Maximize its use by minimizing its service

As one human being you don’t have enough brain cells and heart pulses to care for the people you have connected with in your life. It’s harder when you’re actually a good hearted person, because everyone wants your time. This social chatty internet shit makes it more confusing with how to spend your time living a healthy life. You’re not really “supposed” to be in touch with everyone you’ve met.

It’s harder for us to know who our true friends are and who really deserves our energy. So my suggestion is whoever makes you feel more comfortable in your own skin is worth your time. Others shouldn’t matter as much. The more real you are with yourself, and the more you surround yourself by people who “really” know who you are, the less stress you have to deal with.

Stop the frontin’. Your time is valuable and your brain shouldn’t be so distracted by caring about so many other problems. We all just have one body to deal with and one brain to be creative with and one heart to really squeeze and pour-your-love-out with. Maximize its use by minimizing its service.

Filed under: life, love, philosophy

how to keep creative

Make, move, make, move, make, move — nothing needs you for too long unless you are in love and/or have kids, and even then, you can still make and move. Help as many people as you can by providing service. But when I say too long, I mean stop when you’re full. By full I don’t mean your hopes and dreams — I mean pride and acceptance. By that I don’t mean give up — I mean stop and think about longevity and sutainability. By lasting I don’t mean doing what you’re told to survive  – I mean keep your spirit alive. By spirit I don’t mean God — I mean your self.

Train yourself to be creative because if you don’t, you’ll just miss out on reality. It’s all moving — just catch it when it comes and roll with it baby (yes, you are a baby). The only home you got is in your heart and the only thing that distinguishes you is your creativity. Practice moving around. By that I don’t mean travel the world — I mean face your fears and challenge your comfort.

That’s how you keep creative.

Filed under: creativity, design, life, philosophy

dead and gone?

Ever wonder if anything is dead when you think it’s dead?

Like when you get into an argument with someone you have a close relationship with, or when you lose a game, or when you promised to do something and you don’t live up to? Do you wonder if you lost something knowing you can never get back?

I thought about it and then I realized I’m too stubborn. I thought about being stubborn and then I realized that human beings have various degrees of stubbornness in them. My stubborn temperature rises in strategic situations where my decision affects a larger situation that it’s dependent upon.

I believe in moments of stubbornness one can learn most about themselves, others and completion of tasks. Nothing can survive or be complete on its own. It otherwise would not exist. This means that we as individuals must realize how important others are and how invisible we as individuals must be in the process of completion.

I believe everyone should aim to become invisible by controlling their times of stubbornness. In the society we live in, people are not like that, which means you have to always remember that.

Nothing is dead and gone, because if it was, you could never grow and mature as an individual. The way you handle and recognize your own stubbornness determines your level of maturity. So learn as much as you can about yourself by aiming to become invisible in your run to the finish line.

Pace yourself to win the marathon.

Filed under: life, philosophy

this is for everyone who thinks i’m nice

You’re wrong.

I’m a monster. Just like you.

Calling yourself good or nice is probably the most untruthful thing you can do and the worst path to pursue in promoting yourself in thinking that you are doing good for the world.

This might shock many of you who know me that might be reading this. Over the last few months I’ve realized some things about myself and the world that have spun me around.

I gave up a couple years of my life, or should I say gave in, to a passion for improvement and innovation. I pretty much became the project, the idea, the vision I was pursuing, and let everything about it become me. I left myself behind to explore myself and who I really was. I kept pushing, pushing, pushing for more, more, more. Talked to thousands of people, spread myself out, connected spirits and tapped into hearts. I’ve been called an idealist, altruist, agent of change, a kid with stars in her eyes and anything else you can imagine that falls under the category of hippie or activist. 

I have a lot of love to give, that’s one thing. But I’m equally full of anger, greed and pride — sins maybe? I’ve been called brave and seen as a risk-taker. I would say however, that I’m a wimp and cannot manage to put up too long with mundane, institutional, conventional environments and people . So instead, I do what I want to do and find my own nice way to get out and do what I want with the body and energy that I have. If I was brave, I’d work within the system, be a tool and part of the majority of society that is risking their bodies and energy for the consumption of others.

I figured that I have abilities that convince people to throw money in the shit I talk about. I make it all up. None of it exists. I’m not nice. I just want to do what I want to do and forget me not, I have a lot of love. I think that’s all people see and they kind of just trust it…for some reason. Maybe because I’ve got myself convinced that I’m so good.

