The Essential Missing Part
Posted on December 16, 2016“A genuine change must first come from within the individual, only then can he or she attempt to make a significant contribution to humanity.” – Dalai Lama
Sometimes our body sends us signs, warning us that we need to change something. When we are eating too much or too little, or maybe when we are not having enough sleep, or having a toxic relationship, our organism will try to tell us that we need to change. If we don’t listen carefully, the small signs can evolve to a constant flow of negative thoughts, or even to a disease. When this happens, our cells will do their best to try to change the situation, in order to bring our body to a natural state of equilibrium again.
Let’s imagine that the planet is the organism that we live in, and that our purpose as humans is similar to the cells of our bodies. We would know, for sure, that we are not performing our jobs well. This living organism that we call earth is giving us enough signs that something is going very wrong with many of its organs and systems. Together with climate change and population growth, the global biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate, putting the survival of other species and our own future at risk. By 2020, the planet will lose two-thirds of the wild animals (Living Planet Report, 2016).
In the same way that our cells receive the signs when something is going wrong with our bodies to start an action plan, we are also receiving the signs of the planet that we live in, and we are feeling the urgent need to change things as well. When we get sick, our cells will first heal themselves in order to help to restore the other cells and to produce new ones that will replace those that have been permanently damaged or destroyed.
This analogy made me reflect about our work as transdisciplinary designers in trying to change things and to help our society and our planet to restore its balance. During the semester, we’ve discussed a lot about the possible, the most efficient and fastest ways to get there. But I believe that we are not doing the first essential step in of this process. Are we changing our own habits, behaviors and the way we do things?
I have a confession to make.
During this semester, we’ve learned about the importance of voting, and how we are facing a governmental crisis, in which a huge number of people doesn’t trust and doesn’t care about the political system anymore, or just think that the voting process is too complicated. Our task was to use design to engage more people with voting. Although I am from Brazil I was born in Michigan, so I can vote here as well. But guess what? During the election – and during our voting project – I also thought that the process was too complicated and that it wouldn’t make any difference if I voted or not, so after trying two times, and not understanding how the process worked, I gave up.
I participated in a workshop addressing the Future of Fast Fashion, and we discussed about solutions for the fast fashion industries, since they are still polluting our planet and promoting unethical working conditions. Although I am trying to buy on second hand stores, last week I bought socks at Forever 21 and a coat at Zara, just because it’s so much cheaper. I also didn’t quit my Facebook after the Design for this Century course, even knowing that Facebook is making money selling information about me, and that they have ‘like’ farms in developing countries, giving people horrible working conditions to engage with fake advertising.
Oh, although I am reading about building empathy, I lack – a lot – of empathy for people who don’t share my vision. In fact, this month I caught myself participating in a discussion on social media – and although I was being very polite and slightly ironic in my responses, I was feeling a sort of hate in my chest, not only at the moment, but for the entire week: I was having hateful thoughts about a human (just to make myself clear, he is a Brazilian man that hates feminism and is a Trump and Putin supporter – how nonsense is that).
For my Studio class, I developed a project connecting the schools of New York with the Freshkills Park – the park that once was the largest landfill in the world – promoting a space for youth to play in nature and learn about zero waste practices in creative ways, redesigning the school curriculum to address environmental issues. Although now I am bringing my lunch and my coffee and water bottles with me, and I am always walking around carrying textile bags, sometimes, when I forget them at home, I buy coffee in plastic mugs and I use plastic forks and knifes anyway. In fact, today I went to the supermarket and came back home with seven new useless plastic bags.
After so many challenges, readings, debates and intensive projects, why I didn’t change my own behavior? It seems that the only difference is that now when I do all those things, I feel guilty and stupid. However, I am thinking, writing and talking a lot about all of the things that we have to change in our system. Now that I know so much more, I feel that I have more background to propose what could be changed and and how. But something that I truly don’t want, is to become the “we need to” kind of person, that doesn’t do anything. There is enough people doing this already.
