The following is a brain dump I jotted down in the notebook two nights ago. It's about choice and preference.

Movement before direction
Perpetual before permanent
Friends before lovers
Sarcasm before joking
ADHD before sociopathy
Mercy before pity
Spirituality before religion
Sheldrake before Dawkins
Attitude before achievement
Leadership before management
Intuition before knowledge
Imaginary before objective

The form I have paraphrased from Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

I've been to Wonderbar at an event where Claire Huot and Robert Majzels (left) presented their very interesting poetry concept called 85 letters.

It is fantastic on multiple levels. The output as simple as haiku – you have 5x17 characters in grid but written without gaps between the words and from top to down, right to left. Because of this awkward way of reading the recitals are quite odd from traditional.

For the material dimension of the concept they've made delicate prints on Chinese ghost paper. Some examples (and videos) are to be seen on authors' blog 285 Bungalow Drive.

The background of this project digs deep into Jewish mysticism, sinology and the art of translation in which the authors are both experts. It was also their response to the problematics of Chinese-English translation and notions of otherness.

Quite mental, right? Any questions, and I'll get into the details as far as I can in the comments...

Materialwise, balancing between mobility and the quality of life is juggling. One bottleneck is the books. Sound system is another.

I had been eyeing for Harman Kardon Soundsticks for a while, but eventually changed my mind and invested in a pair of reasonably priced Edirol nearfield micro monitors. First of all, being cubic in form instead of some alien design they fit better to a Türkenkoffer. They also offer some professionality placebo and compensate the lack of subwoofer with a smart technique that deals with the overtones of low frequencies. I have a wishful theory that psychoacoustically generated bass tones penetrate neighbours' walls to a lesser success.

Well, they are no Genelecs of course, but they do make some music sound better (and some worse) than it used to be. I had no idea that technology could have such an effect to the reception. It has a direct impact on playlist choices. In general, especially Norwegian music sounds really good with these.

Now playing: Nils Petter Molvær - Tløn

Returning to the world-view after two and half months.

Cleaned up an old sketch of that four-fold table above from my notebook. Using it as a tool for thought, hope it works for you too. Axial topology offers what one would expect – typical left-right, up-down classification. Then, I'm using circles to represent the strength of faith: smaller the circle, more defined and stronger the faith. Then I exemplary populated the table off the top of my head.

What's most interesting to me is the notion of faith. Faith in anything: one god, absence of god, market economics, unconditional love. Regardless of its denomination, praxis is built on faith.

Where there is faith – there will be chutzpah, sisu, cojones.

I've been based in Berlin for almost two years now. That's a long enough period to become receptive to certain changes in the environment. I consider them as "weak signals".

• Teenagers' week-end invasions. Yes, especially at the Schönhauser corner. The Finnish slang has words pissis or fruittari, respectively for a boy and a girl. The closest German word I know would be die Tussi. In London, I suppose they're known as Essex girls and chavs.
• Broken glass on streets. There's more now than during the World Cup. Might be related to the first signal.
• Begging children. Usually they're foreigners, some might play an instrument. This is a very heartbreaking development.

They all sound a tad negative, don't they? I had one positive weak signal in my mind, but I forgot it. Maybe later.

I first became aware of the "weak signals" via Elina Hiltunen's eponymous blog (although I haven't been following it since it moved). According to her weak signals mean "strange things that exist today and that can tell about big trends in the future".

Weltanschauung. That's another fancy pancy German word you all saw coming up on this blog, right? The word maailmankatsomus translates it perfectly for the Finns. The International has to settle with two short words: world view.

Nevertheless, I've spared some thoughts on formulating Weltanschauung, building on a kind of an enlightened humanism, that is optimistic, based on reason, is creedless but tolerant and certainly doesn't put mankind on some self-proclaimed pedestal. As I've got reservations about techno-faithful transhumanism, what I'm looking into is probably called post-humanism in general. Too bad the concept of humanism, in English at least, is almost synonymous to atheism. I don't think it's that straightforward.

There have been certain influences and interactions that have led me this far.

I listened to biologist Richard Dawkins' "God Delusion" audiobook halfway through – until I fed up, because I felt the author was putting words into other peoples' mouths and instilling ready thoughts into my head. Categorical atheism isn't exactly a constructive approach. Like, how Karstein said: "What we need, is peaceful co-existence, not militant atheism." Ditto, can't disagree.

Although left unfinished, Dawkins still managed to instill one thought I couldn't shake: agnosticism is for indecisive wussies. You know, Michael Scofield confessed, "I choose to have faith. Because without that, I have nothing. It's the only thing that's keeping me going."

If a strictly secular scientist had little to offer, so seemed the institutions at hand. A Lutheran Easter procession in East Helsinki looked and felt like a gloomy lynch mob – and a jovial, local celebrity Orthodox priest didn't raise much trust having said, that after buying an Alfa Romeo sports car, he was finally relieved of envy.

