Creative class

The quote from "The Rise of the Creative city: Culture and Creativity in Copenhagen" Darrin Bayliss, 2006)

It is lifestyle rather then occupation though that seems to distinguish Creative Class. As Baris (2003) notes, this is a "group of people whose creativity permeates every aspect of their lives, who thrive on diversity and change, who collect experiments rather then posessions, and for whom the ability to express individuality and find an outlet for creativity is more important than any material gain".

Factors that attract and retain the Creative Class appears to offer a remarkably simple formula for economic development, which reflects their lifestyle choices and revolves around the three T's - technology, talent, and tolerance. Firstly, talent is attracted to tolerant and open regions where people "from any background, race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation can easily plug in" (Florida, 2002c, p.750). Bohemian cities, for instance, are viewed as open and attractive to talented and creative individuals, "including those who are likely to establish high-technology firms and work in high-technology industries" (Florida, 2002a, p.56). Secondly, "the creative class want to have interesting and challenging activities available to them. ... They want to live in a place that has a good buzz" (Florida, 2002b, p.283). Highly educated, talented, high human capital individuals, especially younger employees and those in knowledge industry labour markets "ixhibit a strong preference for cultural amenities" and "are drawn to places with vibrant music scenes, street-level culture, active nightlife, and other signifiers of being 'cool'"(Florida, 2002c, pp.749-750). Rather than shopping malls and sports stadia, the Creative Class seeks out authentic, historic districts; "street level innovation comes out of these 'marginal' neighborhoods, making them vital to nurturing a healthy Creative Class" (Baris,2003)

Education and university

Interesting quote from
'Public Value of the Humanities' Bloomsbury Publishing.

The article argues the need and importance of humanities taught in universities. Sometimes, when money is an issue, humanities are one of the first departments to feel the financial pressure and significant cuts in financing. This article helps to see a bigger picture and opens our eyes towards humanitarian subject that hopefully will make others realize its importance in societal and global context.

p.21
"The idea of the university was promised upon a god: the university was a 'place of teaching universal knowledge' (Newman 1852:v)

p.22
University was to provide:
-Training in the art of argument
-The platonic university is a place where young people learn to think. Their starting point must be the art of thinking disinterestedly, not instrumentally.

p.26
Work in the humanities includes what Matthew Arnold called 'disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that has been known and thought in the world'. Are we to deprive future generations of that learning and propagation? But the humanities do not end there. They include understanding ourselves and other peoples through the language, literature, art, music history, religion, philosophy, sense of identity, politics, desires, fears and ambitions, all of which animate ourselves and others, whether these are the best or not. We are asked whether this understanding is a public good, deserving public support, or merely a private hobby. The answer is that if you believe knowledge is too expensive, try ignorance. The human world is one in which we move and act, just as much as the natural world, which is the object of science. Misunderstanding either is the road to catastrophe; understanding each of them is our only salvation".

Art in theory

And so I began my art classes and I must say, they are the best classes I have been enrolled onto in a long time (at University of Oslo). We have best lecturers here with their philosophy and their thoughts that I can definitely relate to. Through art, we are given a possibility to get a better perspective on this world' events, and life in general. How does art relate to the sociatal structure of our world, even to political events perhaps. I can greatly appreciate it especially, taken all my previous experiences with people who had more materialistic view of art. I do not deny that art can be also materialistic and practical.

But I am more interested in its cultural aspect, how it unites people, ideas, how it can change our perspective on things, and, most importantly, the power of it, how it helped and helps to shape and change history. And these are topics that are being discussed!

Couple of further posts will be extracts from my current readings, and notes from lectures and seminars, so stay tuned if you are interested in the topic!

