My parents had a strong interest in building houses and creating gardens around them. Before they were 40 years old, they had purchased 3 pieces of land in 3 three different places around Aarhus in Denmark. On 2 of those pieces of land, they had built 2 houses. They spent lots of time creating beautiful gardens around the houses.

The first house my parents built was a Summer house located at P. Baatrupsvej 52 in Odder South of Aarhus. I was told that we spent quite a lot of time there in the first couple of years after I was born. My mother told me that I liked to play in the puddles there as well as feed the pigeons. My mother and father invested much time in designing and building a house and a garden on the ground.

Asking my mother why she and my father invested in / bought land, houses, cars, furniture, kitchen appliances and many other things over a relatively short period of time, she explained to me that that was the norm at that time. Everyone did it. House prices as well as inflation were going up at relatively high rates, so people were eager to buy things fast. People were afraid of getting left behind - of not being part of the herd. My mother also explained that when neighbors, friends and/or family members had invested in / bought something, for example new plates and cutlery or new furniture, other neighbors and/or other family members bought something similar or better.  What I learned from what my mother told me, is that people were continuously comparing themselves with each other and wanted to impress each other by having bigger, better, and more beautiful things. What I understood is that people were competing with each other - including their family members and friends - to have a bigger car, a nicer house, better furniture and/or more beautiful, trendy clothes. And if it was not possible to have the same things or something better than what people, they compared themselves with, had, people became envious of each other. 

This envy, which people had in their minds and hearts, fueled negative emotions that resulted in people neither loving themselves nor the people, with whom they compared themselves. The assumption, which people based more or less their entire lives on, was - as I understood it - that when people had similar or better things, which other people had, they would gain more social status. And increasing their social status in communities, they were a part of, would help people feel more respected, more liked, more loved. As a consequence of this, they would, they thought, become more satisfied, feel better and have better, more relaxing lives. As I understood what my mother told me, this was the story that people told themselves and believed in from the 1950s. There was no limit to things people wanted. The more things people had, the better it was for them. And everything had to happen quickly. 

Asking my mother to explain more about why this development was going on, she said that this development was a consequence of the situation during and shortly after World War 2. At that time, people had relatively few things. It was a time of scarcity. Also, communities were strong at that time. People had conversations with each other - on the streets, in trams, in shops, in offices, in production locations, in homes, in cafeterias, at discos. People helped each other with more or less everything. They had fun together. And literally, doors were open - even front doors of people's homes - so people could just walk in and out. This openness, easy access and welcoming culture further strengthened communication and trust. 

Over the years, these cultures, which had strong values of openness, trust, love and and helping each other, slowly moved to cultures that had more focus on competition, status, power and safety. Several developments contributed to this change. For example, people started moving from A to B by themselves using their cars - instead of together with others using trams / buses / trains. Also, people moved from apartments, where they had lived among many different people, to houses. The development of doors, windows, locks and hedges around houses, which people bought, contributed to strengthening individualism and safety - and reducing openness, spontaneity and togetherness. 

From the stories, I listened to, I understood that, today, several elderly people have contrasting ways of living embedded in their minds. On the one hand, they want many things fast, as they have experienced in their lives that getting many things fast led - to some degree - to a better standard of living. On the other hand, many elderly people want to keep everything, they have - just as they did when they were children. These two contrasting ways of thinking result, I learned, in many elderly people having large stocks of things in their homes that they want to hold on to. And when they keep buying things that - due to economies of scale, robotics and other technologies - are produced efficiently and at low costs - many homes of elderly people seemed to have turned into warehouses with stocks of things in cupboards / basements / lofts. A question that, as I understand it, is flowing the air and which no elderly person seems to ask, was: What was the purpose? What did we really want?

My mother told me that in 1962, two years after my parents married and eight years before I was born, she thought that she had become pregnant. The reason she thought that she had become pregnant was that a week after that she would normally have her menstruation, she had not yet had her menstruation. At that time, both of my parents had relatively low salaries. My father as well as my mother thought that because of their low salaries, it would not be the right time to have a child. They wanted to wait to have a child until their salaries would increase. As a consequence of this decision, my mother contacted a doctor in Aarhus. The doctor gave her a pill, which she swallowed. The next day, my mother had her menstruation. And when she called the doctor to say that she had had her menstruation, the doctor said that the pill would not work so quickly. It was the doctor's belief, my mother said, that even she had not swallowed the pill, she would have gotten her menstruation anyway. 

Later in the 1960s, as the salaries of my parents increased, my mother and father wanted to have a child. However, for some reason, it turned out to be difficult for my mother to become pregnant. So in 1965, my mother as well as  my father had examinations done in a part of a hospital specializing in genecology. A reason for the fertility problems was, doctors found, that my father had relatively low sperm counts. In 1968, my parents decided to sign up with an organization that specialized in adopting children from Tanzania. Following this, my parents were planning to learn the language spoken in Tanzania and travel to Tanzania.

Simultaneously with the child adoption process of my parents, my mother and father sought fertility advice from different people. At a period of time, my parents also got in touch with a veterinarian. The veterinarian advised my mother and father to consume extra A vitamins, B vitamins and C vitamins. In particular, the veterinarian suggested to both of my parents that they consume A vitamin, as this could help my father to increase his sperm counts as well as help my mother become more susceptible to the sperm of my father. During a holiday, which my parents went on at the end of December, 1969, in Las Palmas, a city on the Spanish island Gran Canaria, I was created. When my parents came back from their vacation in Spain at the start of January, 1970, they contacted a doctor, who confirmed that my mother was pregnant. And shortly after, my parents called the child adoption organization and told them that they wanted to take back their application for an adopted child, because my mother was pregnant.