Luckily the institution hadn't had its last word yet.

I've been listening to the podcast of the programme Merkkituote on Finnish YLE Radio 1. Nothing short of excellent public service. In one recent episode they interviewed Richard Holloway, the retired bishop of Edinburgh. He's got a really convincing accent, a voice with whom he delivered such progressive thoughts, that pushed some stationary waves in my thinking into motion again.

So, I think that people should claim sprituality for themselves – and if they find that religious spirituality helps them do that, then fine. But, if it doesn't, then I don't think they should thereby just give up the spiritual life – because I think it is bigger than the religious expressions of it. Just as I think ethics and morality are far bigger than religious claims about those things.

The bishop leads me to assert, that faith as a spiritual position is bigger than religious definitions of it. But is it just a matter of free will? One simply chooses to have faith?

Well, landed safely in Helsinki, but the trip didn't go as smoothly as it could. First of all, I forgot to take my mobile phone with me. Being in Finland without a mobile, is like having a megaphone without batteries and a walkman without headphones. Also, while packing, the idea of taking my Finnish simcard didn't even cross my mind. Or travel card (Matkakortti) or the local debit cards. I appeal to my flatmates, that they'd slip them in a bubblewrap envelope and post them to me (Bitteee!).

Making it to the plane wasn't too straightforward either. Somehow I took the wrong train, not the usual Ringbahn – and was well on the way towards Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, before I realised the stations didn't match. As I didn't have any cash for a taxi either, I decided to take my chances, jump to the opposite train and head back to the Ring. Eventually, I arrived at the check-in desk only one minute too late, which was okay.

I think I should finally compile a pre-travel checklist. In a bit militaristic style, even. It should help, when my concentration fails next time.

I'm a bit worried because of all these small incidents. I see them as warning signs of sneakily growing detachment and absent-mindness.

As a kind of a bizarre external proof of all this mistuning, the displays and announcements in Helsinki metro were offset too. Kalasatama was called Hakaniemi and Kulosaari was Sörnäinen. Finally, at Herttoniemi station I yet managed to mix up bus numbers and met perhaps the two most uncooperative drivers in the service. In the end I just decided to take the blow and walk the last mile.

On a positive note, I managed to deliver a magnum size bottle of Rotkäppchen, without it exploding inside the baggage.

Previously on Top Gear. The three guys test three 20-25 thousand pound coupés: the new Audi TT, Alfa Romeo Brera and Mazda RX8. The one who got Alfa Romeo, makes a case for the Italian:

This car has a heart… but you know what really swings it for me? It's the interior. Sitting in here, feels like you're sitting in a Milanese espresso bar. Sitting in the Audi feels like you're trapped in a Berlin post office.

If being trapped in a Berlin post office feels like sitting in an Audi, I better start doing my crying over there. Mine is even inside a shopping mall.

Disclaimer: I'm a cyclist in Berlin, almost around the year. This "winter" perhaps the whole year around. But if I was to decide to whom to give the last drops of petrol, I'd say Jeremy Clarkson and his posse. Just for their entertainment value.

During Christmas holidays a couple of dear friends encouraged me to start writing a book. At least to start with something, small… put down thoughts, consistently. Coincidentally, I had just got started with gardening this blog. I don't know if it counts, because I'm not writing here in my native tongue.

However, languages shouldn't be a problem, "The world is full of means of translation and delivery. One needs first to have something weighty enough to say," I was told. Surely the world has not become complete.

Consider 'translation', in the wide meaning of the word here. Where does the 'weightiness' come from? As many of us in creative branch factually work in the universe of 'translation' business on constant growth – finding that sweet gravity well of weighty weightiness might become an odyssey.

Now, at this point a Prozac regimen was also suggested, but let's try another solution first - call in the business coach!

I've noticed an e-learning company I used to work for in 2001 – now called Tieturi Vision – has recently collaborated with ice hockey trainer and match pundit, coach and executive Juhani Tamminen a.k.a. 'Le Roi Soleil'. I remember him once saying, "Success always calls for discipline".

As I dug a bit deeper into the website I found a slide in 10 Steps to Become a Winner, that I felt elaborated on that stray one-liner:

Confidence is a matter of consistently doing three things:
• be reliable
• commit to excellence
• take care of others

Then, there's a lot of stuff about winning, becoming a winner, winning principles, the culture of winning and so on. I'm not interested in that, but that's not to say my relationship to competitiveness weren't complicated.

Pulled out of context Tami's three bullets don't sound too bad at all: be reliable, commit to excellence, take care of others. Simple and beyond most of the 'leading the right kind of life' chatter. But let's not blow this out of proportion…

In the beginning, I was talking about writing a book. How the matter is to find something reasonably weighty to say. Then, about the (seeming!) ease of translation versus creating the original. This all this might apply, yet I'm not writing a book here. Instead, I'm gardening a blog.

Based on principles originating from ice hockey rink.