Innovation for everyone

This past weekend I attended a talk on makerspaces and the creative, so thoughtfully invited by Christie Mettes from Brenchie's Lab.
Brenchie's Lab is a makerspace, I came into contact with them when we collaborated our spaces for their genius design project Plastic Beach Party, which will be holding a few more sessions at our Beam Building next week.

The talk was given by the very friendly and helpful Gabi Agustini from Olabi, a maker space in Brazil. The small gathering counted those in the creative industry in Aruba as well as some people who were just interested in the idea and wanted to learn more.
As I've been working with Beam since June, I was very interested in learning how other creatives are making their models functional, what their principles are and how their goals are similar to ours.

The first part of the talk, Gabi presented the different projects she's been working on. I was impressed at the scope and reach of their projects, but mostly, I was very inspired by the motivation behind it all. I got a sense that they are trying to re-propriate genius and technology, reclaiming the creative and making it serve the needs of their own communities.
These days, most people are gladly consumers of technology and creative culture (from cellphones and laptops to movies and fashion) and seemingly disinterested in using these tools to better their own day-to-day lives.
Gabi showed us how technology is being used mostly by white-majority countries, from a white-male perspective and for a white-male user.
In Olabi, they are using reverse-engineering to learn to re-purpose available technology to create new things that better satisfy the needs of the community, by involving South American and women populations.

I found it so courageous and fresh of them to just take the resources available and put their creative energy to use to create something better and something useful.
I guess I feel really comforted in knowing there are so many people in the world now who are actively working to push their own narratives and experiences to the forefront and to independently find solutions to their challenges.

The latter part of the talk consisted in a round-setting exchange of ideas where I took the opportunity to ask for Gabi's advice regarding our own platform, Beam, and how to get people interested and involved. It takes something to push people to a shift in perspective, and, as I am still lacking a lot of experience, I wanted a hint on where to start looking.
What I took from this was that it takes a lot more vulnerability, just sharing your story and weaving a narrative that will resonate with people.

I think in the end, everyone has it in them to re-purpose all creative content to suit their own needs, be it personal expression and convenience, or to solve social challenges that benefit their community.
I came away feeling thankful to be linked to those who not only understand the challenges faced by independent creative movements today, but have great ideas on how to tackle these challenges, and are willing to inspire and support.

For more information:
Beam
Brenchie's Lab
Olabi

Love.

When my sister gave me the news of my grandfather's passing, my heart sank.
Through the pain and sorrow of his departure, however, there still remains a gratitude and joy to have known and loved him.
It's hard to talk about but I really want to share just how wonderful he was.

My grandfather read the Bible every day and he had a great faith and beautiful relationship with God. He not only knew the verses, he lived by them. As we mourned together, my sisters and I asked each other if we could recall a negative memory of him. None of us could think of anything. He was such a kind, loving, patient man. Not even as a teenager was I ever annoyed by him.
He always gave us love and understanding, even when we were less than perfect, and he gave that to everyone he encountered.
He was an exemplary man. Everyone who knew him, loved him instantly. He was the most perfect person I have ever met, he knew how to make people feel safe and happy, he accepted life for what it was and did his best at everything.
He loved us without restraint.

And I watched how he received back everything he put forth. His life was so full of blessings, the type of little blessings his beloved Bible had promised him. God as his friend never let him down, accompanying him through the rough patches (that he never begrudged) and granting him wonderful time with a big family.

I am hurt and want to mourn, but there is no way I can mourn having been so blessed to have someone like him in my life. Someone who loved me, taught me, made me fruit jams and bean sandwiches, bought me snacks, made a bed for me to sleep over at his house, told me about the figures of legends that he had encountered, about our family history. All the love he gave me, I can only be ever so happy. And he deserves to rest.

He had a long, happy life, full of adventures. He used to say he had lived all life had to offer, that he was content. That he wanted to join the love of his life, my grandmother, whom he lost fifteen years ago.

If ever there is one person I believe with all my heart is sitting under the promised fig tree, resting under its shade, with a beautiful sunset and a warm breeze in the garden of Heaven, it is him.

Rest happily. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Alive

The experience of being a human is so burdensome. It is truly painful to just live, to be alive, to experience a wide range of emotions.
Being human is being majestic and clumsy at the same time. Enduring so much hardship with relative ease but getting hurt at the smallest things.

I am very sensitive and prone to depressions. I don't talk about it, with anyone. It feels un-real to talk about downs. When I'm sad and hurt and I lack direction, I don't know how to connect. I can't connect, I don't want to, because talking to people, connecting and trying to find understanding and relation makes me feel vulnerable. So I close off and let myself fall into it, whatever depressing feeling is taking me. I fall all the way, as deep as it goes, eyes open. Another part of the experience. Like pressing on a bruise, just to take it as far as it can go, to make it hurt in all its realness.

