TEDxGöteborg: I laughed, I cried & cringed

IMAGE: TEDxGoteborg

Teacup in hand, I’m sitting here, in my sofa, wrapped up in a blanket, trying to make sense of my thoughts and emotions after TEDxGöteborg. The day was a wild roller-coaster of emotions, unexpected twists and inspiration.

I’ve seen live – on stage –  shells of human organs stripped of their cells, cringing in my seat – bear in mind I was on the second row in the audience from this organ theater. Trying to hold back the tears, listening to stories of clowns bringing joy to children in refugee camps all over the world with either lost ,minds or limbs. Being amused by the Swedish governments Soviet conspiracy theories resulting in being exposed as something purely based  on sounds made from herrings. I’ve listened  to music played by fotons, and having my mind blown galaxies away while being educated about the birth and deaths of starts. Which matter we are all made of.

All in all, it’s been pretty mindblowing listening to all these stories, delivered from all these inspiring and beautiful people. A spectacular day that I am really grateful that I could be part of and here to experience.

Something that really touched me today was actually something that related to the participants of the event. The audience.  A woman with Aspbergers Syndrome entered the stage. The tech didn’t work as intended. She went off stage – and the tech guys tried to solve the issue. As you can imagine, walking up on stage to have a talk, and it does not start the way you intended, is frightening for a “normal” person. I can’t even imagine how that must feel for someone with Aspbergers, but I can take a guess based on how that would throw me off guard.

What struck me was that the atmosphere in the room was so calm during all this. The audience so patient, and OK. In silence saying collectively – “it will be Ok love, we will wait, take your time, no rush, we are here to hear you, we can wait. So when the woman in question entered the stage again, despite all this, and had a second go at giving her talk – she received an applause, and her talk was over, we all stood up and gave her a standing ovation. Now my friends – that was a beautiful moment.

The empathy touched me. That was an act of pure love from close to 300 strangers towards one individual where we all felt for her and wanted to show her our support.

My conclusion from the day is: we live on a magical little planet, humanity can be so cruel, but what magic we can make together or as individuals, if we just put our minds to it.