Art in Theory

Habermas, Jürgen: “Modernity” - An Incomplete Project” (1980) in Art in Theory 1900-1990 An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Ed. Charles Harrison & Paul Wood, Blackwell Publishers 1992, pp. 1000-1008

p.1004

Max Weber characterized cultural modernity as the separation of the substantive reason expressed in religion and metaphysics into three autonomous spheres. They are: science, morality, and art. These came to be differentiated because the unified world-views of religion and metaphysics fell apart. Since the 18C, the problems inherited from these older world-views could be arranged so as to fall under specific aspects of validity: truth, normative rightness, authenticity and beauty. They could be handled as questions of knowledge, or of justice and morality, or of taste. They could then be handled as questions of knowledge, or of justice and morality, or of taste. Scientific discourse, theories of morality, jurisprudence, and the production and criticism of art could in turn be institutionalised. [...]

Enlightenment thinkers of the cast of mind of Condorcet still had the extravagant expectation that the arts and sciences would promote not only the control of natural forces but also understanding of the world and of the self, moral progress, the justice of institutions and even the happiness of human beings. The 20C has shattered this optimism. The differentiation of science, morality and art has come to mean the autonomy of the segments treated by the specialist and their separation from the hermeneutics of everyday communication. This  splitting off is the problem that has given rise to efforts to 'negate' the culture of expertise. But the problem won't go away: should we try to hold on to the intentions of the Enlightenment, feeble as they may be, or should we declare the entire project of modernity a lost cause? I now want to return to the problem of artistic culture [...]  

Snow

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

New Hampshire

1923

Wisdoms from Will Smith

“Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity.” 

“Never underestimate the pain of a person, because in all honesty, everyone is struggling. Some people are just better at hiding it than others.” 

“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.” 

“You can't be scared to die for the truth. The truth is the only thing that is ever going to be constant.” 

“Because thats what people do... they leap and hope to God they can fly! Because otherwise, we just drop like a rock... wondering the whole way down..."why in the hell did I jump?" But here I am Sarah, falling. And there's only one person that makes me feel like I can fly... That's you.” 

“There are so many people who have lived_ and died before you. You will never have a new problem; you're not going to ever have a new problem. Somebody wrote the answer down in a book somewhere.” 

“Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like” 

“Basic principles: no matter what, no matter when, no matter who... any man has a chance to sweep any woman off her feet. He just needs the right broom.” 

“The keys to life are running and reading. When you're running, there's a little person that talks to you and says, "Oh I'm tired. My lung's about to pop. I'm so hurt. There's no way I can possibly continue." You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you're running. You will how to not quit when things get hard in your life. For reading: there have been gazillions of people that have lived before all of us. There's no new problem you could have--with your parents, with school, with a bully. There's no new problem that someone hasn't already had and written about it in a book.” 

Beautiful quote from a beautiful movie

“I have always believed in numbers. In the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask what truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. And I have made the most important discovery of my career. The most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love, that any logical reasons can be found. I’m only here tonight because of you. You are the reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you.” - A Beautiful Mind. 

Horizon of expectations

In the speech, Khruschev once claimed that communism was already visible on the horizon. When a listener asked, 'Comrade Khruschev, what does "horizon" mean?', the leader advised him to consult a dictionary. There, the listener found the following entry: 'Horizon, an apparent line that separates the earth from the sky and disappears as you approach it.'

The 'horizon of expectations' is only partly structured by experience; events do not always coincide with expectations, although those expectations are, of course, strongly influenced by their prehistory in the 'space of experience.' In the modern world, this tension between experience and expectation evokes a different experience of history. Partly because of the disintegration of the Christian concept of the Judgement Day, the 'horizon of expectation' moves up, and the future becomes 'less attached' to the past. At the same time, an eventual improvement of one's fate is less likely 'in the hereafter' and more likely 'in the present,' an experience that manifests itself in the emerging use of the concept of 'progress'.

From Art in Progress by Maarten Doorman p.24

Pictures, like words, are what we are made on.

"I am an inquisitive and chaotic traveler. I like discovering places haphazardly, through whatever images they might have to offer: landscapes and buildings, postcards and monuments, museums and galleries that house the iconographic memory of a place. Much as I love reading words, I love reading pictures, and I enjoy finding the stories explicitly or secretly woven into all kinds of works of art – without, however, having to resort to arcane or esoteric vocabularies. … I am guided not by any theory of art but merely by curiosity."