Often times, I try to see myself from the outside (although I know it's impossible) and it really is heart-warming how we, as people, try to go through life tripping and falling and dancing and laughing and in the end that was life and that is all there is to it.
And all the reasons why I hide seem so meaningless. All the things I am always feeling so embarrassed, awkward, scared. The unshakable feeling that there is no one out there who truly knows me, it always makes me think that no one really knows anyone else.
Some people I think sometimes come as they are, show themselves, but then, I still don't know. Surely all of us hide in ourselves. Keep quiet not to disturb, not to interrupt, not to spill our own selves into everything. Leaving enough space for others to exist and express.

Ah, these are just 2:32am ramblings.

Can't forget the mustard.

This was a few years ago.
So we were sitting at a gathering at a girl's house just lounging waiting for dinner. I wasn't sure we were actually invited or just crashing, I felt a somewhat hostile vibe but it was always that way with me. I always think people don't like me when it's fine.
This girl had a bowl in her lap and was munching on something. "What are you eating?" someone asked. "Pho", she said. I looked into her bowl. It was just noodles, no broth. Maybe a sauce. "What's pho?"
The girl smiled. "It's noodles, with raw onions, carrots. And mustard! Can't forget the mustard!"
I had spent enough time on tumblr to know that Pho was supposed to be like a Vietnamese ramen of some sort. I mean, Pho was sort of trending at the time. I wanted to ask her about the Pho, in that bitchy girl type of question that is more like an expose. I caught the girl's eyes, but I didn't say anything.

I don't know why, I never say anything. It's perhaps the faux confidence people are trying to convey, I don't know, there's something so vulnerable about someone who is faking. They seem so fragile, albeit phony, but I just can't kill it for them. I can honestly never tell someone that I know they're lying. Even if these kids were never particularly kind to me. Even so, I just couldn't say anything.
For some reason that one moment stayed with me. Spontaneously, from time to time, I hear her voice in my head. "Can't forget the mustard!"
It kills me.
Why do people do this? Why pretend to know something we don't know, why follow trends, why try to cover up insecurities? Why are we so fake, so controlled, yet so vulnerable and nervous and scared? Like honestly she was pretty cute and cool and it seemed like everyone was into her at the place but still. She felt she had to lie about her noodles, to glamorize them, make them trendy. Like she had to be some trendy Pho connoisseur instead of just a girl eating her noodles.

Maybe because I used to be, and I'm pretty sure at sometimes still am, that girl. Her voice has become both a reminder and a warning. To not try so hard, to accept myself, to feel comfortable that I'm not always trendy, and glamorous, and exotic, that people will like me the same, that it's not necessary to hype up every little aspect of life to feel deserving of it.
And perhaps it's because I am also the girl getting caught trying. Getting caught faking, hyping. Because I constantly feel caught, the fear of not being able to fool someone, the anxious feeling of being exposed, open, that people can see through my walls and through the distractions. That I am being seen, being known.
After all, every story is a hideout.

Memories.

Humans, funny creatures we are. We create all these memories like we build houses, to seek shelter, warmth; to store our valuables, to reside in during a rainy day. To pretend we can control our environment and our experiences.
We hold on to single moments, letting our feelings decide which ones to stretch and which ones to ignore.
The world is ours but we choose to live in our heads.
We cling to moments, to memories. So we think of some time as preparing for the experience, forgetting that the preparation itself is also an experience. So, for one moment we will go through great lengths and pretend that the moments before and after that one moment are unimportant and inconsequential. Like a wedding, or setting off fireworks.
And we continue living inside our heads with our memories as if there wasn't an entire universe out there for us to explore. Trying to command the universe to fit our thoughts instead of fitting our thoughts to the universe where we live, the universe which created us. We would change the entire world for one fleeting moment, because the memory of that moment becomes a mansion in which to hide for the rest of our lives.

"Go Home."

Home. It is an interesting concept. Home can be a house where one grew up, a community, a city, a country. Some people know home as the one place throughout their lives where they can return for comfort and healing. Some people, like me, know many different homes, each particular to its place and time, but none the less comforting.

I have lived in various countries throughout my life, and I have always loved the enriching experience of travelling, of immersing oneself in a new culture. It's almost like being born again into each new life.
However, as I grow older, I have begun feeling hurt at expressions of negativity towards immigrants.
I have always migrated legally, and my family has always moved from one country to another for generations, so we have family in many countries. These facts deeply affected me in two profound ways. The first, I do not have an ounce of nationalism. I always viewed the whole world as my community, growing up surrounded by people who themselves had not lived their entire lives in one place. For me, other countries are homes in the making, and for the longest time I could not imagine how one could live their entire life in one country without getting bored, without itching to explore more.
The second, I never really considered myself an "immigrant". In most of the countries I've lived, I have ancestors and living relatives. My family's everyday activities are a mix of cultural traditions from various places, so although I've always had a few quirks, I was never easy to identify as a specific foreigner. I made by wearing my "weirdness" as a "cool".

