Why I’m Not Realistic

By Zoë • June 29, 2009 • 16 Comments

old world map

photo by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center

As I began writing this post, I realized it was going to be a lot longer than I had planned. I also realized that the one-year anniversary of my blog falls on Sunday, June 28th. So I’m publishing this long, personal post today because I am in reflective mode, musing on the changes and evolutions of the past year. I hope it feels right for those of you who take the time to read through it.

When people learn that I came to Thailand on my own, started doing independent work, and figured out how to support myself and do stuff I love, they often think it’s pretty wonderful. Reactions range from “Cool, me too!” to “I wish I could” to “Wow, what’s it like?” But for all the people who are completely supportive, there are plenty of people who just don’t get it. People who think I came to Thailand to escape “real life,” that I’m just roaming aimlessly through Southeast Asia, or that I’m not being realistic. They’re waiting for me to get a real job, to get started on real life, and to stop thinking life’s so damn amazing.

Honestly, I have a bone to pick with anyone who has this perfect vision of what is real and what is not. There are plenty of philosophical discussions to be had on this topic, and I’m open to learning much more, but my life experience so far has led me to believe that human experience isn’t necessarily limited to a single reality — we create, inherit, and explore realities, because our realities are simply our ways of experiencing the world. We humans just can’t escape the fact that everything we know, see, hear, and think is inescapably shaped by our perception. We are always subjective, and that can be an incredible thing. Homogeneity gets pretty boring.

This concept of accepting different realities has been highlighted and cemented in my mind by travel and living abroad. When I moved to Thailand almost two years ago, it was my first time in Asia. Although I had always considered myself to be a very open, reasonably well-traveled person, I came face to face with fundamental things that were completely different here — different to an extent I had not yet encountered. See, there are certain things — like societal values, what is logical, what is beautiful — that are so deeply ingrained in our systems, that we don’t even think to question their universality. They’re invisible, pervasive assumptions. It’s shocking, in a magnificent way, to run head-on into the realization that these things are just part of your reality, not everybody’s reality. What I have always thought to be logical may be absurd to someone in a different reality; this doesn’t mean that their reality is silly or irrational — it’s simply different.

These types of observations fascinate me. I love trying to understand how we create contexts, how we escape contexts, and how social constructions come to be. So I ended up unconsciously deciding to do such an experiment with my own life. This experiment has influenced my physical space (living and traveling far from where I grew up), my mental space (absorbing the possibilities presented by the various cultures I encounter), and my professional space (mobile, independent, unconventional). Aside from travel and living abroad, technology has also played a key role in this experiment. Technology has enabled me to work independently, to connect and collaborate with people who have complementary aspirations, and to create my own platform. In fact, technology has so blurred the lines between my “professional” and “passionate” work, that using the word “professional” feels inadequate. So although I didn’t set out with the purpose of creating my own reality, that’s what I’m doing. It’s not that I’m especially bold or especially capable, but rather that this is the way that seems most interesting and fulfilling to me. It’s scary sometimes, but it’s more often invigorating and motivating.

This also doesn’t mean that I reject anything viewed as “conventional.” Take school, for example. I think unconventional education — such as experiential learning and immersion —  is truly important and beneficial, but I also love being a student in a classroom. I’m in the process of deciding on MA programs to apply to, because it feels like the right time and it fits with the next steps I want to take. When I graduated university in 2007, I considered going straight into a PhD program — I can’t tell you how happy I am that I waited. In the space of two years, my interests and passions have unfolded, converged, and clarified so that I now have a more solid — but ever-evolving — view of where I want to go. Instead of going back to school because it felt like the obvious next step or because I was scared to leave academia, I will now go back to school because it can enhance my new directions. It’s felt a bit like a domino effect; as I tap into one nerve, someone taps into a new one, and a new direction is unveiled. The people I’ve met in Thailand, the people I’ve met through blogging and social media, and the experiences I’ve lived in recent years have all allowed this new momentum to gain a foothold inside me. Importantly, it’s also given me the confidence to continue living life in perpetual beta, as Melissa Pierce so aptly coined the phrase.

I believe that living life in perpetual beta means being constantly open to new possibilities as you create your path. Although I didn’t make a calculated decision to design such a lifestyle, I think it’s quite fitting to the current climate. Technology — and I’m particularly thinking about the internet here — is pushing us hard and fast into a world that we do not know. We’re rapidly shedding old conventions without having new ones to put into their place. How can we proceed if we’re not flexible, open, and willing to take risks? I don’t believe we can. We have a lot of mistakes to get through before we gain a stronger sense of the spaces we’re entering, but we won’t hit the sweet spots unless we’re committed to creating and trying new solutions. These great shifts have been most obvious to me in journalism, business, and various media, but the edges aren’t defined and many of us are feeling the tugs of inevitable change. I wrote a post a few months ago about Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk on schools and creativity, in which he points out that we’re educating our kids for a world that we have no clue about — a reality that is still unformed. Creativity is paramount, which means the willingness to take risks is too.

