Self-reflection: Movement

Bengt draws Tao, the yin yang picture and says that the first pillar of life is Movement.

TAO

Within the context of traditional Chinese philosophy and religion, the Tao is the intuitive knowing of “life” that of which cannot be grasped full heartedly as just a concept but known nonetheless as the present living experience of one’s everyday being.

Inside the picture you can see Movement. Everything changes constantly, life is Movement. It is the green color, the color of life. The inner connections of life are dynamic not static. Movement is a prerequisite for life.

“To live is to be born anew in every moment”. Every second 2 kilograms of cells in a person’s body are renewed.

“You cannot go into the same river twice – both you and the river would have changed many times.”

A Chinese proverb says: “Do not be afraid of what moves forward be afraid of what stands still.” Everything moves endlessly – here and now, and we need to be aware of that fact.

When we talk about Movement we need to talk about Order and Chaos as well.

Order & Chaos

If we imagine a scale between Order and Chaos, with Order on the left end and Chaos on right one – where is each person on that scale? We want to constantly control our lives, we strive for order, security, and safety. This strife can be culturally bound as well – cultures in countries like Sweden, Japan, Germany and Denmark are more on the Order side of the scale. Nomadic nations live their lives in between Order and Chaos and that is ok. “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality, which should be lived and experienced” Soren Kierkegaard.

At the far left end of the scale, at the complete Order, things are Static and do not change. But this is unrealistic – life does not work this way. We just said that everything moves and that things change all the time. “It is at the edge of chaos that creativity happens.” The natural status, the optimum one is between Order and Chaos. It is where creativity and self-organisation happen. Balance contains order, traditions, rituals, plus everything else that are the opposite of that.

How does Movement come to play with “the self”, when taking personal decisions?

“There is only one path. If you are afraid, there are a thousand paths”. The right path is only one, once you have decided on it and stopped being afraid, you can see it clearly. If you are afraid there are a thousand paths, but they are not the right one and you will just get more and more confused. If you strive for order, if you are afraid of what people will say, of being poor, of breaking the status quo, you will not get to where you are going.

Self-reflection: The Child

I recently went to a course called The Whole Person (Den Hela Människan) led by Bengt Jacobsson, so I will write a few reflections from that course in a series of posts.

According to some schools of thought we learn our values up until we are 7 years of age. I myself learned to help people, to respect the individual, to be curious, observant, cultivated my love for books and writing. I am still that same person. Shaped a bit differently by my life and experiences. But that little wide-eyed girl is still there. And it is so important to go back to that child often and the values we knew were true back then!

“Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn’t mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn’t matter.”
― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

The Future of IoT – Interview with Martin Willers

What is the future of IoT? Would it help us live a more sustainable life? Would the world become a better place because of IoT? I decided to interview Martin Willers, a designer and co-founder at People People – a Stockholm based design studio. Martin invites me to meet him at the company’s office on the South side of Stockholm. We sit in a space with a very industrial whitewashed brick design, mirrors and rows of books. He is wearing a beret hat and presents himself in a very matter-of-fact way.

E: Hallo Martin! How did you first become interested in IoT in the first place?

M: For me personally it probably started when I was still at school eight years ago. I used the GPS chip to make a collar for dogs, so that you can always know where your pet is. My product won a business award at the time. I am interested in technology not so much as a commodity but more as a brushstroke so I can help create valuable things for users. I am more interested in technology as enabling solutions.

E: How do you think IoT will help businesses to be more sustainable and make the world a better place?

M: If we take this Finnish company, for example, that makes trash bins with sensors, which tell the truck drivers when the bin is full. This means less fuel is used for the truck going to empty the bin, as well as saving time and resources. The truck is doing a round only when it needs to rather than emptying half-empty trash bins.

However, I believe that sustainability is more interesting when it affects people’s lives directly. Detecting disease – cancer, for example. I have had family members who have passed away because of cancer so I am very passionate about it. The new technology forces non-innovative players to start thinking about it. For example, if there were a cheap cancer sensor, everyone would want the hospitals to get that. But may be the hospitals are not technologically savvy enough to adopt IoT. They have to learn technology; there is no other way. IoT is driving down sensor costs, so two people for example, who have an idea, can design a prototype, do crowdfunding to collect money, build it, do testing in hospitals. All these things are possible now because the cost of the hardware has gone down. You see verticals such as Health, Imaging, and more structural things happening in society because of IoT. But the most important thing is that IoT should be used for something that people can relate to, such as cancer or the ability to check if your infant is breathing for example.

