“Between the Moment and the Eternity.”

Frontpage photo by Viet Ha Tran.

– Life’s infinite shortness, – and length.

Waves crashing against the shore as sea water spurts, reminds us of the moment and the eternity. If we lose touch with the moment, duration disappears. But without contact with the lasting and eternal, we surrender ourselves to the tyranny of the moment!

– From light years to milliseconds.

In a universal perspective, your and my life lasts only a fraction of a millisecond. Nevertheless, as young people we can feel that this moment of our life is almost infinite, with a long list of days, months and years at our disposal. Between the extremes of these experiences of time, however, most of us, if we are not seriously ill, handicapped, war-torn, or a victim of deep poverty, probably feel that life is relatively long. Some very old people may even feel so-called “full of days”, and thus more easily accept the end.

– What do we really spend our lives on?

My question here is what do we use these allotted days in our lives for? It is taken for granted that we need to survive, learn the culture we grow up in, go to school where it is possible, make friends, sweethearts, and most likely multiply. In any case, most of us have to work to provide food, shelter and security for our loved ones.

Beyond the given framework of assumptions and expectations that family and culture offer us, do we have any opportunity to contribute something that does not just copy ourselves from one day to the next, until death stops the process?


Is there any possibility for us to reflect freely on the state of matter, and eventually manage to break unfortunate patterns of habit?

Make a transgression of what in today’s reality has become a Western and parts of Asia’s “habit monster”, which brings us as a species, ever closer to the abyss.

The most intelligent, but also the most stupid species in the animal kingdom.

Life on earth is threatened. The planet that gave life to our ancient mother in a valley between present-day Kenya and Ethiopia, about 3.2 million years ago, suffers heavily from the modern human lifestyle and way of being. We are the first species on earth to threaten the diversity of species that it has taken the universe 13.8 billion years to develop. We are the only species now that can save the planet by changing ourselves. Because each of us has about 85 billion brain cells we can feel, think and act with.

Psychological reflections on the self in our time.

Psychological Universe with its “Psychological reflections around the self in our time”, thus raises the very basic question of whether it is possible to get a new start in life! A change of course for the self, which makes a difference for more than ourselves, even though the great catastrophy has not yet hit us.

“What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.” – Adolf Hitler

The question arises as to whether such a new start can be realized through simply stopping in the middle of all our ongoing activities, and in the myriad of information and offers. Simply stop and start wondering. Start reflecting on all of this, and not least where we really are. In particular, we should ask ourselves what consequences what we do has for others and life on earth.

“B O R I N G” will probably many younger adults say, about such a project. Because they have more than enough to pass the admission requirement, get a good exam, keep their sweetheart, have fun with friends, get a good enough job, trim the six-pack or female butt, get a place to live, take care of small children, combine work and family, keep updated on Insta, Facebook, twitter, and Youtube, etc etc ..

Structural frameworks that capture us, but are called more freedom.

As a society, we have built structures, in the form of cities, laws, rules, economic systems and military defense mechanisms. As human beings, we have to submit to a lot of this in order to belong to society.

Freedom for whom?

The laws, rules and schemes usually both protect and limit our opportunities for expansion and limitless development. In the last thirty years, however, a new type of deregulation of stately rule, has appeared. This has led to a new organization of our worldwide economic system., – the so called neo-liberal and global monetary policy. This worldwide system has unfortunately got in the way of real democracy.

In many ways we are on our way from democracy to what I call finansocracy, where the economic elite, with its monetary power, can buy influence over politics all over the globe. Unfortunately, the psychological effect of this in the population is both powerlessness, laissez faire, and to some extent contempt for politics. Then there is a short way to having a distrust in that one’s own vote in general elections will count at all.

– Getting distracted

The entertainment industry with digital media and time-consuming program concepts gives us an escape from this despair. But this is also the purpose of the money makers. If they can fill the people with substitutes for general community involvement, then it gives them free access to their sole project: To collect the results of the creation of monetary values, in a few hands, while at the same time dripping a little on the middle class.

– Don’t give up! VOTE, when elections!

For the above reason the opportunities are smaller for you and me to make big changes alone that mean something in the long run. But never forget to vote and organize yourself in unions, when possible! Eventually your vote will count! And the Unions ,they will fight for your rights on the job market! Both against unfair sacking, and too low wages! (See: Do you have any influence on your life?)

As we know, we humans are equipped with an unparalleled brain capacity in the universe. We are also endowed with the ability to empathize, if we are met with empathy and compassion from early childhood . If the faults we make are understood in context and corrected without depreciating us, and our achievements get more attention than our blunders. Above all that we experience true unconditional love from our caretakers. (Phd clinical psychologist Mary Trump’s book about her father and uncle Donald’s upbringing is an eclatant example of quite the opposite) (M.Trump 2020) (For a father’s impact om his son’s life check: “My father, my father, why has thou forsaken me?” Dad’s importance in his son’s life.)

So under the above Worldwide conditions to make a difference, we may have to invest locally in the first place. Stop, and think about what is missing around us, and what exactly you and I can line up with locally.

Meaning something to more than ourselves gives life a meaning.

“They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.”

― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

This Samuel Beckett’s perspective on life is stark. Nevertheless, we can say that the time while we fall through the air and into the grave, can both seem like a moment, and like a lasting torment, and fortunately also something in between! The time calculations of physics and our experience of time, so-called anthropological time, are very different.

What we do know, however, is that the quality of the time we live is more important than the quantity. And if you and I want to increase the quality of our lives, even under the yoke of global capitalism, we must give life a meaning. A good form of meaning-making is to do something that changes our lives for the better. The best form of meaning-making is to do something that improves the lives of others.

The Norwegian poet Arnulf Øverland put it this way:

“A HOUSEBOARD” (1929)

There is a happiness in life that is not turned to lead: (get tired of) That you please another, that is the only joy.

There is a sorrow in the world, which no tears can ease: That it was too late when you realized this.

No one can stand by a grave and complain the rest of the time. The day has many hours the year has many days.

When does it dawn on us – when?