Freedom Time - Revisited

September is always a special month. It is the beginning of the artistic season. In our family, it was always the month when my father would also present a new production.

For the first time, In September, this year, I am delivering a show - an exhibition to be exact called Stories of Change. 

My brother is also opening the season with.a play called Catch! at Le Theatre de La Tempete directed by Clement Poiree and I shall join him in October to watch him.

The old man would be proud!

So yes, I feel supra connected to him this month at so many different levels.

On the 6th September 2018, I wrote an article called Freedom Time - We heard you.  about a message my father passed to me and my mother in his cloud. The article included my response to his message.

He said: 'Why do you stay at home? You and Marie Toto. You have to come out of the house sometimes if you want to start collaborating with people.''

My response in summary was "at home I can be the whole me'', yet finished the article by saying that '' I heard you and I'll come out of my shell more, get my voice heard and become as organised as those waging the war of minds''

Now, I can say that I can collaborate from home, got my voice heard and that both inside and outside I am whole.

I pleased to say that a lot has changed since writing this article in my psyche and spirit. It is nice though to be reminded that our place for both my mother and I is outside of our house so we can find new collaboration to get our story and ideas to be heard.

Not at home...

Listen Lauryn Hill, Freedom Time

Lightseekers

Lightseekers is a creative social enterprise that uses photography and storytelling as a platform to learn about and engage with important social issues. They specialise in cross-cultural education and deliver thought provoking programmes to low-income areas, where creative engagement is low and students are likely to experience exclusion and discrimination.

How did I get involved with Lightseekers?

I started Yoga in 2019 while finishing my doctorate and I met Kajal Nisha Patel, founder of Lightseekers and yoga teacher at Nilu.Yoga. The rest is history. We became friends and collaborators through the Breaking the Silence Initiative at Quetzal. Over the pandemic, we discussed in great details the impacts of poor mental health on wellbeing and physical health. Through our discussion, a project started emerging that will become Ways to Wellbeing - a 9 online session programme providing the tools and knowledge to communities to enhance their wellbeing. She invited me to become a director at Lightseekers in 2021 and we delivered the project that same year.

Activities

2021

• Ways to Wellbeing
• Bhensexplaining Kitty Party

Learn more about Lightseekers

• Instagram

Climate Action Leicester Leicestershire, Climate Vigil Invitation Saturday 21st 12-1pm

Leicester Fixers received an invitation to join

• Climate Action Leicester Leicestershire for the launch of their Climate vigil on Saturday 21st 12-1pm at the Clock Tower, Gallowtree Gate in Leicester. 
• The vigil are silent, wearing Black or White, and are to show and signal that local groups care and stand together about the issue of climate change and are concerned for all the people and places suffering from climate change across the world.
• Are you joining?

 

Meeting with FlowFinder

Leicester Fixers met this week with FlowFinder to discuss areas of focus and next steps to consolidate what has been and do better moving forward.

In the next few months, Leicester Fixers will do the following activities:

1. redefine their vision, mission, objectives and value with the input of all the fixers. Here is a first draft
2. Consider their delivery focus against their aims, objectives, funding streams and operations
3. Develop their delivery plans

A meeting will be organised to discuss some of the elements with people working together to repair and mend items.

Leicester Fixers

Leicester Fixers is a community of citizens that work together to mend the broken, reduce waste going into landfills, and campaign for the right to repair. We operate under the umbrella of Transition Leicester which aims to create more resilient and sustainable communities.