E: That sounds great Martin but let us focus back on the companies.

M: OK, we helped design Watty for example, a sensor that collects and analyses your energy usage, and presents you with what happens in your home – both in real time and over time. This way you will be able to understand and adapt accordingly. It can be things in the moment like “oops the stove is still on at home”. But in the long run, by highlighting wasteful behaviors Watty will also help reduce your energy bill by around 30%. So that kind of innovation investment will help companies as well reduce their energy bill and become more sustainable.

Another illustration is tech companies. Apple now is hiring many car people because they can measure when traffic goes up on the phone, detect congestions, and they earn money based on that content. Tesla, an electric carmaker is dependent a lot on battery technology and solar energy. As the price of both is going down, there is a convergence where the electric car has a business value for many. And now, as they make their car self-driving, all the sensors already exist in the car and you send signals to it over the Internet to steer it. Google is also building a self-driving car that is coming out in 2017. Uber makes the drivers part of the solution – they are a car company without owning any cars. But they say that as soon as they can implement driverless cars, they will do that, since it is the driver who is driving the cost up. So this is more Internet of Cars than Internet of Things. All these players are not car players and they are challenging the typical car players, which are so stuck in their ways. Next year there is going to be four models of self-driving cars. Volvo is releasing self-driving cars in Gothenburg. Their engineers are saying that the self-driving cars are safer than the human driven ones. The difficult part will be giving the control to something that is Internet driven, which is a huge paradigm shift. Having self-driven cars on the road and steering them in the most optimum way will help lower CO2 emissions. They are so much more financially and environmentally sound types of cars. So here you have an example of companies moving towards more environmentally friendly products and helping make the world a better place through the IoT.

E: What is your vision for the future?

M: When I think about the future I think what can be enabled by technology. I do not want to be a visionary I just want to enable solutions. You have to take a lot of things into consideration when you are painting a picture of the future. You have the industry drivers and then there is the people, political and country structures. If we take urbanization for example – we need more places for people to live and more parking spaces. But in the end there is not so much space for more parking lots in cities. So this brings us back to the Internet of Cars solution. Incentives for carbon reduction do exist; the air quality in cities will be positively affected but will that help change the laws to allow self-driving cars? I do not know. The problem is that people need to vote on that decision and there will be friction.

So when talking about a future vision, it seems very irresponsible for me to say that I have a vision on all those three levels. I can have a technology vision, where I design products that people want. I can have a society vision where IoT is enabling things to happen on a political level. I would like to look at the future where you can add solutions rather than problems. I do think that there have never been so many opportunities because technology is so cheap now and a lot of companies are looking at how they can be part of this positive change. Computers will solve problems that you cannot solve in your brain for example. There will be more and more companies that you have not thought of as technology companies utilizing IoT for more meaningful products and services. That will happen for sure in the future.

An Internet of Things Day

Meet Anna, a 40-year-old PR professional woman, married to Erik, and their 3-year-old daughter Emma. They are the kind of family who care about the environment and sustainability, healthy living and the circular economy. They live in a house with a garden in the suburbs of Stockholm. Anna and her husband Erik wake up at 6 am every morning. The temperature has dropped during the night but Eco-bee, the smart Wi-Fi thermostat, has read the temperature this morning and adjusted it to Anna’s preferred level – 19 degrees. Mr.Coffemaker is perfectly timed and starts making the coffee, while the couple shower and get dressed. Both Anna and her husband wear OMsignal t-shirts with sensors measuring their heart rate, breathing and other vitals. The sensors then send the data to their phones and will warn them if any irregular patterns occur. They wake their daughter Emma up, dress her and seat her at the table for breakfast. Emma gets to wear a Flip 2: a wearable phone and locator for kids. She goes to daycare but her parents still want to make sure they can locate her if she wanders off. As they leave the house after breakfast, Erik pulls out the Wink Relay app on his smart phone. The app  makes sure all the lights are off, the alarm and energy saving mode of the house is on, and the garage door is opening. They share their van with another family, thus sharing the cost of fuel and parking plus reducing traffic congestion and CO2 emissions. Blossom – the smart watering controller starts sprinkling the flowers in the garden as they pull out of the driveway. The controller is automated with real-time weather data and lowers their water bill up to 30%.