Every good story is of course both a picture and an idea, and the more they are interfused the better the problem is solved. Henry James, Guy de Maupassant

"Pictures, like stories, inform us. Aristotle suggested that every thought process required them. “Now, for the thinking soul, images take the place of direct perceptions; and when the soul asserts or denies that these images are good or bad, it either avoids or pursues them. Hence the soul never thinks without a mental image.” … existence takes place in an unfurling scroll of pictures captured by sight and enhanced or tempered by the other senses, pictures whose meaning (or presumption of meaning) varies constantly, building up a language made of pictures translated into words and words translated into pictures, through which we try to grasp and understand our very existence. The pictures that make up our world are symbols, signs, messages and allegories. Or perhaps they are merely empty presences that we fill with our desire, experience, questioning and regret. Whatever the case might be, pictures, like words, are the stuff we are made on."

From Reading Pictures by Alberto Manguel

‘My Self’ by Wergeland (Norwegian poet)

"My soul rejoices in the spring joys of Heaven

and shall partake of the Earth’s.

It glows more intensely than the spring stars, and it

Will soon blossom with the flowers.

Wondrous evening star. I bare my head.

Like a shower of crystals your radiance falls upon it.

There is a kinship between the soul and the stars".

Vigeland on Art

"People want to know 'the meaning'; they do not care about the rest. They want to be able to take out 'the idea' and 'the meaning' and put it back again like a book on a shelf. As though 'the meaning' were the most valuable aspect of a work of art. Look at the grandest of all works of art, Michelangelo's 'Dio crea il sole et la luna'.This work goves the impression of undiluted passion (aside from cracks, and so on) today as before, even though we all know that that was not how the solar system was created. - No, if one cannot allow oneself to be lifted, if one is not capable of being entranced by a work of art, transported by it, then one will never 'understand' it. People usually stand in front of a work of art with a stiff neck, rather than with bowed head. In fact, one must approach a piece of art with the mind of a child. Otherwise you will never understand it".

The power of cyberspace

"Community on a global scale.  Think of it: a cross-cultural, cross-functional,
globally dispersed team, linked by a continuity machine, driven by a common
enterprise vision, sharing in the common values of the emerging global culture,
and producing out of their cultural, organizational, and technical richness and
complexity a constant flow of wisdom.  A true global cosmopolis in cyberspace".

O'Hara-Devereaux & Johansen, 1994, p. 420 
Globalwork: Bridging Distance, Culture, and Time

Notes on Art Education

Cultural Sustainability, cultural engagement and visual culture plays a big role in development of values and the transferring of belief systems.

Visual art making acknowledges previous learning, personal meaning making, the real world and audience. It presents a platform for critical self reflection and a space to facilitate the ongoing mediation of society, cultural values and citizenship.

It would have been interesting to explore how art making affirms our consciousness about the world and self through creative engagement and communicative knowing. How can we develop students’ capacities to engage creatively with learning in environments that provide opportunities for thoughtful participatory understanding about self as a citizen of the world, or as a citizen of the world, or as a member of none’s national or local community. It is identifying and reflecting that an understanding of one’s world is dependant on knowing how contemporary society communicates its values and beliefs informed by economic, environmental, cultural and political forces. In a world dominated by the triumpth of the image, multi-modal practices and visual culture (Duncum, 2003), being visually literate is fundamental, and having the skills to creatively engage with communicative knowing within the dominant discourse is essential to the active construction of an individual’s values, beliefs and identities.

Source: Creative Engagements with Visual Culture, Communicative Knowing, Citizenship and ContemporaryVisual Art Education 
Kathryn Grushka, University of Newcastle

Three Dilemmas of Virtue

[...] Each of the three older Pendawas are commonly held to display a different sort of emotional-moral dilemma, centering one or another of the central Javanese virtues. Yudistira, the eldest, is too compassionate. He is unable to rule his country effectively because when asks him for his land, his wealth, his food, he simply gives it out of pity, leaving himself powerless, poor, or starving. His enemies continually take advantage of his mercifulness to deceive him and escape his justice.

