Dear Reader.

Don’t you agree that the mornings are the best?

Yes, I am dragging my feet to get up, but I very much enjoy the early morning. It is the clear air, the new sun rays and we are small busy bees going on with our work. Morning brings new beginnings, every day, and I find it refreshing. Whatever happened yesterday, it is gone, and can’t be changed, and a fresh day, lies ahead!

Even if it is the 13. March today, it is still a new day. And a good one for some, and for others not so good. But it is like this every day.

But, that was not what I was going to talk about today. I was going to talk about centralizing. Isn’t that a wonderful word? Cen-tra-li-z-ing. See, it rolls on your tongue, and then obviously, it must be good. But, no, it is not always good.

Norway these days has a rush of centralizing this and that. To get things to function better and to utilize the scarce resources the country has. Not to mention save money, since we are now in a steep economical decline and the oil is not giving us the income that we are used to. This has made the government think that if we centralize every scrap and bit of what we have of stores and social services like hospitals and police and other vital things that people usually need, all will be okay and better.

Well, have anyone been driving 3 or 4 hours in full pain? Or needed to wait for the “pooolice” if you need it if there has been an accident, or a thief has entered your house, or a store? Or if your house burns? When it is about seconds and you need help now, it doesn’t seem smart to wait 3 hours. Or what the limit is put up as a max. time to react.

It is great that we should be self sufficient, but is this what Norway needs and wants? We don’t want everyone to live in the big cities, we want people to live all over the country. I actually thought we had a policy for defence  reasons to keep up the population in the whole country? Or is this an outdated and silly thing to think?

We do NOT want the local knowledge and local structure to just rot away, we need people both in the countryside and in the cities. This means we NEED to think about what we want. Do we want a overgrown countryside with no one living for miles and miles, and cities getting bigger and bigger? If we don’t , we can’t centralize  ourselves to death. And to “lean” the country away, is not the solution.

We have lost so many of our values along the climb to fame and riches. Maybe we need to sit down to feel a little bit and to reflect over our values. When we can’t shower naked in the separated male female showers before we jump in the swimming pool. Or buy expensive products to brag, which is not bad in itself, it is just bad if this is the ONLY reason you buy things you use.

I feel we  have lost our most valuable asset; our empathy used to put ourselves in other people shoes and think about how decisions we take are affecting others.

Have a good weekend,

ABitch