A couple months ago, I took a small slip of paper and made a note for myself: When you draw your own map, you make your own rules. I don’t know if I got that from someone else (please let me know if I did), but it resonates strongly with me. It acknowledges that we are still drawing the maps, and so the rules aren’t set. It empowers us to draw that next line, even if it’s not quite straight and even if we end up drawing over it next year. But I don’t think it should be interpreted as individualism at the expense of collaboration — rather, I believe that if we all actively move forward while being honest to ourselves and deliberate in our actions, collaboration will be genuine and inevitable. For example, I’m writing this long blog post filled with I’s and me’s, but my hope is that it will tug a thread inside you, pull forward any of you who are pushing forward with this same momentum.

My life isn’t a perpetual blissfest. My income isn’t always stable. Getting in touch with what I really want to do took some time and some intimidating soul-searching — and I don’t really think I’ll ever stop figuring it out. But you know what? I honestly can’t remember what it feels like to be bored. I’m so high on exploring and pursuing possibilities that boredom doesn’t feel like an option. I love every single project I’m working on right now, and it feels like an honor — though not easy — to get to work each day. I choose to embrace change and uncertainty, because I don’t think any of us can rely on certainty anymore. If realistic means sticking to the conventions that are quickly falling into irrelevance, then I choose to be unrealistic.

What map are you following?

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Unitasking the Good Old Fashioned Way

By Zoë • June 24, 2009 • 12 Comments

colored pencils

photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

I’ve been quite busy lately — full days, full brain. Although I’m getting a lot of things done, I’m also getting the nagging feeling that I’m doing them in a distracted way that keeps stunting my momentum. That nagging feeling has been building up for a few weeks, and when I finally stopped to think about where it came from, I knew the culprit immediately: multitasking.

Most of the time, multitasking feels pretty unproductive and unsatisfying. It sometimes makes me feel like I’m on a roll, sparking new connections and ideas, but that only works in small doses. If I’m constantly in that mode, a lot of good ideas fizzle into the deluge, drowned by a sea of seemingly fantastic ideas. When you’re doing tasks that don’t require much creative thinking, then it’s not as damaging — but our brains are still not well wired for switching modes. Every time you interrupt the article you’re writing to check how much time is left on that eBay auction, your brain scrambles to recalibrate its settings. All that scramble time takes serious chunks out of our actual doing and creating.

The obvious way to battle multitasking is to work on single tasks in blocks of time. I’m not going to start on a productivity spiel here, ’cause you’ve read it all before. Doing one thing at a time is, sadly, easier said than done — but I’m set on pushing myself back to that work habit, since I’ve wandered astray recently. But today I wanted to bring up my other weapon against mindless multitasking —  pen and paper.

I was going to write a whole post about the glories of pen and paper, but then I remembered that I already did that — about 11 months ago, as the 3rd post on this blog. When I wrote “When to Stick to the Basics,” I was new to blogging and social media in general, so it’s interesting to compare my feelings about technology now and then. Essentially, my feelings haven’t changed. I’m still a faithful lover of pen and paper for capturing the raw flow of ideas, and I’m still a firm believer in the marvels technology has to offer.

So today I am honoring the power of pen and paper to center the mind and build your momentum. As I’m consciously moving back toward old-fashioned “uni-tasking,” I’m taking regular breaks from the computer to map out ideas, take notes by hand, and just write. I’m not promising any immediate epiphanies or life-changing ideas, but it really is a modest wonder to watch your hands unfold the big picture. At the computer, I find that I’m much less likely to take a step back and take stock of where I stand and what I’m really doing. I’m much less likely to flesh out the connections and ideas that pull together the different threads I’m pursuing. But I also can’t ignore that technology provides the tools to push those ideas into the wild — to move forward, fill in the blanks, and collaborate. Both factors are essential to my flow, but I find that it’s too easy to get sucked into technology’s sexy gaze. It’s often only when we get blindsided by technology that we come back crawling to the classic, reliable good looks of pen and paper.

If you’re curious, you can head back in the archives to read “When to Stick to the Basics.” And if you just want to get started, go ahead — put the computer to sleep and let the ink flow reignite your momentum.

So, when do you choose paper over computer screen? Does paper help you uni-task, or are you laser-focused on the screen? Where is technology’s place in your creative flow?

