he said: life is game and we’re all players
i said: yes, but i would say we are athletes of our own sport

he said: life is a movie and we’re all actors
i said: yes, but I would say we are performers of our own theatre

he said: life is a dream and we’re all dreamers
i said: yes, but i would say we are dreamers living our own dream

he said: i’d rather say it so everyone can connect to it
i said: that’s done, but what do you do after what you say gets old?

he said: i need people like you to take care of that answer
i said: if it’s words that are speaking then we must use vocabulary to speak another language

he said: I guess so.
i said: yes, but i would say we all feel so.

I’m frustrated with everything and I’m only saying this because I believe that I have answers for how to find the answers. I have a voice that I’ve made through listening and thinking. My voice is of DOING. I have a voice that cares to voice others because the voice of others is my voice.

I have never fit in, nor have I ever thought I had to fit in. Now people look at me and think that I’m too young to have answers, but I’m not telling you that I’M THE ANSWER, I’m telling you I know where the answers are and I care enough about them to bring them to the forefront of the conversation if we’re talking about answers. So don’t get intimidated by me or think that I’m self-indulgent. I just love what I DO because I do it for people and communities, hence I should love myself for doing it. I want to share the love with you all. You might see tears in my eyes if you catch me in a passionate conversation.

I just got home to my parent’s Thornhill condo suite, after a very important panel lecture series Manufacturing Neighbourhoods held by Toronto’s Architecture for Humanity at the Gardner Museum. The panel speakers included Bruce Hinds (my professor, close friend and project supporter) along with the highly reputable Ken Greenberg and other engaged reputable speakers just as concerned about community development in Toronto.

I thought it was a wonderful discussion and I just had to put my foot in there and talk about community activism since I know what that is about, because I practice it and preach it simultaneously. Sitting in the front row and having my hand up since the floor could ask questions, being dismissed about 5 times before the moderator came to hand me the microphone, I spilled my heart out on this topic of ‘building community’.

I’ve been at OCAD for 4 years and I have involved myself in its community and politics — because I care about making it a better institution with better education, more exposure to its possibilities and direction for building a unique community. Bottom line, I’m telling you, I know OCAD because I’ve experienced it and I care about its future. Everyone on the administration knows me. I have made myself and my voice visible, fearless and passionate. I have tried my best to speak for the majority of the population of the school and enhancement of its education for its students precisely with ‘building community’ and increasing student engagement, which mind you is not any different than doing something for a neighborhood. I have DONE things and that goes to tell you that I can speak about them and have a right to make a statement after doing something that people care about and don’t care enough to do something about.

Here is proof ONE and TWO of what I have done. Boom. Done. I’m publicizing myself because no one else on earth is going to do it for me. It’s not just two, it’s more! I care about my gradshow, so I care to get involved in making a structure for it so that the students are involved in the future. I put myself through challenges and hours of volunteering to initiate something I believe in. I care about the decisions made for the school. I care to speak up and give an input, because if I don’t, no one will know that I actually care. I want a better future for others and if I don’t act on what matters, then what matters will never have my voice in it. I know my voice creates vibrations and it’s those vibrations that I believe in, nothing else.

I’m fed up with people who don’t DO and sit and complain and complain and complain. There are people who talk about doing, tons of them might I add. In fact, that’s all we do! We (as in majority of Western society) just talk about doing and then the next time we do the same thing again. As much as I whole-heartedly agree the doing begins by having a conversation, but what about making the conversation HAPPEN? Who wants to take responsibility of that and who wants to invest their time in something that they’ve never done? Stop watching your damn television and stop listening to how hard it is to do things. It’s all built to scare you and turn you away. You’re not MEANT to have a voice; that’s what you’re meant for through the media.

Media yourself for goodness sakes! I’m a nobody and I’m media-ing me and through that I want to media my values and beliefs. Does that make sense? Ofcourse not, because you’ve never heard of it. You think that media is supposed to come to you because media is so far away and hard to reach.

It’s not though; it’s really not. Internet confuses us, because we’re confused with ourselves so when we enter a digital world with confusion of ourselves, we are even more confused and don’t know how to translate anything into reality. Hence we talk about it.

I’m also working on a community project as you should know by now if you’ve talked to me or know me, because it’s really my life. You cannot do a community project if you don’t fall in love with the community. It simply will not work. You will fail miserably and become pessimistic about doing anything ever again. I’m in love with this project and I’m in love with it because (here we go again), I simply GIVE A DAMN. Research on an area with statistics, numbers, assumptions and politics is the easy part. Understanding what the community has to offer is the most important and the most time-consuming part. This requires listening, observing, making friends and showing appreciation for what exists. If you don’t show appreciation for what is already there, you will again, fail miserably and continue to go the wrong way to make change.