Love, my fellow humans, is the only thing I have. I’m absolutely not in control of it. It has attracted me to the right people in my life — good or bad I label them not. I’ve become self-aware and realized that I’m nothing but a selfish, honest, confident, angry and competitive five-foot-two Iranian-Canadian girl who wants to take out my athletic personality (body no more) to the next level in society.

I’ll tell you what’s real:

Fiction, science fiction, cartoons, drugs, graffiti, sex, war, sports, dance, comedy and of course music and art tie all of them together. Oh and don’t forget space and energy.

If you put love beside any one of those, you’ll get magic — not good or bad, just magic. Probably the closest experience you can have to reality.

Being nice to people is only so they like you and give you a hand when you need one. You cannot survive in this world on your own. So convince yourself that you’re nice when you’re really a monster. It’s just a game man, you’ve got no choice but to play, and might as well try not to be a loser.

Let your love lead the way — that means forget yourself, do it for the game.

Filed under: 1, life, love, philosophy

loyalty is extreme

swear at the bus driver

tag the truck

yell at the parents

and punch the wall

burn the grass

pass it around

 

keep it moving

I don’t have all day bro

 

 shit in a bowl and give it a price tag

that shit is art

it’s worth it

you wanna buy?

Filed under: humanity, life, poetry

The IRAN in ME

I’m going to zoom out a bit here.

I’m Iranian. Yes. Full-blood, deeply rooted in ideologies, traditions and history of  Persian culture. You may argue that it’s dead, but I will argue that it is a living spirit that goes way beyond family, food, religion, language, music, poetry, politics and pride. It is a solid combination of all of them, still in search of identity.

I am who I am because of who my parents are, my family, my childhood and my life as an immigrant girl, now a woman, living in Toronto Canada. It’s not easy might I add, more complicated than I expected. I have come to accept it however and respect myself and my body more than what I’m expected of.

I am also who I am because I don’t agree with what society gives me. I’m completely against it. I wish I could kill people who don’t deserve to live and take up land, resources and infect the minds of humans. I’m completely against brainwashing people with what is THE RIGHT WAY – THE WAY OF GOD, THE WAY OF JESUS, THE WAY OF ALLAH. I think it’s all a pile of crap to keep us in our shells and used as tools within a system, whether its a political system, a technological system, a scientific system, an educational system…whatever the system may be. We have yet to pursue a system in harmony with nature.

Or maybe not, maybe this IS all nature and we ARE meant to be here exactly the way we are up to this point and our future is in our own hands. 

 

Zoom in: your life as one human. Zoom out: your life as one humanity.

 

Read a book to get ideas, don’t live your life by devotion to writing. Words are interpreted to create meaning, and as we know through evolution and time, things change — it’s inevitable, the way of nature. We are growing up. We’re pretty mature now.

So Muslims, who are you? Tell me! I want to know! What defines you as a Muslim? Because Christians let their faith lead to capitalism and consumer culture and you’ve let your faith limit the nature of your body and pleasures. Sure there are beautiful sayings in the Quran, there are many in the Bible too. Not to mention some other pretty amazing science fiction writers, filmmakers, poets, artists and philosophers with revolutionary minds that manifested to MOVEMENTS in society. They did a good job of literature too, but they never called it the word of God and punished you for disobeying them.

I have the freedom to sit here and type up my thoughts and share it with others. That is nothing new.

What is new is the future of Iran.

Why?

Iran, in my opinion, is the most confused country in the world right now because I can feel Iran living in me since the day I was born. Maybe it’s my dad, or my mom, or the combinations of the two, or the generations passed down in spirit and cosmos. But I am Iran. Iran is a confused, chaotic, versatile, passionate, intelligent and creative spirit that has been encapsulated for thousands of years and has not given up. We are the last hope for this world. We are capable of redefining the Middle East, the cradle of civilization, because of our revolutionary spirit that has lived in us for years.

I don’t know what else to say but…the time is right Iranian people. The media is on us. It’s what we’ve all been waiting for. What’s next? Community. Communication. Poetry. Our poetry will save us. Make a living poet the politician. No other land owns poetry like us. We have lived by it and continue to pass it down.

Use it Iran.

Use it now.

