Kielen omistusoikeus, niin, ja tietenkin väkivaltainen panda

Yksi lempikirjojani kautta aikojen on Lynne Trussin Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Luen sitä kolmatta kertaa. Kirjan nimi viittaa vitsiin, jossa panda menee ravintolaan ja pilkkuvirheen takia päätyy tappamaan tarjoilijan. Truss puhuu englannin välimerkeistä ja erityisesti siitä, miksi ne pilkut joillekin ihmisille nyt vain yksinkertaisesti ovat niin käsittämättömän tärkeitä. (Toisaalta en usko, että kukaan muu jaksaisi koko kirjaa lukeakaan kuin me, joille pilkutus on käsittämättömän tärkeää.)

Uh, sen kansikin
aiheuttaa kylmiä
väreitä.

No, minä rakastan hyvää välimerkkien käyttöä. Trussin mielestä välimerkit ovat huomaavaisuutta lukijaa kohtaan, ja sitähän ne ovat: taitavasti käytetyt välimerkit luovat luennalle huomaamattoman rytmin, ne saavat tekstin soljumaan. Samalla olen kuitenkin hieman kiusaantunut siitä, miksi tässäkin asiassa täytyy olla niin monta sääntöä. Kun alkaa puhua pilkkusäännöistä, mieleen tulee väistämättä sinikantinen Äidinkielen käsikirja, ja kun mieleen tulee sinikantinen Äidinkielen käsikirja, tuntuu heti, ettei kieli olekaan omaa. Se on jonkun muun tekemä kokoelma sääntöjä ja normeja, joita täytyy opetella hieman huonosti tuuletussa luokassa, jossa on vihreät pulpetit ja pölyiset ikkunat.

Mitä tulee kielioppisääntöihin, ryhtymisen rektiovirheet sattuvat olemaan sekä parhaan ystäväni että mieheni lempiärsyte. (Kyse on siis siitä, että kun meille opetetut oikeat muodot ovat "alkaa tehdä", "ruveta tekemään" ja "aloittaa tekeminen", niin jotkut pirulaiset käyttävät näitä toisin, esimerkiksi muodossa "alkaa tekemään". Ja tämähän on siis väärin. Tai niin meille ainakin on opetettu. Tästä lemmikseen ärsyyntyviltä tekee mieli kysyä, kuinka he suhtautuvat nuorten keskuudessa yleistyvään rektiomalliin "pystyy tehdä" esimerkiksi lauseessa: "Mä en pysty juoda enempää.")

Oma lempiärsytteeni ovat relatiivipronominien korrelaatit. Periaatteessa sääntö kuuluu niin, että "joka"-sanaa käytetään viitatessa yksittäiseen substantiiviin ("Söin omenan, joka oli raaka.")  tai substantiivilausekkeeseen("Söin punaisen omenan, joka oli raaka.") ja "mikä"-sanaa, kun viitataan kokonaiseen lauseeseen ("Söin raa'an omenan, mikä oli tyhmää.") Ja kun Lynne Truss hermostuu virheellisestä apostrofien käytöstä, jota ei vain voi olla huomaamatta, en minäkään yksinkertaisesti voi sille mitään, että korvaani sattuu joka kerran, kun joku viittaa "mikä"-sanalla yksittäiseen substantiiviin tai substantiivilausekkeeseen ("Söin omenan, mikä oli raaka.") Ja näin tapahtuu puheessa. Teen niin itsekin, ja se sattuu korvaani myös silloin.

Koska ilmiö on niin yleinen, olisi tietenkin luontevaa ajatella, että meille ala-asteelta yliopistoon asti tankattu sääntö ei ehkä nykysuomessa, ainakaan puhutussa kielessä, pidä paikkaansa, vaan "mikä"-sanalla voi itse asiassa viitata myös yksittäiseen substantiiviin. (Sen sijaan en muista koskaan kuulleeni kenenkään viittaavan "joka"-sanalla kokonaiseen lauseeseen.) Ja koska ehkä kuuluisimmassa suomalaisessa runossa, Eino Leinon Nocturnessa, myös viitataan "mikä"-sanalla yksittäiseen substantiiviin ("siinto vaaran tuulisen, mi nukkuu"), olisi luontevaa ajatella, ettei tuo sääntö ole ollut kovin ehdoton myöskään edeltäneen vuosisadanvaihteen tienoilla.

Miksi meille sitten tankataan, millä pronominilla viitataan minkäkinlaiseen korrelaattiin, jos ei yksi suurimmista runoilijoistammekaan käyttänyt sitä niin kuin meille opetetaan?

Yksi syy varmasti on suomalainen suhde kieleen. Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen alaisuudessa toimii Kielitoimisto, joka "toimii kielenhuoltoviranomaisena eli ohjaa ja kehittää suomen yleiskieltä". Toisin sanoen Suomessa on autoritäärinen instituutio, jolla on oikeus määrittää, millainen kieli on oikein ja millainen väärin – noin niin kuin todella karkeasti ilmaistuna. Esimerkiksi Iso-Britanniassa tai Yhdysvalloissa tällaista auktoriteettia ei ole. Kun Lynne Truss on pandakirjaansa kirjoittaessaan turvautunut useiden eri akateemikkojen ja kielioppimaakareiden oppaisiin välimerkkien käytöstä, Suomessa samat asiat voi kysyä puhelimitse suoraan Kielitoimistosta.

