Weaving

19Sep10

The previous post was excruciatingly long. I’ll try, in the future, to stay on topic of living abroad and to keep a manageable length.

Here are the highlights, or perhaps better described, lessons of the recent weeks:

-Presence is important: It’s amazing what can happen when people are present to each other, and how that can spiral into possibilities. – How it can spiral into networks, conversations, and projects, and how it can change how one views life. – But presence is also the possibility to respond to people instead of react to people. It feels great to have a fairly consistent (though by far not perfect!) approach to be able to see where people are coming from and why they react a certain way. An old college classmate best put it, “you have to weave a lot of pieces together to get Ukraine I think.”

-Presents are glorious! i just walked home with two large packages sent by the wonderful woman I met on the plane in July. What is wonderful in the experience, is how Presence turns into Presents. It’s – well – beyond incredible. To note, these presents aren’t the tangible things that are now sitting in my room, but the amazingness of people. People are just really, incredibly fascinating.*

-Life isn’t a given. It’s a state that can change at any possible moment. I’m working on really developing a practice of Diem-ing the carpe. I’m working on being focused enough to constantly be present and working towards an integrated life of art in international development.

-And finally, the older I’m becoming, the less I am able to keep my mouth shut, and the more clear my life is becoming. It’s really mesmerizing. I’m still working on how to describe what I want to do, but here’s a draft of what that will hopefully look like – probably somewhere 10 years down the road:

I want to create an international organization that focuses on transforming peoples’ lives through cultural immersions and equipping them with skills to process their experiences. The organization will be a network of people with various skills – especially creative skills – being a space that embraces the art in people. Each immersion will have different themes and topics, different places. There will be different programs for different age groups (adults, kids, etc.), and there would be a focus to open the possibility for people who would not normally know how to take the step to travel and learn something new. And, at the heart of the organization is international collaboration – that it wouldn’t just be Americans going somewhere to learn about another place, but a group of various nationalities coming together to go to a different culture.

In a way, I guess, here is who I am.

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*I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see monopoly in my life. It’s really funny how some things perform as a reminder of American culture. When I saw Monopoly, not only was I reminded of those late nights playing with my brother and another bro-sis pair, but also, my mind went, “Oh, I know that. That feels familiar.” As bizarre as it is, I think this is why so many Americans here fawn over McDonalds – it’s like “Oh, America. I know that.” Personally, I’d much rather fawn over Monopoly than McDonalds, though in some ways, they’re based on the same principles….

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