For those unfortunate souls decreed by
cruel fate, or for the truly demented: choice, to live in the pit of despair
called Sweden, we shall here attempt to promulgate some strategies of survival.
The lack of anything resembling a real life
does not pose a problem for the native Swede. Their natural state is one of
detached apathy. While the average Swede may be intelligent enough to diagnose
themselves with their disorder, their perverted mind transforms it into a
virtue: what separates them from those troublesome southerners insisting that
life is for living. Emotions, opinions or colors are anathema to the Swedish
mind; alien conceptions that threaten the whole delicate ecosystem. Like their
weather, the Swede knows only one color: grey (a lack of color if anything).
They take pride in their drabness, a moderate amount of pride only of course:
no excess for these paragons of modesty.
The temporary traveler to this foreboding
place may be fooled into thinking that the population is normal. Outwardly,
they appear almost human. Well behaved and friendly in that distance manner of
the well brought up. Those that stay a little longer may begin to wonder: what
passions hide behind these polished exteriors? What hidden depths lay behind
such stoic masks? Yet for the careful observer lies a truth more awful than
any fiction. The dark secrets to the interior life of the Swede are that there
are no secrets at all. No spring of pent up destructive energies. No layers of
contradictions and unruly impulses. Nothing but a nothingness. A shallowness so
vast it cannot be fathomed. Once perhaps there were such things as colors,
emotions not expressed but keenly felt. After centuries of internalized
conformity, however, nothing remains of any semblance of something that can be
called a human spirit.
Invariably those that for various reasons
do not conform to this so called civilized model will find themselves
struggling. Many will think to look towards temporary refuges for light. Hoping
that a week or two a year at a beach in some foreign country will provide
comfort. Do not be fooled by such dreams. That road leads to madness. Every
escape will only deepen the despair upon one’s inevitable return. Others will
seek shelter among the like minded few; those that have seen the lie of this so
called model life. Yet even this offers no lasting
solace. One by one these struggling souls will grow fewer and fewer as they
buckle under the weight of conformist pressure. Until the last one, all alone,
clinging to humanity will walk voluntarily into the asylum for the insane,
ultimate proof that he has become a Swede at last.
