This Wed we had class in the Hub again. But we moved the classroom outside to the park in front of it. We were sitting on the grass, with the very nice sunshine. Sometimes the sun hided behind the clouds then it was a bit cold, but generally a nice weather. Three members from the Hub shared their stories with us. I found two of them really interesting and inspiring.
Part1
One woman was born in Israel with a Persian dad from Israel, and a Dutch mom. I could not get her Dutch name right. She studied social science back in school, and wrote her thesis on diversity from diversified background, how layers, business, social worker, etc. think about diversity. She chose this topic because she found it amazing that we can live together with different ideas. However, we sometimes unavoidably have conflict, so she wants to know how to make different ideas co-exist. I think I am a bit like her. I like different kinds of ideas, and like to present different ideas to people, especially those who only saw one side of the stories.
She traveled all over the world, and gets ideas from a lot of different sources. She said if she had kids, she would force them to travel around and get different ideas. I found I have a lot of similar ideas with her. I think it is very important to have an idea of different views. A lot of times, there is not the one and only right answer, but all the solutions have their own goods and bads. I also think it is very important to have different experiences. And one way to do this for me is to take cross-discipline courses. The other way is to go to different places, and talk to different peoples and try to understand them.
Back to her story, she finished her degree and started working with some organizations to help developing the countries who are suffering. She once joined UN to help Rwanda to rebuild, but turned out it was nothing she wanted to do. What UN, or some of the other big organizations is doing is to rebuild a Rwanda based on the western standards. Basically, they are making a copy of a developed country in Rwanda, because they think the western world is a stable world, so if things work well there, it must be good for Rwanda. But she believed local problems should have local solutions, they can't just adopt an existing model and ignore the difference. Confused and unhappy with what big NGOs are doing, she set out to travel again and look for ideas that suits her value and belief.
During that trip, she got to know the hub. where you do not need to go around yourself and look for ideas, but you set up a base, a connecting point, a hub where you attract different ideas to come to you.
I have heard of the Hub before, and I was very much attracted to the co-working idea where members transparently share information and ideas with each other, and thus build up an innovative community that is based on trust and synergy instead of competition. I do believe that competition brings efficiency, but collaboration could bring unexpected inspirations and support. The competition motivation is built on the assumption that people are rational individuals seeking for profit maximization, while the co-working idea is built on the assumption that people are social beings who seeks the profit maximization of a community. These assumptions, based on philosophers like Marx are ideologies that does not reflect the reality, but rather, are made to believe. Because we believe in the rational behavior theory or we started to doubt about it, I do not see why we can't believe in the community theory or at least test the assumption. Hence, I am very much interested in starting the Hub in Shanghai.
I talked to Nynke who is now working part-time there, who was also in the company in ecology class 2 years ago, to see if she can tell me more about setting up a Hub in Shanghai, and she told me that I could join their community lunch next Tuesday, and talk to more people there, who might give me advices.
Part 2
It's a story of Frank Renaud, who used to work in a club in Rotterdam as a marketing director. He thinks he's so cool. He has a cool job, cool friends. He even has a cool dog. But his sister disagreed him. She told him that he was so cool that he was ice cold. He coulsdn't even have a stable loving relationship. So she signed up a coaching workshop for him. I couldn't remember the name of the workshop, but it is so uncool. But the workshop helped him to realize that while he was busy being cool, he was actually afraid of somethingelse deep down. He was afraid of failure, so he had a strong urge to be cool to show that he is not a loser. After he realized this, he decided to challenge himself to deal with his fear. And that is to make something impossible possible.
Frank loves music. so he wants to do something impossible but related to music. Then he decided that it must be impossible to let the deaf people enjoy music, so he started his journey to make this impossible possible, and he start organizing parties for deaf people. Those parties are enjoyed by both the hearing and deaf people. They seek all kinds of ways to transfer the mood from the music to the hearing-aid. They would install viberating dance floor, aroma jockey, light effect, vj, and even some massage jockey. They have, so far, done the party in africa, south america, and a lot of times in Europe.
Frank felt he had made this possible. He felt very achieving by bring music into the life of the deaf. And he had successfully integrated the life of both the hearing and the deaf. The hearing aided people usually live a very isolated life from the society. They have their own community. And the hearing people also don't know how to communicate with the hearing-aided. There was just no communication going in between. But such a party where both the hearing and the aided peope participate in a common social experience, and witness the same happenings, encouraged the understanding and communication of both parties. Frank said he has never felt so happy before when he see the hearing-aided people dancing with the hearing people. He could have never felt that way when he was having his “cool” life.
Frank then extented his party to mental hospitals for the first time last year. But he was very dispointed at the party because most of the mentally challenged people do not seem to be enjoying the party. They do not seem to be as happy as the other people in the party. Frank felt failure, but he got to know the other side of the story during the even evaluation meeting with the hospital administration. They were very happy with the party and would very much like to have another one. Frank was frustrated, how could they like the party when they are not even enjoying the music. The doctors told him that for some patients, they could never sit still for more than 10 minutes and watch a TV program, but during the party, they have been sitting there the whole night. That has been their largest progress in their healing. Frank was moved. He finally realized that different people are looking for different things in life, and his party can give so many of these different things to them. He finally felt everything has paid off, and he has been successful.
My take-a-way from this class was that all 3 of the guest speakers was lost in their journey at one point or another. But one day, they found something they are passionate about, then everything worked out. It is okey to wonder, but we should not give up our dreams.
Additionally, money is not the largest problem. There are a lot of ppl who loves ideas, and don't care too much about money, but would love to help you if your idea is good enough.
Follow up: I went to join the Hub, Rotterdam for a community lunch this Tuesday (10th, May). And they gave me a lot of ideas about how to get started. So, for now, I would take the chance of my next travel month in June to visit the other Hubs in other cities like Stockholm, Zurich, etc. And I could use some time to do an internship in one of the hubs in the world and get to know the operations.
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