2 Abstract in english

How to sum this up in just a few paragraphs? What is this project all about? Well, I’ll do my best to

describe it briefly and you can judge for yourself. The title ’Farligt Land’ means ‘Dangerous Land’,

it derives from an ancient chartographic term, ‘Terra Pericolosa’ which in early map making was

used to denote uncharted land, the regions that was not explored and therefore considered to be

dangerous for travellers.

In this project, I organize a one man expedition to such places. Not to the already discovered

lanscapes of the earth but to the still relatively unexplored realms of human consciousness, and

more specifically the worldview. At the begining of this journey, my knowledge about the

worldview was minimal, I could hardly narrow the concept down to a short definition and definitely

not put any part of my own worldview into words.

The starting point could be said to be the descovery of a short film clip on youtube, showing a

cowardly attack on a group of irish travellers by some local farmers in a small village near where I

live. From that point I soon took off and made it into the psychological, philosophical and political

layers of human existance. I have kept the first person perspective throughout the expedition, firmly

convinced in the importance of ‘the felt prescence of direct experience’, but I am also continously

adding historical contextualization and actual scenes that in some way or another feel relevant.

The book is 292 pages long and I am having a hard time trying to boil it down to some kind of

essence. Perhaps one could say that the book deals with ‘the worldview’ in many different

perspectives? Some of the core concepts is ‘metacognition’ (thinking about thinking or beeing

conscious about consciousness), ’The Thomas theorem’ (”If you define a situation as real, it become

real in it’s consequences”) and ‘the cartographic reason’ (treating the immaterial as if it was

material, the abstract as if it was concrete, in order to be able to examine it and talk about it).

I am convinced that the inner world of feelings, thoughts and beliefs is just as big and nuanced as

the outer world of oceans, jungles, mountains ans cities. To navigate thru this wide range of

variations in the inner landscapes we use the very same technique as we do when we navigate in the

outer world; the map (worldview). Therefore, the worldview is of great importance to our

personality and our life experience even though it is a scaled down representation, a minimal model

of reality, rather than a full scale copy of it. This is highly problematic and might be part of an

answer to the question of what makes people so ’obedient and predictable’.

If we in daily life are using this model in our relations and in our orientation thru life without any

critical reflection, then we must be vulnerable to many misunderstandings? If the worldview really

is at the core of our conscious and personality as well as of how we experience life, then how come

we know so little about its structure, function and whereabouts?

My reference library for this project is well over 40 books on psychology, geography, sociology,

philosophy and critical theory. I also had to meet thinkers that had already thought about these

questions for a long time. First up was Gunnar Olsson, professor emeritus in economic geography

in Uppsala University, then I met up with Artur Nilsson who is doing research on the worldview at

the psychology department in Lund University. Later on I had a long conversation with philosopher

and writer Ann Lagerström and with american philosopher Charles Eisenstein. Except for these

four, I also spoked to other persons who in some way where involved in these fields of interest.

Again, it’s really hard to decide what to include in this tiny abstract, shitloads of angles and

perspectives and layers and depths that will be left out even though they are relevant. I have worked

a lot with creating a critique of the cartographic reason, ’the borders of mind’ and how theese work.

As I use a personal mode of working and writing with big existential and political questions, I am

not excluding myself from what is beeing criticised. I turn against structures, but myself as a person

is by no means separated from where my criticism is aiming. Therefore, I spent quite a lot of time

and energy trying to fight my own inner ‘border police’ (self control) using defferent methods.

One of the most important personal goals was to learn how to cry, which I have’nt done since I was

a kid. I tried alcohol (as a solvant known for dissolving ones inner borders temporarily) in

combination to the saddest movie I know, but it didn’t work. After trying other ways of reaching a

point where I could ‘let go’ of my self control without result, I got into therapy. It took me six

month of therapy, loads of inner travelling and experiments and also the unexpected death of a

friend and her little unborn child, but eventually, I cried. Turns out that the ‘letting go’ part was

impossible as long as I was forcing myself to let go. I had to ’let go of letting go’ and really give up

trying, before it could happen. Therefore, the term ‘embracing uncertainty’ is one of the main

theories I examine and develope thruout my master project and thesis.

I wont even start to give account here for all my findings during this trip, it’s just too much, but I

can give you some of the quotes that I have used as guides during my expedition. Some of theese

are:

”By what means are you and I made so obedient and so predictable? How are they constructed, the

invisible maps and internalized compasses that let us know both where we are and where we are

headed, not in the visible and material landscapes consisting of earth and air, fire and water, but in

the invisible universe, which is one with the socially taken for granted?”

Gunnar Olsson, professor emeritus in geography at Uppsala university.

”It's important to have a map of one's psyche. To understand where you come from and where you

are going. I want to be in control and know what my subconscious is planning. It is about freeing

oneself from the chains of one's own limitations.”

Shakira

”The image of the world around us, which we carry in our head, is just a model. Nobody in his head

imagines all the world, government or country. He has only selected concepts, and relationships

between them, and uses those to represent the real system.”

Jay Wright Forrester

”You got to be continuisly revising your map of the world, or you’ll loose more and more contact

with reality.”

Robert Anton Wilson

”Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your live and you will call it fate”

Carl G. Jung

”As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway

in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path,

we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

Henry David Thoreau

”You should view the world as a conspiracy run by a very closely-knit group of nearly omnipotent

people, and you should think of those people as yourself and your friends.”

Robert Anton Wilson