready to restore?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sven-Alex Trygg
• Release date: Jun 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9789187539008

Sven-Alex Trygg

My vision is simple: Change the world.To the better I might add. This grand vision was born the second I became a father, and has only increased in size since. When my time has come, and I'm to return to the place I came from, I want to be able to tell my daughter I did my very best. I would tell her to hunt her fears, surf her emotions and follow her heart in every decision.I received quite some attention in the media some years ago, when I quit my work at a law-firm, sold my apartment, lived in a cabin in the woods to be in solitude for a few moths, returned to society to become a pizza-cook and wrote my first book - Smiling Warrior - about my experiences. The decision to break with rules and norms and leave a promising career at the law firm was hard, but I have not regretted it for a second since! I not only changed but literally saved my life.My writing style is to some extent a reaction to much of the self-help, or new-age, literature I devoured at the beginning of my "Hey, what's the meaning of life?-period". Many times I didn't like what I read, as I felt it to be too pompous, or too, well, too devoid of life's everyday challenges and situations. Most of it was too "cuddly-cosy-just-choose-love-and-light" with incense and all. Not at all fitting for a man like myself who sometimes actually gets pissed off, likes to dance naked in the forest around a fire, sees darkness as my mistress and simply thinks life sucks on occasion. It's not that I don't like love and light, I make love as often as I can and light and darkness are equally important.As my writing is entirely based upon my own experiences, visions and dreams, I freely share my bewilderment, challenges and frustrations from my own attempts to become better at navigating the Flow of Life. As far as my experiences go, life is indeed full of amazing miracles, my daughter is my personal favourite, but the road to self-improvement is not always easy. To me, many times it has been as challenging as swimming in a blazing soup of fresh manure and toxic waste while being shot at with a taser gun. Basically it sucked. Big time.However, I have - somewhat reluctantly I might add - realized that it's when I pass through these symbolic burning gauntlets of toxic manure and electricity that I really have the option to change. It is in this furnace of choice the Smiling Warrior comes into play, as he has some very interesting views on life. And on how to remember awesomeness.My intention of expanding my writing to English is - besides reaching a greater audience and sell millions of copies of-course - to use my writing as one of several tools in my grand change-the-world-vision. My present focus is to do my best to remind people of our innate awesomeness. I am convinced, you see, that it's some sort of "primal amnesia" that's causing problems in the world. We're all so much more than we can possibly fathom.I truly whole-heartedly wish you all the best, remind you that you are awesome, and hope you enjoy my work!

Book preview

Smiling Warrior

Published by Sven-Alex Trygg at Smashwords.

License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author, he needs the money to feed his wife, his daughter and his cat.

All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2014 Sven-Alex Trygg

Table of Contents

My Daily Execution

Deadly Denial

Wild Albatrosses

An Ounce of Regret

A Bud of Pure Life

The Will is Awakened

Rage and Life

Emotioneering

Preparations

The Memory of an Oath

Trip Down Memory Lane - Vision Quest

A Dancing Sign in the Sky

Abducted in a Dream

Waking up to Fear

A Luring melody

Mirror, Mirror

Confusion

An Old Friend

Through the Mirror

A Large Steaming Pile of Information

Intergalactic Broadband

Connection

Waiting

The Second Visit

Shaken

Pressure

Primal Rage

Seeds of Light

Trip Down Memory Lane - Sledgehammer to my Head and Boiled Bones

The Water of Emotions

Light and Darkness

No Objects, Just Events

Reunion

Travel by Thought

Trip Down Memory Lane - Total Solitude to Total Unity

Out of Shape - Into Shape

By the Sea

Message from Olámdoa

Dancing with Fire and Ice

Quick Visit to the Valley

Amazing Water

A Ring in an Egg

Desert Pain

A Tunnel of Refuge

Attraction

The Heart opens from the Inside

Desert Heart

Melting Together

Roots of Light in Dark Honey

Despair and Rage

Trip Down Memory Lane - A Shield of Song

Singing and Dancing in Hell

Safe

Played

Vices

Release Death

Spots of Fear

Death as the Only Exit

Split

Cosmic Orgasm in Slow Motion

Middle Way

Inox

Epilogue

Connect with Sven-Alex Trygg

My daily Execution

It came to me.

Like a piece of fresh dog poop wrapped in glittering, golden paper.

It whispered to me.

Luring with promises of happiness and prosperity.