They do this by 

• Sharing tips and suggestions on how to repair 
• Promoting repair and upcycling businesses
• Organising Restart Parties and Festival - e.g. Green Festival of Making and Mending
• Delivering Outreach Programme to support citizens to start their own repair group - e.g. Leicestershire Community Repair Outreach Programme
• Delivering presentations and talks to inspire others to start their own repair community
• Contributing to research and discussion about the Right to Repair and the factors influencing prosumers to repair
• Delivering training and workshops
• Participating in National and International Days of Repair

How can you connect with Leicester Fixers

• FB Group
• Instagram
• Restarters
• Footpaths Leicester
• Youtube
• Website

Activities

2014-2015

• Founding Leicester Fixers
• Designing and delivering Leicester Fixers Restart Parties
• Green Festival of Making and Mending

2015-2019

• Restart Parties at the Leicester Hackspace
• Outreach in Leicester Wards
• Leicestershire Outreach

2021

• Leicester Fixers Website

2022

• St Matthews Big Green Swap Shop

Give us your views on the first draft of Leicester Fixers vision, mission, objectives and values

Leicester Fixers is in the process of redefining its vision, mission, values, as well as its delivery focus and operations.

Here is what they drafted so far and we are looking for feedback, please comment:

Our vision is

• To make repair always the best, easiest, cheapest option for citizens and their broken items in Leicester

Their mission is 

• To empower individuals and organisations to repair and mend in Leicester 

Their objectives

• Reduce Carbon Emissions 
• Increase number of items repaired
• Improve Communities Connection and Wellbeing
• Improve Individual and Community Training
• Achieve Financial Sustainability

Their Values

• Fairshare, 
• People Care
• Earth Care
• Embrace an asset-based community approach where all are recognised and identified as having a gift that they can share with their community

What do you think?

There is definitely more work to do on this - It is the first draft - Looking forward to hearing your thoughts

Email LeicesterFixers[at]Gmail.com

Tools with Leicester Fixers

Leicester  Fixers won some time ago a £500 voucher to get tools from Ifixit. It was a thrilling gift to receive. This week, I moved forward in defining the toolkit we will order by making some enquiries to Loughborough Fixers as well as Leicester Fixers. Thanks to those who came back to me, I will study your reply and make an order. Even though, there is no plan as such to have any repair event in Leicester in the upcoming year, Thinking about it is a start in possibly doing something about it. 

I also had a discussion with Durgha from Flow Finder about her coaching consultancy services I am considering to use to support Leicester Fixers. She suggested for me to restart our newsletter updating our mailing list about our activities and gather a bit energy there. 

About my personal repair, I returned to Woodgate Computer this week to fetch a data stick and bring some mobile phone. I had four in total. Amongst the four, they took three to give me a quote. Amongst the three, they told me only one is worth repairing. Oh well, I may fix the rest though Leicester Fixers.

What about you? How did your repair week go?

Are you Ready To Love?

What I learnt from watching the 4th season of Ready to Love

- know yourself

- be clear about what you are looking for

- be open to the opportunities that come your way

- to love someone, you first need to love yourself, be secured so nothing outside of yourself can sway you away

- give space to the other person to grow and flourish

- listen properly

- be in touch with your emotions so you can better address situations and be present when love is available for grab

All the best for all the contestants, I wish you to find love 💘

Writing a book about Leicester Fixers and Repair

Writing a book for a general audience came into my awareness for few weeks now with friends suggesting to turn my doctorate into a book. Then, I was invited to celebrate a girlfriend birthday in Nottingham. Unable to drive to the destination, I was picked up by a newly published author. We spoke all the way there and back about the process of writing a book and some of steps involved in delivering the written product. In the evening. I discussed some of the elements with another friend who told me that she will help me find the necessary funding to make this happen. My first book is about Leicester Fixers, Repair, the Doctorate and more. I want to be able to raise some funding to continue and expand the development of sustainable communities within Leicester,  Leicestershire and Rutland. Through the book, I want to be able to raise necessary funds to do this. Fingercrossed, this will be possible. 

If you would like to support me with this project, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

There is a wild bunny in each one of us - Shoes Tattoo with WildBunny Arts

Time to waking it up by getting our feet to fly!

I have those adidas trainers on sale on my ebay shop. They need some love.
I have been thinking if I do not manage to sell them to someone who needs them straight up!
I will ask Wild Bunny Arts to give them a new look and offer them to someone I know who is a size 8 hehe.

Have you came  across Wild Bunny Arts before?