After dropping her husband and neighbors off, Anna automates the car to find an available parking spot using the wireless sensors embedded in the parking lots. Thus she reduces congestion as people hunting for a parking spot cause 20-30% of the traffic jams. At her work in the PR agency Anna uses Highfive: a videoconferencing device that she attaches to her phone and has already managed to have conversations with New York, Paris and Tokyo from her own work desk. The family is planning a beach vacation and Anna smiles at the lovely possibility of being able to work form her hotel room. She double-checks the location of her daughter and satisfied proceeds with her daily work. She also checks the “Pay as You Save” smart service by Enlighted which places sensors that automate, analyze, control, and report environmental data to drive energy efficiency. Anna is satisfied by the report that the company has managed to lower its energy cost with 50% this year. They also use sensors to tell them when waste bins need to be emptied, printer toners and paper refilled, all signals coming to one smart app.

By the end of the day Anna receives messages from a bracelet connected to all her calendar and social media about the events that evening. She had planned to go to her book club but switches the bracelet off and decides to have a quiet evening at home instead. Collects her husband Erik plus the neighbors in the van, and drives to the daycare following the directions of a smart navigation system helping her avoid traffic stops and long queues. After they have picked their daughter up and arrived home, Anna uses Maid – a smart microwave directed through voice and gesture recognition. Anna reads through Maid’s recipe of healthy stew suggestion, based on the oven calculating the family’s calorie requirements and prepares it. the door bell rings and Erik uses his phone to check who is at the door. It is the delivery man from Ecolådan – delivering their fresh seasonal vegetables. After the dinner is ready, the family takes all the gadgets off, has a lovely dinner together and snuggles in their comfortable pajamas. As they fall asleep the washer drier starts doing the laundry at a time when the electricity cost is the lowest. Another day in the Internet of Things!

Work, life, purpose

I have started working now and I am busy. I like it. I found a sense of purpose again. A sense of purpose, that goes beyond the household duties at home or taking care of my daughter and my husband.

I am busy. I wake up every morning and feel a little bit stressed. I like a little bit of stress – keeps you up on your toes. I went from not having a job to having two jobs – I teach kids part-time (paid) and I do Digital Communications for a company part-time (unpaid). I think money is important but not that important. When I was a salaried employee whatever money I received at the end of the month, I spent. Paid my bills, bought a frock or two or some shoes, went out with friends, paid for a holiday abroad. I am always surprised when people tell me they have saved a lot of money. I admire them, of course, but I do not seem to be able to save that much. I have been able to save some – for a long trip I would like to do for example, but for nothing big such as saving to buy a house.

I have never pursued money as a goal in itself. I believe that the most important things in life are happiness and experience. I have worked many times without getting paid just because I believed the job was interesting and/ or contributes to society. Of course, it is great to be able to pay the bills at the end of each month and not having to worry about it. So may be if we can find a perfect balance between making money and really enjoying the job we do, it will be perfect!

My job with the Digital Communications is with social entrepreneurs and I love the feeling I get working with them! Apart from learning more about the field I get inspired. I just got inspired yesterday learning about SV Africa – a project in Ghana teaching young people how to make solar panels and earn a living. I wanted to help right away, go to the field and meet the participants. I got inspired listening to how different companies incorporate sustainability in their business the day before. I love to get inspired! Every day if possible.
 

Paradise on Earth

 I am jet lagged so up at 3 am. Cocolicooo!

We just got back from Thailand, Koh Lanta Yai to be precise. We stayed at a beautiful hotel – Rawi Warin, with a frangipani garden, lily ponds with fish and our very own water monitor lizard. But the fun part was a tuk-tuk ride down to Klong Nin – a beautiful beach, where everything was happening…..on the beach. Young people lived on the beach in bungalows, rolled out, had breakfast on the beach, suntanning, swimming, eating lunch, more suntanning and swimming, free yoga at sunset, beer at sunset on the beach, and then the chill out continued on the beach, reggae bars, rasta people, cocktail bars, restaurants had cushions, tables and candles out on the sand. Smashing!

