Archives for March 2018

1. Socks (as few as possible): It’s not that I like them. Honestly, if I didn’t life in a place that frequently feels like the arctic (I am exaggerating here), I’d never wear any socks. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, in the 8th century BC, the Ancient Greeks wore socks called “piloi”. They were made from matted animal hair. Later, the idea of socks was to absorb the sweat, which seems nonsense, considering that in the summer we actually don’t wear socks. Note to self: re-think if I actually need socks.
2. Black Blazers (2): Whenever I need to look sophisticated, I put on a black blazer. Done. Also comes in handy, if I want to hide in the dark.
3. Colorful 80’s adidas jacket (1): I life in Berlin. Either I have something vintage or I am exiled. Vintage is important in Berlin. About as important as having a blog or a project.
4. Golden jacket (1): Glitter is in style especially around new years. New year’s resolutions can be broke daily, it’s only fair to break them in style.
5. Underwear (some): must-have, just for societies sake.
6. Bikini (1): to wrap my bikini body.
7. Leggings (2): Same story as the bikini. Sometimes you just want your long, perfect legs to be covered in something. Either because it’s too cold, or because it’s inappropriate. Then again this could be said for any item listed here. Google also says leggings were made to protect people from the cold. Also from spines, so everyone can walk through bushes of roses, that smell like…
8. Hats (1): Virginia Graham said “A woman is not really dressed unless she is wearing a hat.” I say “As long as there are hats, there is no such thing as a bad hair day”.
9. Jacket (2): This is my go to item when it’s raining, snowing, storming, when the sun is shining, when it’s cloudy.
10. Shoes (10): Long story. I have two of each kind.
11. Sports clothes (3 shirts, 2 pants): It doesn’t matter if you do any sports or not. Having the right outfit is the very first step to becoming a pro.
12. Jeans (1x long, 1x short): What do you need jeans for if you wear one dress for life, you might ask yourself. Well, this might come as a bummer, but I do sometimes wear jeans, they are my equivalent to sweat pants. You’ll see me wear them when I am cold, hot, early in the day, when I run errands, or Sunday. If I do wear them, I wear them with one of the t-shirts of my sports clothes.
13. Bandana (2): As you might have figured out by now, there is not much variation in my wardrobe. My hair is the only thing I can style. The word ‘bandana’ comes come from the Hindi ‘bāṅdhnū’ meaning a tied, bound cloth. Also useful knowledge you can find online about bandana’s: “they are frequently used to hold hair back”.
14. Headband (2): I use them frequently to hold my hair back.
15. Jewelry (2 rings, 1 necklace, 2 piercings, 5 pairs of earrings, 3 bracelets): Because ‘diamonds are a girl’s best friend’. *

* none of my jewelry has diamonds on it. So even if you see me on the street at night: it’s not worth it.

*Photo by Shanna Camilleri on Unsplash

New age spirituality are spiritual or religious beliefs and practices that developed in the Western world during the 70’s. Mediation, Yoga, retreats in Bali.

It’s easy to condemn today’s practices as inauthentic, and – especially if aimed towards ‘healing’ the world – hypocrite. But most people engaging in new age spirituality practice it because they are looking to escape nihilism ¹. They are fed up with the lack of belief towards the reputedly meaningful aspects of life. With emptiness.

Almost everyone I know has had a feeling of “there has got to be more to it, this can’t be it” at one point in their life.

New age practices offer, or even promise, something else. They offer meaning. And the idea that consciousness is beyond a physical hardware.

But what often comes out is the opposite. Instead of revelation, people get caught up in their own journey, forgetting about what’s out there, only to be distracted by the things in there. It becomes another distraction.

In psychology, this is called disassociation. It’s what happens when you withdraw from the outside.

Our journeys become a trap. We become obsessed with ourselves.

In order to escape this trap, a balance of outside and inside is necessary. Recent research ² shows that it’s not only our inner thoughts and ideas that determine who we are, but that in return our actions determine who we are as well. Our inside influences our outside and vise versa.

If we want to make a difference we need to look beyond ourselves, no matter how mysterious, challenging and satisfying the inner journey seems to be.

*Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

When I started studying sustainability I became a dictator. I would tell everyone about the problems we are facing and what they need to do and what they can’t do.

via GIPHY

The result wasn’t that all those people turned their life around in an instant and became what I required them to be. The result was usually that nothing happened. Except that people got annoyed by me.

The most important lesson I learned during the past seven years is that we can’t change anyone by talking. The only way to make change happen is through living that change.

And it doesn’t stop there. It’s living the change AND enjoying it. If we don’t enjoy, why would anyone join the ride?

Living ‘the’ change is escorted by ups and downs. A society that flourishes requires trial and error. We don’t know what makes our lives and that of the planet better if we don’t try. The key to a flourishing society is to experiment.

*photo by Evelyn on Unsplash

We tell stories.

We dress our thoughts, experiences, and arguments in a pair of meanings. The core is pressed into a tight corset of beginning and ending. What doesn’t work goes into the washing machine, to be exposed anew.

We place our surrounding in a personal context of meaning and tell the story of our life again and again.

Narration is a constant in human history.

“There is and never has been a nation without narrative” Roland Barthes

culture and stories

In Cultural Studies the term »culture« describes a narrative construct. Cultures are narrative communities. Nations or political alliances, the success of economic organizations as well as the identity of each individual rise out of the stories we tell.

Today, at least in western society, our cultural story is based on an ubiquitous consumer culture.

Whereas the consumption of goods used to be primarily based on necessities like the need for food, or clothing, today it is an end in itself. It became way more than satisfying urgent needs. Consumption became a way to satisfy our wishes, dreams, and aspirations.

The functionality of many products is no different. Audi or VW. Pepsi or Coke. Levis or Abercrombie. They serve the same need.

In order to make these mass-produced products distinguishable – despite being basically the same – they are loaded with stories by marketing, advertising and design. The products become symbolically charged, full of external meaning, enabling consumers to define and to style their own identity.

Just use this in you will forever have this body and jump around with your girlfriend.

our story

Products give us the feeling that we belong to a certain group or a certain way of life. We use products to stage ourself, to play different roles.

In this way, products offer us a way to tell our own story even better and more differentiated. They provide us with a wide selection of narrative pieces day after day.

We, as consumers, are free to use any product at will, to embed them in our individual conglomerate of interpretation, and in this way to distinguish us from our fellow human beings. Which in turn fuels our culture of individualization.

People strive to give their existence a new dimension – beyond the daily grind – by using things. Consumption becomes a performative game that opens spaces to dreams and visions in everyday life.

Each day, you can buy a little fairy tale: those dreams of boundless freedom that we have in the driver’s seat of our car while we’re stuck in traffic, those pictures of sunny island beaches, evoked by the coconut smell of a hair shampoo, or the promise of health and fitness, by purchasing certain sports shoes.

What the products offer us is a re-enchantment of a disenchanted world.

Our challenge hence is not just about the stories we tell, the challenge is in what we need to tell them.

*Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash

• compulsive engagement with the behavior, a preoccupation with it;
• impaired control over the behaviour;
• persistence or relapse, despite evidence of harm; and
• dissatisfaction, irritability or intense craving when the object—be it a drug, activity or another goal—is not immediately available.

For a lot of people, this is very obvious. They have long given up on accumulating money and stuff in the hope of a better life.

But even though many are trying to escape the cycle of work hard shop hard, only a few actually make it out of the hamster wheel.

Many want to flourish and are stuck in old habits.

It is a question of how deeply we are buried in our habitual ways of acting individually and socially.

And just as an addict is blind to the causes of his struggle, society – and maybe you – display the same patterns.

How do we get out of our addictive patterns, individually and collectively?

The most famous method to escape any kind of addiction is the 12 step program by alcoholic anonymous.

A lot of us keep going with our daily lives as if nothing was happening. We know, that our actions cause climate change, that we run out of resources and that species are dying in the hundreds daily. And yet, we don’t admit that we are actually responsible for it. We turn to politics, cooperations, and experts to find a solution. The popularity of quick cures and life-hacks to all kinds of problems – from obesity to life-satisfaction – displays that we understand change as something that is given to us, without putting efforts into it.

As probably any ex-alcoholic can tell you, it takes more than reading a life-hack. It takes trial and error, the willingness to change and the willingness to fail.What you get in the end is not the end of un-sustainability.

What you get is a life where you and others can flourish.