Filed under: creativity, humanity, love, philosophy

life has its ways

It’s been over 2 months since I last made a blog post.

What a shame.

I thought I was going to reflect more on my experiences and continue writing. Well, sometimes its best to let it lead up to the point where there is enough to write about and the inclination makes it happen.

So many things are going on in my life, it’s hard to grasp and put into words. Basically, I have stayed put in a place that I feel comfortable. I realized that the confidence I have in myself is the ONLY thing I have that keeps me going and keeps my life pointed in the direction I need to be going in.

I’ve come to the conclusion that everything is meant to happen to you because you deserve it. Every experience you go through and every new relationship has a meaning and place in your life. The more clear you are on how you operate and function, the more comfortable you will be in your own skin and your thirst for being alive is what defines you as an individual.

I’ve come to accept that I am a leader and after many years of practice and working towards improvement, I have learnt that you are in complete charge of your life if you are brave enough to accept opposing views. Fighting doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no love. The tiger wants to eat its prey and the prey wants to escape. It’s life: death happens, growth progresses, now is all we have, so accept it and move on.

People will always defend themselves – it’s part of human nature’s law of survival. What shocks me when I look around me is people’s fear. Maybe I shock people, and I’ve got it all wrong. I probably do shock people, but only  because I am shocked by people’s choices of fear when life is about self-preservation.

This tells us there is love. We make our choices from love.

Love is violence. Love is freedom and bliss. Love for self is unveiled through curiosity, creation and play.

God is in-between. This is what sex is all about. The most taboo topic is the reason why we fear everything around us. We have a general fear of our own bodies’ abilities, so we choose to exploit them instead of understanding how they can give us access to pleasure, marriage and freedom. 

All these words in italic must be redefined. We must deconstruct and reconstruct our understanding of concepts that can give us absolute freedom and happiness in this age of evolutionary consciousness.

Let it all go, accept it all.

Life has its ways.

Filed under: life

TheStoreFront Community story / My testimonial

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

That’s how I’d like to start. It’s for everyone that I pissed off, everyone that felt confused, interested but unsure how to help. It was a complete mess and I was stuck in it. 

It started off in September 2007 when I chose to take a Think Tank 3 class with Bruce Hinds with just under 10 people in the class. Hey guys, I’m still on the project! It sure was fun diving into a neighbourhood that we didn’t know anything about. Our class project was to propose some ideas for what the Bloorcourt Village BIA could do with their money to improve the area.

Questions: What’s a BIA? What’s in the area? What kind of people live there? What kind of cultures are there? What groups, schools, parks, community centres and festivals are there? That took a few months of research. Walking around. Taking pictures, talking about proposing a Town Hall, something to do in Christie Pits, festivals, storefronts…lots of talking, that’s what ThinkTank classes are, really. Ideas are great! But the class ended and we thought that our pitch to the BIA about taking an empty storefront and transforming its use would be a great way to go about designing for the neighbourhood.

Nothing happend after our proposal. No one gave up a storefront, the BIA didn’t get back to us, the City didn’t find anything for us and we were stuck complaining about how nothing was happening. 

BIG was happening then. They were meeting at Bloor CI to plan their festival for June 2008. We met them in Novemberish I believe. Long story short, our idea for having a festival cooincided with their festival planning. I fell in love with all this neighbourhood stuff, and all became history after that.

I was brought onboard to help BIG out and ended up being the designer for the chaotic, grassroots, community organized, inaugural event that shook Bloor Street like never before in history. I took an Independent Study after the class ended in December and for the 3 months after I took on the mission to get a storefront. I knew I had to move to the area, I was living with my parents in Thornhill and in April 2008 I moved out, lived with 2 roommates off of Craigslist in a house just next to Dufferin Mall.

I managed to talk my way through. This person to the next, Sara Diamond (OCAD preseident) gave me $3000 and I had the key in my had with Rafael Gomez (ThinkTankToronto), Keith Rushton and Bruce Hinds behind it all with me. Robert Markovits liked the whole OCAD name, liked the vision, asked for 1/4 of the rent monthly and off were were to prove something. We approached it institutionally — part of the reason why it didn’t work, caused me stress and ate up my insides. Well, I let it do that to me, and I was hard on myself.

The collaboration with ThinkTankToronto saved me from dying obviously. Ralph gave me a research position to go around with a survey to research Toronto’s BIAs. That let me feed myself and pay my rent, plus some money from the BIG team, I was doing fine on the surviving and just needed to get something to start happening with the space.

