Hello, dear reader. I am officially unemployed, again. My last working day was a week ago on 8th July. It ended quite better than I expected and I’m grateful for that. I’m now a plant mom and she’s settled next to the bath tub where sunlight is brightest.
I just had the idea yesterday to make regular blog posts about this phase of unemployment because I’m determined to enjoy it and share. So, here I am.
This will be a series of posts in which I share my thoughts and tell you what I did in my week(s) of unemployment. I have some exciting travel plans for next month which I’m also looking forward to sharing!
What I’m doing is not a new concept. Last year, I was watching unemployment TikToks and I realised that I very much wanted to do the same: share and talk about this confusing period, but I’m camera-shy and I can’t stand having to be on TikTok everyday because the algorithm punishes you if you’re not active. By the way, I think I deleted my TikTok account a few months ago. Who knows? I’m happy to be completely unattached to it, although it can be quite fun.
One of my priorities in this new era (I realise, as I’m typing this, that I overuse this word) of unemployment is not to waste time consuming so I’m not even on Instagram (since spring, I can’t even remember when exactly) and I deleted my Twitter two years ago. One day late last summer I just uninstalled the Instagram app and that was it. I thought I would go back to it, but every time I reinstalled it to post something, it felt off like there was more to life than scrolling and looking at people’s lives through a screen, especially people I don’t know. The next step might just be deletion. Let’s see.
The desire to live more outside the digital world is what prompted me to start my book club in December last year – and it’s still going, by the way. I’ve been reading books throughout the year. When I had a job, I would come home around noon and eat, then sit on the sofa and read until I fell asleep. OK, there were also times when I watched Gravity Falls until I fell asleep. The fact is that I have significantly reduced my time on social media. It feels good to read and be present even if just in my not-so-new apartment arranging and re-arranging things. If I ever get a job again I want to look back at this time and be satisfied with the things I experienced and learned.
This past weekend I had one of the best ice-creams I’ve ever had at one of the gentrified cafes in Prenzlauer Berg (I won’t name it because I’m not getting paid). On the weekend before that I was in the south east of Berlin along the Spree for a Black women’s hangout at an art space which I got invited to by someone from my book club who’s an art nerd (complimentary) and art world professional. There was an exhibition by a Colombian visual artist Iván Argote, who also does many other cool things, including some designs for the new Spreepark. All this made me realise, once again, that there’s a world beyond webinars and panels and policy reports (you should read mine though) and networking and the feelings of self-importance that come with the professional spaces I’ve been in.
Seeing how free people in creative fields are to imagine and re-imagine worlds that are not rigidly formulaic is refreshing. Not saying that studying politics or international affairs is like this (we got a lot of room to be creative in our thinking and research) but in the professional fields typically associated with international affairs/relations, there is less room to be different and creative in your work in comparison. There’s also less interest in bringing expertise from elsewhere when it could have the most impact. In many cases, you have to have the right passport for the work even when the work transcends borders and regions, so from the start, whatever will be implemented is going to follow along a certain path that is limited by the pool of potential holders of said position. This is something that I’ve struggled with because it shattered my previously-held belief that all this work was done to “save the world”.
Imagine if the Oscars were only for American movies. Hollywood would get lazy, I think, and less interested in telling stories that speak to the human and not simply the American. What is there now is a space where great filmmakers, be it from South Korea or Norway or Brazil can compete and push each other to look at things differently and try new methods.
I’m happy that I’m expanding my social circle beyond the “policy” world, which I’m now disillusioned with. I’ve been thinking that, perhaps, this new era (lol) can be a time to explore creative possibilities. I think the universe is trying to send me a message. I’m listening.
the writing nib 
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