Ensi kuulemalta tuntuu, ettei sillä ole juurikaan väliä. Mitä sitten, kertooko pilkkusäännöistä joku Oxfordin professori vai Kielitoimisto? Siinä on kuitenkin olennainen ero. Maassa, jonka virallista kieltä hallitsee valtion säätämä kieliauktoriteetti, on olemassa tavallisia kielenpuhujia ylempi taho, jolla on oikeus määrittää yleiskielen normit, ja niitä normeja koulujärjestelmä opettaa. Tämä tarkoittaa, että kielenpuhujalla – siis sinulla tai minulla – ei ole lupa määrittää itse, mikä on hyvää kieltä. Asia, joka saattaa omaan kielikorvaan kuulostaa täysin oikealta, onkin itse asiassa "väärin". Toisin sanoen seurauksena on ilmiö nimeltä oikeakielisyys. Siihen taas liittyy kielenhuolto, joka on mielestäni ongelmallinen jo terminäkin. Auto ymmärrettävästi huolletaan, koska on edullista pitää auto mahdollisimman lähellä alkuperäistä kuntoaan, ettei se mene rikki. Kieli ei kuitenkaan voi mennä rikki. Kieli voi ainoastaan muuttua.

Maassa, joissa ei ole Kielitoimistoa vastaavaa auktoriteettia, kieliopinkirjoittajien täytyy määrittää kielen normit sen mukaan, kuinka ihmiset kieltä todella käyttävät. (Sekään ei tietenkään ole ongelmatonta, koska normit luodaan usein tietyn ryhmän käyttämän kielen pohjalta.)

Tämä ero korostui, kun Kotus vuodenvaihteessa muuttui Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskuksesta Kotimaisten kielten keskukseksi. Tutkimus siirrettiin yliopistojen vastuulle, mikä tarkoittaa, ettei yleiskielen normien määrittämisestä vastaava instituutio enää ole yhteydessä kielen muutoksia tutkiviin tahoihin kuin välillisesti.

Olisi hirmuisen mukavaa luottaa auktoriteettien järkevyyteen: siihen, että normit eivät olisi olemassa vain normien takia. Iso osa niistä ei olekaan. Esimerkiksi ylempänä mainitut rektiot ja relatiivien korrelaatit kuitenkin kuuluvat siihen pienempään osaan, jossa normit eivät kuitenkaan vastaa puhuttua kieltä. Kun lapsille täytyy järjestäen opettaa esimerkiksi oikean rektion käyttö – ja lapset ovat oppineet rektioiden summittaisen käytön vanhemmiltaan – on syytä kysyä, eikö suomen kielessä yksinkertaisesti voi, ainakin nykyään, käyttää rektioita vastoin meille opetettuja normeja. Muistan, kuinka juuri näitä samoja rektioita tankattiin meille kolmannella luokalla. Ne piti opetella ulkoa. Ei saa kirjoittaa "alkaa tekemään". Koska se on väärin. Väärin.

Osittain kyse on tietenkin myös kieltä valvovan instituutin hitaasta reagoinnista kielen muutoksiin. Ja toisaalta sen vaikeudesta. Milloin kielessä tapahtunut muutos on niin yleinen, että se voidaan katsoa normien mukaiseksi? Esimerkiksi "ruoka"-sanan genetiivin kirjoitusmuodon "ruuan" hyväksymiseen meni vuosikymmeniä, vaikka on hieman kyseenalaista, milloin ihmiset ovat todella jaksaneet ääntää "ruoan" o-äänteen.

Oikeakielisyyden ihanne ylettyy kaikkialle. Hämeenlinnan seudulla on paikannimiä, jotka loppuvat hämäläisittäin "-taka", esimerkiksi Hauhontaka ja Vuorentaka. Tieuudistusten myötä paikkojen nimiä on kuitenkin yleiskielistetty: Hauhontaakse johtaa Hauhontaustantie ja Vuorentaakse Vuorentaustantie. Ainakin "Hauhontausta" luki myös jonkin aikaa paikannimenä tienviitassa, vaikka se myöhemmin vaihdettiin hämäläiseen muotoonsa.

Henkilökohtaisesti olen kyllästynyt kuulemaan esimerkiksi, ettei jokin sana ole sana. Minä sanoin, sinä ymmärsit. Miten niin se ei ole sana? Siksi, ettei sitä löydy sanakirjasta? Ettei kukaan ole vahvistanut sitä sanaksi? Enkö muka äidinkielisenä puhujana ole riittävä auktoriteetti omalle kielelleni? Kuka minun kieleni omistaa, jos en minä? Suomen kieli on perustaltaan kuvailevasti onomatopoeettinen (eli sanat kuvaavat paitsi ääniä, myös muotoja ja olemuksia), minkä lisäksi uusia sanoja luodaan ja on aina luotu johtamalla. (Turha tulla minulle vänisemään, ettei esimerkiksi "ärsyte" ole sana.)