It is a British a one-stop shop for personalised shoes and apparel managed by Rei since 2015. She noticed that while it was possible to buy colour custom Converse and Vans, it was not possible to buy shoes, jackets and snap-backs with truly unique patterns and artwork on them. This is where she steps in.

Her work is absolutely FABoLous.
Worth having a look

Criticism of Utilitarianism - link

https://www.utilitarian.org/criticisms.html
http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/jcanders/ethics/outline_of_some_classic_criticis.htm

Problem: Consider the following two cases:

1. Elderly Aunt Molly is ill. Nephew Tom visits her and helps her because he loves her. Nephew Bob visits her and helps her because he hopes to be rewarded in her will. Nephew Dave visits her and helps her not because he desires to help but because he believes it is his duty. (Modified Version of case by Bowie and Beauchamp, Ethical Theory in Business (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1979) 16-17.

2. A two-year-old is drowning. Ruth flings caution aside because she desires to save the child and jumps in, but she cannot swim. Thus, she fails to save the child. Sue can swim, but is afraid that the child will pull her under. She does not save the child.

The consequences were the same in each case, but the motives of the agents were different. According to utilitarianism, each person's action was of the same value. Shouldn't other features such as an act being motivated by obedience to a law of the state, a religious obligation of loving the neighbor, or a natural love of and concern for others count?

B. Response:

(1) "...the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent (Mill, "Utilitarianism," Chapter 2 in Solomon and Martin, 322)." Consideration of motives is relevant to judging the worth of persons, but not actions. Utilitarians are "aware that a right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous character, and that actions which are blameable often proceed from qualities entitled to praise (Mill in Solomon and Martin, 333)." "...in the long run the best proof of a good character is good actions; (Mill in Solomon and Martin, 333)."

(2) Often when motives are used as a standard, what is really involved are emotional reactions of approval of disapproval that vary from person to person or obedience to different understandings of what God or conscience requires. Thus, the same action, when motives are considered, might be judged to be right and wrong at the same place and time as with helping Aunt Molly.

(3) Another problem exists when we transfer our approval of consequences to motives. The same motive in another case, however, might lead to negative consequences as in the example below.

(4) A counter example to the case of Aunt Molly is when the motive is the same, but the consequences differ. Bentham invites us to consider the motive of self-preservation. It leads to bad consequences, if it leads you to kill the only witness to your crime. Good consequences, if it leads you to fight heroically in defense of your country in a noble cause, etc. 

Non repair is immoral. The motivation to not repair because of fear has to do more with the worth of the agent than how immoral it is to not repair.

Killing someone is immoral. killing someone because of money has to do with the with the person worth not the action
Using the motivation as standard confuse us in determining what is the right or wrong action a. it clouds our judgement because we find that people's emotional approval or disapproval varies depending of their circumstances.

Dear Councillors of Leicester, Please Say NO to a new Road at the Full Council Debate on the 4th October

Dear Councillors of Leicester,

I am contacting you as one of your constituents to ask you to speak in favour of the removal of the Evesham Road/Aylestone Road link road from the Leicester Local Plan at the council debate to be held on 4th October 2018.

I go to Eversham Road every Tuesday for my violin lesson on Heyworth Road from Braunstone Frith. From there, I go to a community of repairers: The Leicester Hackspace in the Faircharm Industrial Estate to work on various projects to help people in Leicester to engage further with trying to repair items in their home. Over the summer, I went to the pebble pool on Aylestone Meadows with my nephews and greatly enjoyed it.

Recently, I was made aware that there is a plan to make a link between Evesham Road and Aylestone Road.  I was disappointed to hear so. The road will erase some of the historical and social fabric of the space people have been living in for decades. It will also impact tremendously on the natural environment surrounding it. I am thinking about Aylestone Meadows and the river corridor, but not only. What about air pollution which is recognised to kill people as they ingest fumes from cars? Did you know that there is St Mary Fields Primary school not far from where they are planning to build a road? What a poor example for children living in the area to see that their city favour cars over their health?