Treacherously hidden behind norms and ought to's

Slowly but steadily it entangled me. Slowly but steadily it took from me. Slowly but steadily I let it take.

Bit by bit. Piece by piece.

Slow, but relentless like the drop of water hollowing out the stone, it took my life from me.

Death.

I invited death into my life, and it ground me up with ease. Once I gave up life I had no resistance, and therefore I was mashed to pulp as effectively as one would quash a fresh strawberry under one’s right boot. Or the left for that matter.

The symbolism of the mashed up strawberry suddenly appeared clear in my mind, and for a moment I saw past the porridge-like fog, which usually seems to blind me like a welding torch in my eyes.

Symbolically, I was a strawberry that willingly put itself under a boot. I let myself by crushed. Totally without purpose or any good coming out of it. It was not like I heroically, with a smile on my sooty face, was saving a bunch of infants from a burning orphanage as a balance to my giving up life.

I was willingly putting myself in harms way.

The realisation that it was indeed I, and no one or anything else, that was the sole cause of my misery suddenly made everything seem heavier and I was yet again dragged down into the anxiety driven grinder of death.

The soothing clarity that had followed the strawberry symbolism disappeared quicker than a slightly heaped tablespoon of dairy free butter inside an erupting volcano.

Soon enough, I was back feeling crappy, alone in my car driving on the dark winter road.

The ample snowfall looked like a massive wall of whirling Styrofoam balls. Mirroring my own state of ambivalence, it could not decide whether to flee or meet the light from my headlights.

Dancing little balls in the light.

Magical.

Hypnotic.

The door to my inner river of thoughts opened once again.

The dead shall walk the streets.

Isn’t that a biblical quote of some sort? When we reach the end of times or something, a sign of really bad things about to happen is that the dead start walking the streets?

Maybe it’s not so much about previously deceased people that suddenly appear among us, wanting to hang out or whatever they might want to do, but about more or less lifeless people, who have lost all meaning and purpose?

We walk around, around in a labyrinth of death without exit.

A labyrinth, a system, which promises us great rewards, but in truth quells us. Extinguishes us. Takes the life from us. Robotifies us. Makes us into living dead. Dead living.

It suddenly occurred to me that I commit small suicides every day. How long have I been doing this? Is it some sort of cold logic that makes me want to kill myself? Logically speaking, I should choose life before death, right? Life is more fun and better in every way, right?

Logic or not, it still felt like I every day, commit suicides. Small ones, but still.

Constantly.

Chronically.

Logical?

Hardly.

So, how did I go about it then, to slowly but steadily let the juices of life be squeezed from my body?

The classic way used in so many criminal novels, poison?

Fumes from the exhaust funnelled into the car?

Nope. None of the above.

My method for killing myself was much more refined than that, and so concealed and secret that I hardly noticed it myself. In my personal criminal drama I was the killer and the victim, and I was not aware of any of the roles.

The only thing I was doing was to sit in my car driving to work.

Deadly Denial

It became increasingly obvious that everything relating to my present situation could be distilled down to a denial of myself, of my deepest instincts, of my will.

Dry logic, devoid of emotion, is as useful as itching powder in my underwear, or sand in my ice cream, when it comes down to such basic values as life and death.

The problem at hand was something as simple as my day job.

My working conditions was hurting me and was killing my fire of life and my energy similar to putting a very wet, very cold, very heavy, blanket on a very small burning candle.

Well, as I had just realised, I was allowing this to happen. The one putting the cold, wet blanket on my inner candle of life was no one but myself.

In my car.

Numb.

The reflective glare from the occasional road signs was my only direction in life. The snowstorm whined around my car as though nature itself was trying to stop me from reaching my destination, my daily, voluntary, slow execution.

Convulsively I gripped the steering wheel, to at least feel some kind of support and stability as a contrast to the whirling chaos partying away hard within me.

It felt like I was being compressed and chills started running through my body. The hot air from the vents did little or nothing to conquer the inner cold that now filled me.

My throat became constricted and my mouth dried out as if I had just put a giant ball of tissue paper inside it. All my saliva seemed to being used to produce a cold sweat on my body.

Anxiety.

Move! I yelled.

I just managed to dodge the man walking on the side of the road. My inner printing press quickly produced some sensational headlines.

Stressed driver killed a man walking to his letter box.

