Anna S. E. Lundberg

Coach, Speaker, Writer

Supermoons and Superstars – Where is the wonder?

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Last Tuesday night I had a bit of a ‘WOW’ moment when I saw the remarkably large and brightly glowing moon, and the following morning as I was driving to work I struggled to keep my eyes on the road as they kept straying up to the sky to examine the unusually clear contours and craters on the moon’s surface. Staring up at that small grey circle in our big blue dome, the thought that it was a huge spherical satellite – or perhaps a giant egg, as the latest episode of Doctor Who would have it – was hard to grasp, while the idea that people have actually walked on the moon is utterly incredible (to the point, in fact, that conspiracy theorists claim that it never happened).

Looking at how to design a rocket at a museum as a child
I never did build that rocket… though I did keep the fascination with astronomy.

As it turned out it wasn’t officially a supermoon, or a perigee full moon to use its scientific name, though we did have three of those this summer: 12th July, 10th August, 9th September. Super or not, the moon, the stars, the universe – it’s all pretty awe-inspiring if you start to think about it. But it’s so rare that you really do think about it. Just as we were more open to adventure when we were younger, so too were we more open to wonder and awe. Children will ask, and talk, and stare in fascination at things that we as adults find perfectly mundane and uninteresting.

One of the reasons why it’s so rare that we look up to the skies and philosophise is that we’re occupied with our unbelievably busy lives, our important to-do lists and our back-to-back appointments. Earlier this year I bought a book on the 2014 night sky (for £1 from a charity shop, but still) and it remains untouched on my bookshelf.

Another reason is that we usually can’t see much to wonder at, at least in the big cities, due to light pollution. Take a look at French photographer Thierry Cohen’s Darkened Cities and you’ll begin to imagine what we could see without all those artificial lights. How anyone got anything done when the sky looked like that before electrical lighting is beyond me.

If we finally do get to be in a place where we have the time, the remoteness, not to mention the clear weather, to marvel at the stars above, you would think that it should all be incredibly romantic. These days, though, it’s likely to come across as cheesy if a poor guy starts talking to you about the wonders of the universe. I caught the end of an episode of Don’t Tell the Bride over the weekend in which the groom was fascinated by space – but instead of being romantic or at least interesting, he came across as (at least partly self-confessed) geeky and a bit of a nut.

So I say keep wondering, keep looking up, and keep remembering how utterly miraculous and beautiful is each and every thing on earth and in the blackness above.

Right, I’m off to learn the remaining 80 or so constellations (out of 88) that I don’t know yet – then I can tick that off my bucket list, as well as impressing the next person who happens to be standing next to me on a starry, starry night….

Another birthday, another show

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And so another year has passed, the fastest yet. Is this how it’s going to be now, each year passing more quickly, as we race towards middle, and ultimately old, age?

The fact is that a year is no longer a large and significant portion of my life. A year is one of many that I have already lived, and, I hope, one of many that I have still ahead of me. It’s 20 years since the Macarena, 19 years since Oasis released Wonderwall, 17 years since I watched Titanic five times at the cinema, 14 years since I graduated from high school, 10 years since Friends and Sex and the City ended…

So a lot has happened in 32 years, and a lot has changed, from MS-DOS to iPhones and iPads, from school discos to late night clubbing, from handwritten essays to PowerPoint presentations, from break-ups to weddings, from funerals to births. And it’s no wonder. Go back 32 years from my birth and you end up in 1950, the year that President Truman ordered the development of the hydrogen bomb, Disney released Cinderella, and the Korean War began. Yikes.

Time is relative, though. A year can pass quickly, while an hour can be agonisingly slow. Usually, of course, time slows down when you’re doing something unpleasant. My favourite Shakespeare quote from Macbeth is one that I clung on to as I endured hours and hours of school and university exams:

Come what come may,
Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

Of course the problem was that you couldn’t just sit and wait for time to pass, you had to actually concentrate and actively participate in the exam that lay ahead.

When you’re at school, you want time to pass quickly. You say that you’re 12 and three-quarters because it’s so important that you’re almost 13, which is so much older than 12. You plan your birthday party months in advance. You read magazines that are aimed at older teenagers. And you can’t wait to be a grown-up, when you can do what you want, when you have your driving licence and no homework or teachers telling you what to do.

Even as adults we want time to go quickly. We complain about Mondays and count the minutes until the weekend comes around. Then we count the weeks until our next holiday. And so time and the hour run through all days, until we shrivel up and to dust we will return.