Toisaalta, kun käytän arkipuheessani esimerkiksi sanaa "ärsyte" tai "lemmikseen", siitä ei suinkaan huomauta Kotus vaan keskustelukumppanini (eikä hänkään onneksi kovin usein). Itse joudun usein nielemään suustani purkautumaisillaan olevan kiihkeän huudon: "JOKA! Ei mikä vaan JOKA!" Aina en onnistu.

Miksi kielen oikominen tuntuu niin tärkeältä, vaikka sitä sinänsä ymmärtää tai ainakin luulee ymmärtävänsä kielen muuttuvan luonteen?

Ensimmäisenä mieleen tulee selkeys. Paitsi että tarkka sanojen käyttö, kekseliäät johtimet ja huomaavaisesti käytetyt välimerkit ovat viehättäviä, ne selkeyttävät viestiä, joka pyritään välittämään. Blogien, tekstiviestien, sähköpostien jne. huono kieli – tai sanotaan vaikka mieluummin huomattavasti yleiskielen normeista poikkeava kieli – ei ärsytä ainoastaan siksi, että se poikkeaa normeista. Se ärsyttää, koska se on epäselvää ja vaikealukuista, ja koska on yhtä epäkohteliasta kirjoittaa niin, että toinen joutuu näkemään vaivaa tekstin lukeakseen, kuin on puhuessa mutista asiansa villapaidan hihaan ja pälyillä samalla kaukaisuuteen. Julkisten tekstien pitäisi olla kirjoitettu selkeällä yleiskielellä jo ihan vain yleisen tasa-arvon takia (eli jotta kaikilla olisi mahdollisuus ymmärtää tekstin sanoma).

Lisäksi, kaunis kieli on kaunista kieltä. Vaikka kielestä ei tee kaunista pysähtyminen nipottamaan yhdestä pilkusta tai merkillisestä sanamuunnoksesta, arvostan sitä, että meille opetetaan koulussa, kuinka kirjoittaa soljuvaa mutta hyvin argumentoitua tekstiä, jossa pilkut ja puolipisteet avustavat lukijaa pysähtymään oikeisiin paikkoihin. Arvostan myös jokaista, joka on sen taidon vaivautunut opettelemaan.

Epäilen silti, että yksi suuri syy arvostaa oikeakielisyyttä on kuitenkin, niin epämieluisaa kuin se onkin itselleen tunnustaa, valta. Vaikka on mukavaa puhua esteettisyydestä ja kohteliaisuudesta, tosiasia on, ettei ilman hyvää yleiskielen hallintaa ole mahdollisuutta valta-asemaan yhteisössään. Sen voi todeta helposti esimerkiksi kuuntelemalla vaalitenttejä ja poliitikkojen puheita. Presidenttiehdokkaat puhuvat haastatteluissa lähes kirjakieltä, ja puhekielenomaisuuksia löytää vain hyvin tarkkaan kuuntelemalla. (Edellisten presidentinvaalien kakkoskierroksen ehdokkaista Niinistö puhuu puhtaampaa kirjakieltä kuin Haavisto. Sen sijaan – ei kovinkaan yllättävästi – Timo Soinin puheessa esiintyy puhekielisyyttä huomattavasti enemmän.)

Kielenhallinta kertoo koulutuksesta ja sitä kautta sivistyksestä. Jokainen vaihtaa tietenkin kielirekisteriä (puhetyyliä ja sanastoa) riippuen siitä, kenen kanssa puhuu, mutta kyse onkin siitä, osaako käyttää oikeaoppista yleiskieltä yhteiskunnallisesti tärkeämmissä tehtävissä. Eikä tämän huomatakseen tarvitse osallistua edes politiikkaan – riittää, kun asioi jossakin valtion virastossa. Oikeakielisyys on tärkeää, koska se pitää yllä tiettyä sivistystasoa. Ja oikeakielisyys on tärkeää, koska sen hallitseminen takaa kuulumisen tiettyyn yhteiskunnalliseen ryhmään.

Oikeakielisyydestä luopuminen ei toki ratkaisisi yhtäkään yhteiskunnallista ongelmaa. Kielellä merkitään kuulumista tiettyyn ryhmään, ja kulttuurissamme satutaan arvostamaan kielirekisteriä, joka kertoo koulutuksesta. Jokainen tietää, että yläasteyhteisön sosiaalinen yläluokka ei käytä kirjakieltä vaan pikemminkin aggressiiveja, hieman kuin monissa paviaaniyhteisöissä. Eikä Soinikaan uskalla poiketa kovin kauas täsmällisestä yleiskielestä (ainakaan vielä).