My daughter was running on the shore day and evening, happily jumping in the sea with her best dresses on, and then running around naked when they got dirty. Was not even bothered by the mosquitoes too much. She kicked around balls and sand castles, was unafraid and free.

The food was delicious, I could not get enough of prawns, tiger prawns, giant prawns, tuna, red snapper, veggies in oyster or garlic and pepper sauce, curries (I liked massaman curry best), pineapple, mango, papaya, red apple, lots of watermelon juice. The Thai people – smiling and service minded, joking a lot. We talked to other travelers as well, Dana was running and talking to people or wanted to play with them if they were playing something fun. So I chatted with an American girl who has been traveling alone for one month in Vietnam, a black voodoo woman who sprayed Dana’s foot with some liquid when she tripped on the stairs, a Danish couple with a baby girl, which Dana cooed over plenty.

We went snorkeling to Koh Haa and then Koh Mok and the Emerald cave. We saw parrot fish (long nosed one and surf one), angel fish, banner fish, butterfly fish, beaked coral fish, java rabbitfish, golden rabbitfish, moon wrasse, box fish, dragon fish, gobies, surgeon fish, trumpet fish (yellow and brown), trigger fish, porcupine fish, sergeant majors, anemone fish, snapper, eels, blue stars, cuttle fish, seal puffer fish ( the cutest!:), huge mussels with purple flesh, corals, crabs, you name it. Such a rich sea life, and though exhausting to swim around for hours, it was marvellous!

The Emerald cave (Morakot cave) itself was a tunnel of 80 meters, where you swim to get out into a lagoon and see the cliffs towering above you, with a patch of blue sky in a perfect circle – it was like standing at the bottom of a vulcano. Pirates hid their treasures there, swallows are nesting on the cliffs, and are unfortunately being robbed of their nests because of a precious delicacy market. We passed with the boat by a cliff with dog bats asleep in the sunshine, fluttering their bat wings with the wind. Looking at those huge limestone rocky islands, I imagined how thousands of years ago they were coral reefs at the bottom of the Andaman sea.

We are back now, Stockholm is cold and snowy, but not too bad – it is a our home and I love it. Occasionally, in my dreams though, I sit in the sun and watch the palm trees sway by the beach, swim with my goggles on and the waves push at my back gently.

Leave your worries behind

Dark times are coming. Winter descends upon us with grey cloudy days, the trees tremble naked in the cold, the drizzling raindrops land on my face. My daughter has already said good bye to the dead flowers, and now there is not even mushrooms for her to kick around….In times like this you just want to cocoon at home with a nice book, light some candles, take a long warm bath, or just hug that little warm bundle of happiness that is your child, wrap around a blanket and watch some fairy tales.

In times like this there is not much to be done – we just have to go through it.This is when I start to leave my worries behind. Start looking forward to Christmas. Not so much as a time for presents but as a time for family. Baking together, cooking together and just in general being together and talking about sweet little nothings. A nice wrap up of the year. The end of that year. You know it is ending, and it kind of is not a good time for new beginnings. But you are very hopeful for the new year, of course, and what it will bring.

And then I always dream of a sun and beach getaway around this time of year. For me getting on a plane to travel has always been a time to leave my worries behind. As the plane lifts off, you feel lighter. Focus on that new place you are going, or anyways a different place from where you reside. You are excited, exhilarated, and even a jetlag cannot ruin that experience. You will lie on the beach for days and days and let the sun caress your body. Swim with your loved ones and chase Nemo fish in the azure water. Feast on shellfish for dinner, while your eyes feast on happy local colors and the luscious green of the palm trees. And just enjoy that moment. Leave your worries behind…..Steal a coconut from the tree nearby and laugh at the camels pooping on the beach. Shadow your eyes as you look at the white lace architecture of the buildings there. Dream a little. Just leave your worries behind.

 

What is a ball at the castle?

 I grew up with dreamy fairy tales. Like most of you did. Snow white, Cinderella, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid – all the lovely stories with the princes and princesses, true love, balls in the castle. So the notion of balls for me was something abstract, they happened only in fairytales or in ancient times with kings and queens, but not in real life. But all girls dream of going to a ball anyways. I did too.

