who i was to who i am

I forget that I like to write, hence the reason I don’t have recent posts. I wish I could remember that I liked writing and told myself I still like writing on a regular basis, so that I would write more. But Twitter and Facebook and time-wasting activities occupy my time so much that I forget how writing feels.

Who I was seems so distant from who I am. I used to be frustrated with myself for not pinning down what I really wanted to do, to make, to establish. I just finished watching an old video I recorded of myself almost exactly 4 years ago, after I had just finished graduating from OCAD. I talked so passionately about my thesis and how it was an identity project. I watched genuinely express every bit of what was on my mind at the time and how I felt about my thesis, which has been an ongoing process from about 2006, and still continues.

I’m not frustrated anymore. I’m confident, but I’m more quiet. I feel like I have the answer I was searching for 4 years ago and I am slowly working on it to make it real. I know I’m not there yet for you all to see what I’m talking about, but it is MEconomist, and this site has evolved from an idea in 2006, to a storefront in 2008, to a website after the storefront was over. I feel like I worked my whole student life towards this and it’s finally coming together silently, not aggressively.

I feel so calm yet I feel I have the same ambition I had 4 years ago. I guess maturity has taken its toll but ambition has never left my body until I reach what I was destined to make. Whether it be quiet or loud, it’s ambition that prevails all.

I must continue to be who I am because who I was has made me who I am, and continue to be.

the ME letter

I didn’t know what a community meant before 2008. I never really knew my neighbours or people living in my neighbourhood. It never occurred to me that it was something important in my life. I was too young to know what a neighbourhood was in Iran. At 10 years old, I didn’t know anything else that was important besides family, playing, going to school and eating the food my parents prepared.

When we immigrated to Canada, still I didn’t know what a local community was. I’d go to school, come home, drive to supermarkets with my parents, eat dinner. Really, nothing was ever centred around where I lived and the people that comprised the area I lived in. It was always about destination and never about where I was.

In 2008 I moved to a neighbourhood in Toronto, with random roommates, and one vision. My vision was to improve an area and I had the key to a storefront that I earned with a lot of leg work and passion.

This storefront became who I am today. 

I can’t begin to explain everything that went through my head when I had this empty open space that welcomed everyone in the neighbourhood. I had never met so many neighbours in my life. I would say hi to people I saw regularly, every day. The bike shop guy, falafel store owners, lawyer, women’s service centre co-ordinator, neighbourhood centre manager, the comedy bar owner, Ethiopian restaurant lady, hair salon woman, the young bar owners — and that’s just what was going on in the business strip! I met so many residents, from photographers, to teachers, to crafts people, to poets, to architects, to entrepreneurs. I couldn’t believe how many people I was meeting BECAUSE I was standing in an empty space with a vision to connect people.

People knew that I WAS THERE and they would come to me because they knew others would be there too. The storefront was a tool for me to begin to map out the neighbourhood as a network. 

I felt like I was a leader and it was only because I was giving people what they wanted: a shared vision. 

This vision is hard to put into words but it’s in every one of us. It’s the desire to connect with others and be who we are and proud of our skills, our creativity and our voice.

The BIG on Bloor festival also manifested in 2008, which was really about celebrating local community and individuality. Small businesses, non-profits, artists, musicians, makers, doers, believers and care givers – they were all on the street with tables, sharing who they were with others; exchanging their values, skills and ideas.

I was never so proud to be part of something so grassroots and so genuine and honest. The festival proved to me that coming together and seeing what people have to offer is an intrinsic part of our human existence.

After really getting a sense of community and soaking it all in, I came to a revelation that I must carry on this integrity and vision to a new venture. 

This venture is MEconomist.

MEconomist gives everyone the same value that the storefront gave me.

It will put you on the map and let everyone know that you are there and open to sharing, exchanging and meeting.

It will put the business you’ve been developing on the side out there for everyone to see, so they can meet up with you and use your services or buy your product. 