My main concern with this road stems from my experience living in Braunstone Frith where I can see the impact of social and economic deprivation. I believe that building a road does not solve this particular issue, it will induce more traffic for sure but will it really enhance the lives of people living where those cars are passing through?

Seeing cars every day before your eyes make one believe that having a car is the only way to make it in this life. It just increases the feeling of unworthiness when actually if we had better transport links and cycling routes around Leicester, people could feel more empowered to direct their lives. It will save them money and they will pay more attention to their direct environment. 

We shall also inspire them to create cultural, sport and artistic events in their local areas and/or create local businesses that benefit people living directly in their area. Instead of encouraging them to travel further and farther from where they live to create connections with work colleagues who have no clue about their living situation.

It is sad for me to think that some citizen in Leicester who tend to travel by car to go from their home to work do not realise the richness of their town (natural, historical, social and economic environment) as they are so siloed by their own personal goals. It is also sad that the council is perpetuating such a false concept by planning more roads. It is believed that building a road may improve citizen personal situation. Yet, it is not! because they become more isolated since they have no or little connection with people they work with and little connection with people they live with. 

For example, my husband travels by car every morning for 30minutes from our home to get to work. When he comes back, he has no energy to get involved in our local area. He has no connection with the people living here in Braunstone Frith and no connection with the people he works with. I am lucky to be able to work in Leicester for most of the week. I only go to Loughborough to work with the university there. Otherwise, I cycle, take the bus, walk and only when I need to transport big items do I use the car. I am richer because of it. I meet people in the local area, they recognise me, sometimes they approach me to ask me questions. I recently learnt about Braunstone Park Run. My husband lived in Braunstone Frith for the last 15 years, he had no idea. 

I can also see the opportunities that there is in the local area to create events or businesses. You would not have those ideas if you are always on the road and obviously if you do not have the time to educate yourself. Having to travel less definitely provide ones with more time to think about what they want and how to get there by collecting all the information they need. A road ultimately does not pass knowledge from one area to another if people have no connection with the people living next to them. In other words, it has very little economic value for people living there. Please read p.6. of the End of the Road Briefing on the Economics of New Road for more information.

I believe that we share a concern for people's health but also recognise the extent to which community events participate in strengthening the cultural and social fabric between the members of a community and this has economic value. It increases their loyalty to the area. And so I hope you will support my views by speaking out at the upcoming debate and help to get this plan off the map once and for all with a firm commitment by the council to consult with Leicester residents on what should be done with the land and property protected for possible road development.

Why do we want a firm commitment by the council to remove this plan from the map? It is because building this road has been a recurring plan in the past two decades. In the early 90s, The council tried to build in this area and was countered by a strong opposition. Last year 2017, the plan came up again.

You would argue that there is currently no official and formal plan by the council to build a road. However, I think that they do have an intention to build a road and this is considering that Cllr Adam Clarke signed of the funding bid for the opening of Putney Road and I will quote the council p.8 of the same document: "Leicester City Council is considering a future scheme whereby Evesham Road would be extended to provide a direct link (new vehicular bridge over River Soar and canal) between the A426 Aylestone Road and the A5460 Narborough Road and M1/J21. There are very few river crossings in the south of the city (namely Upperton Road and Middleton Street) and providing this link would free up those congested routes across the river. The Putney Road link would greatly enhance the viability of building the Evesham Road link."

Can you see where my concern is? There may be no official plan yet. But for me the ''intention'' is alarming and so everytime a consultation will be put forward, this recurring plan will come back to haunt Leicester constituents.

What I would really love to see is for the council to share and make the same commitment of its constituents in Aylestone and across its various wards and areas to promote and protect their green environment, considering them as lungs of the city.

Lungs are the most important part of the human body and we say that smoking kills, remember cars' moke do kill people too and so the Lungs of Leicester - its Green areas - are worth protecting from harm.

It is with this official commitment by the council to protect this area that our efforts in reaching out to you and other councillors will be rewarded.

We should work to encourage people to use their car less and not the contrary.

