I went to the first academic conference of my life and call me dramatic but it was such an emotional and profound experience for me, I’m literally bursting with emotions and that’s always a good reason to write. So I heard of this wonderful conference called SASE (The Society for the Advancement of Socioeconomics). I started following this organization and I saw that for 2022 the conference theme was going to be super intriguing. It was “Fractious Connections: Anarchy, Activism, Coordination and Control.” How cool is that? So many concepts that I’m interested in and since when do we acknowledge anarchy as a possibility for social organization in formal academia? I thought that there was no way I could actually present there but I wanted to go through the process of applying anyway since I would do it in the future for sure. So I wrote my proposal and submitted it. When I got the acceptance email, I had to read it three times to believe that my proposal was actually accepted. I was shocked and thrilled and then terrified because what the hell was I going to do now? I couldn’t not go after being accepted, it’s such an opportunity! But what the fuck would I present if I did go? And this has been on my mind for months now. I tried so hard to figure out my thesis research question so that I could present it for the conference but I didn’t get very far with it because I barely had any guidance specific to my topic of interest. I felt so misunderstood and alone. I didn’t belong at my own university and I felt it very deeply. And I thrive on external validation so imagine how hard it was to not give up on my ideas when I never got any. It was a very teaching experience in that I had to learn to trust my own intuition and validate myself because there will not always be someone to do that for me, especially when you take up such a controversial cause in your life as finding an alternative to capitalism. I study at a fucking business school. Obviously, my opinions aren’t very well received there and I’m not encouraged to pursue the topics I want to. It’s a Sociology program where we talk about gender in binary terms and very often only use male data in our analyses. Or we talk about how to make workers more productive. Or immigrants more integrated into German culture. Or how the only valuable production of knowledge is strictly via the quantitative scientific method. I’ve learned a lot here but I’m so glad it’s over and I can be with my people soon. And I’ve only just discovered that my people exist at this conference, so you can imagine what a relief it was!

I just finished one of the best books of my life, and oh the inspiration it gave me! I think everyone should read it, especially those that have a thing for history because apparently, we’ve been getting it all wrong all this time. And it’s one of those things that once you’ve already read it, it all becomes so obvious but it never occurred to you to question the hegemonic narrative that we’ve been taught to believe. Well, I know not everyone is gonna read this 500+ page book so I’m going to do my best to provide a short summary/reflection of all the things that I believe to be most important in the book. I’ll try to do it by going through the chapters. This is the first one and it might take a while. But to start off, I would like to describe what I think the book is mainly about. You know how we have a narrative of history that is very linear and characterized by progress? So in the past humanity used to live in small bands of hunter-gatherers and were able to be egalitarian because of the size of the group and also because they just didn’t know better.  They were somehow less evolved than us and too stupid to organize themselves in more civilized manners. Then, with the discovery of agriculture, our societies started to grow in size and the only way we could manage to live in such societies was with hierarchies, bureaucracies, and authorities that would establish order. So this was the natural course of the world and we have to live with it, it can’t get any better than this. Well, that’s just bullshit apparently, and thank you so much Graeber & Wengrow for explaining to us how so. It truly is “a radical revision of everything!”

An idea for a learning commons DAO with local ecovillage libraries

Here is a paper proposal that I recently wrote. I gotta say there’s definitely room for improvement, there’s a lot more to learn about every aspect of this topic but it’s a bit of a rushed start since I had a deadline.