Bima, on the other hand, is single-minded, steadfast. Once he forms and intention, he follows it out straight to its conclusion; he doesn’t look aside, doesn’t turn off or idle along the way – “he goes north”. As a result, he is often rash, and blunders into difficulties he could as well have avoided.

Arjuna, the third brother, is perfectly just. His goodness comes from the fact that he opposes evil, that he shelters people from injustice, that he is coolly courageous in fighting for the right. But he lacks a sense of mercy, of sympathy for wrong-doers. He applies a divine moral code to human activity, and so he is often cold, cruel, or brutal in the name of justice.

The resolution of these three dilemmas of virtue is the same: mystical insight. With a genuine comprehension of the realities of the human situation, a true perception of the ultimate rasa, comes the ability to combine Yudistira’s compassion, Bima’s will to action, and Arjuna’s sense of justice into a truly moral outlook, an outlook which brings an emotional detachment and an inner peace in the midst of the world of flux, yet permits and demands a struggle for order and justice within such a world. And it is such a unification that unshakable solidarity among the Pendawas in the play, continually rescuing one another from the defects of their virtues, clearly demonstrates.

Book: The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973

Author: Clifford Geertz

Chapter: Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols p. 139.

Question everything. Search for meaning.

We search for the meaning in everything we do. Otherwise what is the point one might ask. Stop. Think. Do we question ourselves why we are having hundreds of friends, do we question why we go out and have fun every so often. What is ‘fun’ anyway. Are they occasional moments of our life when we displace ourselves from our boring everyday existence and get lost in a drunken couple of hours. Why not invest some time and energy in building up on a life that we dont want to escape from. Why do not let our hobbies, our passions become our way of making a living? What if we create a life we love and do not want to escape from. Where we can be in the moment, be happy.

When we find that inner strength, the knowing we have inside of ourselves, life seem much easier, and simpler. What is the point of overanalysing, over thinking anyway? Whatever in meant to be, will happen. All we have to do, is do our best, make ourselves happy by pushing our limitations, not forgetting that they are as subjective as anything else in this world. Humans are incredible creatures; they are capable of at least ten times more of what they think they are. Believe in oneself and everyone else will believe in us.

Of course, it is never that easy. Being an individual is difficult when we are tied to social environments. We have family, our close ones are sometimes in need of our help, they need us to share their unfortunes, ills and downs. Stay creative with own thoughts during these moments, not letting them drown us. Invest our time and energy, showing our compassion, and seeing it as a positive. When helping others, we consequently make ourselves stronger, receive that extra energy, extra push to hold on to our personal believes and our dreams. By helping others and caring about what is going on around us in the world, does not let us concentrate too much on our personal problems, that can only push us to the bottom and will make others around us weaker. For the sake of the loved ones around us, stay strong.

The importance of Art Education

Researching into Art and its importance of giving it a significant placement within our societies.

Personal perspective:

The more we travel the more capabilities we have to absorb and critically overlook our world with its people and surroundings. We grow, we learn, we get wiser, but it does not become easier, rather the opposite, to understand this world, humanity in general. Traveling the world and speaking several languages does not solve any problems and cannot contribute to the magic formula of gaining the control over the world structure. It raises even more questions instead, seeing all the complexities of human soul, you cannot but wonder about its similarities, as well is it predictabilities. You become overly self-critical as you recognize some of flaws in yourself, seeing yourself from many perspective sets you in a difficult position of occasional over analysis, which sometimes is critical to our happiness and careless existence. But as much as you would have wanted to turn the clocks backwards and go back to simplicity and childish view of the world, it is impossible. You want to climb more to fill in all the gaps, to get all your questions answered. The biggest challenge in this case is to start moving in the opposite direction: to learn how to stop, relax, embrace yourself in the moment and meditate. Another solution is to stop caring about your own fulfillment, which is very much propagandised by many western societies, but rather start caring about others, which might save yourself a soul and sanity. Such journey can be difficult and it easy to get lost among endless opportunities and ideas.