The adrenaline being pumped into my blood stream gave me a few seconds of crisp clarity and freedom from all the thoughts and feelings rushing through my whole being.

Soon enough they returned though.

What if I had hit him? Wonder what the punishment would be for involuntary manslaughter in my case. More severe than what I would get for involuntary self-slaughter anyway, as that seems to be promoted in our society.

How can that be? How can a societal system be based upon the notion that the more you deny yourself, the more you do things you dislike, the more you sacrifice yourself, the more your actions are valued?

If you love what you do, if you truly do things that make you feel full of life and happiness, like artists do, then it is not valued anywhere close to as much as when you bite the bullet, fall in line and do what you are told.

Or, might this simply be the twisted values of a young lawyer filled with anxiety, driving through a snowstorm on the way to a workplace that grinds him to a pulp?

A Decision

Last night I made a decision.

After work yesterday, sitting by the dinner table in my kitchen, I started crying without any apparent reason.

Breaking down, loosing it, showing emotion, was always considered a failure by my standards, so this cracking of my shell was a new experience to me. To my surprise, I realised that giving in, letting my feelings flow freely, gave me more strength and life, not less. When the tears stopped flowing and the pressure inside subsided I felt more alive than I had in a very long time.

My tears had cleared my eyes, and I had finally made up my mind. I had come to a point of no return. Like an empty saucepan on a blazing flame I had a very limited number of alternatives.

I had to get away. I had to resign. I had to quit. I needed to leave my employment if I wasn’t to be crumbled down and broken apart.

Every day I forced myself to continue working I extinguished yet another part of my life force. I had even come to wonder what it is to be alive.

Was I really alive? What does it entail to live?

I absently studied the interior of my car and wondered whether the persons involved in designing and manufacturing all the gadgets and instruments actually like what they do for a living. Do the persons involved in the creation of the road sign I just passed actually feel alive and happy? Is it necessary to love what you do, or is an employment just something you do because you have to?

There is really something fishy about the equation Do for a living by the way. It seems that what you do for a living can kill you. Should not be like that.

Which norms do I live by?

Which norms do I die by?

My employment as a young layer at a small law firm in the countryside in Sweden was perfect according to every norm and expectation. I was good at what I was doing, liked by clients, and I was fortunate enough to have a boss who was a very skilled lawyer as well as a good friend. The career prospects were bright and I had spent seven years studying, receiving two master degrees. Besides the professional advantages the position offered, I was able to help people in need using my skills.

Still, something didn’t feel right.

I was 34 years old, and had already come to a point in life when I had to choose between what logic and societal rules told me or follow my heart and throw myself out. Leaving the stable and secure environment on unsteady but willing wings.

In the vortex of norms, traditions, loyalty, unwillingness to cause problems, fear of breaking the pattern, fear of being without income, fear of the opinion of others, the choice was not all that easy to make.

Anyway, I was sitting in my car. Even in the hot air from the air vents I was breaking out in a cold sweat, which was brought on by anxiety. Dodging pedestrians. Fulfilling norms and ought to’s. Denying my will. On my way to work. On my way to my daily execution.

On this particular day, my boss and I were going to have one of our career discussions. We usually discussed such matters as my future, my cases, how I liked my work and so on.

Like my work? Well, boss, last night I cried after work and every time I come here it feels like I am committing suicide. Apart from that, everything is just fine!

Wouldn’t that be something to bring out from my inner deposits of resentment during our career discussions?

I chuckled to myself. My mind was made up – it had been so much easier making the decision last night, however – that today was the day. Today I was going to tell my boss that I wanted to quit.

Already here?

Damn it. The drive to work had never been this quick. Ok. Here we go. No hesitation.

Wild Albatrosses

My usual parking spot awaited me. When I turned off the engine I was chocked by the sudden silence that was only politely disturbed by the faint sounds from the cooling engine.

I sat completely still inside the car, as if I was paralysed.

Slowly I felt the winter cold getting the upper hand over the little warmth I had managed to get inside the car, and I angrily wondered why no one construct cars so they can insulate from the cold at least for a short while. Don’t they give any consideration to paralysed, anxious young lawyers needing to sit in their car for a while, during winter, before confronting their boss with a resignation?

Very slowly I pulled the key from the ignition and paid attention to every little sound emanating from the lock releasing its grip around the key. What if I could, just as easily, pull myself out of my employment?

Maybe it actually is that easy?