The concept of fire has been occupying my mind lately. Maybe actually always. Fire has a thing where it manages to really captivate your attention, it’s a primitive feeling. I remember being mesmerized by anything burning as a child. The fires that warm us, the ones that frighten us, the ones that enlighten us, lead the way, the ones that connect us, the ones that drive us, the ones that feed us and the ones that consume us. I see fire, candle fires, bonfires, campfires, hearts on fire, forest fires, a touch like fire, hair like fire, fiery feelings, skin on fire, fire coming out of the monkey’s head, skies on fire, firestarters, the world is on fire… It's like the spring butterflies in our bellies rekindle the fires in our hearts, the fires that almost died out over the long winter. And the vitality those warm fires bring. A wise person once said “the opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality.” Waking up from a dark winter sleep to a scorching sun and neon green and vitality. And people and the smiles on their faces. We need people, we need each other. Because we’re all in this together and we have more in common than we think. How obvious a thought, yet how much we fail to acknowledge it. It’s not surprising that the coming of spring has been celebrated across space and time, it’s like the regaining of a collective vitality. The will and desire to live. The vitality that gives us the power to rekindle the familiar flames of old friendships, flames that you thought were extinguished, and the power to embrace the exciting sparks of new ones to come. You want to relate, you want to connect, you want to feel, you want to laugh, you want to cry. Beautiful extraordinary people with hearts wide open and sometimes familiar, sometimes completely new worlds to explore. The warm reassuring touch of massages, hugs and kisses. Not to be confused with the consuming fires of toxic masculinity, and the scorched bodies its touch creates. See, it sucks to realize that the idea of a hug or a kiss or a massage sometimes frightens you. Something that once, could only evoke love, compassion and care. The bitter realization that all those things that you’ve repressed have actually taken a toll on you when you were going around pretending it didn’t matter in the name of being strong. You weren’t going to let it bring you down. It was only a touch, or a word. But it wasn’t. It was an invasion. A friend told me that if you think about countries, invasion is grounds for war. It’s a raid, it’s a plundering of body and mind. And some people have stolen bits and pieces of your fiery character from you, the character that could fearlessly love and care and touch and connect. The realization that you’ve let others make you a colder person, afraid of warmth, fire, and intimacy, afraid to touch anyone, afraid of the sparks because you’ve been devoured by them before. And most of all, afraid that you won’t be able to protect yourself from the flames, once again. That feeling of self-betrayal. But don’t forget the understanding, the self-compassion, the determination that gives you the power to not let these experiences define you for the worse. Sometimes burning something to the ground creates the space you need for rebirth and regrowth into a stronger, wiser version of yourself. So burn it all down! And you will grieve, you will mourn the self you abandoned. Acknowledging the existence of those moments burned into the back of your mind but also acknowledging the strength within you that keeps you coming back despite the fear. Forging meaning and building identity, learning to refuse that which you don’t deserve. Because you don’t deserve it, no one does. You deserve all the best in the world. And with that acceptance, the fiery rage you feel not only towards the predators you have encountered and trusted and that did this to you but also the rage towards the structures that produce these supposedly individual traumas, the rage that gives you the power and the courage to resist those structures. The fiery compassion that you feel for your fellow oppressed whom you know you share these experiences with. The sweet warm solidarity you feel for each other, without even actually meeting each other but still knowing each other. Healing together from collective traumas, protecting each other, taking care of each other. Realizing the value of rage, and letting it drive you instead of repressing it. Sometimes to destruction but also to action and creation. What are you afraid of? Why do I always have to smile? Damn, I’m tired of being nice all the time. Just find the courage to say no and be fucking rude and mean and angry and crazy and internalize that sometimes it’s more important to be kind to yourself, and face whatever comes after that, do it for yourself. Let’s make a promise to take care of each other as a revolutionary act. Let’s protect each other but let’s not forget to protect ourselves along the way. You deserve your care just as much as anyone else does. Stand up for yourself no matter what. Just like you would for someone else. Don’t be afraid. You will probably find conflict, and resolution and both at the same time more often than not. Conflict is not necessarily a bad thing, embrace it. Don’t run away, I know you want to but you can’t avoid it forever. Once you face it there will be nothing left to avoid and no regrets. And then you will find the healing warmth of those around you. Have the courage to let yourself be engulfed by the fiery flames of friendship. Let yourself heal. You might find resistance within yourself, resistance to believing that things can be good for you, but you deserve no less than that so let yourself accept all of the wonderful things to come. It’s so fucking hard to believe that you deserve all the best in the world, believe me. In the face of good news, the first reaction of my inner voice is that there must have been some mistake. For so long great things rarely found their way to me, or they came but they came engulfed by darkness. It’s like good things can’t happen to me, there must be a catch, a cost, a price to pay, I will need to fight for it or someone will take it away. But it’s not that things are just happening to you, don’t undermine your agency. You are a factor in what happens to you, we create the lives we live. So just take it. Radiate with all your emotions, look into the mirrors of self-discovery, share, become a tribe, learn, listen, unlearn, express yourself and dance. The world is on fire but you dance tonight, like you’re never gonna die. I’m the catcher in the rye and I will never let you down.

I’ve been spending some time contemplating what the final product of my master’s education will be, I mean my thesis. It’s like my past experience and everything I’ve learned in the past year or so were all independent strands of thoughts and observations and it’s all coming together weaving a story, a narrative, an idea or whatever. It’s like giving birth, weirdly. That was a metaphor one of my dear teachers used to use, the birth of ideas require a lot of mental pushing and they’re uncomfortably painful. Well, I feel like I’ve come to a decent point in articulating my problem and a blueprint of a solution strategy in my social scientific endeavors and I want to lay out the plan here. The ideas I present here are definitely not entirely my own but it's more of a synthesis of what I’ve learned from several other people/thinkers new and old. What does it mean to own an idea anyway?

This is my final paper for my “Sociology of Organizations” course.

Lately I’ve been really demotivated in terms of working/studying. And it really got me thinking about why I’m doing everything that I’m currently trying to do. So I want to write a post about my current goals, future ambitions and my purpose in all of it. Along with a critical perspective on academia.

Today I want to talk about a topic very important to me. My friends say I’ve become an advocate of it and that’s kinda true so I want to advocate for it here as well, especially since I really need it lately. Guess what our topic is? \*\*lysergic acid diethylamide! …or acid :) \*\*Well, I guess I can say that the things I discuss will be about psychedelics in general since the experience is quite similar in the important aspects. But my favorite is acid, just saying.