1. Salaries should value people’s work – meaning what people do and not what they do not do. Politicians are supposed to do their job and be paid for it and not to be paid for not cheating on their states. Teachers are not paid for NOT teaching wrong facts. They are paid to do their job – passing on correct information. I could continue like this with all the occupations. If a builder builds wrong  - s/he gets fired and does not get even higher salary to start building correctly. That would be a kind of blackmailing (“I will do good job only if you pay me more”)

2. If I understand the argument to pay politicians more so they do not tend/need to take money from other sources correctly, then it means to me, that the amount of the money they receive is exactly the amount of money that makes the life good and prevents all the other craving for more. This is actually a message that all the salaries that are under that amount do NOT provide this standard of living – are not sufficient for providing a good life for people which leads to MANY underpaid people.

3. Resistance to corruption is not about the salary. I was in Slovakia for some days recently and I got to hear every single evening in the TV news that someone from “high circles” got corrupted regardless how much money they already have. To get corrupted is about moral and not about the height of the salary. If a person does not have a moral, then none will prevent him/her from getting involved in “private” businesses with the intention for personal profit (More money is always better than less). And if a person has principles that do not support corruption, the salary does not matter. Mostly if the salary covers food and living (which when it comes to the salary of politicians, usually does)

To make things clear, I am not against politicians getting good salaries. In the ideal situation, they carry lots of responsibility and make decisions that carry their country and fellow citizens and for that they deserve life worth living exactly as teachers, doctors, cleaning ladies/gentlemen, builders, architects, bus drivers etc.

First of all: Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity. I love that woman. I like her opinions and I enjoy her narration – the choice of words, her wit and of course – the message. I have heard this TED talk long time ago, but I returned to it several times during 2011 and her words in the last part of the talk guided me several times. If I want to create, whether I feel inspired or not, “it’s just to pop up for my part of the job and the inspiration will come (or not)” It’s in a way a cool thought that makes me independent from inspiration thus I do not end up frustrated that I am not inspired. I had a use of it several times in 2011 when I wanted to go out and photograph or wanted to illustrated something but I actually did not know what. I just knew I like doing it but I did not have anything concrete that drove me. But then I went out/took a pencil and just started shooting/drawing. Usual stuff. Nothing revoutionary. But in the end of the process I was on a completely different level than in the beginning. The “vision” came – just because I had my mind open and alert for creating something new and I was there – ready (having the camera or the pencil) to transform it into something concrete.

The next one that really got under my skin is the one with the title: “Use art to turn the world inside out”. I watched it several times. It inspired me even so long that I wrote a project for Active and we carried out 8 months long campaign driven by the idea from this talk. I was focused a lot on photography during 2011, I was reading about it much more than I used to, I took some courses, I listened to podcasts about it and in this talk I also got to see the beauty of it in practice when it (photography/art) serves a higher purpose.

The next TED talk I saw for the first time somewhen in the end of November. It came to me at the time when I really needed to see it. It partially inspired the content of my workshop I held in Thailand and it made me feel better about the world. I think it brings hope but at the same time it is a bit scary to realize that the human race knows everything to be able to live worthy life, friendly to the planet and to our human fellows BUT we still go for the worse solutions served to us by the industry.

Yet another older TED talk that I stumbled upon again in 2011. It moves me to tears and moves me forward at my work and in my life.

The medium for the journey is the train this time. The wish to spend the Xmas with Dante in Slovakia did not give many other options so we are on the way ready to reach the final destination in 30 hours. The length is not a problem as 30 hours can be filled with really cool stuff I usually don’t have time to do. But SJ keeps it’s standard and tells us somewhere in the middle of the journey Stockholm – Copenhagen that their trains are from this point and on cancelled and that we have exactly 5 minutes to pack everything what we unpacked for 5 hours long train trip and run to another platform just to see the train leaving.

Little bit of adrenaline, plans to complain and claim back money and dignity and we are sitting on a new train little bit behind the original plan but still all good.

…to be continued…

Brian is an underwater photogrpaher. First started taking pictures of the beauty that exists in the oceans. He took celebratory pictures of the esthetics of the nature. Doing that, he naturally came across all the possible environmental problems and started documenting them to raise awareness. I love his work because he manages to show the problem and still helps us to remember the amazing, when still intact, world under the water.

A harp seal

He tells the story about harp seals and the dangers they face. One of them is of course human kind’s direct interference in the blind greed for pelt when only few days old puppies are hunted and killed just because of their soft fur. Harp seal hunt is the biggest mass slaughter of marine mammals on the planet. Even worse as Brian explains is global warming. The new born harp seals can not exist in the water yet cause they can not breath there but many of them end up in the water as the ice that is supposed to hold them breaks up melting. Here on the picture, harp seal mom has to push the little one out of the water back to the ice so it can breath. This one managed. but many don’t.

