It is a hard job to be so self absorbed as I am. Especially when it turns out to be correct for my egocentrism.
During a few weeks in the fall, I read my own name so many times, in magazines, in social media, in läsarmejl, that I started to believe that people actually do not care about so much more than me. One can of course object that I’m sitting on the first row seat and therefore has the best overview, but after that, I in October, wrote a widely acclaimed text on the phenomenon of ”huskvinnor” had it not mattered if I had been sitting on the ”obscured sight”place. I was everywhere. All said it.
in the whole Sweden think something about you?”, asked a friend (clearly eye). ”When Aftonbladet paints you as an equal danger to world peace and half the world’s population as Steve Bannon, then you have truly succeeded”, smsade my dad (clearly oironiskt). I thought: I am as big a danger to world peace as the Steve Bannon. All the women in the whole of Sweden should have an opinion on me, and I want all the men, too, and any place outside of the country, yes, the planet’s limits.
eventually, I began to feel that alvdrottningen to the undying lands in the first ”Lord of the rings”movie, when she is offered the one ring and towers over little Frodo in an inverted, isblått light: ”In the place of a dark lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn, treacherous as the sea, stronger than the foundations of the earth all shall love me and despair…”
It is a deeply satisfying feeling to get his rampant narcissism confirmed. The opposite – to get their grandiose self-image questioned – is deeply painful.
I’m beginning to suspect that my own editors love Greta Thunberg more than they love me.
heard about Greta Thunberg was just when she started to skolstrejka outside the parliament in August this year. I sympathized with her klimatkamp and recognized me in her way but was more ambivalent about that, we obviously called the same thing. We narcissists do not like to share with us. And I called it first.
Cut to four months later. Greta Thunberg has this week given a speech at the climate summit in Katowice in preparation of the UN secretary-general António Guterres. In many countries, the pupils have taken after her skolstrejkande, in Australia, despite that country’s prime minister, explicitly condemned the method. Arnold Schwarzenegger – my darling! – has tweeted to her: ” You inspire me”.
at the same time, I have sat at my desk and watched person after person on Twitter – albeit unfortunately not Arnold Schwarzenegger – confuse me with Greta Thunberg. I read the headlines (free from memory): ”Greta is our very own Malala”, ”Greta is our time Jeanne d’arc”, ”Listen to Greta – otherwise we will die”. None of them are, lo and behold, about me and my thoughts on tvåtusentalets women, but about how we should be able to prevent the earth’s destruction. I’m beginning to suspect that my own editors love Greta Thunberg more than they love me.
not enough going on right now a day if a new edition of the folk-tale ”hansel and Gretel”. I am tearing my hair. Not a Greta! What comes next – a debate about Greta Garbo, a debate on Greta Gerwig, the debate on Greta the Pig? How many Greta withstand Sweden?
twice during the autumn I have found myself in the same room as Greta Thunberg, and twice have I failed to introduce myself. Although she is only 15 years old and I, contrary to what you may believe, is somewhat older, I have not dared to go forward.
I am afraid that she would not even have heard of me.
Read more texts by Greta Thurfjell , for example, about why Karl Ove Knausgård may not stop smoking .
