Gioel Gio

So where do we go from here?

Ani, Denisse,
Today feels suspended.
I slept three hours, tried to stare at my emotions, reached out to friends, and cancelled all morning meetings. The sound of the spoon stirring almond milk into the coffee – slow-motion.
The discussions go in circles. It’s about race, class, gender. There is really nothing I have read, said or done that has helped me shift this feeling of helplessness. My brain is stuck inside a bad Hollywood movie.
I ask myself what is my role. I ask myself how you observe history with detachment. I ask myself what I am going to tell my kids. But the US feels a faraway world, and Donald Trump as fictional as Micky Mouse.
So where do we go from here?
Akaya Windwood recently wrote that ‘social change, when done well, is an intimate act’, and I could not agree more.
Today, I commit to being kind. Very kind. The type of kindness that sparks revolutions.
I also commit to be louder, through my actions, through my commitment.
My work with Recrear has been all about learning about the importance of those collective spaces to listen, feel and be with each other. We do ‘research’ as a way of making sense of the world around us. We also do research as a dance, an exploration, an encounter with the other.
Today is a loud reminder that there is no objectivity, that many worlds are coexisting.
This is not the time for elitist researchers, or know-it-all experts.
I have learned that it is only with curiosity, with care, with desire, with presence that we can seek to dive into somebody else’s world.
I am convinced that social transformation, our human evolution, depends on the boldness to un-learn, to come together and perceive the world differently.
I believe firmly that knowledge is grounded in shared experience.
This is the time to touch, to smell, to share a smile, and to let tears drop when they need to dropped.
It is not a time for politics.
It is time for an education that rubs hearts, that practices connection with the earth, that embraces humbleness, and vulnerable authenticity.
This is a time to, intimately, come together.
With love,
Gioel