Tiedättekö mitä? Minusta näin on jokseenkin hyvä. Minusta on mukavaa, että oikeakielinen ryhmä on suhteellisen rauhallisen elämänmenon ryhmä, ja minusta on mukavaa kuulua tuohon ryhmään. Lisäksi minusta on mukavaa, kun teksti soljuu ja solisee. Minusta on mukavaa, kun välimerkit on sijoitettu tekstiin niin taitavasti, että se on melkein kuin musiikkia.

Ja kuitenkaan en voi mitään sille, että suhtaudun hieman epäilevästi auktoriteettiin, jolla on oikeus määrittää kielelle muita kuin luonnollisia normeja. Jos äidinkieliset puhujat käyttävät ryhtymisen rektioita tai relatiivipronomineja miten sattuu, on kielen luonnollinen normi käyttää niitä miten sattuu. Kukaan ei mielestäni voi päättää äidinkielisen puhujan puolesta, millainen kieli on oikeaa.

Ehkä toivoisinkin enemmän erilaisten rekisterien hyväksymistä. Ei ole vain yhtä ainoaa oikeaa kieltä, ja se on asia, joka pitäisi mielestäni opettaa koulussa. Että kieltä saa käyttää niin luovasti kuin haluaa, ja että kielen rajat kulkevat jossain niillä tienoin, jossa ymmärrettävyys alkaa kärsiä (jos sielläkään). Että oikeakielisyys on vain yksi rekisteri toisten joukossa. Että kieli muuttuu, ja jos se ei olisi koskaan muuttunut, kommunikoisimme edelleen kuin paviaanit.

p.s. Vaikka olen tässä kirjoituksessa tuonut ilmi epäilevän suhtautumiseni Kielitoimistoon, tunnustan lukevani aktiivisesti Kotuksen maanmainioita kolumneja muun muassa sanojen etymologioista. Arvostan heidän työtään hyvin paljon, ja minulle tulee Kielikello. Kielentutkimuksen siirtäminen pois Kotuksen vastuulta on mielestäni huolestuttavaa.

Down boy timeless boy

A seven years old boy with a Down syndrome walked to me a few days ago.

I've been working on weekend camps for autistic and disabled children and youth. Last weekend was his first camp, and his first nightstay outside his home, except at his grandparents. Most children on the camps are autistic, and he, too, had autistic features. He was extremely cute with his slanted eyes and wide smile, very brave, and as many Down children, disarmingly charming.

And, again as most Down children, he was slow. And when I say slow, I mean slow. Often he didn't have much clue of what he was doing, but equally often it was clear that he had a goal he was heading to. It's just that getting there took some time. It could take three minutes to climb inside a car; sometimes it took a couple of minutes to ponder upon if one should choose to drink water or juice.

My first reaction in this kind of situations is always to hurry. Oh my, why does it take this long? We have to be going already. But how to tell that to someone in whose life hurry doesn't exist? He does not speak and understands only simple sentences, simple words. He can use symbols passively: in hearing and when shown pictures designed for wordless communication, or manual signs. (Signs used by deaf people have been adopted to people with difficulties in communication so that they are used together with speech. Often Down children who cannot speak learn to actively use a limited number of manual signs or pictures.) Yet, any symbol for 'hurry' is not likely to ever be among the signs he understands. In his world, there will never be hurrying.

I don't claim to understand how his mind works (anymore than the mind of that autistic boy who escapes from his assistant only to run to the toilet to drink liquid soap). But I did have a lot of time to wonder about it when I was waiting for him to finish whatever he was doing.

One feature common with almost all the Down kids I've encountered is that they trust the world around them. They don't seem to doubt at all that their basic needs will be satisfied. Again, they almost never hide their feelings: be they happy or bored or sad, they are sure to express it. And when they are determined to something, they go for it.

Oh, I like these children. They have taught me many important lessons of happiness.

What this very boy taught me was that he's right. Hurrying doesn't exist. Or rather, it exists only in our minds. We are having a walk in a beautiful forest, birds singing, sun shining through leaves (and a possibility to spot a flying squirrel), and I worry that we are left behind the group. We are left behind. But what about it? What if it takes three minutes to climb a car? What if it takes an hour to eat a snack? Where are we going with such a speed?

It feels for me that while technology gets faster, the society—us—has to go faster and faster too. We have to work more and with more speed. We always have to be somewhere on certain time. People get upset when their mails, text messages or calls aren't answered immediately. Healthy food is expensive, and thus we have to work more to afford it. Economic growth has to continue—faster and faster—until it crashes (which is hopefully about to happen soon). Even things connected to slow lifestyle have timetables. The main reason I do not take yoga classes or take part in meditation group sittings, which are both things I would enjoy, is that I always end up rushing and feeling stressed because I'm late. And that's not something I like to feel even when I kind of have to, and certainly not on my free time.

My mind doesn't like speed. Neither does my body. Among all the people I know, these Down kids who don't understand the concept of hurrying are actually in many ways the wisest.

Hereby, I make a solemn promise. If it ever happens that a Down child is born to me, I promise I will try to learn every lesson s/he has to teach me.