It will put the non-profit you are a part of on the map so everyone in the area can see that you’re there and all the great things you’ve been doing. 

It will let you create initiatives, promote them, join them and let everyone know what’s happening so they can feel there are more things to do besides browsing the web aimlessly.

It is meant to give us purpose and value in our daily lives. It is meant to make you feel empowered and motivated to do more and learn more right where you are. 

If we can be MEconomists, we can enrich our lives and support one another without innovating or disrupting or even changing anything that exists. All we need to do is unite and foster our local economies by interacting with everything that already exists right around the corner.

That is the power of the Internet and we must harness what the Internet can do for us at a local economic level.

Once we create a network of MEconomists I believe I will have achieved my goal of improving an area.

Thoughts Owned

Nearly 2 months ago I wrote my last post, where I expressed how I was feeling about my day to day and losing ownership over my thoughts.

It felt like a relieve being able to capture my emotions in that poem, but I also questioned why I took the time to write about feeling helpless. My close friend could also relate to what I wrote, so we began to talk more about it. We started to reflect on our past and how we used to be — full of ambition and energy. 

Frankly enough, it all came back — for both of us. It all just came back, magically. We realized that “the time is NOW” and if we don’t try now, we will feel like our thoughts are unowned, forever. So, now we are doing it and I can’t believe that the last post I wrote could have actually been the instigator of it all. Digging deep into the dusty soul was really about facing my dusty self and getting my act clean. No one owns your thoughts but you — and they only shine through if you choose to see them in light.

Thoughts Unowned

Thoughts unowned
Actions scripted
Living in a misty haze
Visions a blur
Left behind the cruise ship to fame
Days of fire and explosive strength
Compulsion to create, invent, build, conquer
Vanished in a cloud of smoke
Succeeded by darkness
Lost in mechanical bliss
Trapped in banal records of implosive dullness

Thoughts generate
Submissive to dominion
Actions automate
No surprises at risk
One button clicking
Orderly after the next
Waiting relentlessly
For luminous thoughts to prevail
Clouds of hovering rubble
Blocking clear sight

just start writing

Just start writing. Once you do you’ll figure out what you want to write about. So many times a thought comes to my head and I tell myself I should start writing about it and make a beautiful piece of writing. I tell myself to get back into writing poetry, like I did when I took a Creative Writing class. I got infront of the mic and spoke my words, heard lots of positive feedback, like how I was born with a mic. How do you get comments like that and don’t continue writing? How do you just stop and hide in the shadow when you were admired for your powerful voice?

I wish I knew exactly why I stopped my intense writings and spoken words. It was the most relieving form of expression for a period of time. I was searching for something with so much passion. Trying to discover who I was and spoke my individuality, my creative mind, my love for ambition and inspiration.

I hate to write this and admit to it but I think I stopped because I fell in love. I couldn’t write about it because I found it so difficult to express. My desire to express my feelings drifted away and my passion to speak found its way in my partner. I slowly realized that writing things that were important to me weren’t important to write about. It sounds terrible, but maybe I don’t want to show off the intensity of my love anymore. Maybe I still haven’t taken it all in and reached the point to reflect on my experience with being in love with someone else and having it in return. Maybe I’m not ready to be open about the ups and downs, simple beauties, companionship, brutalities, childish gestures and mind-readings. There are too many magical subjects to write about that I don’t feel any of it necessary to share. Maybe not yet. Maybe another time.

where i’m going

i wish i knew where i was going. When i start to write in this blog, i always feel i have to be honest and say what i’m thinking in the moment. i don’t know where i’m going but i know it’s digital. i know it’s social. i know it’s business. i know it’s micro. i know it’s fun and innovative and powerful, but i don’t know where it is, when it is, and who i’ll be doing it with. i know i’ll get there because i’ve been practicing. i know practice shows patience. i know practice shows passion. practice shows discipline. practice shows stability. And in the end, practice adds up with practice, and you get versatile mish mash of practices. i believe at some point all my practicing practices will find a home and have a practice party to then show me where i’m going.

