The Hyggelig Journey

There were ten of them — though at times they spoke as one murmuring voice, and at others, like ten distinct silences, each fractured differently by the strain of being. They were not chosen as idols for a shelf, nor as exhibits in some canonical museum. Rather, they happened to me — each arriving, unbidden, during the long, luminous solitude of study. They were not so much read as endured, not so much admired as absorbed. What they gave me was not knowledge, but permission — to question, to unravel, to dwell within the unsayable. Sophocles carved fate into stone. He gave suffering a chorus and lent blindness a voice. In his tragedies, destiny is not an event but a law — impersonal, inescapable. His characters do not fall because they err, but because they exist. He was the architect of inevitability. Through him, I grasped that form can contain anguish without flinching. Dante Alighieri descended, and rose again. His Divine Comedy traced the arc of the soul with a pilgrim’...

When everything seems lost — wait. The abyss is in no hurry. It simply exists, silent and patient, while you still breathe. Still feel. Still can. The climb does not ask for heroes. It does not require epics, glory, or the sound of trumpets announcing impossible feats. It only asks for someone willing to go on. To move forward, even without knowing if the path is right. Distance does not matter. Life has no ruler to measure its worth. Delay does not matter. Time is a strange creature — sometimes gentle, sometimes cruel, but never final. Danger does not matter. Fear is only a mirror, reflecting what you believe yourself to be. Living is this: one step. Then another. Then another. And before you know it, you have gone beyond.

Time does not slip away — it waits. Motionless, silent, watching. You say you have no time, yet time is always there, staring back at you. What you lack is not time, but intent — the courage to claim it, to shape it, to own it before it owns you. Ah, this tired habit of blaming the clock. As though time were something outside of you, pressing in, closing doors, slipping through your fingers. But time does not run, nor does it flee. It is you who rush past. You who look away. You who declare it lost when it was never anywhere but here. And time? Time watches. It sees you filling the hours with what must be done, what should be done, what you were told must be done. And you say you cannot, that it is impossible, that you are too busy. But busy with what, exactly? With the things you choose — knowingly or not — over the things you claim to long for. Yet before the ticking, before the measuring, before the universe itself, there was no time. No hours, no days, no waiting. Only ...

When my father fell ill in his final days, the lyrics of Shawn Mendes’ In My Blood became an unexpected refuge, helping me process the reality unfolding before me. The song’s plea — its raw, urgent cry against the weight of helplessness — resonated in a way that felt almost too personal. “Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in” — those words captured the suffocating dread that gripped me in the small hours, waiting for news, hoping for a miracle I already knew would not come. The song does not offer easy comfort; nor does it deny the pain of endurance. Instead, it acknowledges the struggle — the desperate search for strength when every instinct urges collapse. “I just wanna give up, but I can’t.” That was it, exactly. The exhaustion, the emotional erosion, the moments when hope felt like a cruel joke. And yet, beneath it all, an unspoken defiance: the fight continues, not because it is easy, but because surrender is unthinkable. The grief that followed those long hours ...

I struggled with the word. It lingered, soft yet insistent, waiting to be understood. Deafening — yet silent. Sharp — yet delicate. Crude in its rawness, yet rich with meaning, as though it had carried the weight of centuries while remaining as fresh as the morning air. Saudade. It is not merely a word but a feeling that breathes within, settling beneath the ribs, winding through the marrow of the bones, pressing gently against the skin from within. A presence intricately woven from absence. A longing that does not mourn but remembers, does not grieve but honours. For saudade is not only about what was, but also about what might have been — the beauty of imagined possibilities, the tenderness of dreams not yet lived. And yet, it is a gift. However much it pulls at the soul, however much it calls us back. I could neither reject it nor escape it, for it had taken root in me, filling empty spaces with warmth rather than ache. The more I welcomed it, the more it flourished — not like ivy c...

When we stop to think about the direction our lives take, the first thought that often comes to mind is that many things could have been different. This is natural and an important reflection to have. It is entirely understandable to want to leave behind a meaningful legacy that represents who we are. Many people express this desire through the legitimate pursuit of a good home, a loving family, a car in the driveway, and so on. This is all perfectly normal. However, none of these things necessarily guarantee happiness or self-fulfilment. Ambition can be a useful emotion, of course, particularly when it concerns survival or comfort. The problem arises when a person becomes an insatiable hunter — forgetting to truly share life with others. It is striking how often those who have so much end up feeling as if they have nothing — despite a successful career, a brand-new car, and an esteemed academic background. On the other hand, some people find abundance in having little — pe...