Heli Laaksonen is grateful that the energy crisis has pushed people’s consumption behaviour in a wiser direction. Laaksonen is joined by online police officer Daniel Kalejaiye as a guest on Yle Friday.
*It’s hot in summer, cold in winter. In Satakunta, where I live. What do you see in the water?*
– I am an old-fashioned person by nature. Not in the sense of using everything you can get your hands on, but trying to get by with as little as possible. It feels natural, Laaksonen describes himself to Ricks.
Laaksonen’s old wood-fired house in Rauma Lapland is elongated, and in winter four of its seven rooms are cold.
– I also think that’s quite a lot when the two of you live in three rooms, Laaksonen states.
– It is quite natural when you live in the countryside that the changes of seasons and cold and warm are visible. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter.
There is no indoor toilet in the house, and the shower is also outside.
– Why would you have to fumble with water inside? We have a shower built into an old cattle kitchen, where hot water comes in. When you have walked 20 steps across the icy yard, you feel grateful.
As an energy-saving tip, Laaksonen recommends digging out, for example, the one-minute hourglass familiar from the Alias \u200b\u200bboard game. It’s a breeze in the shower.
– One minute is too little, I need one more, Laaksonen says.
– Why did this become such that it is the starting point that the water runs out in the shower by a quarter of an inch? It has perhaps gone to excess. In my opinion, we are now coming back towards something wiser: no pointless spending, no whining, but no fussing either.
“I have something to say and you don’t read”
Laaksonen does not use a smartphone, but he has a mobile phone. You can easily take it with you on forest trips, because it tends to get lost. He uses social media on a tablet, but a maximum of one hour a day.
When smartphones became more common, the humps of book sales turned downward at the same pace. Some people gave up books completely and switched to social media. It has given the poet a lot of thought.
– I am motivated by the fact that there are readers. Sometimes when I show someone my latest book and they answer that I don’t really read, I feel like I’m taking a letter to someone and they answer that I don’t really read. Huh! I have written to you, I have something to do, and you don’t read, Laaksonen explains.
– However, I am hopeful, because people have slowly started to notice that social media is a bit unnerving and monotonous.
Studied for a new profession
The corona pandemic interrupted Heli Laaksonen’s public performances in the spring of 2020. That’s when he decided to apply to study as a nature and environmental advisor.
Along with reduced book sales, he now has a new profession after two years of studies, but Laaksonen still loves writing. And when he writes, it always flows.
– I didn’t want to get to the point where I’m sulking at home or sighing there saying oh oh, how did this get to this point. I wonder how I can move forward mentally, even though everything is at a standstill.
– Many adults and young people, and generally all non-toddler-age people, think that goods and the status brought by goods are everything. Technically, a 12-year-old doesn’t need a smartphone for anything, because all social media are prohibited for people under 13, Kalejaiye points out.