Just for today, let us think about the importance of culture… the shaping capacity of our actions, how we are not ‘individuals’. Just for today, enjoy the responsibility of being an active participant in the creation of social norms and customs.
I will soon write something related to the obsessive need to ‘keep ourselves busy’ all the time. While it is true that a solid routine and constant activity keep us away from detrimental vices by stimulating ‘brain activity’, I will dare to say that the same idea of never-ending labour takes away our most precious capacity: critique!
We all need TIME to think and get concerned… to be critical and feel anxious, to be alert and never at ease. To feel alive… so don’t keep yourself busy, keep yourself thinking.
As a social construct, childhood is often a reflection of the constructors rather than a reflection of children themselves (Synott 1983)
A reflection of the specific social, political, and cultural purposes of the unique time and space… So this particular reality plays some reflexivity on us… Who are we then?
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Appearance and reality […] are not separated like oil and water in a vessel, but rather amalgamated like water and wine. To separate them, we must analyse them in the most ‘classic’ sense of the word: the elements of the mixture … Continue reading
Let’s fly a kite – La Dolorita
In our society, where the concept of craftsmanship is reserved mostly to HTML coding.
The children of Petare are organic everyday philosophers setting an interesting example: Kite crafting. Not only an intellectual hobby (for those who don’t know, kite crafting takes patience, creativity, knowledge on physics, trigonometry, mathematics and even meteorology)
What is even more impressive is that it’s textbook knowledge put into practice!
For this vulnerable and impoverished area—located in the middle of Caracas—this children are spending some ‘alone/ get to know myself time’ away from street life. In other words, building up their self-esteem (a term that is both scarce and popular these days).
Moreover, a sense of healthy competitiveness is being instilled, as well as an incipient meritocracy: the idea that whether or not you own a gun, is not going to make your kite fly higher.
Council state ‘homes’?!– a sort of snapshot. We stood there (no longer than 5 min) at our own risk. The smell of rats and decomposed food was disturbing, sort of hallucinogenic. Visitors = unwelcome.
A&K collaborative 