Maybe that’s why I’m so seemingly obsessed with bucket lists, with travelling to new countries, learning languages, spending time with friends and family. I want to make sure that I’m using the time I have wisely, that I won’t have regrets. And, so far at least, each year has been better than the one before. I don’t long for my twenties or my teens, or even for the sweet innocence of childhood. Thank goodness for that, as I’m pretty sure that no one has invented time travel as yet.

So no looking back. Onwards and upwards! Here’s to another fabulous year, my 33rd. It’s going be a good one! The best to date, in fact.

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”
– C. S. Lewis

The selfie that broke my iPhone

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It’s all very embarrassing. There I was, feeling virtuous for venturing out on Bank Holiday Monday despite the rain. I made it all the way to Starbucks, where I remained as the drizzle turned to a torrential downpour. Several hours, two lattes, and a salad later, though, I felt it was time to go home. I had my beautiful Ted Baker raincoat with me so I confidently strode out into the deluge. By the time I reached my front door, my Converse trainers and my jeans were soaked through. Instead of going inside, however, I thought I should capture this moment with a photo. Famous last words…

Now I haven’t been having a lot of luck with my phone these past few years. Last year it was stolen from a bar in Mendoza; not so long before, I was walking and texting and flung it across the ground so that the screen cracked; like everyone, I’m always struggling with battery life; and earlier this year, I tried to update the software and the phone froze for two days. I tend not to back up my phone regularly – I like living on the edge – so each time I lose several months of app downloading, settings changing, and personal messaging.

In this case, a minute or two of photography in the rain resulted in an unresponsive screen and, as I soon discovered, water droplets in the SIM drawer. I put it in a bag of rice – thank you, internet, for that tip – and two days later it worked perfectly well. After charging it in the car, though, it died a quiet death and would not turn back on. A cheerful man on Apple’s online chat told me that it was a hopeless cause and emphasised that liquid damage was not covered by the warranty. Despite his protestations, however, I booked an appointment with the Genius Bar in Covent Garden… and, would you believe it, there was no liquid damage after all and they replaced the phone for free under the warranty. A Christmas miracle!

Selfie in the rainThanks to the magic of Apple Photo Stream, you can even see that ill-fated selfie… (Although, of course, that whole back-up thing doesn’t seem like such a great idea now with the iCloud/JLaw debacle – which, by the way, is a criminal invasion of privacy and not a Hollywood scandal.

When it comes to technology failing, it’s probably our photos that we’re most concerned about losing. My favourite quote from The Beach: “I don’t travel with a camera. My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost.” Ironically, though, the film with Leonardo DiCaprio ends with him in an internet café downloading the group photo they all took when things were still hunky-dory. Because we love photos. We love documenting the good times, we love sharing them with others, and we love to reminisce about them years later. So that we can remind ourselves of past holidays and friendships, show our children how we used to be cool, show ourselves how we used to be young, and look back in our old age on a life well lived.

The moral of the story? Think twice before you take out your phone on a rainy day. Back up your back-up. And, should the worst happen – as it has for me now many times – then accept it with grace and poise like I did. After all, it’s only a phone…

Ice buckets, donating and Doing Good

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This week, our newsfeeds have been flooded with videos of friends and stars alike participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge. The campaign has raised a lot of awareness, a lot of money, and a lot of questions as to whether or not it’s actually doing good.

It’s unclear where the ALS campaign originated, much like the recent #nomakeupselfie campaign, which emerged organically but was adopted by Cancer Research UK and raised £8 million in six days. In that case, a lot of women participated in the alarming act of sharing photos of their bare faces – but how many also donated? In the case of the ALS drive, not only have we been granted a view of many a washboard stomach but as much as £40 million has now been raised, perhaps because of the campaign’s global reach and virality involving so many high-profile individuals and groups.

The campaign has clearly succeeded in raising awareness of ALS, which a lot of people didn’t even know was related to motor neuron disease, or Lou Gerig’s disease as it’s known in the US. The idea of ALS has always both fascinated and terrified me, and I’ve read a number of memoirs recently from women suffering from this degenerative disease including Rowing Without Oars and Until I Say Goodbye. It’s a disease that affects a small number of people and that is little understood, and raising awareness and funds to support this cause can only be a good thing.

The ice bucket challenge has been criticised, however, for its wasting precious water, for not really creating meaningful engagement, for the gratuitousness of showing off your body in something that is not far from a wet t-shirt competition. Some celebrities including Patrick Stewart and Barack Obama have refused to dump an ice bucket over their heads but committed to making a donation, while perhaps the most effective voice of reason comes from this Australian news reporter. Macmillan Cancer Support has even been accused of “hijacking” the campaign and stealing ALS’ thunder to get funds for its own cause.

