Crossing the globe to visit relatives has its benefits, but relaxation isn’t among them. Planes, trains, buses, boats, and cars…moving from one relative’s town to the next, packing luggage, hauling luggage, unpacking luggage…when I get back to America, I’m going to need a vacation.

So an hour or two to pause and gather my thoughts here is quite welcome. Perhaps that’s why I like to blog: to relax, as mental therapy, a short respite from the sufferings of real life.

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If Paul Simon had gone to Sweden instead of South Africa, would I be humming “Diamonds on the Seats of my SAAB” right now? Nah. To say those words and mean them would be to stop making sense.

Displaying luxury is the least Swedish thing you could possibly do. The Swedish Dream can be summed up in one word: “Lagom”. There’s no direct English translation for that word, but it’s an adjective that means “just the right amount or size, neither too much nor too little.”

Swedes don’t want the biggest house with the biggest cars and the most prestigious job with the biggest salary. They want a lagom house, with a lagom car, and a lagom job that pays a lagom salary. To be moderately successful is ideal; being a huge success is embarrassing. Have you ever heard a Swedish athlete brag?

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Eastern philosophy holds that the path to enlightenment is to avoid desire, and thereby avoid suffering. Western philosophy holds that the path to enlightenment is to embrace desire despite the suffering that results. Swedish philosophy is a compromise: enlightenment through a moderation of desires and a moderation of suffering.

I’ve spent three years living in Sweden, but I have never been able to embrace that Swedish philosophy on a personal level. To me, it’s like preferring to hit a double over a home run. I want to either play hard, or not play at all. What’s that quote about hell being reserved for the neutral?

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On this trip, I visited Köping, population 17,000, the town where I lived from the ages of 13-15. As an kid with American-sized dreams, Köping seemed like Satan’s Own Godforsaken Frozen Hellhole of Boredom. Your main choices in life seemed to be to (a) grow up and work at the local Volvo transmission factory, or (b) get the hell out of Köping.

I was baptized and confirmed in Köping’s 500-year-old Lutheran church, but it didn’t help me feel any closer to Heaven. Eventually, my prayers–please God, let my answer be (b)–were answered, and I got a chance to return home to America.

It’s been twenty-two years since I left Köping, and today, it’s the same as it ever was. The Volvo factory still dominates the town. The water is still flowing in the river downtown. The church is still the tallest building. There’s a McDonald’s now, though. That’s progress.

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I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had stayed in Köping. I probably would have had a lagom job and a lagom house and a lagom car and a lagom Swedish wife with lagom smart kids, and I would have let the days go by until one day I would have asked myself, “Where is my fabulous job?” And I would have asked myself, “Where is my large automobile?” And I would have said to myself, “This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!”

I would have said to myself, “I have never been to Yankee Stadium” and I would have driven off in my car, taking that highway where it leads to, leaving a trail of broken hearts, suffering their lagom losses.