Summoning some strength I opened the door and stepped out of the car.

The heavy snowfall draped the world in fluffy cotton and the streetlights played a soft melody of magic and stillness on the falling flakes.

There is so much beauty in the world, so much to be amazed by.

I turned my face upwards, closed my eyes, and let a few flakes transform into icy droplets on my cheeks. A few small specks of cold on my skin to postpone the inevitable for a few seconds.

Through the office window, I had seen that my boss was already full steam ahead with the legal twists of the day, and I knew my magical moment had to end.

Slowly I lowered my head, and some snow found its way down the back of my neck. I shivered from the sudden cold, and the magical trance was firmly broken.

I reached into the car and pulled out my well-stuffed briefcase, heavy with important documents of all sorts. Papers with a lot of letters typed onto them anyway.

Surprisingly enough, I found myself smiling at the whole situation. Still with a smile on my face I shut the door close, locked it, checked to see that it was in fact locked, took a quick breath and turned around.

Slowly I walked the, at least today way too few, steps that would take me to the entrance to the law firm. With every step, my smile was transformed into something that I supposed looked like a grimace frozen in place with Botox. A blend between an expression I hoped looked normal and relaxed, a stick-on smile and wildly flickering eyes.

My gaze was locked onto the door handle long before I was even close to the entrance.

Well in reach of the handle I raised my left hand towards the worn metal and as if I was in a trance I noticed that I had left my gloves in the car. I still grabbed the cold steel, seeking the discomfort I knew it would bring me.

The metal burned cold against my naked skin, and with the help of the pain I pushed away the anxiety that ripped my insides to pieces, and managed to open the door.

The absolutely ingenious plan I had masterminded on my way from the car was to act as normal as possible until the time was right. My grand announcement would take place during our career discussion. That’s when I was going to announce my resignation.

Well inside, I greeted my boss as usual and did my best to act and look normal. Within me, however, there was a hurricane of emotions that I suspected just had to be visible from the outside.

Butterflies in my stomach?

I happily would’ve accommodated some butterflies in my tummy. Butterflies are nice and have beautiful colours. They are usually pretty small as well. My stomach, however, seemed to be inhabited by a flock of wildly flapping albatrosses with their mouths filled with froth and rotten fish.

With big birds in my stomach I silently walked to my office and started working on the cases of the day.

An Ounce of Regret

I have a well-developed hatred towards watches.

I hate knowing what time it is if it is not really necessary for catching a flight, or being in time for the last ferry to the mainland before the winter or something. If I lived on an island that is.

With timepieces of any kind, it feels like I am being locked into a machine that dictates my every move, telling me what to do and when to do it with no respect to my own desires.

As I was imbued with this hatred towards mechanical machine-time, it was slightly cumbersome to be working with something that demanded that I charge everything I do down to five-minute increments. In other words, my work required that I really keep track of time. Result? Discomfort. To say the least.

Despite my aversion towards clocks and their prisonlike effect on me, I did truly enjoy assisting my clients. I mostly handled cases where ordinary people were battling against reluctant insurance companies, and the feeling when my knowledge and work actually made a difference was phenomenal.

Thinking of the gratitude from my clients actually made me feel a pang of loss. I was going to miss my work …

This insight came to rest in my mind and added a pinch of hesitation to the stew of anxiety and determination that was brewing inside me.

Am I making a mistake? Is all this just a temporary depression due to the winter and darkness? Maybe all I need is a vacation?

For a moment I played with the thought of staying, not resigning, but in an instant I was brutally embraced by a galloping anxiety attack.

Ok. Do not remain in bad place. Thanks for the remainder, dear anxiety.

How is it possible to feel reluctant to leave something that I obviously both want to and have to get away from?

I carefully pushed away the part of me that wondered why I did not spend time on the case files in front of me – valuable minutes were passing by – and silently asked the question anew: How can I feel reluctant to leave something that I obviously both want to and have to get away from?

The answer was barely visible to me. It was like I was reading in an old book. Pages so worn that the letters were barely visible. But I did see it.

This reluctance is a definite telltale sign that I am indeed closing in on a true breakthrough. When I have truly made a decision that I cannot back away from, a decision to part with something – a bad habit, a person, a work situation that hurts me, or whatever – I do experience this feeling of loss. A kind of grief actually. I cannot let myself be swayed by these feelings though, as they are there to enable me to leave the situation complete, as a whole person.

