The BRIDGES of change
Our goal is to change our reality, yet the means to the end are still unknown… We are often entangled in routes we’ve taken before or stories that have shaped us and, as a result, we cannot take a single step forward.
What is the knowledge required to build a bridge for something new? What could actually motivate us? The first requirement would be our own lives and experiences: they will not suffice. We have to be in distress, worrying about the future. I am writing here in plural, “we”, and this is not a random choice. There is not a single human society including a person who is not affected by other actions and other people and who doesn’t influence others. The second requirement would be to know the “building material” of our bridge, as well as the people who will contribute to its construction. Will it be a chief craftsman who will be managing and directing willing laborers? Or will it be the latter who will have assumed the production means? Or perhaps would it be required to sacrifice even the wife of the chief craftsman to ritually secure the durability of this bridge? The third requirement: Where are we heading to? Will there have to be a commandment, a single direction? Or can we actually decide in time and based on the circumstances? Let’s try to provide some answers… To construct this bridge, we would have to be driven either by a deeper unfulfilled exploration instinct or just because we’ve had enough. Since we discovered the “why”, we have to arrive to the “how” we will construct this bridge. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to know as best as possible the “where” (the “structures” as a sociologist would put it) of the bridge’s construction. Building a bridge in Amsterdam would require a different approach than building a bridge in Nepal. The bridge must be firmly placed on the ground, at least for now. We have to find a most solid and firm location to use it as a base to continue. The material of the bridge can be completely new, yet it can also be old, seen though from a different perspective, a fresh one, given that this old material will serve today’s needs, as well as those of tomorrow. This creation will continue towards something still unborn through a chaotic explosion of ideas and practices, which do not seek their Hegelian composition but space to give birth to their unique features within an a prior unity. This creation will go towards an unknown direction, and it will arise from the collective actions of absolutely unique features and people, as well as from multiple personalities that will contribute, body and soul, to a safe landing on an unknown –yet at the same time known– heterotopia. Finally, these bridges will serve as a common property, one that will guide us into a realistic communal excellence, whereby the private and the collective, intermingled and at the same time independent from one another, will enjoy their blossoming union.