Until that day, i shall practice things i like doing.

the old me

whether or not i know
what new or old is
i sense in this moment
where i sail will stay
if i stay clear
swim sensually close
like aging with a patient
part of me
the old me

the new me?

My first blog post was in 2007 when I was heading down to Florida for a 5 month exchange program. I started writing about my experiences because for some reason I found some value in them. I liked reading them later to relive things again. I wanted to make meaning of life as I evolved as a designer.

A friend of mine whom I hadn’t met up with for a year said to me, “member when you were ambitious?”
I paused for a moment, not knowing if I should respond with offense or agreement. I said, “I’m always ambitious. I’m coming up with ideas at work (contracting at RIM currently). I’m trying new things, presenting new ideas.” I think that response wasn’t with offense nor agreement, it was with comfort.

I feel like I’m in a comfort zone right now. I’m going to work for 8 hours, to a renowned telecom company, working on ideas that can make me stand out as a designer. I live with my boyfriend who I fell in love with in the first week we met and I feel like my life has settled down. I had no idea when you find love, a whole lot of things change. Your core becomes shared with one other person who becomes part of you. I had never had that but always longed for it. I was in the search for that one interesting worthwhile person. So I have it now – now what?

I doodle. I started doodling since last December and it seems to be my first hobby, because I don’t do it for a reason. My boyfriend was the main reason I started doing it. His encouragement kept me going.

Who am I now? Where is my ambitious self? That daredevil who was after something big. My gut answer is, “I’m always ambitious”. Because I know I’m driven. Time will tell where I belong in this world of innovation, cusp, peek, breakthrough, disaster, instability, confusion, chaos, leadership, youth, technology, internet, mobile and CHANGE. I’m comfortable right now with the new relaxed me that doesn’t feel responsible to be a social leader, change-maker, agitator, mover, shaker, button pusher. I feel happy to snuggle and eat dinner with a smile every night. I’ve found peace in the other, even though it’s scary sometimes. And by that I mean the feeling of being strapped to comfort.

Is that the new me? Well it’s updated enough for now!

imperfection is reality

It’s fair to say that nature is perfect and from nature we derive our perception of perfection. However, we have taken perfection to the extent of physicality and morality. Even with art! We leave no room for mistakes or irregularities and if we notice them we point them out and extend our judgement towards them. “Is it beautiful? Is it art?” We do this with society! We classify people, places, music and fashion with our constructed ideals for perfection. Odd becomes cool, cool becomes perfect – so we think. This way we can judge and feel good or bad about our own lives. It’s how we get by daily.

It’s good. It’s in our nature to be this way. Afterall, we were given a brain for a reason – to define our own reality, to adhere to safety.

Seek beauty in people and places that don’t advertise their perfection. Try looking for imperfection – you’ll find reality there. Remember me when you find it and smile. =)

Motivate

I was always motivated. I accept that you either get what you work for, or you don’t. And if you don’t, you’re not cut for it, which probably means the work you did wasn’t good enough or you just didn’t hit the jackpot you fantasized.

My first failure in my mind was when I stopped pursuing becoming a professional basketball player. It was a very rough transition from highschool into design school and re-motivating myself to pursue a love in a future of graphic design.

My second failure was reaching the level of graphic design I wanted, which was probably when I didn’t get a response from Bruce Mau when I applied to the studio with my heart and soul on the line.

My third failure was when I branched off from the industry of graphic design and desire to be a top-notch graphic designer to establishing some kind of an enterprise with an empty storefront in a neighbourhood and then failing to build a website that it evolved to.

All three of those failures took so much out of me. Like I had to re-motivate myself to believe I am capable of something else. Something that all my previous failures taught me: pick it up where you left off.

Motivate to evolve. Evolve to be at full potential.