Here comes the importance of creativity and art. Vision of the world as something that is based on principles, grids and models is rather abstract and to be honest, rather depressing thought. Any creative act, be it traveling, attending an art exhibition, or having a stimulating and challenging conversation, let us start re-evaluating our personal ambitions, dreams, challenges acquired perspectives, values and principles. Art and ‘creative act’ keep our motivation on the high, without letting us to get bored by accepting our life routines. 

Art also challenges our materialistic values. The importance of family and love is evident and yet many people in the western world tend to forget this simple truth. What one might call ‘simple’ life, is one of the richest in reality. What can be more important that being in the company of people who you know care about you, love you in any way. What can be more valuable then a walk or a chat to a person whose words you know will stay with you and become part of your soul forever. All things material age, people die, but their souls, their love and their creations live on. So isn’t it the most valuable thing in the world? Art helps societies, communities and younger generations to find this spiritual connection through creative exercises. Some might argue that this is an overly simplistic, or maybe overly spiritualistic way of looking at things, that we need economic growth, we need stimuli to keep the humanity grow and develop and this is also very right. I believe that everyone chooses how to balance their lives, which consequently creates a balance on the bigger scale in this world between people of all kinds – sky walkers, dreamers, thinkers, painters, high climbers, money and power grabbers. In the ideal world everyone has this balance within one selves, where we have place for love, care, our children, our work, our passions and hobbies. But it is difficult to achieve in the society where arrogance and money serve as main stimuli. We need to rethink. We need to invest more in non-material things, such as education, art, sustainability and communities.  

Creative Engagements with Visual Culture, Communicative Knowing, Citizenship and

Contemporary Visual Art Education

Kathryn Grushka, University of Newcastle

Article discusses why it is important to develop students’ capacities to engage creatively with learning in environments that provide opportunities for thoughtful participatory understanding about self as a citizen of the world, or as a member of one’s national or local community.

Abstract

New learning in a global society gives attention to the need for learners to engage in constructive, meaningful and transformative processes which have communicative relevance to themselves. It acknowledges the need for cultural sustainability, and the vital role cultural engagement, particularly visual culture plays in development of values and the transferring of belief systems.

Visual art making acknowledges previous learning, personal meaningmaking, the real world and audience while providing authentic learning experiences. It presents as a platform for critical self-reflection and a space to facilitate the ongoing mediation of society, cultural values and citizenship. An examination of visual art curriculum, 5 years of Higher School Certificate art works in NSW and student reflections reveal a rich imagery of how student artists use their art making to affirm their consciousness about the world and self through creative engagement and communicative knowing and is presented as a legitimate site for the negotiation of ones subjectivities and life worlds

A MESSAGE FOR ALL OF HUMANITY Inspirational speech by Charlie Chaplin

I'm sorry. But I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible - Jew, Gentile, Black Man, White.

We all want to help one another - human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone - the way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate. Has goosed us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little.

More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities life would be violent and all will be lost.

The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together - the very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world. Millions of despairing men, women and little children; victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

For those who can hear me I say - do not despair - the misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed. The bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictator's die. And the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes! Men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives - tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel. Who drill you, dives you, treat you like cattle, use you as canon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men. Machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate. Only the unloved hate. The unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty!

In the seventeenth chapter of St. Lucas it is written, the kingdom of God is within man - not one man, not a group of men, but in all men - in you! You the people have the power - the power to create machines, to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. And in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world; a decent world, that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfill their promise. They never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world. To do away with national barriers. To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason. A world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

: winter :

Plato on Internet and illusions

- Next then, I said… Picture people as dwelling in a cavernous underground chamber, with the entrance opening upward to the light, and a long passage-way running down the whole length of the cave. They have been there since childhood, legs and necks fettered so they cannot move: they see only what is in front of them, unable to turn their heads because of the bonds.

- A strange image, he said, and strange prisoners.

- Like ourselves, I replied.