Helping the pup back to ice/air

And this is something for the sushi eaters. Global fish crisis. 90% of the big fish (tuna among them) has disappeared in the last 50 years. Bluefin tuna is frequently used for sushi. It is an animal that can not be compared to anything similar as there is nothing like that. If it was not fished up at early age, it could live 30 years and grow up to 1 ton weight. It’s growing the whole its life. It can swim across the oceans from equator to poles with no problems because it can generate heat. And this fish is faster than torpedo. It’s a diamond among fish that is to be extinguished pretty soon.

Blue fin tuna fish

Talking about sushi, another favorite one – shrimps. For a handfull of shrimps, 10 kg of other fish are just killed and wasted when they end up in the nets. Which they of course do. The nets (long lines) are huge and grabbing everything that’s in the way.

The cost of a handful of shrimps

Besides that (and this from another source: Naturskyddföreningen), shrimps are often imported from Asia. To keep the “fresh” – eatable, they are injected with antibiothics and dipped in some chemical substances to look good. Besides that, to cultivate shrimps, mangrove trees are often cut out which destroys the natural environment. To see a short movie about in (in swedish), u can click here.

All the pictures in this blog are taken by Brian Skerry. I really recommend to go and see his website. Beautiful pictures with informative description. Enjoy! And love the nature =)

As I can not do much about the pictures that are waiting in my camera for being edited and some technical problems are really in my way, I have some time to summarize my summer. It was amazing and it was rolling. One experience just replaced another and I hardly had time to understand all the beauty, amazement, insights, reminders and love I encountered.

I guess it all started rolling by Human Rigths Generation going to Poland. Human encounters are unpredictable and this one was unpredictably strong for me. To work for a European non-profit organisation means to work with long term goals, often hardly measurable results and tasks that we do not know the exact impact of. That is why coming to Poland and seeing almost everything going according to the plans was incredibly rewarding.

From Poland directly to the IOGT-NTO Congress in Åre – to the place where sun never sets (at least not around the time when we were there). Surrounded by miraculous nature and very inspiring people – what else could one wish?

Åre by night

Coming back from Åre meant to catch up with the emails and work in the office, clean everything and check out for 12 days of holidays. My wonderful parents have come for one month to help me out with Dante so me and Maik could go out and see the world =) Yessss New York was the destination and a separate blog with pictures will come no matter what.

Coming home from the Big Apple, overcome jetlag and yet again catch up with all the work that was put on hold for the 12 days was easier by having my parents around and having possibility to show them a bit of Stockholm. The highlight (besides the warm and stunning swedish summer at the sea) would be watching DN – galan (athletics) live and seeing sport wonders such as Jelena Isinbajeva or Ussain Bolt. Isinbajeva’s warm up kept me staring at her most of the evening. Besides few warm up jumps in the beginning of the competition, all she has done was putting on several layers of clothes and laying on the ground having her face covered for like an hour. Then, when most of the competitors were out of the competitions, she entered with two jumps (one fail and one successful) and went back to her hibernation for yet another 20 minutes. Then she jumped once and won the whole thing =)

Another stop on this ride was our road trip to Örebro to meet two friends who, if it was possible to choose a family, would definitely be part of it =)

And yes..time for Active camp in Latvia and meeting friends from all over the Europe, combining work with volleyball and just chitchatting. This week also brought me a totally new experience as I joined PJ, Sofia, Andrea, Aron and Vidar flying. An amazing amazing amazing feeling. For my part, I was not that excited about flying high or low. I loved the moment when I understood what to do to keep myself in the air. I felt it was all about trust. Trust into the whole system (huge blowing machine) and my body that it knows the best how to hold the balance. Worked pretty well =)

Learning to fly

Flying

While I was in NY and in Latvia, my father managed to walk around Stockholm and discover places I did not have clue about. One of those was the possibility to rent a kayak and go paddling. So we did go. Magic. In the middle of the nature and yet in the centre of the capital. So calm and so much happening around – trains, cars passing, people jogging, motor boats meetings us while we were just paddling and swinging lightly on the waves of the water and of our thoughts. Almost a transcendental experience. That I got the chance to repeat two more times since then (within one week).

Paddling with my father

Paddling accompanied by ducks

..with Maik

And rolling like that I have come to this weekend when I am learning a bit more about photography, especially street photography. So I got to reflect a lot upon what I want to work on this time: motivation or taste or vision or method? And what is actually my motivation to take pictures? Is the the process itself? Or a specific object? Or maybe the final pictures themselves. Or it’s the confirmation I feel when someone likes the pictures I take. There will be a separate blog about that and my reflections too. Tomorrow I go out to the field and shoot…