Home Is Where The Ship Is

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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Geography of Bliss-cOPENhagen

One can advise comfortably from a safe port. Søren Kierkegaard

The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea....

It's fun to visit the most expensive city in Scandanavia--cOPENhagen, Denmark. Getting hygge (cozy) with the locals...




A Cup of Jonus




Not since the late 1990's, when the dollar took a beating against the Yen, I ordered two Domino's Pizza's and two bottle of Coke in Tokyo for $110 US Dollars, have I experienced "Sticker Shock" $5 Euros for a Coffee (About $8 bucks--It makes SBUXS look like a thrift shop. ( I didn't convert to Danish Kroners) etc...


The Little Mermaid is LITTLE, and ... The city is Bling.

Those who float away their lives on ships are forever journeying,
 and their homes are wherever their travels take them.
Basho


The Geography Of Bliss
Nothing is rotten in Denmark, and  Copenhagen  is perhaps the most beautiful place for Being There. Sorry Disneyworld, but this country is the happiest place on Earth simply because  Danes  have relaxed and lowered their standards .

 Depression is the inability to construct a future. Yet, for Danes, the future is not only already here, it's also evenly distributed. Paid to go to college,  state-covered health insurance, one year of maternity leave and babies so safe that they're left outside alone...Yadi Yadi Yada, folks here  have enough quo in their status and  living is as predictable as an episode of Seinfeld.

Consequently, they're lige nu.” Lige nu is a Danish phrase that means literally “just now”.  They would make good buddhists because they are not on the treadmill of  consumption or chasing the happiness jackpot. They are pragmatic and busy ppl,  tracking  high on the GNH,Gross National Happiness scale.
Reminds me of the Danish philosopher Søren  Kierkegaard, considered to be the founder of existential thought, which is full of honest angst.  For him, money wasn't the root of all evil, boredom was the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself. . Without risk, faith is an impossibility. He actually coined the words "leap of faith".

He used humor as a healthy way of feeling "distance" between himself and his 'problems', a way of standing off and looking at problems with perspective. I have been misquoting him for years, crediting Nietzche with this one instead of him -- to label me is to negate me.  For him, the cure for anything was salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.

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