A constant, insatiable desire to know/learn/understand everything around us and how all things are connected. Our world is the most amazing place with an abundance to discover and explore. When I was a kid I grabbed some tools and took apart every new object that made its way into our house. My mum, always cautious of not instantly destroying precious new things, would urge me to just read the manual instead. To this very day, I’d still respond with “I don’t care how someone tells me I should use it, I want to understand how it works”.

Do it right. Or go home. Life is short. Way too short to do things we are not passionate about. While many still consider applying oneself a virtue, I believe that’s great for a reasonable period of time but might become toxic if it goes on indefinitely. The hardest decisions in my life have, in hindsight, yielded the greatest results and contributed to fundamental changes. It’s my personal aspiration to take matters into my own hands and refuse to cruise through life on emotional autopilot.

The etymology of context is pretty straight forward, yet incredibly telling. “Con” means “with” or “together” and the verb “texere” means “to weave” in Latin. Simply put “woven together”. Or interconnected. Or intertwined. Interlaced. Interwoven. The surrounding circumstances, ideas, and words woven together forming the setting or background to provide the information we need to fully understand, evaluate or interpret a given topic. In order to understand I will ask a lot of questions. Questions that might seem unrelated but make sense to me at that moment to make me understand the context. Context is everything. And everything is connected (no, I am not referring to String Theory or quantum physics here).

“We’ve always done it like this”. “That’s how it was shown to me”. “It is what it is”. “That’s what you do”. Who is ‘you’ exactly? I really struggle with statements like these as I am constantly looking for improvements everywhere. User experience (doh, I said it) -or the lack thereof- to me is ubiquitous and its processes should be questioned and reexamined at all times. There is always room for improvement. Henry Ford is attributed to having said that “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got” and obviously he’s hitting the nail on the head. And it’s all so simple: refuse to accept the status quo as the status quo.

Most people I’ve worked with put in their best every single day. We spend a lot of time working. In fact, much of our precious waking time revolves around work. Work generates income which, in turn, covers our need for shelter, food, and safety (basic needs). Oftentimes one’s psychological and even self-fulfilment needs are met through work as well. Naturally, we take this very, very seriously. But we shouldn’t forget that most of us are not doing rocket science, we are not ridding the world of diseases, we are not stopping famine, we are not building perpetual motion or a fusion reactor. I believe in not taking myself too seriously and approaching things in a lighthearted way. I try to treat those around me with respect and as equals, no matter if we work together, I work for them, or they work for me. At the end of the day, we work to achieve a common goal so we might just be nice about it.

Berlin is not the most colourful place. Grey post-war era buildings, grey skies, (seemingly) endless winters, and people who like to express their individualism through all-black Berghain uniforms. We adapt to our surroundings and obviously so do I and I absolutely love black. But I also really like colour. From extremely colourful things that scream at you to careful minimalistic accents of colour, I am all for it. What does that mean for my work? Probably not much, but I still felt like I wanted to make that point. Might just be yet another Berlin cliche, though 🤷🏻‍♂️.