take your love with you to Budapest

Dear friends

Looking very much forward!

Quick question: are double-room prizes 60-70 EUR/room/night OK?

One more thing: you might feel like reading the big classic text on love, the one Kristin touched in her mail, from the bible somewhere, from here: http://bibleresources.bible.com/Blovchpt.php

warmly and curiosly :)

Kati

Perspectives on 'Love' and 'Resilience'

Yesterday Kristin and I bought our tickets to Budapest. We arrive on the 26th at 12.20 and leave on the 30th. So now we are on our way.

We have had a long Christmas break. First we travelled to Norway to see Kristin's family. Then we spend an evening full of joy, tango and good food together with friends. And then we travelled to the southern part of Denmark to spend Christmas with Paul's family. New years eve we were on our own having a party for the Gods.

Here are different perspectives of 'love' and 'resilience' I experienced during those weeks.

When we went to Norway we saw that Kristin's sister Turid is now well. On March 23 she had a transplant of bone marrow because her body did not produce blood. She has gone through some very tough months. Her body suffered and her mind too because she wasn't certain to live to see her son grow up. And not once did she complain or make herself small. Her strength and resilience was astonishing. I think of how much love is in her and around her and how it manifests through resilience.

Both Kristin's and my parents are growing old. It seems that the men a little faster then the women. Both couples have been married now for around fifty years. And they support each other and care for each other despite of illness, impatience, loss of memory and other challenging things that come form growing old. Resilience and love grow old together.

When I travelled back to Aarhus after Christmas I read Haruki Murakami's collection of essays about: "This is what I talk about when I talk about running". My daughter Mikkeline gave it to me. Murakami tells that when he was young he ran a night club. Suddenly one day he knew that he wanted to write a novel and he decided to do it. This led him to an impressive carreer as a writer. He also suddenly knew that he wanted to run. And he started running - at least one marathon every year. He is not a natural runner, but when he is on the track he never walks. If he died know what he wanted his tombstone is: "At least he never walked". For Murakami this attitude is deeply connected to being a writer. As a novelist the relationship that matters most is the relationship with his readers. And in order to honor that relationship he needs talent, resilience and persistence more than anything else. (The smaller the talent is the more resilience and persistence he needs.)

I think more perspectives can be discovered in writings about intrinsic motivation:

Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (Perspectives in Social Psychology) Edward L. Deci, Richard M. Ryan

Looking forward to seeing you all!

Much love

Paul