The only advice before I went home after my first infarct was "Be careful". I think they have learnt much more since then and advices patients how to live in the new situation. I had to learn everything by myself.

Good routines keep you on feet whatever happens. When I was waiting for my by-pas i did not at all know how serious it was. Only one vein was in use I learnt afterward. For several months I walked around and made my days as before. However sometimes I had to stop for a nitro-glycerine shock every two hundred metres. Simply I did not recognise the danger. At that time I had already a good lifestyle.

Learn to say NO! ...None thanks you if you stress yourself and in the grave it is too late to slow down. Then I mean say no to yourself and your desires and ask once more: Do I need to? Long time stress is like when a spring is drawn to the edge. Everyone needs time for rest and it should be in the weekly, monthly yearly plans without compromises. We all need overlook to work efficiently with no rush and no headless running around.

The work gives life to you ... That advice I got from an old lady who worked at nearly ninety. It is true with modification. Do not sit down and loose the strength of your body. Keep going and occupy body and soul. You need not do physical work, but keep going with things that interests you. Try to come out of your daily stress by as many pleasant doings as possible. Often other powers are managing much in your life. But take command. That is also part of growing old and being wise.

An old artist told that it took ten years to be a master and ten more years before his material spoke with him. In our super-efficient world there is a demand that you should grow fast … from forestry we know that the fast growing trees are not much of quality in building. The old building made of hard old pine can stand for many hundreds of years.

So, start from the very beginning of your life with hobbies. Some of them may become a life long interest and a companion. You may have a dull job … someone must do them. But it is good to relax with something very interesting.

I think the kids gave me my new life in the beginning of the eighties. It is not easy to come again after an infarct combined with the fact that I could not go back to my old work. I tried with no success. The work gives us our routines and our social environment. Healthy people do not want to respect slightly sick people. It is worse when you have the handicap inside and nothing is seen. Still the angina pectoris urged for immediate stop for activity if I reached the limit.

My rescue was the kids I trained and guided in sports. Once a day with snowstorm I thought that none would show up and I stayed at home. But soon the telephone rang "Are you comming?" ... I can never say NO to a child. I felt they needed me and I spent much time in thinking how I should give them what they needed.

My childhood was much of rules, commands and demands and that I would never give to the next generation. I had to rethink my entire childhood and also find the little funny and happy boy inside. In spite of my rough and tough years there were many occasions of happiness and good things.

I wanted to be an "uncle" like all those I had in my running years. Except grandma I had no help in my foster home. But I had at least a bunch of uncles and aunt in whom I could trust and with care ask difficult questions.

Hilary Clinton said once "It takes a community to foster a child". I think she is right. Without engaged people on every level the child is just outside. Since I have met some children from "upper homes" with problems I think children is a concern for everyone. All sorts of people can get problems at home and can be out of order. From the outside we cannot know and judge.

Children need the network not only the family and school, but also in sports and their spare time. Like me they need to see how real life is in general to compare so they can judge what is normal. That they find among occasional meeting and in sports where there are no demands and they can show they are good at something.

When you are with children without formal authority and organisation it is a challenge to use your own authority the right way. I got my certificate once I overheard to small kids. The little girl said "Oh, Bengt never get angry" ... she was right. When it comes to children and women I would never get angry. I can raise my voice but that is more like a warning.

I think those two had done something they did not if it was right or wrong. That is the way I like it. They should think by themselves and seek the right answer ... or if needed ask me and I will explain it gently. Maybe my Karelian father gave me the model. He always called me "Big Man" and talked to my brains and to think twice. He knew of course that I always tried my best.

I would like to see that the secret world of those small things in our care lived among fairies their first years. They have to sort out how everything works. I think they are the best pretenders in the world. Our ancestors surely learnt much just by pretending and try to be like what they saw just to catch the nature. Even animals are pretending when training for life.

Normally we adults are responsible for the children up to the age of fourteen to eighteen ... the custom are a little different in the world. My Danish generation got most of the rights and responsibilities at fourteen and the confirmation was the initialisation. Too many adults forget that children are not adults and that we are responsible.

If they do wrong it is our sake to fix it the right way. To punish a child that does not know better is nearly criminal ... it is the same with animals. They do not know English and many children have not enough knowledge of the language either. In our old rules they say the innocent have no guilt.

About school age they come into the "secret gang". Children as a special tribe carry their gags, games and secrets from generation to generation like in a world outside ours. Not every tribe has good rules, but in mine everyone had a sense of fair play and right and wrong. We had also something that adults often are without. We felt that we all should be equal. Mostly it was "One for all and all for one" and everything should be shared equally.

When you are the "uncle" you should know that. Never point out anyone in negative or positive sense. The negative you take as a talk between good friends when no others are present. The good pointing should be when the target knows he has done something good and the other know it too. Then the child straightens the body and knows that he/she has grown a bit. It is always good to see.

Respect you have to earn. That you get through being fair and reliable. If they feel and know that you understand them and have much of deep experience they respect you for that. If they know you can keep a secret and give a friendly advice they come to you when they have problems they can not solve by themselves. You should be honoured. They trust in you.

Then when they are about fourteen they just try you. Can they beat you? It is a way of testing at which stage they are. That can be hard since you must not loose. It is only small children you a few times give a win when you see they need it. But normally they should feel it "is for real". My fortune is my humour and my big mouth.

I remember bombing aeroplanes ... I can see bombed house ... I remember evacuation ... I remember a bombed evacuation train and a little girl crying for her dog.

Still ten years after those experiences I was in my spinal cord afraid of aeroplanes and sought sometimes shelter when none saw it. It was just like a reflex. I feel with the children of Bosnia and Kosovo or wherever they are when we see them at TV. Sometimes I get the smell of war in my nose.

