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Friendship and freedom!

Diego Mosquera. 14th of December 2020.


"Originally, being free meant being among friends. ‘Freedom’ and ‘friendship’ have the same root in Indo-European languages. Fundamentally, freedom signifies a relationship. A real feeling of freedom occurs only in a fruitful relationship – when being with others brings happiness."
Han, Byung-Chul. Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (Verso Futures) (pp. 2-3). Verso. Kindle Edition.
Mastichari by the sunset, Mastichari, Kos. Greece
Mastichari by the sunset, Diego Mosquera
07.08.2019 Mastichari, Kos. Greece.

Hola,

I found this beautiful quote in a book that criticizes neoliberalism. At first, I found it a bit odd as you don't expect Byung-Chul Han showing this sweet layer of his. However, now that I have time to think about it, the drive towards the critique of neoliberalism is to expose the threats that it brings towards human survival. Although alternative economic models may seem weak and ill-advised, I do believe that the political force driving it must build a project that sees human society as an ecosystem. In this, empathy and love must be fundamental to face the challenges that bring working towards a fair and sustainable world.

Find here a list of things I found worth sharing from last week:

  1. Reflect. I find it fascinating when I see in publishing media more articles about the brain and its capabilities. The more efforts and funding goes towards this, the better understanding of mental health we will have. Last year, I read this interesting article that cleverly joins time travelling with mourning, and since then, I can't stop thinking how powerful our brain is. Even though, I read it last year, I couldn't keep myself from sharing it here. If you are also into this topic and want to go towards something more scientific, this paper called The consciousness of Reality tries to explain from a scientific point of view what the previous author elaborated before.
  2. Practice. Radio Ambulante, my favourite Spanish speaking podcast, released an innovative tool to learn Spanish while listening to their podcasts. I started following them in 2015 after I listened to their episode about punks in Cuba during the 80s and 90s. They have decided to infect themselves with HIV to be able to freely develop their "punk" lifestyle in an isolated medical facility. If you understand Spanish, you can listen to the episode here.
  3. Watch. Did you know that 12 Monkeys was inspired by a short film? Well, it turns out you can watch it for free on Youtube. I watch 12 Monkeys every year, but for sure this year it turned out being more frightening.
  4. Tweet. Fingers crossed for the world political class to work harder towards stricter climate policies. Eric Holthaus shared this hopeful insight on Twitter. "Breaking: Global carbon emissions fell by 6.7% in 2020, erasing nearly a decade of rising emissions amid pandemic lockdowns. This means that if the world's Covid recovery prioritizes climate policies, global emissions will have permanently peaked in 2019.".
  5. Celebrate. Al Jazeera's 101 East team shared a list of their top 5 films to celebrate #HumansRightsDay. They are all around 25 minutes, so if you can't find anything to watch this week, try one of these films.
  6. Aww♥️. Imagine starting the week by being chase by an Alpaca!

Thanks for reading and have a nice week!

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Diego,

Thank you Paola Molano for my logo! ♥️

If you happen to be looking for a designer, ask me for her details.


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