Role models

I guess it started with "Sommar i P1", the radio show I have written about earlier. Several of the people that hosted the show this year have impressed me and in some ways affected me in ways i never expected from a radio show. It really has inspired me more than it probably should have.

Some of those hosts made me think, and once I got thinking I also remembered more of the people that have inspired me in the past (and continue to do so).

Bill Tillmann comes to mind, a great explorer and adventurer who not only lived an extraordinary life but also wrote some excellent books about it.

Alma Karlin was one of the first famous female travelers and journalists, some of her writings about her adventures are also quite amazing (she spent 1928-38 traveling alone).

It would impossible for me to write about these kinds of people without also mentioning Harry Martinson - probably my favourite Swede of all times. His writings and theories about the "world nomad" have had an profound effect upon me.

There are of course many others, adventurers, politicians, religious leaders etc.

What has been occupying me lately is trying to figure out what they all have in common.

I came up with a lot of things like: empathy, compassion, sense of adventure, lack of fear, integrity, command of their language(s) etc...

In the end I had to realise it was all summed up quite neatly in the previously mentioned theory about the "world nomad". Since it is pointless for me to try and outdo old Harry I will just ask that anyone interested enough read some of his stuff on the subject.

Anyway - a big thank you to all those people that have and keep on inspiring me. I am quite a pathetic excuse for an adventurer; but without you I would not have been able to overcome my fear even for this first little step of my adventures (I think of it as adventuring with a safety belt).

(and an extra big thank you to the people I actually know that keep inspiring me - Andreas who is now moving to Cuba before continuing to Costa Rica, my sister who keeps doing stuff I only dream about doing, my parents who have found adventure in their retirement, Göran with his wonderful stories of Tibet and incomparable talent for finding adventure in everyday life... Thank you for showing me that things are not as hard or complicated as they sometimes seem.)