I will appreciate that you take my concern into considerations and share with your fellow councillors the opportunities that can be created in protecting what we have so dear.

x

Gift economy trail of discussion

The conversation between two strangers arguing that a group offering a service shall organise themselves to make it possible for those who cannot pay to not have to pay.

M: I am not talking about individual offering a service. I am talking about group offering a service and charging for it. They have to organise themselves so not everyone pays by using a collection plate so people can remain anonymous. this is the way forward for a gift economy.

M: being an individual or a group does not change the fact that we have currently an incurrent charge to live in the current market economy and this includes paying rent, taxes and expenses. If as a group, we are delivering a service, we are already contributing in term of energy, money, time, the cost of the place, etc. As much as not being judgemental with what we receive in return, how many time do we have to send the collection plate around to make people feel that they have to share their gifts too and please note their gift does not have to be only monetary.

M: well there is another way to collect the gift, you have to be more creative in your collection mean by using the rainbow kit, a gift circle, donations at the entrance etc..

M: Do not get me wrong, it is what is happening already. What you are putting forward as solutions for collection is adopted by many communities. it does not change the fact that by design the cost incurred to pay for capital cost means that some will choose to contribute and some other will decide that they won't. Either way, there will be always someone who will feel that they are taken advantage of. to tame them down, we will say to them ''well this is part of the gift economy, this is because we are a compassionate community who give freely and please be grateful for all that is given to you and hush already''...

M: there will be always distrusting exchangers who are present, you have to educate them on what the gift economy is., the real issue is with the people who charge for events where the unemployed cannot come...they are cold and cruel.

M: the issue is not with the distrusting exchangers or the person who set prices, they are not cold or cruel, the issue is not with those who haven't got money or unemployed. the issue is that the buildings in which we are, the tools that we used, all the infrastructures that allow us to drink, eat, take a shower are all bound to go to entropy if not maintained. and unfortunately, in the market economy, a lot of it has a price tag. People care about their safety and being able to live in a stable world, they will engage with others to increase their resilience by exchanging gifts - skills knowledge products money etc. However, they always do mental accounting on the extent to which a relationship is fair, care of their physical and mental being and maintain their current environment...any signs of unfairness does create some politics for which a consensus need to be found.

Free Speech in the age of identity politics - Welcome back to the future of young days' bullying

The blur is real.

When I was young, I was sent every holiday, in one of the toughest neighbourhood in Paris where most children of immigrants can be found, to experience first hand what it means to be a product of your environment. I was bullied not because of the colour I shared with them but what I represented in their mind - the product of a middle-class family.

Yes, I was born neither white or black. I identify as mixed race. I was privileged to be raised in a household where your creativity and ingenuity was more prized than any other type of achievement (i.e. education, getting married or making money).

The experience made me appreciate even more what was given to me. The experience also forced me to be very selective in what I was allowed to say depending on the people I was with. Social oppression in the age of free speech is just too real when you are young and uneducated.

As for now, I am more educated and aware that free speech is one of the foundations of our enlightened worlds. I speak my mind more freely with all the communities I encounter. I try my best to remain an individual and yet find a way to universally share with others some type of consensus.

I recognise the limitations of free speech particularly in the age of identity politics.
Groups that share features of the same identity use sometimes Free Speech as a weapon to undermine who their opponent is by insulting them, being possibly violent in their words and actions. Instead of engaging further into an intellectual conversation about their shared and diverse attitudes and beliefs, so they can a consensus on what is universally best for each individual on this planet.

I encounter less and less such communities. When I do, it feels like being in the jungle of suburbians Paris with all the young bullying and fighting. It feels like primary school and high school with all of us left out by our parents in a prison with other crazy individuals.

The only way, I found, to deal with such community is to never confront them as a group but find in the edges the wise leaders to speak to directly. Eventually, their culture may change and they will find as a group a way to redefine who they are and find a way to communicate that will benefit humanity as a whole.

What do you think? Let me know.

Freedom Time - We heard you.

