My visit to the land of licorice and sauna, how I wound up being welcomed into a tribal family of the warmest and friendliest people on our planet, and learned anew how to truly live.
The statue of Johan Ludvig Runeberg, author and national poet. Any nation that honors their poets reflects a people who know and value what is most important in life.
The most important thing I learned on a recent visit to Finland is that Finnish people know how to live. Maybe I sensed this when I first befriended multiple Finnish individuals on a music cruise several years back. But having recently visited there for just one week, I see this tribe of remarkable people offer something exquisite and special to humanity.
They are an example of what it is to be human – fully, truly, and authentically. It was not until I returned home as my family and I dined alfresco on a fine spread of cheese and meats, a variety of dips, hummus, guacamole, fruit, celery, and carrots . We enjoyed light alcoholic refreshment on a delightful summer evening as dusk made its way over the horizon. It was then I noticed how this had been a common routine of my Finnish hosts, friends and others.
Nope. Just another day in Helsinki.
This is Europe after all. Europeans in general, I’ve long felt, have a better sense of how to properly live. But the Finnish, I noticed, embrace it with a greater passion than I’ve seen. And as it’s been explained to me, the months of warm weather and longer summer days are so brief that they pretty much fill-in as much as they can, often from dusk to Dawn.
I felt so alive during my time there. The company I was keeping was supremely excellent. In a true European sense, we chatted about philosophy, literature, art, custom traditions, and humanity. Yes, the Finnish people know how to live, and know how to love. All of us can learn a lot from them.
From them, I’ve learned how to be a better human, a better citizen, and most importantly for me personally – a better man. I don’t mean that in a chauvinistic or supremist sense by any means. I mean, simply that my soul incarnate selected a male body and the mission to me is still to learn fully what that is about. The lesson is that it’s about balance. As the philosophies of India point out, every individual, male or female, have to learn to balance the masculine and feminine aspects that comprise the totality of each human being. And that journey, regardless of gender, doesn’t stop.
There’s also a distinct nobility about the Finnish people that I noticed. They live fully and passionately, while concurrently embracing compassion, acceptance and goodwill. These are an exemplary people. I thought I knew what it meant to be a man until I met the best men I could know. Jovial, generous, yielding, accepting, respecting, loving, strong and supportive. I felt I had passed an arcane test from the remote past that is still innately employed today to determine if one is accepted within the tribe or not.
There is a unique tribalness of these people that I’ve only witnessed in select places elsewhere. Most notably for me are the Native Americans in the United States and the communities of the Irish diaspora within which I was raised. These are a people that embrace family as the pivotal anchor of their society. There is no wavering from this with the Finnish people. Discovering all this reminded me of the fundamental criteria of interpersonal human relations. The Finns live the thing that makes us tick as a species. It’s primal, ancient, and carries until this day a most beautifully embodied wisdom. Living in the moment within this observation has been one of the most remarkable gifts I could’ve received in this lifetime.
Ville Vallgren’s sculpture of “Topelius and the children”, honoring the writer Zacharias Topelius, in Esplanadi Park, Helsinki.
I will always be grateful to my Finnish friends for enabling me to discover a new path to uplifting my life to a new and more humanely comprehensive plateau that I had not foreseen. I am a better man for having broken bread and imbibed their spirits, shared their company, and learn to celebrate an exceptionally keen joie de vivre at it’s pinnacle best. This was truly one of my finest moments.
Kippis!
One of the coolest things about my trip to Finland is leaving with the feeling that I have been accepted into a tribe. Finland is unique in our global culture because they have remained somewhat indigenous to a larger percentage than many others. It’s an unusual thing for an American to experience, what with our melting pot culture. Certainly there are elements of that in Finland, such as some friends that I’ve met from there that are of Swedish and Finnish extraction, and then from there, just like anywhere else, a little bit of everywhere else thrown in. But at the same time it really has a tribal element that was evident to me. And it is one of the greatest gifts of my life – to have been embraced and welcomed and accepted into that sacred inner circle.
Yesterday on a walk to the train station in Tikkurila, I joked with my friend that I’m so happy that I was the best American representative to serve as the present unofficial diplomat to Finland. Yes. Though I jested, I am 100% correct on this. There were no barriers no walls of mindless chat and talk and politics between us. A true bonding of heart and soul occurred. This is the way humans should interact with tribal neighbors.
Think of any indigenous culture on the planet that have their own rights and rituals such as perhaps the Māori who may feel honored or accept you into their circle, and designated it by getting a tattoo, a traditional Māori tattoo. I’m not sure of other cultures and how they go about accepting an outsider into their fold. All I know is that now I am concurrently Finnish.
And for me, with this new found combination of now being both Irish and Finnish, I don’t think there’s an unbeatable combination. I think I may be the luckiest man in the world.
Slainte, Kippis, and Suomi go Bragh!
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