The one and the many.

It's been some time since I've last been to Finland, just came back from my fourth visit to the country. Not much has changed, the same curiosity and need to explain itself of the peripheral nation. The same focus on the necessities that allow for a good life. The same mimicry of cosmopolitanism.

And yet, looking at the lot climbing the rock for their leisure, I couldn't help but think that they've made a decision to stay out of it, to let the whirlwind blow somewhere else. Everyone sees what's in his line of view, their view is that history is coming to them, rather than making it themselves, and they see turmoil.

One thing that did change since my last visit was the omnipresence of non-Europeans, mostly Asians, some Africans as well. And most of those, virtually everybody who wasn't from west Africa, seemed rather bewildered, some wary, some aloof. They could have been tourists, as far as their demeanour went. I guess the wary ones leaned towards the understanding that they were objects of exhibition whereas the aloof ones were still occupying themselves with observation. West Africans, of course, are always doing some job, I saw a courier - of whatever it may have been.

Somebody orchestrated this, the Finns put up with it, no real harm done, no sense of danger, not even burdening, no hatred on either side. No sense of clashing cultures, just different demeanours, occasionally though there is a Finn who's inwardly shaking his head at all of this. But that is it, the circumstances are strange - and seem to beg questions.

But the all-encompassing answer for the Finns is to wait.

Perhaps because of this, the Baltic Sea seemed to me on my way back in the harbour of Helsinki as a border, behind which promises await. But isn't it likewise a warning how easily man may be cut off from the thread that weaves his history?

The French understand rationality and the Finns understand lying in wait, both qualities that I have often found lacking in other peoples, but the command of them is paid for with the mental sterility that comes with a cleaned up interior.

Verily, some fall for madness, others opt out of the whole thing, and in all this cacophony of humans' freedom to choose their ways history is being woven. It begs the question how to find one's way through the spiritual edifices with which societies have plastered the planet.

But then again, as long as one perceives his environment and chooses his steps accordingly, he may have all the guidance he needs.