Category Archives: Philosophy

Please Be Stupid

Do you work with something you don’t love?
What would it take to make you quit?
What would happen if you stopped instantly, walked away and left?
What would happen if you did whatever it is that you love working with instead?
What would happen if you did that, right now, regardless of where you are?

The last three years I’ve been working full time as a web developer in Stockholm.
I used to love it.
A few months ago I found that most of the time I had my mind on completely different things.
My body was present, but my mind wasn’t.
For some people that’s perfectly OK, but for me it isn’t.
I wasn’t passionate enough, it was time to move on.

My friend used to start singing “The Rose” by Bette Midler while at the office. That was purely out of passion.
Sometimes he swore at the computer for not compiling with his wishes.
That’s passionate as well, but that’s not the kind of passion that I’m talking about here.

So, what is passion?
Passion is not something to ignore nor dream about.
Passion is very real and very important.
It’s something that you should treat with the greatest respect and sensibility.
Passionate people blister, glows and shines.
Passionate people changes the world.
How would the world turn out if all people followed their passions?

I don’t have one specific passion, I’ve got several.

I’m passionate about:
* connecting with people
* tasting flavors
* positive psychology, it is in my veins
* hitchhiking- makes me smile
* Amanda
* personal development
* having and sharing fun
* organizing crazy things, such as the Chicken Dance
* adventure
* dancing
* participatory culture
* outdoors

That’s why I’m doing this right now.
I started following my passions instead of staying at a place that didn’t speak to my heart as well as to my wallet.
At my old working place I actually tried organizing a “Glee” inspired musical group. That didn’t catch on with my co-workers.
Now, we’re doing it the international way instead by arranging the Chicken Dance and other related upcoming events!

I’m extremely excited about this project!
What are you passionate about?
/Robin

Why do we travel?

What is traveling?
We associate traveling with new impressions of all kinds, and we believe that new impressions will develop us in many different ways. It makes us more willing to care, to live, to create and to love.

Market in Kenya

We travel to reach our full personal potential.
Traveling means meeting new people, and engaging with (to us) unknown cultures:
* tasting unknown foods
* wandering on unknown roads
* playing and singing unknown music
* viewing unknown landscapes
* taking part of unknown peoples lives

We’re finding it harder to fulfill ourselves while being on the same schedule every day.
Getting up in the morning, going to work, having dinner, go to sleep, getting up again.
This routine can be devastating. For us it is! At home we’re not actively engaging with the people that we encounter, we don’t try to make new food, we don’t teach ourselves new languages and we don’t try out new instruments.
Do you?
While traveling we’ve experienced that we can be better than we are at home,
that we are actually better than ourselves.
That’s why we’re traveling!
Traveling makes us more open to new possibilities, more daringly, active and more social.

Traveling thrills us!
Not knowing where you’ll spend the night, or what you’ll see tomorrow or even the following hour or minute thrills. When you’re on the road, you need to interact with random people and solve difficult problems to be able to move on.
You need to:
* force yourself out of your comfort zone
* reach out to people
* learn all the time – new words, habits and manners

This type of challenge makes you sleep very well.
We love sleeping. We love dreaming.

What thrills you and why do you travel?

Why dance like chickens?

Our vision is simple:

We want to unite individuals all over the planet through a global and collective dance that will strike as a sudden storm and spread around the world like a virus.
It will be innocent, silly and extremely funny.
Uncontrollable, sudden and extremely potent.

Sillyness can spark revolutions.

We don’t have any hidden messages or political agendas.
We’re not part of any corporation, political party or religious community.

We are lovers, driven by fearlessness and passion who truthfully believe that this dance will change lives in some way.

“How” is up to you.

Dance with us or arrange one yourself!

The Chicken Dance Tour

Why do you hitchhike?

Hitchhiker with a sign saying "Freshly Shower'd"
It’s fun to hitchhike! (Sign, love and photo by Peacehead)

You’ve probably never hitchhiked if you ask why you should hitchhike.
In many countries, Sweden, for example, hitchhiking is a rare form of traveling these days.
In some other countries, it’s the most common way of traveling by car there is.

This is why we hitchhike:

  • To meet!
    Most people tell you their life story when they pick you up, or how they used to hitchhike themselves. Some ask you questions, or gladly answers yours. Most of all, it’s just wonderful to get to feel so overwhelmingly grateful for the hitch. You’ll feel grateful for the ride, and the driver will feel grateful for the opportunity to do a good deed. Win-win!
  • Slow traveling!
    When you go by plane, it’s as if you’ve teleported yourself to your destination. Or, if you’ve seen the movie “Truman Show”, it’s as if someone just changed the sets during the hours you spent in the plane.
    We want to truly feel and experience that we’re really moving and traveling. The ultimate way would be by walking, but that would take forever, and we would not meet with persons, as most people travel by car these days.
  • Unpredictability!
    It’s hard to predict where we will be at what time. As we are moving from a very fixed situation (we both have stable jobs and everything in our everyday life is very predictable) we are looking forward to spend time as if we had all the time in the world. Because, guess what. We do. When did you last experience that kind of freedom?
  • It’s fun!
    We will get to make signs with funny messages on them, and we’ll get to see several funny faces and reactions from the people that will not give us a hitch but just pass us by. Some of them will even give us the finger. Yes, THAT finger ;) .
  • Food for thought!
    How many of the people that didn’t pick us up will tell their families that story?
    How many of them will think back and wonder where we came from, and why we were passing by their reality?
    How many of them will take a leap of faith and pick up the next hitchhiker they’ll see?
    How many of them will get so inspired that they will try hitchhiking themselves?
    How many of them will quit their jobs and start traveling full time?
    How many of the drivers that DID pick us up will tell their friends, families and co-workers?
    How many of them will pray for us?
    How many will give us their email address?
    How many of them will invite us to their homes, to meet their children, husbands or wifes, girlfriends or boyfriends?
  • For the environment!
    Kind of a no-brainer. This planet is overheating and too many cars travel with only one passenger.

hitchhikers
Happy hitchhikers (photo by Guaka)

As you can see, there are LOTS of good reasons to hitchhike.
But there is one reason that we’ve saved for last:
It’s a very spiritual way of traveling.
Again and again you’ll wonder how you came to be so lucky,
and how it seems that the whole universe is collaborating to make your trip perfect.

One thing is certain:
We’ll always pick up hitchhikers in the future.
Share the love :) !

Hello world!

Sweden, the nation that brought you The Pirate Bay, IKEA, ABBA, Robyn, Kalles Kaviar and Per Gessle (yes, we’re truly deeply sorry for Per Gessle) now brings you MangoManjaro.se!

Two super blond, truth seeking, pop delicious crazy swedes on a quest to bring joy and
adventure to the masses is starting their hitchhiking journey in Gdansk, Poland, september 2010.

Our destination: New Delhi, India.
In order to make our very short swedish summer a permanent one,
we’re going to hitchhike all the way to New Delhi from Gdansk!
Along our way, we will trace the origin of love, courage and will.

How does the sound, gestures and sights of love transform over eastern europe to western asia?
How do the syrian arabs treat their guests?
How does the Chicken Dance work in Krakow?
How does it work in New Delhi?
Will the people of Teheran enjoy it as much as we do in Kräklingbo?
Will it make them smile, laugh and cry tears of joy?
Or will it makes them so effing pissed that we’ll suffocate by
the collective grip force of their furious combined hands?

No one knows…yet!

Follow us on this blog, and we’ll keep you posted on our findings, misfortunes and experiences!