By truly deciding to go another way, I will see whatever I leave with new eyes and parting is only possible with an open heart. It seems grief really opens the heart and will enable a clean getaway, so to say. It helps me let go and take back my power. Lets me leave more complete and more aware.

But, the prison is a prison, new eyes to see with or not. If I do not choose life, death will take me even if I see it coming.

The ringing phone awoke me from my little journey in my thoughts, and brusquely brought me back to reality. The reality of a law firm anyway. I’m pretty sure there are other realities. Better ones. Better for me at least.

I turned my attention towards the phone and with a deep breath I activated the legal compartment in my brain before answering. Old books with arcane lettering describing truths about my life had to be closed.

My work that day went well, despite the albatrosses in my stomach. I suppose they had taken a nap, and I must confess that it lessened my anxiety to focus on some legal peculiarities for a few hours.

The point in time called Career Discussion closed in, however, and soon enough it had arrived.

A Bud of Pure Life

The albatrosses had woken up. Refreshed and energized after their slumber. On my way to the meeting with my boss my nervousness quickly developed into raving anxiety like bacteria on speed.

Sitting in front of my boss I dived into some shallow conversation to begin with, but I could barely make my voice work properly. Finally the twister inside me became too great to handle, and I heard myself hiss, I wanna quit.

Did I smell rotten fish?

There! I said it! What happened? How did he react? How do I feel?

I still felt numb in some way, but deep inside me a bud had come into bloom. A glimmering, giggly feeling was sprouting and life started to fill my body again.

For a few seconds I lost myself in the amazing feeling, but soon I managed to return my focus to my boss, who sat opposite me with a surprised expression on his face.

How had he reacted? He seemed a wee bit perplexed, which was quite understandable as we had recently talked about how I should further my education to be able to advance at the law firm.

What du you mean? he said.

Strengthened by the germinating bud of life my voice was steadier.

I wanna resign. I wanna quit completely.

My amazing boss surpassed himself when he, without any major argument or discussion, accepted my decision.

I cannot understand how anyone willingly chooses unemployment, but ok. I heard him say.

I think he said something before that as well, but whatever that was, it was lost in the sound of flapping wings from the freed albatrosses flying away.

I was still shivering from the tension and it felt as though some serious vomiting probably would do me good. The giggly feeling inside me grew stronger during the rest of the meeting however, and any nausea subsided. We had now moved on to discussing my period of notice and other more practical matters. Leaving a law firm when you have heaps of on-going cases on your desk is not something done from one day to the other.

Driving home that day I wore a smile of feeling good on my lips and everything felt more alive. After having chosen my health – my life – before something that, more or less literary, ate me, I was more and more filled with a power of relief, like the soothing, caressing wetness of rain after a deadly draught.

Darkness and slippery winter roads was not at all as taxing. The car seemed happier. The air from the vents was extra warm and cosy, every pedestrian was behaving exemplary and only good tunes flowed from my radio.

Somehow I had acquired a new set of eyes through which I could experience the world and I picked up speed on my process of change, of transformation. I felt with certainty that I was approaching a crucial turning point in my life.

After having done my final day at the law firm, this urgency for change made me sell my apartment and get rid of all other fixed expenses, like memberships and such.

There I was. For the first time in many years totally without bills to pay. Without employment. Without income. Without any studies. Without any obligations. Without any obligations towards anyone or anything but myself.

The need to withdraw from society to really catch up with myself and feel what I wanted to do, not what I should do, was clear. I had been chasing around the labyrinth of death for such a long time that I felt like a rubber band ready to snap.

I am fortunate enough to have access to a small cabin close to a lake in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn’t wish for a better scene for my personal play of recuperation and restoration.

Twelve square meters, outhouse, no running water, and no electricity. Just piece and quiet and the crackling sound from the fireplace. Just my own thoughts and reflections. A place, a temple, in which I could slow down and rest from the race I had been devoting myself to for most of my grown up life. How old was I when I first let conventions and norms become life-sucking shackles?

With the support from my amazing family, my father, my mother and my sister, I moved out into the woods, the silence and the solitude that beautiful autumn in the year of 2003.

The Will is Awakened

During my time in the cabin I reconnected with parts of myself I had forgotten I had, and the more I opened up to myself, the more I remembered and retrieved.