So is there a ‘right’ way to raise awareness and donate money to a good cause? My über-fit friends are constantly running or cycling or triathlon-ing and asking for donations to their chosen charity, and I try to oblige when I see the requests. I myself have run for a charity that is close to my own heart while also supporting a foundation that my aunt and uncle set up for my cousin, who passed away at a young age having lived with the rare developmental disorder, Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome. I volunteered on P&G’s Community Relations board, supporting local children’s charities. I regularly give clothes and things to charity shops, with especially big bags being given away this past year as I’ve been moving and de-cluttering. I also give money to buskers, on the principle that I’m happy to do so as long as I’ve actually enjoyed the music they’ve been playing!

On the other hand, I don’t like being approached on the street by organisations like Amnesty International and the Red Cross asking for my bank details. I don’t give money to the homeless. I walk by the many Roma who now sit on the street corners in Stockholm, giving them nothing but an apologetic smile. I don’t even like watching the news as seeing what’s going on in the world makes me feel both guilty and powerless to stop it. And my work, though meaningful in other ways, is not exactly helping the needy.

Where is the line that you need to cross to be Doing Good? How much is enough? Should we all be quitting our jobs and moving to Africa to help people on the ground? Donating all our business profits to cancer research? Which causes should we be prioritising? Should we all work in NGOs, at the Red Cross, at the United Nations, or can we do more good by getting involved in business or government and changing things from the inside?

The answers, as ever, will be personal and I suppose each of us has to decide how much we need to give, what we need to do, in order to feel good about ourselves and our contributions to whatever causes we choose.

And, in the meantime, why not enjoy the 10 hottest male celebrities doing the ice bucket challenge…?

Reason over Passion: Confessions of a cold fish?

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The other day, I watched a Ted talk by Isabel Allende about passion. I also went to the cinema and saw 1,000 Times Good Night, in which Juliette Binoche’s character is so passionate about her calling that she abandons her children in order to pursue it. And on the plane I sat next to a theology student who fervently believed in the law of God.

Passion is something that I admire but that feels a bit alien to me. Swedes, for all their equality and music and technology, are not exactly known for their fiery passion; while, having grown up in England, I’ve been schooled in the ‘stiff upper lip’ approach of self-restraint.

I know that part of the reason for my lack of extreme emotions is that I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have lived – so far, touch a whole lot of wood, fingers crossed, etc – a very comfortable life. I grew up in middle class suburbia and had plenty of toys and clothes. I was good at both humanities and science at school, so felt no special drive towards a particular vocation. My parents didn’t divorce, my boyfriend didn’t cheat on me, I never broke my leg or had my appendix taken out. And my granddad didn’t die in the war, since Sweden wasn’t even fighting.

A friend recently asked me what I thought about demonstrations… Apart from the fact that I would question their efficacy, the real reason for my reticence is more likely to be the lack of causes about which I feel that strongly. That’s pretty terrible, considering the amount of worthy causes there are out there, widespread injustice and atrocities that I really do care about, but apparently not enough to go out onto the streets to express my disgust. Cynicism, or apathy, set in at an early age.

On searching passion, I find the definition: “strong and barely controllable emotion” – and I find it hard to imagine feeling such strong emotion that I can’t control it. Reason always sets in, the rational side always tempers the animal, and the result is something a bit more sensible. I don’t tend to get angry (except over trivial things when I’m tired and irritable), I don’t scream and shout, and I haven’t cried since Dobby died in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

Then there’s the matter of men. I look on in bemusement at couples on the tube having the most intense heart-to-heart discussions, listen bewilderedly (though empathetically) to friends on the phone relating their latest crisis, read their epic declarations of adoration by text in complete bafflement. I find it hard to imagine such drama and devotion in my own life, though perhaps I simply haven’t met my Mr Darcy and I too will descend into the depths of Mills and Boon romance when I do.

Now I must be sounding like a pretty cold and heartless individual. I’m really not. Honest. As I’ve already admitted, I cry when made-up animated characters die in children’s films. I get butterflies when I meet Someone at a party. And I love my sister’s children so much it hurts.

Besides, I’m driven and dedicated in my work (– I ’m a digital evangelist as the kids are calling it these days); I get worked up when I witness self-importance, injustice, bigotry…; and I probably agree with George Bernard Shaw that there are other passions, like “intellectual passion… passion for discovery and exploration”.

So maybe I can be passionate in my own, more understated, way, without violent hand gestures, screaming matches, or larger-than-life dilemmas? And then I’ll just watch Made in Chelsea and Downton Abbey to get my gladiatorial fix of drama…