Let me tell you how much an empty space can drag you down. It opens the door to so many possibilities that will come at you like maggots and circulate around your head and never leave you. I felt like I was opening up a shop, with no money, no management, no clear idea and no team. I didn’t know what the hell to do, so I picked one day in June and called it “Everything Local” and off I went. 

People started coming, friends started helping, neighbours offered support. It was crazy. It was beautiful. It was intense, it was livid, raw, dirty and full of sweat and tears. The event happened and I had a breakdown. PRESSURE!!! ART is IT! Make it an art space — make it an art gallery — use it for all kinds of things — i can help! tell me what to do — what do you need? — lets use it for film screenings — artist studio — i can do fundraising — i can organize a show etc. etc.

My answer to all: “Thank you so much, yeah, awesome ideas!”

What the hell am I doing? Pick something! Okay, so we picked a graffiti mural removal case, just next door, same property owner as my space, Robert. That became the next event and I took a lot of shit from the City and OCAD for standing up against the removal of a piece that had no right to be removed. It was so political. It got in the Toronto SUN front cover. We did a neighbourhood graffiti walk, had a discussion and connected to all sorts of people in the city supporting legal graffiti art. It was a milestone of TheStoreFront project.

But I still had to deal with: “What does this space do? When are you open? How can i get involved?”

I’m thinking to myself, “I have no fucking clue what I’m getting myself into and it’s driving me insane. I love it and hate it at the same time and I can’t stop going.”

So I kept saying “yes” to everything that came to me. My whole “yes we can” approach was long before I knew Obama was running as president. My “yes” approach was deadly and I schooled myself with it. It taught me more than I could have ever imagined and I’m thankful for every single person that hopped on the plane in this journey. It proved to me that without others, and without collaboration with others and help from others you can never be successful at anything you do. You must speak people’s language, bow to them, work for them, care for them, put yourself aside, and they will do the same. It’s not about money, it’s about sweat and heart. People see through you and if you don’t come from pain, they know you’re not real.

I knew I was the reason why people were coming to me. I wanted to run away though. I didn’t want to be the person. I didn’t want to deal with all the pressure, the expectations, the voices, the suggestions, the emails….but I did. So I had to choose a side of me and I chose “leader”. With my leader side, I attracted “chance” and lots of cool people became my friend. NEVER EVER EVER would I have met these people in an institution, in a workplace, in one field. I realized that the school of life and community is everything that matters. It’s a language of humanity and nothing will make you realize until you throw yourself at it and deal with chaos. Dealing with chaos is how you find your true “self”.

You think I knew what I was doing when I was running around trying to find a storefront? I had no plan, no management, no money, no bodies…I had absolutely nothing but my gut. And when I got there, I figured it out, or “it” figured itself out because it was being shared.

Now ofcourse, I ran into a lot of criticism, confusions, battles and realized the toughest thing to do in life is how to manage “help”. How do you organize people? How do you allow people to do what they do best and support you while they do it? How do you find an organic structure in an inorganic space. How do you deal with politics? How do you know who is your boss?

For 8 months I hustled and talked my way into streams of money to pay the rent. I was certainly not being paid for all my sweat, but then again without Rafael’s support on the back-end, nothing would have happened.

I got an article in the Globe & Mail on Nov. 22. It was really well written. The reporter was amazing and she followed me around and listened to the chaos with me.

A lot of shit went down in 2008. 

On Dec. 2, I held a meeting that jumped to my mind (discussions, people, photos). Got lots of people that I had made connections with in one room and let them take leadership in coming up with ideas on how to maintain this concept. As soon as I did that event, I realized, wow, people care so much and coming together is magic. It’s amazing how much people care about bringing an idea to life. They all got to see eachother and the energy in the room was incredible.

A spark went off and I realized it wasn’t about maintaining that space. It wasn’t about fitting rennovations, shared studio space, organizing events, music fundraisers, projects, ideas for the streetscape, parks, cultures, families, students and entertainment in 957 Bloor West. It was about DESIGNING A SYSTEM that allows for all this to happen. It’s about people connecting with eachother and working together. It’s about business improvement by having people take ownership of place. The BIA is the root to connecting with cities and neighbourhoods need better communication systems to be able to engage in spaces!