My Khmer past meets my inner skeptic (and clubs her straight on the face)

I keep having dreams of Khmer Rouge, running through forests in eastern Cambodia, and Vietnamese guerillas. The sun is hot, the forest is hot, everyone's sweaty. At least I'm sweaty. And scared, like hell. We all carry guns. I don't know the name of my gun; probably I didn't know it then either. I wonder what I knew. Not much, as I wasn't very old. Maybe ten, maybe twelve. A boy, I was.

Dreams come from different plains, and it's often impossible to trace their origin. These dreams, however, the Khmer dreams, were awoken by reading Tiziano Terzani's book A Fortune-teller Told Me. It's an awesome book. The writer is a correspondent for Der Spiegel in Asia, having lived there for decades. Some time at 70's he meets a fortune-teller and is told not to fly on year 1993. He has almost twenty years to ponder if he should take it seriously or not, and on the last moment decides not to fly on that year. He even manages to deal with his employers that he will only write earthbound stories on that year. As an experiment, he goes to a fortune-teller in every city he visits, to hear his fortune told and to ask about the prophecy. It's absolutely intriguing to read how his scepticism slowly vanishes and how, by meeting monks, shamans, fortune-tellers, he finds new perspectives on existence.

Having studied and practiced Buddhist teachings for years, I have myself dwelled in a Zen temple in Japan and in a forest monastery in the south of Thailand, visited numerous temples wherever I've travelled, and practiced Vipassana meditation daily for years. On the path further from the western skepticism, my thoughts have often followed the same ways as Terzani's. And on my way I've encountered all kind of views to Buddhist teachings.

One of them, and in a way a really interesting one, is the attitude one regularly encounters among westerners who practice meditation. (I should say western men, as I've never met a woman who would say such things without hesitation.) It's the so called scientific approach to Buddhism.

The goal of Buddhist practice is to see things as they really are and through this knowledge be liberated of all suffering. Because no faith in any supernatural phenomena is called for, it suits perfectly for a person of "scientific" upbringing who realizes there's something wrong with the world but either doesn't want or isn't able to see through what he's learned to believe. (I use scientific in quotation marks, because often this worldview is quite far of those of the ever-experimenting scientists.) In a way there's nothing wrong with this: after all it's just one approach and not more right or wrong than any other. Problems arise, however, if one is not ready to let his inherited worldview go. And this does happen a lot.

The idea of Buddhism is that you do not have to, or should, believe anything that you do not experience by yourself to be true. In Pali canon three different kinds of wisdom are listed: one learned (sutamayā paññā), one reflected (cintāmayā paññā) and one experienced (bhāvanāmayā paññā). That is, you may hear something that sounds wise; you may ponder upon it and come to a conclusion it is wise; but you should not believe it unless you have in your own body-mind experienced that it is wise and true. Which is exactly what is often missing in Western thought. And not even just missing—totally underrated and looked down upon. (I could give a bunch of examples of this, but just think how little value your own account of your pains and sensations has when visiting a doctor.)

As a consequence, experiences not fitting to the "scientific" idea of what is true are ignored. The idea that our experiences mean nothing if they are not scientifically proved, is so deeply rooted to our understanding of ourselves and the world that we don't believe what we see or feel, if it anyhow strays from what we have been taught. And this inner skeptic with his/her nasty voice keeps telling us that our own, sensation-based experiences of reality simply do not count.

I often try to to hit this inner skeptic on a face with a club. That would serve her right. But at times she still manages to raise her head, informing me that nothing I experience is true unless a scientist proves it. And then I don't believe what is clear and in front of my eyes. And even more often, she tells me not to believe what someone else has experienced. Like I was the only one who can have a direct experience to things as they are!

It also happens that I keep quiet of things I know to be true, because they do not fit to this "scientific" idea of our world and it's frustrating to encounter other people's inner skeptics. And yet, not telling about it doesn't change it that I do remember my life before.

As you may already guess, it was in Cambodia. I was a child and I lost my mother in a bombing. I remember some places—shacks with metal roofs, the color of the ground, leaves on the ground. I remember how my mother was gone and I had to get by all alone; I remember the fear and how I looked for edible rubbish and tried to find a place to stay for a night.

Memories have come in bits. Two and half years ago, my parents sold the house where I grew up, with very little consulting or interest towards my feelings. After the usual sadness and anger, this woke up a terrible fear. I was so terrified I couldn't get anything done and had to take a sick-leave for two whole months. I was trembling. 'A fear of what, this strong?' I would ask myself. And one day, walking home from a nurse I was regularly seeing, I decided to follow the fear—just to feel it, instead of fearing the fear.

And there I was, in the middle of this bombed village, my mother gone, pieces of rooftops everywhere. Later, on a meditation course, I remembered much more.

But I also remember how, in this life, in 2007, I arrived in Phnom Penh airport. I remember the first ride on a motocycle through shacks and shelters homeless people had built for them on suburbs, and how I felt: I had come home. Yet I don't remember anyone else having this feeling on arrival: they were simply paralyzed of what they saw. (They all said the same thing, 'These people are, just, so, rootless.')

