🍃 Topic: Challenge Conformity 🪴
How we define our values in this modern-day, where technology is omnipresent and constantly evolving, resulting in changes in perspective, traditions, and heritage. What defines true values? Are they defined by how we grew up? Or are they more likely being established through deliberate decisions and experiences that we have taken throughout our life?
“How to define our own values?”
I am sure this question has been asked since the old days, to either justify a human value to society or to give meaning to our lives.
But how do we define our own values in this modern-day, where our technology is omnipresent and constantly evolving, resulting in changes in perspective, traditions, and heritage.
Today, traditional values are constantly being challenged. I'm sure everyone, at some point in their life, must have felt confused, nervous or backward when facing something new.
So how do we know our true values?
It can be determined by many things but for me it is the experiences that I gain, the more we will go through them, our "values" will start to be defined.
The first value I have learn, and did practice my whole life is Collectivity.
I grew up in a multicultural family, where my parents adopted 4 of my siblings from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Tunisia. My parent raised us to be equally loved and cared for. And because I was raised that way it established in me from a very early age the mindset of "us" and "community” ."It was NOT the mindset "me vs. them" or "mine vs. yours."
A few years later, in 2016, I landed for the first time in Vietnam with my friend Anh Phi, I felt again this sense of community. Even tho we were outsiders and foreigners, I knew our mission was not about making things "better" like if we were saving the world .
To be honest, I know I am privileged to be able to do art, make films, I am not scientists or doctors that come to make the world a better place.
I came here simply to learn about Vietnamese culture and collaborate with local talented people on my work. Theses peoples are artists, musicians, designers, art directors, and writers who were born OR/and have been working in Vietnam for decades.
And so, I felt Like a teabag, I infused it into the water, and the water happened to be Vietnam.
And we were blessed to be able to work on incredible projects ; because without these people sincere advice, we wouldn't have fully understood Vietnamese culture.
And for me, I just know that's only the beginning, and I have a lot more to learn.
So Why do I speak about that? I believe we are stronger when we share a common goal. And I feel so lucky that in Vietnam I managed to build this sense of family, I feel like at home. It give me a sense of collaboration over competition.
But being in Vietnam made me realize how the collective way of thinking and opening my soul to other values really helped me to become a better creative, instead of putting myself into a bubble, cutting myself from the world, and pushing only for my own belief and ways to do. Teamwork always makes the dream work. But then again many people have many opinions. Social media keeps telling you what to do, what to buy, what to believe.
And it is where we fall for what I call the 'trendy' trap. As artists, we love attention. We live on the people's attention. Because attention means more jobs, opportunities, incomes, etc. And even if I don't like to admit it, I sometimes fall into that trap myself. Because trends are like a stamp of approval by society. So we want to get that attention by following trends.
Making "true" values, not trend
I am often facing with either doing something that everyone would think is cool and hip or doing something personally unique, not based on trends or people approvals. So, what is important for you? Doing something on the long term or the short term? An idea is timeless, while a trend exists only in the short term.
As creative, I am always looking for new paths and new ways of thinking. Inspired by many filmmakers, I want to transform traditions and inject my personal thinking/style into them. I love George Lucas, but I don't want to be him. There is nothing to be ashamed about getting inspired. As long as you inject your persona into it and transform it to make a unique piece of your own.
I think we should always be true to who we are and to our creations ( art., films, designs).
But what if the real struggle is actually the COMFORM that we were born in?
This leads me to my last point and topic : Challenge conformity.
I remember I was a terrible student at school and basically was told by my partner that I should have settled to be an English teacher. I believe my life would have been very different if I had chosen that path, to stay in the world I always knew. It would have been an easier path. But By taking a risk to leave my nest, I managed to live independently, found myself, found my world, my friends that I am happy to be surrounded with today.
And it all comes from an 18 y.o me being stubborn and headstrong toward the popular opinions that try to pressure me. As we say, it's not because everyone says you are wrong that you are not right. So be Patient and challenge your comfort zone, because it can bring you a new beginning. Only experiences will make you grow.
Like me today, standing in front of all of you, this is not my comfort zone but I decided to challenge myself to get up and share my experiences with you all. You are the one making your own values, choosing what you want to keep from the norms and what you wish to transmit from them.
So be you, be bold and be opened. As a friend told me A dinner is better shared between friends, new ideas will arise with people that open us up to new ways of thinking .
We are all unique, and we are all one humanity.
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Behind the scenes