Please, don’t get me wrong, I am feeling so grateful for the experience that I had this semester, and I recognize how amazing is this opportunity. I know how much I changed and evolved as a person and a professional, and, sometimes, I even ask myself who I will become by the end of this program. All the information that I had access to – realities, knowledges and facts that I didn’t even knew it existed. All the inspiring professors and classmates that thought me so much about so many things that I also didn’t have a clue about. I am fulfilled and looking forward for the next one year and a half that we still have ahead of us.
While I was writing this blog post, I remember that when I decided to apply for this master program, and I was stalking all the faculty online (yes), I found a YouTube video where a Brazilian designer from PUC University in Rio de Janeiro was interviewing Jamer Hunt. Jamer’s words inspired me so much, especially in the last part, when he talked about scale, stating that to make a change, we just have to “roll up our sleeves and start somewhere, because if we don’t, we won’t get anywhere.” Here is the last part of the interview:
“I think part of the reason I talk so much about scale is that a lot of times students and individuals feels like they have to solve entire problems, and that’s impossible. If you can improve one person’s life, or two people or three people, that’s a place of start. But learn from what you are doing and maybe you will use that to solve problems for 10 people or 20 people and maybe eventually 100. But you need to start with an individual and you need to start with small problems before you can get to the larger systems oriented problems.” – Jamer Hunt, TV PUC-Rio, 2014
You can see the full interview here
As designers, our purpose is the same of every human being: to promote, to protect and to contribute to life, but through design. Not only human life, or the quality of our lives, but the life of the entire organism that we are part of. If I could guess the best way to get there, I would agree with Jamer Hunt when he affirmed that we need to start with an individual. And I think that this individual is ourselves.
One should always remember that a cell heals itself first, in order to help to restore the other cells, and then this healthy group of cells work together to restore the whole body. If we see this analogy as a strategy, maybe we could use all the knowledge, the design methods and tools that we are currently learning to understand and to change our own behavior, aligning our actions with the practices that we believe that the world needs. Then, we could explore strategies to change the system of teaching and learning and the interactions between students and professors. If we manage to apply our theories of effective change within this group, maybe we could change some of the systems, methods, processes and day to day activities at school. And showing by example what is possible to achieve, and how to achieve it, I believe that together we can find the ways to get there.
I’ll finish this last blog post with a fragment of a poem for kids that I’ve written as a manifest for Design For This Century class, trying to translate some of the complex knowledge we have learned during this first semester in a very simple and accessible way. I tried to share my vision of what I think is important and what I believe that could be changed. Just because I think it would be a nice way to say goodbye to Transdisciplinary Seminar, a thought provoking class that truly changed myself. Here it goes:
We were curious and excited
How come did we forget?
To be fearless, spontaneous
To live without regrets
We should already know
How to embrace diversity
There are talents inside of you
Different from those inside of me
But we still say we don’t have time
To discover and express
The original potentials
That we once already had
The artist and the child
Still lies within our hearts
Waiting to reconnect
And unify our broken parts
Automation, big data and smart cities are not the answer
In a sick society where power is the convention
Technology is a tool
That for sure can help us thrive,
Only if we stop believing
In manipulative lies:
That we are not enough,
That we need to compete
That we need to possess,
To exclude and to omit
What we really think?
Who we really are?
How we really feel?
Why we’ve come so far?
We are all the same, all unique and all diverse,
But we are starving for connection,
For purpose, love and trust
(If we only realize we are all made of stardust!)
There isn’t one only way,
The future can be bright,
If we just understand
That we don’t need to be right,
If we learn that we don’t need always to agree
If we start to take care of the planet that we live
If we build real spaces to feel safe and to be free
If we relearn to see beauty in simplicity
We do have wicked problems
Out there to be solved
But is not through more struggle
That they will be dissolved
The desire for simplicity
When legitim and profound
Comes from an inner complexity
(Is as weird as it sounds)
Don’t forget that you are
A beautiful human being
Too much overthinking
Can prevent you from seeing
Look at the sunrise,
Look at the moonlight
You’re not in a hurry,
You’re not wasting time
As long as we are dancing, creating and sharing
What is important for each of our hearts,
As long as we are thinking, talking and acting
To design your life, that is the true art.
Carolina Corseuil