And now these dreams have come. While they are very vivid and I can sense and smell the jungle, see the sweat on the necks of guerillas, hear the sound of the faint wind on leaves of the trees, and the sun is bright, bright, bright—I still can't tell the plot of what is happening. I wake up in a hot jungle, slowly realizing that it is another life in a suburb of Helsinki and the room gradually takes shape around me. I get up and sit on a chair, waiting for the dream to disappear as they tend to do. But when I go back to sleep, it continues from where it was left.

I can even point the part of my body where these memories are stored. My Khmer past. I almost wish my inner skeptic would wake up and rationalize these dreams away. And she does try. But she can only give me weak arguments I know not to be true.

This leaves one question I'm not ready to answer yet. When I died—I was still a child then—I was born again in a wealthy country into a loving family with all the possibilities to do good. And not only that. I was lucky enough to be led back to the meditation technique that helps me to see things clearer. At times the true happiness beyond all the fear shows me signs of how happy one could be. Truly happy.

I am this lucky.

So, the question is: what can I do for those who stayed? Who didn't die fearing, but who had to continue living in fear. What?

Unseasonally Easter

Easter is almost a month in the past and for reasons unclear to me, my spouse is still obsessed with Easter eggs. Or, actually, with the story told to children about who lays the eggs—the famous Easter bunny versus Easter rooster controversy. (Apparently some people have not heard of the rooster, ever, and obviously this won't do.)

My spouse does indeed live with a walking encyclopedia with a sense of humor of an Asperger when it comes to facts. I suspect it's sometimes tiresome. Then at times it's useful. So just imagine his shock when he found out that the encyclopedia contains no information about Easter bunnies and rabbits at all. (And very little interest towards the subject, plus some faint memory that there was something about either animal in The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Probably the rooster. Or, wait, maybe the rabbit?)

It's a good thing I have a lot of free time.

I started my quest suspecting that the bunny‒rooster controversy may have something to do with the east‒west division. Finland is located between eastern and western traditions, which bunch of our own customs added to it, and that's why we are popular among religious and folk scientists. That is also why traditions, as well as dialects, are often divided into eastern and western. My family is from Carelia—that is, east—and I remember being told since child that it is the rooster who lays the eggs. If my theory was correct, it would leave bunnies for the west.

First it seemed that this may actually be the case. The bunny tradition has a middle European origin: an Easter Hare was first mentioned in 1682 referring to an Alsace tradition. Rabbits and hares—like eggs—used to be symbols of fertility, for reasons quite obvious (although I certainly didn't know before that female rabbits can concieve again when still pregnant with the previous litter). It was also thought that hares are hermaphrodites and can thus reproduce without losing their virginity, which led to an association with Virgin Mary. The European hare later changed into a bunny in America.

It seems, however, that Easter rooster is a Scandinavian tradition. Here it claims that it is the rooster (påsktuppen) who lays the eggs, except that eggs laid by him are of cardboard and filled with candy. There are also blogs with Swedes horrified with the idea of a bunny. In Swedish Christian tradition the rooster is considered a symbol of vigilance, and in these beautiful illustrations the rooster claims that the hen has betrayed him, making him thus Jesus and the hen Judas. And while wikipedia keeps quiet about the rooster, googling in Finnish gives a lot of hits.

That about my theory. It seems that egg-laying bunnies dwell in America; hares in Europe; roosters in Scandinavia. But what about Russia, where many eastern Finnish traditions come from? My Russian informant tells me that a Russian saying goes,

"Every child knows that a hen lays eggs."

But why the abundance of eggs? And why chicks? The answer is simple. Because eggs were considered dairy, it was forbidden to eat them during the lent. If they were not let to hatch, they had to be hard-boiled in order to store them until the Easter feast, and then they had to be eaten quite quickly. Naturally it was also a good time to let eggs hatch—that's why the chicks.

Obviously a lot of symbolism is involved. The hard shell symbolizes the tomb of Christ and cracking the shell his resurrection from death. Painting eggs red symbolizes the blood Christ shed when crusified. In traditions even older, Zoroastriand painted eggs for their spring celebration, and in Fenno-Ugric mythology the world is created of a fallen egg.

Apparently people have also been toying with eggs, tapping, dumping, jarping, dancing and rolling them down the hills. Incidentally, the highest peak of otherwise very flat Estonia is called Suur Munamägi (Great Egg Hill, 318 m), and when residing in Southern Estonia I was told it was named so because people used to go there on Easter to roll down eggs.

And still one final piece of information: Easter is named after an old Germanic goddess Ēostre. The month named after her was equivalent to our April and a feast was held on her honor to celebrate spring.

Ho Chi Minh! No, wait, hoatzin

There's a bird who lives in South America, mainly in Amazonas jungle, that is called hoatzin. Not Ho Chi Minh, as I tend to remember. It is different than any other bird in the world and similar to the fossil bird Archaeopteryx. Its chicks have dinosaurus-like claws on two of their wing digits, the thumb and the first finger. The chicks can use them to climb on trees to escape predators. (Hoatzins make their nests of sticks hanging over water when forests are flooding.) But if a predator still finds them, they fall to the water, escape by swimming under the surface and use their claws to climb back to their nests. Later, when they learn to fly, the claws atrophy. Hoatzin has a special digestive system so that it can use all the leaves it eats, fermenting them into cellulose. And because of that system it smells like manure, which is also the reason its older English name is stinkbird.