Parts of myself I had left behind caught up with me and piece-by-piece they fell into place. I was building a jigsaw puzzle of myself and received answers to questions I did not even know I had asked.

Strangely enough, the answers seemed to be looking for me, as I was looking for them. They had been searching for me the whole time. The only thing I needed to do was to stop and let them come to me.

I started to write.

With autumn as a colourful blanket wrapping itself around the cabin I wrote and wrote. To the light of burning candles I let myself flow onto paper to the point where I had developed calluses on my writing hand.

I wrote questions, as well as answers to my own questions. I received insights, explanations and ideas from some part of me that seemed to know.

A part of me that had always been there with whispering answers to all of my troubles. I just had not been listening.

By resigning – by accepting the challenge and choosing what felt expansive and reviving before what suffocated me – I had opened a lock and opened the door to an inner treasure chest. A treasure chest, which content was far beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

What I found seemed to be a bunch of glittering, tingling diamonds of pure life force. A gem that sparkled especially strong and vibrant was my own Will.

When I really started acting from my Will – and not only just think and dream about doing what I wanted – I seemed to nourish it and awaken it in a totally new way. I rediscovered its amazing power, and carefully I started expressing this Will more and more.

As often as possible I started using the words I want …. I saw clearly how I diminish my Will when I say, I don’t want …. How can I not want? I always want something. Instead of saying I don’t want to be sick I said, I want to be healthy. What I thought to be of minor importance, the removal of one single word, changed my world in so many ways.

More and more I started questioning what - in our society - seems to be a systematic suppression of the Will and its expressions. Why is it - by many - considered rude to say, I want the salt, and polite to say, Could you please pass the salt?

By realizing the immense power of the Will, I initially hesitated when it came to the thought of directing my Will towards others. Expressing my Will by saying I want you to scratch my back almost felt aggressive. I did not have anyone to scratch my back out there in the forest, so there was not really any way to test this particular expression.

After quite some time of pondering I realised, however, with the utmost clarity, that the true Will does not accept any suppression of another Will.

As I expressed my own Will more and more, I developed I deep reverence for the Will of others and came to see other people’s Wills as inviolable.

The though of having someone scratch my back unwillingly felt like being offered dog poo wrapped in golden paper again. Just the feeling I had when working at the law firm, something seemingly good that is in truth bad.

I was, however, moved to tears at the notion of someone honestly denying my request for back scratching, simply because they openly expressed their Will to do something else.

A very important breakthrough took place one autumn night when I felt myself particularly willing. I had been asking myself what I really wanted. I repeated, What do I want? to myself time and again. This little exercise seemed to stir so much life into my Will that a special arrangement was required.

I blew out all the candles, filled the stove with firewood, put on my thick woollen poncho and a warm hat, and opened the door to the night.

I then sat myself down right there on the doorstep. The dark chilly night to my right. The cabin and its warmth to my left. Sitting on the threshold between the one and the other, betwixt and between. Symbolically as well as literary.

I now started saying, I want … aloud, and then filled in whatever came to mind. Without judging or filtering.

The experience of freely expressing my Will like that was amazing. Like a pent up river it burst forth when previously repressed expressions of the Will surfaced. The more of these expressions I let out, the closer I seemed to come to simply wanting to be happy and healthy.

As I released this Will power, which had been kept imprisoned for so many years, I also released the feelings I had been neglecting and suppressing during years of denial.

Judging by what surfaced, anger and rage were some things I had worked hard on to keep hidden and locked away.

Rage and Life

Outside the cabin there is a tree stump. I carved myself a sturdy stick to beat the crap out of it with.

This was not due to some sudden realisation that I harboured a special grudge against tree stumps in general, but because I needed a target for my flow of emotions.

The anger and the rage that came bubbling up when I started opening up to my Will both surprised and terrified me.

The advantage of living alone in the forest was, however, that whenever the rage filled me – which could be at any time, for no apparent reason – I could throw myself at the stump, whacking away, screaming like a madman. Intensely refreshing, I might add. Blistering hands from holding the stick finally made me wear gloves.

I realised, that my interpretation of a successful and dedicated new age person had made me see anger as a failure.

My previous goal had obviously been to become a grinning sop, to present a numb calmness no matter what happened to me or around me. This might be some sort of goal worthy of pursuit for some, I do not know, but to me my denial of rage, fury or whatever feeling I deemed inappropriate, had stopped me from progressing. I had simply run out of life.

One