Here is the link to a brief description to TheStoreFront project and here is TheStoreFrontCommunity.com which I highly suggest you join if you are in Toronto since we are holding an inaugural festival in the area: The BIG Festival. I have now understood this community, and I realize still how little I know about what is going on and I’m dying to be a part of it — this is why I want to MOVE THERE and live there and experience the community — being a member of the community that I change.

Now what else have I done? I spoke up to this community! I clearly made the effort to show that I cared about them. I’ve understood what community groups exist. I KNOW who these people are now and they KNOW ME TOO! This is how you make a change! You come in as an outsider and see it your responsibility to be humble and listen. If you want to be a therapist — which is literally what urban planners and designers are for communities at large — you need to listen and understand. You need to realize that there are no fingers to be pointed. It is your responsibility to find out how to do it so that IT WORKS and that local residents and businesses ‘take ownership of their communities’ — the answer to the question Bruce Hinds proposed to the group.

Now listen to me, I’m telling you that I’ve done this and done the investigation alone. And I can speak about it for that very reason; because I have done it and I know how it needs to be done after going through difficulty figuring it out. I’m not done and I never will be, but I hope that someone listens and follows some of these steps that I’ve learnt by DOING what you’re TALKING about. Who am I kidding, no one will buy in until it’s all over the media, and then you can come and ask me, “how do you do it?” Ask me now because I’m always in the search for answers. Maybe what I say will be of value, despite my age.

I need a change.

I hate this building. I hate how I stay in it all weekend because I feel lazy to go anywhere in this area, a boring and dull neighbourhood that isn’t even really a neighbourhood — it’s just a bunch of sky-rise buildings. I hate how I can’t just open the door and walk out. I hate how I can’t see my neighbours. I  don’t belong here. I want to be in a natural human environment. I love how I’m with my family, but it doesn’t mean that I’m with the rest of my community. I’m not engaged in my natural environment. We all used to, way back in Iran. We have a history of a rich community of family and local habitat. I was brought up around trees, vegetables, rocks, water and grass. I used to go swimming everyday. I picked cherries, climbed the walnut tree, pet the dog, watered herbs, played games, chased after birds. I hate it here! I want to go back to my childhood and be more engaged in my environment.

What is the point of sitting here and pretending to do work? I sit in my room with my laptop all day! I hate it! I hate the fact that where I live limits my interactions within my local environment and affects my daily cycles. I don’t go for walks or runs; I don’t walk to a local farmer’s market; I don’t bike anywhere; I don’t plant anything; I don’t have any pets. I really don’t do anything except for stare at this screen and think about life.

Well, I’m exaggerating a little bit, because when I’m not home I’m really happy. I really like being around people. It’s just when I’m stagnant for too long, I feel like I’m not myself and that I limit my actions because I’m stuck in a loop. I think I’m priviledged to be living with my parents but I worry for them too. I worry that they’ve conditioned themselves to this unengaged environment and way of life, that they’ve forgotten what life is really about.

Or, maybe it’s different for them. Maybe they’ve been doing this for years and all that matters to them is family. In Iran we were around more familiarity so we were more involved as a family in activities and gatherings. Or, perhaps this is what the majority of the world is now? Immigrating to a new country and moving into “good” neighbourhoods (suburbs), buying a car and driving everywhere and providing for the family. What I’m concerned about is these “good” neighbourhoods because I can clearly see how they are “bad” neighbourhoods because there is no sign of a neighbourhood, just your suite. Or, maybe it’s these condominiums that are really the problem. They make us lazier and encourage us to stay in our homes. Or, maybe we have just become so lazy that we are hesitant to do different things because we mold our lives to inactivity and condition our bodies to underengage in our residential communities.

precipitation, floundering my state of mind
i start drowning myself in one breath of time
until i feel the wetness of my bones, and get cold
and begin to lose control of my soul
i panic and scream: “death is near, death is near”
but no one is here, no one is here
no one comes even close to my near
i cry i cry, i ask myself why
why does it have to rain when i cry
floundering perceptions, truthful directions
keeping my mind at the roof of protection
opposing senses, i see that it’s red
i start yelling: “it’s red, it’s red!”
but it’s my blood that’s been already bled
i’m alive and i’m helplessly giving
precipitation is bedazzlement
my bones wet, swimming

…we have to play tricks with language until finally we generate a certain vertigo in ourselves through which words, falsely assumed to transmit knowledge, lose their apparent meaning until a more real discourse is possible — implying ultimately the invention of a new language, a language that does not only have to be spoken and written. In the future I believe books will never be written again, books will be ‘done’, thus literalizing the cliched metaphor that writing is an act.

-David Cooper
from The Death of the Family
1971