I am somehow deeply impressed by hoatzins.

The sweet autistic freedom

The first time I encountered autists must have been in Cambodia.

I was volunteering in an orphanage in Phnom Penh for four months on spring 2007. I've never had much words to descibe the experience: it is like no language was made to tell about things I saw and felt and touched. Most of the kids in the orphanage were disabled or autistic, which of course was the reason they were abandoned on the first place. Caregivers worked 48 hours shifts with minimum wage and had so many kids on their responsibility that they could only take care everyone was fed and dry. Thus kids, who in west would have learned to walk and maybe even talk, were lying on mattresses on the floor day after day until their joints dislocated and the skin on their back started bleeding for rubbing against the mattress.

The first day—or probably the first week—I spent mostly crying. How can people live in such circumstances? How will their life be when they grow up? After a week I, like I guess most of the volunteers, realized that my crying helps nothing. Acting does.

And so I stopped crying. I was trained for a week by the local physiotherapists, and after that started to work with four children individually. One day one of them—a six years old autistic boy with bloody scars on his hand he had bitten in frustration—learnt to walk and started to explore the world. His wavering walk, and his smile, are imprinted in my memory. I did make a change in someone's life.

Some years later I started working as an assistant at a special needs school in Helsinki. I had seen much worse, of course—children who in Cambodia would have been lying on mattresses hitting their head on the floor were in a very different condition in Finland. First of all, they were not abandoned by their parents (and my greatest respect in the world goes undoubtly exactly to their parents). Second, they had been given all the possible help and assistance. They were not (and are not and will never be) like kids at regular schools, but they had had the possibility to grow and develop as themselves, as they are.

Yet my first reaction was emotional. I was standing on the school yard looking at the kids doing the weirdest things, pitying them for not being able to... not being able to... And then, I couldn't quite finish my sentence.

Indeed they do not live a life we easily consider a good life. Indeed they will not achieve certain milestones, learn to read, get friends, fall in love, get a job they like... The list would be endless. But what really stroke me was the realization of the stressless life they lead. While they do not achieve what we often find important, they do not actually care—and, what is even more important, they are not expected to care or to do any of those things.

It's all about expectations. I certainly feel distressed of everything I feel I should accomplish, should achieve, should want to have in life. While it's easy to say that you do not want something that is generally thought desirable—let us say children as it's an easy example—and while it's of course your own choice and (in our society) no-one can actually make you have children against your will, socially it is much more complicated. People who choose not to have children are constantly in a situation where they have to explain their decision, while people who have willingly followed a norm because it suits them, are often socially embraced. The same goes of course with anything slightly out of norm, like having your children too young, not wanting a career, wanting a career instead of a family, wanting a different kind of career, wanting unorthodox relationships, not wanting to be in a relationship... I'm sure everyone could give an example from their own life.

And while I do respect our educational system in many ways, one has to admit that it is full of expectations. There are syllabuses, schedules and norms. And there should be some: it's not like we should all kick others when we don't get what we want or pee in our pants for the joy of it. I just sometimes wonder doesn't our school system raise one mostly to fulfil expectations, and doesn't it encourage us a bit too much to take certain norms given. Why should everyone develop the same speed and be compared to and evaluated against the average speed? Why should we even learn all the same things even as children?

But the thing is that once you've been classified as not valid for this system—that is, invalid—you are free to learn and experience the world on your own speed. In great part autists are liberated from expectations, because it's almost impossible to bend them to do something they really do not want to do. And while ordinary children—or adults—can be persuaded by appealing to some social norms or relations (like not wanting anyone to be angry at you), autists simply just do not care.

As a consequence, my pity suddenly turned from them to myself and everyone else who is not a low-functioning autist. Ah, I thought. What a freedom!

Obviously, the solution wouldn't still be that we would all start behaving like LFA children. Nor would I change my current life to anyone else's. But being sensitive to all kind of expectations, I do wonder if there exists some kind of a middle ground, where we could enjoy all the abilities we have, grow and develop on our own speed without classifications to valids and invalids, learn what we are good at and interested in—and have a minimum pressure in what comes to accomplishing things and following certain social norms. That we would really have a social freedom to choose what we want in life.

I know some people can do that easily, but I also know that I'm not the only one who does not.

Stupid Western medicine

I'm getting extremely tired talking to doctors. Extremely. Tired. Probably I should quit the phase one of my doctor round (the Western medicine doctor) and just go directly to following phases (Chinese doctor, herbal books, hearsays). Lately I've benefited mostly of Chinese medicine and hearsays. I get needles of course, and follow a diet. My kidney yang is much better, as it wasn't fortunately the base of the problem; the bottommost problem seems to be spleen yang deficiency. That can be caused by overthinking and too much emotional stress. I can't help thinking: oh really? Like writing a master's thesis and then applying to a PhD program? And at the same time awaking some old panic syndrom sankharas on a vipassana course?

