The future?

Dongguan/ New South China Mall
Originally uploaded by macchi.


One of the highlights of IDFA was seeing a showing of Utopia in Four Movements. A special screening with live narration from the director and live music by a band as the images were playing.

In four chapters, it talks about different interpretations of utopia - not so much the search for an actual location but efforts that people have made in the past to move towards a utopian world. Examples used were Esperanto, mass political movements but also the inventor of shopping malls. Did you know he originally envisaged malls as a community center where people would be together and share - and not just to shop/consume/buy?

An example of shopping malls into the extreme is the South China Shopping Mall in Dongguan, China. I was there last April and wandered around this building - the largest shopping mall in the world - in amazement. It was a ghost town.

Not only is it an example of a shopping mall gone wrong, but also of the realization that continuous investment and continuous economic growth might actually not be possible.

Tim Jackson explains this on TED:

5 years

I had lunch yesterday with two friends and in the course of the conversation we came to talk about what is in my future, work-wise. I'm trying to think back how we got there - apart from the regular 'life is so good' talk - but anyway, apparently I am going to be working on a PhD at some point. Or rather, at some point within five years.

Interesting prediction.

It isn't completely unlikely that I will go back to school/university at some point - as I'm pretty sure that in a few years' time I'll want to be doing some kind of studying again. And the idea of starting work on a PhD did cross my mind when I graduated but I wanted to start working in a regular organisation/company first. That doesn't mean I won't ever still go back to this idea.

I can absolutely think of several ideas to write a PhD on. But then again, it sounds like an insane amount of work - and something I can't handle quite yet, nor in the next few years.

Anyway, check back with me in five years!

Goals

Whenever people have asked me where I would want to be in five or ten years, I would never have an answer. Or it would be some vague answer about how I'd want to be in an interesting/challenging job, have different interests outside of work, blah blah.

And even though you probably don't HAVE to have a set goal, I do think it would give you a bit more direction in whatever you're doing.

I think I finally have one. I'm quite amazed. And I think I have an idea of what I have to do to get there.

That doesn't mean that I'm throwing myself in a new thing that I HAVE to accomplish (like previously - when jobhunting turned into quite a disaster). Luckily. But I'm looking forward to all the fun stuff that is going to come along with it!

Yay!