WEEKEND-ENGAGEMENT TOPICS: WEEK 199/ Entering into maturity in times of change

The world has changed a lot in the last twenty years. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, not only the political scene changed, but also the world economy and societies as they were at the end of the 20th century. One era ended and a new era began to take shape.

In this new scenario, new processes and new actors entered the scene. On the one hand, new information technologies were consolidated and changed the world, creating new ways of processing and exchanging information and increasingly faster forms of communication. The global village of which MacLuhan had spoken several decades earlier became a reality. On the other hand, new powers entered the political, economic and social scene, especially China, which had been a basically agrarian country, linked to the land, became an economic and political power, whose influence today encompasses all the continents of the planet.

20 years ago I was still a young woman, I was working as a cultural researcher at a government foundation Fundacredesa, and I was also working as a freelance proofreader for an important Venezuelan state publishing house, Monte Avila Editores. I had been living for several months in Mérida, a city in the Venezuelan Andes and had not been able to find a stable job, so I returned to Caracas.

Those days, between 2003 and 2004, I moved several times, I had no stable place to live. Those were difficult times for me and my country, when I returned to Caracas, my city, I did not want to go back to my parents' house, but my income was not stable. I was there for a short time, but when I achieved a stable income, I moved, but there was unrest for political reasons and I had to move again to another part of the city. A friend, Carlos Noguera, psichologist and writer helped me get a job as a researcher in the cultural field and then as a proofreader and specialized reader for a publishing house.

I began my master's studies in Venezuelan Literature with the idea of achieving stability as a university professor. In 2006 I started teaching at the School of Social Communication of the Central University of Venezuela in the areas of writing and Venezuelan literature, but 3 years later the university did not renew my contract. That was when I decided to offer literature courses in cultural institutions, which is what I continue to do today. I did not return to work in formal education in high school or university. When the covid-19 pandemic began several years ago, I started teaching on my own through digital platforms.

In the last 20 years, Venezuelans have lived through very difficult situations. The area of the city where I live, Altamira, was the epicenter of strong protests, for several years, which ended with strong repression by state security agencies. We have had a serious economic, political and social crisis. We were without electricity for several weeks, without knowing when we would have service again and in some areas of my country it is common to be without electricity for several hours a day.

In recent years we lived, like the rest of humanity, the Covid-19 pandemic. Very young people died in the riots and during the pandemic. But we have had the strength, we have been persevering, to go on. I in particular have been helped by the constant practice of meditation alone and with my friends at my Buddhist center.

During the pandemic I started giving classes through digital platforms, I started my accounts on social networks like instagram, linkedin, I learned to use design tools to promote my editorial services and my online and in-person courses. Perhaps the most difficult thing I have had to learn in the last 20 years has been to change the analog mentality in which I grew up and was educated by the computer and digital mentality of the world in which we live.

Even today a part of me still finds it hard to adapt to a completely robotized world, in which I have to constantly interact with machines, with which I do not establish any kind of emotional connection. Although it is also true that I have learned to enjoy the creative possibilities that platforms like canva offer me. But no electronic device will ever replace the pleasure I get from seeing a beautiful landscape, being in contact with nature or enjoying a pleasant moment with my friends or loved ones.

I'm a spanish speaker, I translated this post to english with the help of deepl.com All photos you see belong to my personal photo album