My father is both its state of consciousness and unconsciousness.
He has Lewy Body Dementia.
He has wisdom though in his cloud.
I pay very close attention to what he says before he goes.

I had my mother on the phone. She narrated her last encounter with him.

He said: ''Why do you stay at home? You and Marle Toto. You have to come out of the house sometimes if you want to start collaborating with people.''

She replied: how do you know that your daughter and I stay at home?

He disappeared.

As my mum narrated what happened, I heard him.

Yes, I enjoy working from home.

I can be the whole me.

No need to engage in the war of the minds, be dominated by any isms in the form of community cohesion or for some the doctrine of religion,  no need to conform to any vision or listen to the tell-a-vision. Drink and eat to please when you already full of aspirations.

Yet, I heard him.

It is Freedom time now.

Time to free ourselves from the shackles of convention and shout out loud what we truly believe in so together we can all progress.

To do so, achieving freedom comes with a cost, you have to be as organised as the people in war and come out of your shell.

I have listened to you, father, and will go out there more for my voice to be heard.

So we should all.

Listen Lauryn Hill, Freedom Time

Truth: All the world's a stage Shakespeare - As you like it

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. 
At first, the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. 
And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. 
Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. 
And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. 
The sixth age shiftsI
nto the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. 
Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

The formula as you enter the chamber

Here it is, your first day at work. You enter the chamber. No one notice you. There are all busying talking to one another. It is a networking event. You do not know anyone apart from your boss. He is busy chatting up with who you assume is one of your colleagues.
What to do?
You are a competent, warm person you tell yourself, walk up to your boss and say hello. The machine will start spinning from there. Or grab anyone and start up the conversation. It is an opportunity to start forming alliances in this competitive room. How to do it?

Maurice Schweitzer, Ph.D. and Adam Galinsky, Ph.D. suggest in their book ''Friend and Foe'' that the scientific formula to gaining people's trust more quickly is to strike a balance between warmth and competence - so that you seem credible but also human.

Introduce your talent, keep smiling and be genuinely interested in what the person is sharing with you. It will take you places.

Beyond: The Microwave

A microwave is such a handy tool, so convenient,

It warms the food in a blink of 1min30s.

Every worker wants a microwave.

It is 7.30pm, you arrive finally at home. 

The bus commute from your work office to the confine of your living room took an hour. 

You are exhausted. 

Sitting down in front of the computer all day wore you out. 

You are starved.

Your belly is rumbling.

You need food it is a matter of survival.

Hopefully, your level of organisation has paid off. 

You have food in the fridge. 

Thanks to your to-do-list called ''Get Ready For Work''.

On Sunday, you prepared a week worth of dishes to keep you going. 

They are all in beautifully compact Tupperware you bought in your favourite or closest super shop.

You open the fridge door, you take one Tupperware, close the fridge door, take your favourite bowl on the drying rack, open the Tupperware, pour the content in. 

A warm feeling wraps up your heart and your belly.

You open the door of your microwave.  

Pop the content inside.

You love the sound of the door closing.

You press the start button to get it in motion. 

Once, twice, three times.

It is not working.

Guess your feeling

...

You unplug it, replug it.

Still nothing.

Millions of thoughts are travelling in your mind and two questions:

WHO IS THIS MICROWAVE IN MY KITCHEN COS I NEVER MET IT BEFORE?

AND WHY IS NOT RESPONDING TO ME?

The microwave when working is always ready-to-hand. Heidegger was the one who coined the term ''ready-to-hand'' to describe how infrastructures and objects that surround human beings are at any time ready to be used to produce a certain outcome. It is only when the item breaks that the real item reveals itself and become ''objectively present'' as Heidegger put it. 

When the microwave broke, you realise how central this machine is to you as everything associated with it became destroyed: the start button, the microwave door, the waves of energy, the bowl of pasta, the pursued warm meal in front of a favourite show.

What to do? 

Repair it?