My first ball was in 2007 in Sweden – my husband graduated from the Executive MBA program at Stockholm School of Economics, and the ball was in the Golden room of the City Hall. Yes, the same City Hall where the Nobel Prize dinner takes place each year. What excitement! I was going to a ball for the first time in my life! Don’t you love these Scandinavian traditions of organizing balls for graduations and the like? I started searching for a dress, and since we did not have too much money at the time, my ball gown budget was limited. No fairy godmother to provide me with a free one there. 🙂 But finally I found a dress, matched it with golden shoes, a sparkly purse and a pashmina scarf. We dined, we danced, someone managed to step on the train of my dress, but hey, it was all lovely!

My second ball was in 2011. At Uppsala castle! We have a good friend, who has a friend singing in a choir, and that choir has a dinner and a ball every year on Valborg at Uppsala castle. However, that ball invitation was preceded by us salivating and looking on the ball preparations the year before. We watched as our friends put their tuxedos and ball gowns on, fixed their coiffure and adorned themselves with jewels. With our longing air trailing behind us we left the ball goers and drudged down to the train station. Our friend must have guessed our desires because the year after we were invited! I was frantically looking for a dress to wear again, even tried my wedding dress, but since I was three months pregnant already, it did not fit me. So it was the ball gown from 2007 again. We checked into Uppsala Grand Hotel and this time it was our turn to get dressed in our lovely attires, fix the coiffure and adorn ourselves with jewels. We walked to the castle (it was bit nippy!), ate a three course meal, watched the bonfire and listened to the spring songs, danced and loved every minute of it! In my excitement I even bought a dress that I was planning to wear on that same ball the year after. But the year after we were not invited. The dress is still hanging unused in my wardrobe, sighing, fluttering with expectation each time I open the door.

This year there is a ball at the US Embassy that I am invited to. I would like to go but I am not sure if I will get to go. Would my husband like to join me, can we find a nanny for that day, if not, would someone else like to join me? I can listen to some Johan Strauss and pretend I am there. After all, what is a ball at the castle?

 

What are dreams made of?

What are dreams made of? We dream about different things. Some dream of having more money, or more freedom, to travel to exotic places or learn some mystical secrets, or to meet that special someone to spend the rest of their life with. Dreams of a nice house with a garden, the patter of children’s feet, or having that great job or better health. Some strive to be the best musician in the world, others – the best finance guy on the block. We are all made of our dreams. We are made of our fears and anxieties too, but it is our dreams that are the driving force.

So does it happen that we stop dreaming and isn’t that the worst thing that can happen to us? If we do not dream about anything, do not have a goal, is that the end of our life? What if you are just content with what you have? Do not ask about the meaning of life, but just enjoy every second and every occasion as they happen. Without questioning, without judging. Are these two connected at all? Or is mindfulness a kind of dreaming as well? Where you dream of achieving inner piece and you are on your way of fulfilling that dream?

In the now, at this very moment I am listening to some jazz – Sara Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Dee Dee Bridgwater. I enjoy every note sung, the slow rising of the voice, the energy of the instruments. They make me dream. But dream back, back to a time when everything was more innocent and less complicated. I have my dreams for the future as well. Of people being nice to each other and helping each other.

What are dreams made of? Our past, our future, and some star dust perhaps.

 

L’Autunno

 A magical painter

goes around

without a coat or

any audible sound

throws paints of red

and brown

and yellow

on the leaves, the grass,

oh yes, the whole meadow

Makes clouds heavy with grey

and swish swish – blows

flowers

in a beautiful disarray

Sprinkles droplets

on webs of spiders

wets the boots

of children pedaling Striders

I know that painter

though beautiful still

he comes quietly

and comes with a chill

thus paving the way

for all to feel

That this bright kingdom of summer

has fallen

and autumn slowly

the radiant sun

has stolen!

And oh what woe awaits us!

A winter – long,

with cold

and snow and ice.

I sigh,

then close my eyes

my body shivers once, twice

But I hope

and long

and wait

for spring

when all the warmth and life

will definitely come with a zing!