Plato, The Republic, 514A

In plato’s cave, nobody sees what’s really happening. They think they do, but they don’t. Plato says we are like the cave dwellers. We think we see the Truth, but we don’t. The difference is that we can see the Truth is we know how. Plato knew how and wanted to show us. But Plato also knew that we – or at least most of us – are either incapable of or uninterested in coming to grips with the Truth. Philosophers have the way and the will, but the rest of humanity doesn’t. we are quite happy living in our pleasant illusions, far removed from the Truth. This is why we build the imaginary worlds – dramas – that Plato found so disturbing. For what are storytelling, literature, and theater but attempts to escape from reality into some fantasy? The storytellers, writers, and thespians all say we can learn something about ourselves from their productions. But what do we learn, really, if all that is depicted is fiction? Fiction cannot be the Truth, for it is the opposite of the Truth. And even those productions that claim to be something other than fiction – histories and the like – aren’t they simply poor reflections of a reality that is gone and cannot be revisited, and therefore really fictions themselves?

Perhaps they are, and perhaps they aren’t. In any case, Plato was on firm ground in asserting that we naturally see the comfort of illusions. 

'Risks' by Janet Rand

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool,

To weep is to risk being called sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk showing your true self.

To place your ideas and your dreams before the crowd is to risk being called naive.

To love is to risk not being loved in return,

To live is to risk dying,

To hope is to risk despair,

To try is to risk failure

But risks must be taken, because the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love.

Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom.

Only the person who risks is truly free.

Thinking about our generation

Our generation is well protected and cared for by governments and parents. Parents who lived and worked through dramatic global changes of 60 and 70s, who were brought up by parents who went through the evils of World War, parents who do not want the same painful experience for their kids. They have a house, are able to send their kids to university, and can provide their kids with enough ‘pocket money’ to send them off travelling around the world in hopes they might learn and discover what the real world is. But can kids really appreciate this care without really knowing what pain, fear or struggle means? Many question arise and that I will try to find answers to.

Looking at our western youth makes me wonder if we are going to enter history books of the future as “lost generation”. When lookng around me, I see generation that does not know what pain is, the generation that rely on their governments’ and parents’ support too much, have high expectations of them, a generation that is not willing to fight for a better world, the generation that is rather disconnected from reality.

There are different types of people but I will identify three main streams as a starting point for my future posts: 1) the careless, 2) the ambitious and 3) the wise.

1. The most common type of youth are the mainstream, the ''average'', the type that you see in everyday life. The ignorant type that only cares about creating one perfect bubble of meaningless toys, gadgets and friends around themselves, and then choosing to live in this bubble, ignoring the complexities of live.

2. There are others who do try to make something of their lives, but they concentrate on their education, future, well-being, careers, i.e.material well-being, and perfectioninng their own lives and spiritual strength to the extent when they forget about simplicities and joys that life offers, but most importantly they forget about people who truly and unconditionally love and care about them. As Leo Tolstoy perfectly put into words : “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves”

3. And the third type are the young who are the closest to the reality, they are confused about the world, they have many questions that they want answers to but have nobody out there who can understand and relate to them. Their best friends are their thoughts, books sometimes- they feel they have more in common with them then their peers. The problem with these individuals is that they find it difficult to start acting, to tell the world about their confused minds, they don’t want to interfere or don’t think they can succeed and win over the wickedness of humanity.

Naturally, it is wrong to generalise but these are my personal observations, based on my personal experiences, feelings and cultural background. Coming from a family where spirituality, love and care were always most important, but where the struggle for peace, material and political stability constantly kept on challenging personal values and belonging. Moving across cultures helps one to find the inner self, but it is often when they find the inner self they lose connection or will to connect to the external world. Sometimes being an individual and, to some extent an outsider for some years, becomes overly exhausting practice and makes you want to go back in time, back to simplicity, where your mind stops wondering, stops asking questions, where one is capable to blend in with the crowd and able to connect and have mindless conversations with people around. But this is another story.. Back to generations now..

The challenge now is to create a balance within our generation - inspire the ignorant, remind of simplicities life can offer to the ambitious, and reassure the wise that everything is in their hands and actions, and actions only is the way to make a difference and make our lives worth living.