Love, Relationships and Selfdoubt

Watching a television show where some more or less famous Swedish people dicuss together. One of them is Andreas Lundstedt who is openly gay and hiv-positive. He is a handsome man and that doesn't change because he has a virus coarsing through his veins.

It can be hard to find love and sustain a relationship, and I suppose it is harder still when you have a disease no matter if it is visible or not. One of the worst diseases is not fatal nor contagious. It is the disease of the mind, that we are not worthy of love. That we, no matter how symmetrical our faces are, feel ugly and don't believe that we could conjur up the tiniest of tenderness and love in another human being.

It actually needs to start with ourselves. No matter how conceited it may sound we need to love ourselves in order to be able to love another. When you have stared death in the face and survived to tell the tale you embrace yourself with all the good and all the bad. If you couldn't before you now like the person you are and can freely give love to someone else ...

... no matter if they have the ability to love you back or not ...

//P.

Needing and Wanting

I read an article about Nathalie Schuterman. It got me thinking and reminded me about something that I had been planning to write. There is a difference between needing and wanting. Nathalie runs a shop in Stockholm with designer clothes and she has a twelve year old daughter who has a successful fashion blog. They caused major controversy last year after a TV-interview where it came to light that Natalie had purchased a £1000 Balenciaga bag for her daughter. There is a difference between needing and wanting. In today's article Nathalie's explanation was that she bought an expensive bag for her daughter because she has a designer shop just as well as a banker would open a bank account for their child. Pardon me, Natalie, but your intelligence is showing. Open a bank account is something that most people do for their children no matter of their occupation. Buying Balenciaga bags is for a select few. The opinions about this are many and varied but also an effect of the society we humans have created. There is a difference between needing and wanting. In actual fact we don't need so many things. Food, a roof over our heads, a few items of clothing and some other necessities. We don't need to buy new furniture every second year and we don't need tons of clothes, but we want to. If we are poor we want to have a better lifestyle. If we are rich, we for some reason want to be richer. Some would say that it is evolution and progress but I think that our planet would have thanked us if we would have been a tad less greedy. There is a difference between needing and wanting. If you are fighting terminal cancer, have HIV, are crippled after an accident or are fighting panic attacks money can offer you better options of medical treatments but little less. When you are well and healthy you want and need so many things. When you are sick you only want and need one thing, to get rid of the disease. If you are feeling like shit you will not feel less like shit just because you are wrapped in Gucci and Versace from head to toe. There is a difference between needing and wanting. What we choose to prioritize is due to our own personal genetic make-up, if we have been born with a silver spoon in our mouths or not and what our goals in life are to just mention a few. There is a difference between needing and wanting. Nathalie Schuterman was in the article asked how she would handle poverty. She answered, no problem and that she would adapt. Personally I don't lead a life of luxury but I've never been poor. I credit myself with the ability to "walk in another man's shoes" but I don't think I could imagine total poverty or adapt to it. To say that you could adapt to poverty when you are rich shows a lack of awareness. There is difference between needing and wanting but a £1000 Balenciaga bag for a twelve year old is just stupidity. //P.