2021-w40-6
Warning: Some brief ideas about controversial topics, but juicy as a conversation. Every opinion only represents a small snapshot of my mind, not related with ideas from my family, friends, workplace and such.
Having interesting conversations with random people is exciting. Two strangers with years of experiences collide as two, somehow different, some times similar, different ways of seeing the world.
We know the world is full of problems. When I join to conversations on the broad internet I like to ask: Who's gonna start the solution and who's gonna finish it?
Usually I get many angry answers... 'I only want to complain'
And that's cool, it's a good mechanism to cope with our frustrations and after a few days we come back to our reality created by someone, or (beware, oversimplification ahead) we try to create a different reality.
Complex problems can't be solved with immediate solutions on a small text. With a theorical idea without a proven methodology. And that's when our emotional brain suffers. Our mental biases make us think it should be easier, but it's not. Ditch that scientific method! Forget all those years of philosophy, science and technology!
That's the main point between the 'isms' (to only name a few, capitalism, minimalism, individualism, any religion ending with ism)
The concept is about being an owner. Owner of the production means, supply chains, our time, our future, our destiny, and many other physical and ideological stuff. I could summarize that as our present and future.
And I think everything starts with, do you want to be an owner?
Deep question, owner of what?
Your time? Your life? Money, power, resources, royalties, investments, land?
Other people time, life, and resources?
Your present and future? Their present and future?
It's a strong combination between emotions, beliefs, memories, rationalization, and actual material conditions.
Disclaimer: I'm not able to debate or to give more to the conversation, since I'm only looking for hope and a meaning for my slice of life. I'm not a philosopher, only a biased scientific with some humanity, creativity and responsibility as a toolkit. And desire to share these ideas.
With that said, let's continue...
It has been the ethernal discourse between owners and not-owners. Slaves and masters, bosses and employees, leaders and followers.
The hard part is not that. Being sometimes a master, sometimes a slave is acceptable. Creating content and then consuming someone else's products. Working for someone, and then hiring a service for us. To only name a very simple examples.
We hate to receive publicity, we love to consume, it's like an addiction. And as creators we also hate to sell. Why our fans couldn't only come by themselves, give us their love and money and just leave?
As consumers, why I can't have a free experience without big companies bothering me with ads? Why piracy and copyright is a matter? Why markets? Why regulations? (and many other questions hard to summarize in 480 characters)
A question I ask to my students is 'where do the products we love come from?'
It's surprising to me how we abstract in excess all the steps involved in the creation of a product.
Like the modern question for kids, 'Where do the milk come from?' I couldn't imagine the real fam conditions, the cows and the safety processes, until my father (with studies on the matter) told me the exact process, my mind exploded, since I accepted I was (or maybe I still am) ignorant of how the world works.
It's something similar with our overcomplex planet. We don't understand the productive and creative processes until we experience them. My first steps for some young students approaching to our creative studio is telling them our slice of reality. How hard has been for us to self sustain with our current conditions. Maybe is easy for some friends, for us is 'this amount of hard'. Requires these tradeoffs, but we expect this reward at the end.
And obviously every person likes to create their own story, of courage or suffering. It's a well know bias. Creating meaning for our suffering before our success.
Currently I have a self employment as a university professor, an artisan-hobby making board games as a way of expression and maybe source of a small income, and being a co-founder for some software companies, trying to make money in the process as a main goal (and 'help the world with a solution' as a side effect). Yes, I'm extremely biased to find meaning in that way of living, even if I sabotage myself to think the oposite.
We try to transform our time and knowledge into useful resources being in this world money in shape of cash or cryptocoins. We try to have a cooperative model with our team sharing risks and benefits, but has been difficult. They don't want to be masters, owners, leaders. They want to follow and receive a safe compensation, limited and slaving but secure. (Note: Slaving in the terms of ownership of the work, we don't have people tied to the table with chains)
We are looking for people who can stand the uncertainty of the creative processes. But that's unfair. Being creative should be fair, but is not. Or at least has not been for us.
And it's the same with Inverstors. We look for smart money, not dumb money. Investors willing to share the love for our products, not for the money our products create. But it's also harder to find that kind of people.
As you can see, we try to look for people and communities desiring to share love for our ideas and our products. People working, investing and consuming our products. Having a decent living in the process.
And even in an unfair world, with wrongful conditions, we try to survive, to transcend, to help, and to do many other things in the middle. Looking for hope in ways of 'isms' that face each other.
My current struggle is minimalism vs consumerism. I'm a producer, I want my products to be consumed. I want to earn a living doing it.
At the same time I'm aiming to reduce my consumption of 'bad things' and excesses (coming from there, food, social media, alcohol). I want to move my scale to 'produce more than I consume'. Let's see how it goes!
If you have some ideas about this topic, I'm eager to listen/read to them!
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EOT
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Send me your comments to
text.eapl.mx.mebiu [at] slmail.me
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