Robert Birming

Since I’m in the one step at a time process of moving my blog, and today picked Ava’s post I like getting older for my Junited 2025 list, I figured it was the perfect time to move this 2024 post of mine over here. I was listening to an interview with the Swedish artist Peter Jöback. They were talking about aging, and he said: I feel like my life started after I turned 50.

Want to sprinkle some rainbow magic on your Micro.blog during Pride Month? Or why not keep the joy going all year round? Rainbows never go out of style! 🌈✨ Just hop over to ‘Design → Edit CSS’ and paste in the code below. I’m using the mnml theme, but it should play nicely with most standard ones. .site-title { background: linear-gradient(to right, #ef5350, #f48fb1, #7e57c2, #2196f3, #26c6da, #43a047, #eeff41, #f9a825, #ff5722); -webkit-background-clip: text; -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent; } Update: Here’s a way to add a colorful border to your avatar too.

We often only see the finished product, not the messy journey behind it. That thought struck me while I was listening to an interview with the Swedish artist Per Gessle, best known for his work with the band Roxette. When asked about the key to success, he replied: “You have to dare, and you have to fail, and you have to make a fool of yourself, and you have to do terrible things to do good things.

We’ve all been there: the anticipation of something great, only to be met with disappointment. It’s easy to have high expectations in life. A much-anticipated sci-fi film, a dream trip promising fantastic experiences, a project we strongly believe in. Then reality doesn’t live up to those expectations. We become disappointed, and everything feels like a big failure. What if we lowered our expectations a bit? We can still look forward to things with joy and strive to realize our ideas, but our happiness and well-being don’t have to depend on the final result.

Lately, it’s struck me that I now prefer books, movies, and shows that feel real and take place more or less in modern times. I used to love animated films, fantasy, and stories with historical themes. But not so much anymore. Maybe it’s just a phase I’m going through. I don’t know. Still, I find it interesting. What shapes the different phases we go through in life? External circumstances? Inner insights?

I listened to an interview (it’s in English by a Swedish journalist) with the American songwriter and producer Desmond Child. He mentioned that he had used one of his creations in three different productions with three different artists: If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man) – Bonnie Tyler You Give Love a Bad Name – Bon Jovi Kings & Queens – Ava Max Here’s a short audio clip with the intros back to back.

A while back, Ava kindly invited me to take part in her wonderful initiative, the Bear blog question challenge. You can read my answers here. Now that I’m on a new platform, I thought it would be fun and interesting to do a Micro.blog version of the same challenge. Below are Ava’s original questions, but with Bear swapped out for Micro.blog (and the tags part removed, since MB doesn’t use tags).

Today is Midsummer’s Day here in Sweden. Of all the holidays we celebrate, this might just be the biggest. Yes, even bigger than Christmas. This year, I spent it with my family in Åkersberga, the neighborhood where I grew up. It was a lovely day with great weather, lots of people, and of course, the iconic Midsummer pole. Part of the tradition involves decorating the pole with flowers and birch branches before raising it.