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Iran Protests: On the Ground and On Your Screen

By Zoë • June 17, 2009 • 10 Comments

iran protests

photo by sharif

This blog is generally politics-free, even though I’m an active news reader and I heartily enjoy a provocative political debate. But recent events surrounding the election in Iran have brought up a swirl of questions that have been lurking in my mind for quite some time, as I’m researching and developing strategies for using social media for social change. So here goes, a post on current events tied into many of the themes you’re used to seeing around here — innovation, tools, questioning, and all that good stuff. Anyway, this post is only ostensibly political, because I’m not expressing support for a political group or candidate — though I am sincerely hoping for transparency, nonviolence, and constructive discussion in Iran.

There’s a lot of talk these days around the internet about the protests in Iran being some sort of “Twitter revolution.” And true, it has been fascinating to watch a movement unfold with real-time updates, vibrant multimedia coverage, and exciting new channels of communication. Twitter has indeed been an excellent tool for unclogging the information pipes and spreading news updates from the ground, despite government blocking of many networks. And yes, Twitter has also been used for some aspects of protest organization in Tehran. Twitter got a big chunk of the international community talking (or tweeting?) about the current events in Iran, watching YouTube videos of protests, and sharing photos of rallies and violence on Flickr. So we can agree that Twitter and other social media have been very useful for:

  • providing updates and multimedia coverage that most mainstream news sources did not keep up with
  • allowing Iranians to bypass censorship to a certain degree — when many communication platforms were closed by the government, people still found ways to post messages on Twitter
  • sparking widespread discussion on a current event
  • providing Iranians with another means of organizing demonstrations
  • giving some Iranian protesters a global (virtual) platform for advocating their cause

But just because Twitter and blogs have been our principal connection to these important events, must we draw the conclusion that Twitter is the revolutionary force in Iran’s social unrest? The people out in the streets of Tehran were not moved to protest by Twitter. They were not empowered by social media to defy the powers that be. No, their impetus for action came from a much deeper place. I think if we all took a step back from the computer screen, we would realize the importance of recognizing the line between being a movement and supporting a movement.

Social media is a tool. It is a potentially powerful tool that has added a vibrant facet to media coverage and activism, but it should not be treated as the silver bullet of social change. People would be out in the streets with or without Twitter. It’s easy to watch YouTube videos and see #IranElection hashtags fly by and believe that we, the digerati, are in the throes of a violent revolution. It’s also easy to start thinking that all of Iran is out in those streets. But take a breath. Recognize that although the coverage we are seeing may make it seem like “the golden truth” is breaking the chains of oppression and censorship, this coverage has limits too. And recognize that we are sitting in computer chairs, not facing secret police on motorcycles in the streets of Tehran.

Hence, the use of social media around these protests also warrants a few reminders:

  • The population of internet-savvy and Twitter-connected Iranians is limited. And it’s a population that’s part of a very specific demographic (young, urban, affluent) that tends to support a specific type of candidate (in this case, Moussavi).
  • While it is extremely valuable to view firsthand reports of events on the ground, it is also worth recognizing when these are from someone who is completely invested in one side of the conflict. It’s worth remembering that these may be representative of only certain groups of people.
  • A large number of people reading, commenting on, and re-tweeting this information are doing so without any context. This highlights the danger of social media oversimplifying political issues that are incredibly complex. It is misleading, for example, to imply any similarities between the Obama and Moussavi candidacies. Look at Moussavi’s history in Iranian government, and ask yourself if you know details of his political intentions.
  • The real-time nature of Twitter allows important information to go viral, but it also allows some questionable ideas to go viral. Think about and digest what you read; don’t swallow before chewing.
  • Social media latches onto fads, but it can drop them just as quickly. How many will follow Iranian politics once the #IranElection tweets stop flying?

I hope this post doesn’t sound like I’m trying to put a huge damper on the power of social media for social change. I am simply responding to the flurry and the hype with a cautious reminder to be conscious and to respond with questions and challenges. But I want to end this on a positive note. I think that social media truly is a powerful means of giving local struggles a globally connected platform. Social media can be an effective tool for advocacy and communication, allowing the driving forces of a movement to garner the support and exposure that can be so vital. I am currently working on strategies for nonprofits and activists to use social media, so I clearly believe that these tools introduce important potential.

So let’s remember that these tools are new, and we are only just learning their limits and powers as they are tested. Tools can open new doors, as long as we are intentional about how we wield them. As we discussed in this post last week, there’s a fine balance between the tool and how you use it. So let’s make the most of those progressive and powerful uses with the awareness and sincerity that they merit.

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