Medan vi lever review

Later that night, I started reading Nina Björk’s While We’re Living: Thoughts on Existence. Maybe a book about the meaning of life, and how to live that life, would provide solace? It seems Björk often feels just like I do, which made me smile: ‘I don’t know how you react to reading this? Personally, it feels like I’m crumpling, until I’m completely bent over. Like a cheese puff.’

On the whole, Björk’s polemic is well structured and written in inviting, accessible language. She touches on influencer culture, advertising, capitalism, fake news, social constructivism, ageing, and technology in a way that is highly relevant. The most interesting sections deal with how so much of life these days is about our presentation of ourselves rather than who we really are at our core – how we allow others (often internet strangers) to determine our worth and mould ourselves to attract their approval, measured in likes.

At its best, reading the book feels like sitting next to Björk, engaging in a wonderful, intense conversation. The conversation isn’t always easy – Björk is a formidable mind. But that is precisely why the effort is worthwhile. Björk describes similarly expansive experiences during her student days:

I would often tingle inside when I read difficult theory books, thinking “now I’m on the verge, now the world’s opening up, I’m about to grasp something game-changing” […] I struggled to understand what I was reading and sometimes I actually did and sometimes I really got something out of it. A new perspective, a new understanding, a widening of the world.

At times, Björk’s meandering, let’s-explore-this-together, conversational style weakens her work. There’s a page or three in the chapter on love that humoristically tries to answer how couples should divide household chores. It feels bizarrely out of place. In the chapter on time, Björk’s way of dealing with her own fear of ageing seems to be to quite simply ignore the issue. Still, the writer is refreshingly honest about her own thought process in those places: ‘It could be part of the answer, but I don’t really know to be honest. Or I do know, but can’t stand for what I know as I lack the tools to justify it rationally.’

The minute I started reading While We’re Living, I couldn’t put it down. I took it with me on the Tube, where, instead of swiping through cat videos, I got to converse with a brilliant sparring partner instead. Björk keeps offering thoughts and ideas, inviting you to question the status quote of yourself, society, and this mad existence.

‘Fix your eyes on what you think is worth fixing your eyes on. Be where you think there is meaning in being,’ she urges readers. I warmly, warmly recommend fixing your eyes on While We’re Living next time you find the state of the world turning you into a cheesy Wotsit of despair.