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I was at a concert the other day, in a church. Uppsala domkyrka. It was quite a random encounter actually. I wanted to go somewhere random, see something new just to get a change of environment from the everyday here and there of everyday life, and we decided to take a trip to Uppsala. Just an hour away form Stockholm, it's really nothing special. Most people would probably say why the hell would you like to go to Uppsala, as if it was a top 10 attraction in some guidebook, the kind of thing that is worth seeing, you know (I'm really sarcastic). That's the thing, I don't like to see top 10 attractions, anywhere. What I want is to discover the random encounters one meets if one just opens up the mind and be curious to all the variations and nuances and the life that is happening in different corners of the world.

So that's how we came to Uppsala anyway, and we did some top 10 sightseeing there. Except it was more like top 2. The castle, and the domkyrka. We saw at the domkyrka that they had a rock concert coming up. Yup, a rock concert in church, playing songs by Coldplay, Queen, U2, and a lot more. Sounded nice! I never say no to a concert playing Coldplay :)

So that's how we bought tickets and ended up at the concert two weeks later. And at the concert there was the host who was some kind of staff of the church that spoke a few lines before every song and connected the song to some kind of higher meaning. It might sound cliché, but one of those things really struck a string in me. It was the most cliché metaphor in the world, but also one of the most powerful. According to her. It was about lighting a light in the dark. She basically said something like let us never forget to always light a light in the dark and to always have hope, Viva la Vida. Yup. She said that. And I didn't actually even know what the hell Viva la Vida meant even though I love Coldplay, but since it's one of those mainstream songs of theirs that's been played everywhere and everywhere, so much that it's playing in people's fridges, it's actually one of my least favorite Coldplay songs. But sure, she said Viva la Vida, and turns out Google translate says it means "live life". Okay.

So it made sense, and that's the thing I came to realize. I think one doesn't have to be religious to appreciate the core and original, purpose of religion. Stripped of all the institutional formalities, the rules that don't make sense, the scandals, the wars, the dark side of the coin. In modern days, people in secular countries have a tendency to bash religion, but even those things I'm tired of hearing. Maybe there's a difference of being religious and spiritual, but I'm not going to go into that now. What I wanted to say was that when she said that supercliché thing about light in the dark and Viva la Vida, and when they played the Coldplay song, I was thinking that this is something I can relate to personally on a very deep level.

I went home and thought about all the quotes I could think of related to this metaphor. And I remembered that during elementary school we always sang Christmas songs on the last day of school. Swedish ones like nu tändes tusen juleljus, tänd ett ljus, and so on. And it struck me that during the business and coming and going of everyday life all these years I have not once thought about the actual meaning of these songs. I mainly thought of them as equivalent to songs such as Last Christmas, or All I Want for Christmas is You. But really, I'm not joking, there's a difference. I realized that Christmas has been truly turned into a commercial holiday by the industry. Once again, I am not religious, but one doesn't have to be religious to appreciate the original meaning of Christmas, which is about having hope and being thankful. About lighting a light in the dark. And even the Swedish weather seems to agree with it.

I think what I'm trying to say is one defines for themselves what anything means to them. And that there are basic things that are universal and common for all human beings. Such as the light in the dark. The past year has not been easy for me, and I go through struggles, which I believe everybody does. I think, if one opens up the mind and don't really give a shit about what the mainstream says or what the doctrine says or what is the washed out, industrialized and packaged version of something, one can really get to the soul of something. And that something, would be something relatable to anyone, as long as they are a human being. I'm not sure this paragraph would be truly understandable, but I'm just trying to emphasize the importance of seeing through facades, and to really support each other on the deep and elemental level as humans.

I mean, how many times in a year do we stop and truly try to understand another human being? There's over a million people in Sweden suffering from depression, and how many times do we stop and ask another fellow student, a friend, "how are you" and truly want to hear how they are? We are too busy with our courses, our jobs, the next promotion, and whatever we are mindlessly doing. It's almost as if we've been turned into machines and operate automatically. And we end up not feeling well. There are numerous known ways to treat depression and other mental illnesses, the obvious ones being medication, therapy, and physical exercise. But I truly believe there is a dimension that is seriously missing that no doctor and no article ever recommends. It's the connection to other fellow human beings. The importance of supporting each other. But of course, this is hard, I mean, the doctor cannot tell you "hey, get your friends to support you!" Because they can't get your friends to support you. It's up to the friend themselves. And by support, I don't mean to act as a substitute to professionals, because... "friends can't help solve your problems, because only the therapist can, but the therapist can't make you feel unlonely, because only a friend can". And that, my friends, is truly what support means.

I truly believe in the quote "be the change you want to see". If you would like to see a world where people care, then care about others yourself. If you want to feel a light in the dark then you have to turn it on.

Merry Christmas everyone, and let us never stop supporting each other.

Here is one of my favorite Christmas songs: