Car vs Bike
On wednesday, I met with Alisa, Ayaka, and some couchsurfers for dinner. Jasper, from Holland, is travelling around visiting different eco-villages, and learning from the places he visits, for him to go back to Holland (or somewhere else?) and build his own house. Jiji, came to study his PhD in Japan, and is now teaching english, but he is also interested in eco-villages and natural living, and he will be going to NZ next year as well with a working-holiday visa to visit some of the ecovillages there.
Lately I have been thinking about my thesis project, and last time I was talking about it with my sister, we end up talking about a self-sustainable community in Colombia that her Yoga teacher just visited. Which was one of the reasons I was so eager to meet Jasper this time. Since a 2 years ago I got really interested in permaculture, self-sustainability and so on, but as with many other things, I just didn't give it enough time or importance, because it just seems to be an idea that would send me to an alternative living, away from the normal society, which has been something I have been wondering a lot since I came to Japan:
What do I want to do when I go back to Colombia...
Whether to go somewhere and live a more natural life, growing my food, making things by my own, OR stay in the city, working (either a normal job, in my own design office, as a teacher...) and trying to change society itself, but having to live with all the rush and problems of the society.
But lately I have started to realize it doesn't have to be one OR the other, and I have really started to think about the kind of life I would like to have, and the way I can include most of the things I am interested in, and I would like to do in it. And I have even get to think how I could even use my studies right now to bring those two together. I guess that's why I decided to study Landscape Architecture in the first place, but somewhere in between I kind of lost my way, but I am glad I am finding it again, and maybe even more clearly.
I just really need to organize my life (spending less time in facebook and more time learning , thinking and reflecting), study more of those things that most probably you cant learn at uni, and bringing those things into my life.
Well... I just thought I would put up next quote when I started the blog (hence the title) but it kind of got long :) It's an interesting statement I found in the British Permaculture Association site...
Lately I have been thinking about my thesis project, and last time I was talking about it with my sister, we end up talking about a self-sustainable community in Colombia that her Yoga teacher just visited. Which was one of the reasons I was so eager to meet Jasper this time. Since a 2 years ago I got really interested in permaculture, self-sustainability and so on, but as with many other things, I just didn't give it enough time or importance, because it just seems to be an idea that would send me to an alternative living, away from the normal society, which has been something I have been wondering a lot since I came to Japan:
What do I want to do when I go back to Colombia...
Whether to go somewhere and live a more natural life, growing my food, making things by my own, OR stay in the city, working (either a normal job, in my own design office, as a teacher...) and trying to change society itself, but having to live with all the rush and problems of the society.
But lately I have started to realize it doesn't have to be one OR the other, and I have really started to think about the kind of life I would like to have, and the way I can include most of the things I am interested in, and I would like to do in it. And I have even get to think how I could even use my studies right now to bring those two together. I guess that's why I decided to study Landscape Architecture in the first place, but somewhere in between I kind of lost my way, but I am glad I am finding it again, and maybe even more clearly.
I just really need to organize my life (spending less time in facebook and more time learning , thinking and reflecting), study more of those things that most probably you cant learn at uni, and bringing those things into my life.
Well... I just thought I would put up next quote when I started the blog (hence the title) but it kind of got long :) It's an interesting statement I found in the British Permaculture Association site...
"The average American's involvement with their automobile is an astonishing 1600 hours a year. Working in order to buy it, actually driving it, getting it repaired and so on. This means that when all car mileage in a given year is divided by the time spent supporting the car, the average car owner is travelling at an average speed of 5 miles per hour. To attain the speed of a bicycle we are devastating our cities, air, lungs and lives."
Ivan Illich, social commentator
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