Liberating Spaces

Sir Ken Robinson’s lecture is a loud and clear call for change. We must change the current paradigm of education based on the intellectual ideas of enlightenment, and the practical considerations of the industrial revolution. It is actually numbing our humanity, our feelings, real interests and emotions, killing our creative potential for the sake of a narrow view of the world and the material interests of a few who are the actual profiteers of industrial production.

As a child, I went to seven different schools. I was expelled of some of them, recommended to leave in others and just moved by my parents from a couple. The first time I changed schools I was 7 years old. Unknown to me until very recently, that first time was a very emotional and traumatic affair for me. I had to leave my friends, those with whom I shared so many memories and experiences until then. Why was I thrown out? Basically because I was often not putting attention into what the teachers were saying. I preferred to either talk to other students, read, draw or do other stuff instead of focusing in one single point. I actually felt alienated, it felt like someone was hammering me down into a box. My whole being was resisting. Always with a big smile though.

Robinson’s talk wakes these feelings again up in me. It is so true, so right what he says. It is so at the core of what I call the emotional revolution, a change of paradigm that takes seriously us as emotional beings, who feel and create in our freedom and diversity. Rationalism and standardisation tries to kill this by making us all the same – like classifying us by our production date (i.e. birthday). I believe that understanding and accepting what’s inside us, the combination and collaboration of our reason and emotions, is an essential step to make a future which is freer and fairer for us.

This is my personal blog. It started as a semi-professional space, for my ideas on a series of topics in which I worked on. But during the latest months it has become more personal, mixing life events with more theoretical/practical ideas. Now I feel I need a different space for my thoughts and my stories. One that is not cluttered with widgets or other gimmicks, which are good for this blog, but not for a pure space with just what comes from my mind.

Simple. White. One column. No tag clouds. No pages. No calendar. No nothing. A new clear space for my thoughts and the stories I write. There I rant about topics I find interesting. There I can tell my stories. Nothing about my (personal or professional) life. Just thoughts and fiction. It’s raw A.

NOTE: all posts published on Raw A. will be automatically published on this blog.

Along the years, I’ve been seeing how families tend to have patterns of behaviour and activities. For example, there are families that most of their members are factory workers, or academics, or entrepreneurs, or scientists…Then I think of my family, and I realise how diverse, liberal and sometimes weird it is.

From the side of my father, my grandfather, Xavier Ribó i Rius, was a stockbroker (agente de bolsa) in Barcelona for a bit more than half of his life, after being the economic secretary of Francesc Cambó, leader of the Catalanist right-wing party before the Civil War. During the Civil War, he was the administrator of the Propaganda and Press Bureau in Paris in favour of the nationals (Francoists). He did it not because he was a fascist, what he wasn’t, but because he thought this was the way of saving the liberal capitalist system against the anarchists and the communists. An episode of his life that he regretted, seen the authoritarian nature of Franco’s regime, and its position against the Catalan culture and national identity.

He and his wife Raimunda had 5 children. Two of them kept the language they always spoke, Catalan, at home as their own. The other three switched to Spanish. Of those who kept our language, the youngest, Rafael Ribó, became a convinced Catalanist communist, who went to lead the Catalan communist party (PSUC), transformed it into an eco-socialist organization, while being member of the Catalan and Spanish Parliaments, and eventually became the Catalan ombudsman (Síndic de Greuges) in 2004. The only girl of the five, Marilú, married an industrial engineer and managed with him a successful company. Among those who switched language, the elder, Xavier, became an entrepreneur with good networking skills, particularly among the more conservative sections of Catalan bourgeoisie. Another, Luís, was a sensitive and creative person who unfortunately was boxed into a frivolous life of frustrated search of pleasure and died some time ago. Finally, my father, Ignacio, an intelligent and charismatic man, who started law at Deusto, but finished it in Barcelona, for lack of discipline, has dedicated his life to the superficial nightlife. He founded a few successful night-clubs in Barcelona, including the legendary Up & Down, during the times of transition and development of a young Spanish democracy. He now runs a restaurant/boîte, his own personal project, he founded in 1989. As you can see, these 5 siblings and their father couldn’t be more different. I won’t go into my cousins, because that would be even more complex and diverse (e.g. my elder brother is a writer, one cousin has restaurants, another is a journalist, I lecture on EU politics and I work on the edge between politics and new technologies, another brother is an actor…)

From the side of my mother (more…)