It took me 2.5 years of thinking about what the hell to do with the Internet with a design thesis project that popped in my head in 2006, to all come back together in a new form but exactly what I wanted to do in the first place.

So that led me to MEconomist.com and 957 right now is empty. I’m sorry, but 8 months of standing there and taking charge was hard enough and brutal enough for me to deal with, and I hope there are no grudges held against me for not programming more things out of that space. But beleive me I tried to make it sustainable, and I’m sure it can be anything from a gallery, to a multi-use office space, to a cafe, a music venue or any other creative hub. I just cannot do it and I never wanted to worry about something like that. It’s all about MONEY. And getting money to run a space means business. My business is online, cheap and will do all these things that we think is great because it will be a SYSTEM that will aim to do that.

We need to design SYSTEMS. We need INFRASTRUCTURE and we need LEADERSHIP. Most of all, we need patience and a big vision!

2009, I’m coming. I’m almost dead but really I’ve never felt so close to being ALIVE. Get out of school and school yourself everyone. Life is chaos and if you can’t suck it up and live through it, you will be your own worst enemy. People care and you care about people. Just make something that you think will work and see if it does! It’s one big experiment and can make a BIG BANG if you get it right!

 

WITH LOVE

TO ALL OF YOU WHO BELIEVE!

Stay young, stay passionate and go through pain. It’s the best schooling.

Filed under: activism, city, community, education, experience, life

confession to nature, childhood and neighbours

To nature, childhood and neighbours

I’m sorry for not showing you that I love you. I keep denying that i like spending time with you. We used to hold hands and talk to each other, without keeping any secrets; we were honest. I would run to you, not because you asked me, but because you called. I thought you were everlasting; my fears only appeared when i realized you were gone.

I’m panicking. Who am i? Why am i here? Why am i so far from you? Where did i go? Who took me away from you?

I’m talking to you baby!

Everything you did to me that fulfilled my desires is buried in an island off in space. I don’t know where to find you! No one around me knows where you are either. Are you dead? Did you get kidnapped? Why would you ever leave me?

I know i should have told you i love you. I’m sorry! I didn’t know you would leave me and i never thought i’d be so lost and hurt without you. I’ve been desperately crying and taking so much medication. No one knows what’s wrong with me. I keep pretending like i’m fine and i want to forget it all. I want to forget that i ever had any feelings for you.

Maybe i hated you for the longest time. Maybe i knew why you left me but never wanted to face it because i’d feel like i would hate myself. I think all along i thought i could keep going and that i’d get somewhere where i’d be so in love that i would forget you and prove to myself that i could be healed.

Now, i realize that i just need to stop and appreciate what i lost so i can find my way back to you. I promise i’ll come back to you.

I love you.

Filed under: community, creativity, future, life, love, philosophy, sustainability

do good: be bad to yourself

That’s right, I mean it. If you want to do any good, you have to beat yourself up. It’s pretty easy though, just be a normal human being and strive for conquering the world. Why not aim to be the king, queen, prince or princess? To get to the top, you have to fight for it. What, you thought you could just climb the ladder, step by step, go higher and higher and you’ll get to the top of some roof and from there you can see other roofs and you’ll be happy sitting on top of roofs, chillin’ having a beer?

Well, sure, the ladder is meant to get you up. Everyone’s solution of what to use to get you up is to get a ladder. What if the ladder was never there? What if it wasn’t so easy to get up? What if all you had was your body and the urge to climb? You might find some tools and dig at making some steps, or call over a friend to lift you up, or make a rope somehow. Did I even mention what it is that you are trying to climb? I leave that up to you. Do you even need to climb? Who am I to tell you that you need to climb?

Design is the same way.

We’re talking about doing good, being good, yadi yadi ya. Come on people. What is good? Having a big house for my family in 2 cities and 3 beaches so my children can appreciate a wealthy life full of joy and no worry for money? Or, is good working in a non-profit organization, making ads for anti-poverty campaigns? Who is anyone to tell me what is good for me? The only good I know of is my strive for improvement on every level in my life. The only good I know is when I don’t listen to people around me who think they know what is good for me, and for themselves. The only good I know is when I listen to everyone and make my own decision on what is good for me, for others, and act on it.

So much for social design. I say kick yourself in the ass for not doing what you are capable of doing. That’s how you do good.

Filed under: design