I think it lowers my status as human as long as mankind allow wars. Nothing is solved by war. Only much pain and loss. After the war they still have to negotiate. I remember my seven fights in childhood. It hurts when the other hit you and still you have that pray for forgiveness afterward. Why not be friends the easy way?

I can understand that a child needs to fight, since at that age you have no words. If you are small and a bit of an outsider there is always the risk that some bully want to try. From first day in school I learnt that once the peace is broken there is no rules any longer. I was always a war machine when they forced me to it. Then I needed only a few times to show that none could sit upon me. I am a cactus.

But I can not get into my head that adult seemingly intelligent people should go into war ... or as in the time of cold war armour themselves over they head and what they can afford. All that was of course big business. Not too intelligent I think. The cheapest way to solve disputes is by negotiation or "if you cannot beat the join them"

Worst of all the businessmen are involved. They have not too long sight. Bills for unnecessary things have to be paid sooner or later. The war machine is money in the ocean. My teacher in international law said once "The Flag of Commerce do not know borders". There will be no real commerce as long as war is going on.

During the war we children tried to understand what war is. I think the children of today also wonder. Now we have TV and some of them can not sort out what is action movies and what is war I think. Some of them begin to think that that absurd happening is normality.

Those children in Bosnia and Kosovo cannot see what it is about at all ... they are scared and see no connection to their world. Many of them will be aliens all their life. I think the only thing the global community can do is to be responsible. Show them that we others are normal people and do not like real war and that people get hurt.

The Future Child should feed you when you grow old ... so the Child of war.

 Many moons ago my friend Calle wrote a poem about "a red flying cow dancing upon the roof" ... that line became an ant fooling around in my hear. Then old Goethe and his studies in colours gave the explanation. If you look at a red cow intensively and move your eyes to a grey background the after-image turns to the opposite colour

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I had Grandma, I had my Lass, I had my Blood brother ... still I had problems of my own. I learned early to use books as the silent companion you need not argue with: I knew I can solve all my problems if only I have time.

As an elderly man I urge you to teach your children to use books as the best friend. You need not teach them and do not tell what to read. Sometimes we need garbage sometimes some deep thoughts. Then we learn what is bad and what is good. We learn the most from our mistakes.

A scientist told recently that we westerners use only one half of the brain. We are rational and have no imagination because we are not used to images and pictures. I do not belong to them. My imagination was feed by the books in my childhood. I got games to play from my reading ... and on that road is it.

I have been much engaged in ecology since the eighties. Unfortunately I also become older and the sins against my health I did in younger days. That is why I have analysed and tried out some routines I will tell you more about later on.

One of the advices is to always wear cotton near your body. However cotton is not the issue, but if you want a good temper wear no electrostatic underwear. You become loaded and it affects your mood. You can make a "download" by taking of your shoes or touch a water pipe for a moment.

A Chines proverb tells "These wise man begin to grow flowers"

The truth is that as soon as you begin to care for and love something outside yourself and your family you become a part of nature. Only love and care can get things growing. Once you are in it you want to live and become part of the great wonder of the will to live in nature. Then you do not want anything to disappear from it.

Those few rules seem too simple. Still they are not at all prescription in everyday life. You cannot compromise and you cannot pay you free from the consequences.

In younger days I thought that they learned calculation for life at Business and Administration schools. In fact the capital and business people are the most polluting and consuming part of society. I doubt they are intelligent and they do not really think about coming generations

Then I learnt the first and only thing they learn is to maximise profit and minimise cost, which in practise means compromising or ignoring consequences of industry and trade. I learnt it is better to have no brain and heart if you are going into big business.

You have of course to learn some rhetoric, so that you can win consumers by words and not by facts. Then you have to trust in the Future Child, which shall pay and also solve our unsolved problems. From that follows that the worst in business do not care for the survival of anything on this earth.

When it comes to survival and the last question there is no need to be polite to the destroyers. It is them or us. It is obvious that it is those with powers that are responsible. If they see that something have to be done, it is their duty to act for it whether it is against public opinion or not.

Only the collective and its representatives can keep destroyers in their place. It is not easy for city-dwellers to see all the rules and their logic since they have no practise in caring for greater entities. The rules are the same when caring for a child or a single flower as when caring for the entire nature. However it is not so easy to see what to do

The green movement is growing fast. It is only natural. You never see animals eat near their excrements. Still we are throwing waste into our larder. The mathematical formula is simple. The pollution is in proportion to our consumption minus our efforts to minimise waste.

I am part of the global movement for the Future Child and recommend Envirolink as a node to many sites on the subject. I have the Green Market on my frontpage but on Envirolink you will find more about Sustainable Living and Environment Online

Why on earth does some people think that they could better the planet. And with what right? When I look at the world I am astonished by wonder. Nature itself creates life in every niche up to the substrate that can feed some new specie. That means, "the nature gives the right to life". Only beast kills life.

Looking at underworld pictures from the coral reefs is the best thing I know. An endless variation of species, shapes and colours. Mankind is just stupid if it thinks that it can better than nature itself.

From the very beginning I am the titanic living force ... then I mean when we are dwarf we run and run and no athlete can follow us. Then I cannot allow anyone to spoil or take lives except other species for food. The will to life keep nature blooming ... it is as simple as that. You cannot compromise with that without destroying the planet or a bit of life.

The Greeks was much occupied by thinking about good manners and to live the right way. Cheiron, the centaur was one of the symbols. It is a merge of man and animal. Both parts have to be in symbiosis when you ride a horse. If you are friend both have fun. If you tame it by force you are not a friend and know little about life. In worst case you have a potential enemy.

That is just the way it is between man and nature ... I have no respect for those who do not love nature and treat it as a beloved.