No, first, you want to find a solution to your cold meal:

eat it as it is, 

warm it up in a pan, 

take up the courage to pop at your neighbour to ask if you can get a microwave fix, 

Go to a friend living 10 min drive from your house

check gumtree on your phone to get a new one, 

pop to your favourite 24hours shop, 

go get some takeaway. 

It is a matter of survival.

Death - Repair - Live

The world is bound to go to entropy. 
It constantly decays.
Natural elements - Moisture, Damp, Expanding Ice - wear away the material fabric as they break, rot and decompose.
Animals and insects breed, chew, poop.
War sets in between planet earth inhabitants.
Humans make mistakes over and over again 
They also constantly exult aggressive tendencies towards others and themselves

The entropic tendency can be likened to Freud's notion of a death instinct. The concept of the death instincts was initially described in Beyond the Pleasure Principle 1920, where Freud concluded that all instincts fall into one of two major clasesses: life instincts or death instincts. The two classes are believed to be responsible for our behaviour. 

The life instincts, sometimes referred to as sexual instincts, deal with basic survival, pleasure and reproduction. Death instinct emerges because as Freud put it: ''the goal of life is death''. 
There is both an inward and outward expression of those death wishes. Aggression is a good example of an outward death instincts. Suicide, depressive tendencies and self-sabotaging are direct inward towards the subject.

Freud noted that people who experience a traumatic event would often reenact that experience. From this, he concluded that people hold an unconscious desire to die but that the life instincts largely temper this wish.

Some research found that in countries where the homicide rate is low, suicide rates tend to rise. It was interpreted as the belief that humanity has a compelling need to destroy oneself or others (Comer, 2011).

Now that you aware of your innate tendencies, what can you do with it?
Destroy, Repair, Live

Destroy the page with random words, Repair it with a story, Share it.
Destroy the shirt, Repair it with embroidery, Wear it.
Destroy your hair, Let them grow once more, Take a picture each day.
Destroy the bowl, Mend it with the glue of gold, Have a pot a noodle

Time will tell as you mend yourself in the world, howall this is.

Forearm yourself with the Politics of Time and Repair the broken work-centred economy - after reading ''the Refusal of Work'' by David Frayne.

This weekend, I read the Refusal of Work by David Frayne.

In the book, he defines work and exposes critical accounts of different authors on how work is valued and regarded as a morally good behaviour to engage in so that the individual can be financially independent to buy more stuff at the detriments of its own health and wellbeing and the integrity of the natural environment.

He, then, shares the experiences of a number of individuals who refused to work the typical 40 hours a week in favour of working either fewer hours or not at all. The Whys, the Hows and the ongoing tension the participants of the research experience between what is currently seen as an ideal behaviour and their own provide the reader with a mirror to reflect upon their own working or non-working situation.

The work of André Gorz on The Politics of Time punctuates the writing in a beautiful manner and I am thankful to have been introduced to his thoughts.

Finally, He invites us to get ready to open the debate and fix the work-centred economy. He invites everyone to:

• Consider the impact of work centred society on the natural sphere. Look, you may be so consumed with work, you may not be able to self-produce your own needs (cook, repair, clean, educate your children, engage in contemplative activities) and you are spending all your earned income on products and services to fulfil them (take away, new gadgets, household services, nursery, Netflix). What happen to the broken, what happened to the packaged, what happened to the children that do not spend time with their parents?
• Consider the impact of work-centred society on your own health and wellbeing. Look, You may be tired and exhausted, you may be stressed, your back may hurt and your eyes may twitch. People around you and self-help books may ask of you to find a better work-life balance, Maybe you should ask everyone why we do not collectively ask for reduced hours of work.
• Get in touch with those who are already living a life more in tune with their body and their breathing, their surrounding environment and their community.
• Ask yourself why you should be grateful for having a 40hour a week job, with 1-hour commute each way, two days for resting and 5 weeks holidays of work. Question the culture of gratitude and begin a process of entitlement by asking for what you need.
• Give yourself and others the opportunity to dream for different worlds and utopias where you have the freedom and autonomy to design your own life with no structural and social pre-settings.

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