Well, the doctors at the public health care still think I'm depressed, and after realizing I should have never been prescribed Citalopram in the first place, they are toying with what to make me take next. It's getting wilder every appointment. And what makes it more interesting is that I'm not depressed. I'm fatigued  ̶  and not even so much that anymore. Before the Citalopram experiment there was nothing wrong with my general mood, and now that the rest of that crap has left my body, I'm fine again. Have a guess if I will take another pill.

One of the most benefical hearsays I've been listening to is the claim that I'm overhydrated and should drink less and better fluids. Again, I need to eat a heavy breakfast  ̶  just a few mornings of porridge on a road make me shiver unexplainably through the day. Organic eggs fried in butter, hot cocoa, a huge (although sugarfree) apple muffin and chunks of cantaloupe keep me energetic and warm. If I want to lose weight, I can always eat less calories later in the day, but morning is just not the time.

And then the latest hearsay: raw cocoa beans contain stuff that increases the amount of serotonine and dopamine in your brain. I've not bothered to research this by myself yet, but I did make myself a raw cocoa drink in the morning, mixing three teaspoons of raw cocoa powder, cardamon, clove, hot water and oat milk. It tasted and felt awesome.

Kidney yang deficiency, and yes, a list

Last two and half years I've been ill with this illness at one point and that illness another. And, as I am no fan of Western medicine, I usually consult first a Western doctor, then a Chinese doctor, then my herbal books (my guru is Matthew Wood with his amazing The Earthwise Herbal) and probably listen to anyone who has anything to say on the subject, then making my own conclusions.

I admit, it'd be easier to just trust the first doctor. But they don't seem very trustworthy, ignoring symptoms I find relevant and telling I have several unrelated diseases that have a different cause. Nay, I believe we are entities, and that it's not just the things we can see with a microscope, but that there are also things we can't see.

Currently, I've been out of shape for a month or two. Or not so much out of shape than just fatigued. I have never before realized how life energy does actually well up from the lower back  ̶  until now that it doesn't. It feels like my lower back was empty, and gray in a way. No energy. And as much as I'd like to get on with whatever I was doing, I constantly need to lie down (and thank the fabulous Finnish library system for the pile of great books next to my futon).

After consulting unofficial sources I suspected it to be because of a kidney yang deficiency, and my Chinese doctor confirmed. Treatment is simple. I get needles  ̶  acupuncture, that is  ̶  once in two weeks; I eat foods that warm kidney yang; I take it easy, keep myself warm and well-rested and do long walks. I take ginseng and weird Chinese herbal balls that are small and black and that you have to take twenty at the time. I make myself to go swimming at least once a week, and take care that I swim slowly and not too long (and that there is a either a bubble bath or an eucalyptus-scented steam sauna in the swimming hall I go to). I do not overhydrate, which I used to do, and which was probably one of the original causes for the problem. I drink less and when I drink I try to drink juice (blackcurrant and lingonberry being my favourites), check regularly that my fingers are warm and have decreased my caffeine intake (I'm a sucker for green tea). I have also started to feel suspicious about juices that are sweetened with fructose - they do not feel quite right in my body. I meet friends and let them keep me cheered up. And the final treatment: I crochet a lot. Calm things should be good for your kidneys.

But when I went to see a Western doctor  ̶  and a good one she is even though working on a public clinic  ̶  I was diagnosed a depression. A depression? When there's nothing wrong with my mood? But she explained to me that depression manifests itself in many ways, and she thought some mild antidepressants would do me good. So, I got a prescription for Citalopram.

Well, should I take the medicine even though I don't feel myself a least bit depressed? She was so convincing that I decided to take them. How I see it, if they help me to get perkier, I will have more energy to exercise and eat well, and that will eventually help for the cause of the whole unbalance, restoring my kidney yang.

Anyway, I feel the biggest change being the change in morning routines. Or rather, that there are routines. Before, after opening my eyes and meditating an hour on my bed, I used to jump up and start hustling up every little thing I saw that needed taking care of, usually in no logical order and starting several things before finishing any. I would eat when I had time. Now, right after meditation, I have to eat. And eat a lot, at least compared to what I used to eat before. And I am absolutely not to switch on my computer before I eat, or it destroys the good rhythm of the morning.

So, in the honor of my friend Heli, the Mistress of List Making, I shall make two lists.

Good Things to Eat in the Morning

 - two organic eggs fried with butter, sea salt
 - several chunks of homebaked focaccia flavoured with rosemary
 - half a cantaloupe
 - an orange
 - a glass of fruit juice, preferably homemade
 - a mugful of green tea mixed with uplifting and warming herbs like peppermint and cardamon


Good Books to Read When Ill

 - almost anything by Jane Austen
 - J.D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye
 - Ranya ElRamly: Auringon asema
 - Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran
 - Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake
 - Vikram Seth: A Suitable Young Man
 - Jun'ichiro Tanizaki: Makioka Sisters