But time passes and experiences accumulate, and these days I feel hurt if I read a phrase such as "go home" or the awful, awful "go back to your country".
The idea of one having a country is pretty strange to me. How can one own something just from being born, or be doomed to live in war and strife for the same reason? What if one is like me, a dual-nationality person who has lived in various countries for a few years at a time? Which country is -my- country?
It may be naive but I believe the world belongs to all of us. I understand that this is not practically possible in the current societies we live, but I don't accept that this gives us an excuse to treat others as if they're worth less, as if their mere presence is an offense. No one is offensive just for existing on a particular place.

I also don't understand how far back one looks into one's ancestry in order to know whether one has a right to be in a country or not. The whole Israel-Palestine is just the most famous current expression of the long process of country ownership claims. Really, each race and tribe and culture has owned different lands at different times and by now, with how much historical knowledge we have accumulated, we should know better.
I am willing to concede that only simple-minded people and those who have yet to catch up with the modern views of the majority would utter such nonsense, but to do so would require evidence from the general population that they find this behavior unacceptable. The evidence is not conclusive yet.

I guess the issues involved in this discussion are simply too complicated to fit into this blog, but I want to say this: try to understand me. When I live here and you tell me, "go back to your country!", I honestly do not know what you mean. I live here, I work here, I am part of this community and I contribute to it, so I don't see why this country is not mine. If one is reminded all the time that in this place one is a tenant and not an owner, should you then be surprised to find that the tenants hold no sense of duty or responsibility for the country? That they care little for it's fate? After all, the tenant can always move to another home and it is the owner who is ultimately responsible.
The way I see it, all of us who live and work in a land are responsible to maintain it, and by our shared experiences naturally form bonds to the community and the landscape which becomes our home. There is no need to break this sentiment with divisive comments.

Besides, just because a person was born in one country doesn't mean they consider that country their home. Home is that place where one grew and became a person, a place one holds dear, the people one holds dear. Don't tell foreigners to go home, they might already be there.

You owe me respect because I am a human being.

And that's the end of it.

Our fundamental human rights are ours from birth (and even arguably before then), and they are only conditional on our humanity.
If this seems obvious, let me assure you, it is not obvious.
As a young female adult living in Amsterdam, I am constantly surprised to find that the reality of European female freedom and emancipation is completely warped.
Once I was by the milk aisle at the supermarket and an old man (senior citizen) came up to me and my sister and asked if he could take a picture of us. Naturally, given that this man was a stranger (who brings a camera to the supermarket...) we declined, and he grumpily grunted a few words at us before we made our move to another aisle. However, as I was bagging my groceries, I turned around just in time to see the man taking a picture of me. I could barely turn my face to avoid it, and I was so dumbfounded (I assure you I am in no way a celebrity or anything of the sort) that I didn't even know how to react other than finishing my shopping.

When re-telling this story to acquaintances, their reactions are even more dumbfounding than the rude Dutch old man's behavior. One person asked if I was wearing a particular headband, reasoning that that might be the reason the man wanted a picture. Others commented I should be flattered.
No, I was not flattered that my express wish NOT to be photographed by a complete stranger was ignored. And no, my headband does NOT somehow and magically remove my humanity so that my express wishes can be easily disregarded by members of my community.
I am owed the same respect as any other person on this country, and that right is not based on whether or not I am female, young, or wear certain items. You do not have to respect people only when they wear clothes you approve of, you have to respect all the people all the time.
And I sincerely resent people who try to say that I deserved this complete disregard due to wearing a specific headband, or that I should be flattered to be receiving unwanted (and creepy) male attention.
I resent a society that tells me I deserve to be treated as a child and be disrespected unless I conform to each person's specific demands about the way I look.

Another time, during a particularly chilly winter, I was waiting at a metro station wearing a Sakun breathing mask. A middle-aged man approached me as we were the only ones at the station, and signaled me to remove the mask. When I refused, he signaled to remove my headphones. When I yet again refused, he loudly asked me why I was wearing it. I told him it was to protect my breathing from the cold and the moisture of the environment, but I deeply resented having to give him an explanation in the first place.
I don't care if you're curious- I do not owe you an explanation for the things I'm wearing, or any other aspect of my appearance. And if you think I'm making a big deal about this, then what if I was hiding a scar or wound I was self-conscious of? What if I had just come out of a surgery? What if my religion didn't allow me to show my face?
My point is that if you are curious about my clothing choices, that is your problem and not mine. Just think for yourself what kind of reasons a person might have to wear such things, and suddenly the question doesn't seem so pressing. Why do I wear colorfully patterned jeans? Because I like them just as much as you like your boring light wash. So there. Now you all can stop asking, unless you're also about to go asking every man in a suit or metal band t-shirt why they chose that particular item.

For every man that has felt the right to approach and harass me for my clothing, there is a woman who tells me it's my fault for wearing such clothes. I tell you, no. I will not accept that my humanity is based on my clothes, and that any man can remove it from me if they so choose. Am I alone here? Are there more women feel the way I do, that we do not owe men our time nor a specific physical appearance, and most of all, that we do not owe them an explanation of who we are?
Speak up. It's them, not us.