The Bridge #132
in which we dream beyond borders
Hello
& Welcome ! The Bridge is a newsletter connecting the professional and the personal creatively across cultures and a diversity of topics, until we are not only full of ideas but also ready to take action. Thanks for joining in the conversation.
As a career/life coach, when working with clients I sometimes hear myself say, “You’re capable of realizing your dreams.” And I really believe it.
Some clients initially are skeptical, or if they’re receptive they might openly admit that they’re rusty. It’s been a while since they let themselves (without feeling childish) dream big dreams.
I’ve come to believe it serves us well as humans to develop our capacity to dream ✨
» both as individuals seeking greater fulfillment, joy and well-being
» and as a wider community seeking to co-create a healthier society.
It might sound cute or overly idealistic, but I personally feel it’s subversive.
Daring to dream beyond borders, for instance, is my statement of belief that nationalism is out-dated and big brands (like Google or Apple or Facebook) taking ownership of our societies and our government, it’s not OK with me.
I want to dream more abundantly of a world where
multiculturalism thrives and the earth itself is healthy;
young people are cared for dearly and money and emotions flow like water;
power is fairly distributed and creativity unleashes everyone’s potential in peace and safety, with deeper respect for natural growth cycles.
We can do this together. 🌱
Something to Consider
Stewarding Gaza Travel Agency at Dutch Design Week 2025 (Design Reparations)
A dear friend in The Netherlands (Cecilia, originally from Italy) has co-organized with her team and many volunteers a booth at Dutch Design Week 2025 (that took place in mid-October).
Hundreds of people came to see the Gaza Travel Agency that they designed and built and actively hosted for visitors. It was both real (designed from a shipping container with real peoples’ stories and accurate maps) and imagined (no such Travel Agency really exists, yet).
Because of the both serious and playful way that they designed the experience, many visitors were able to explore something they know (that there’s a crisis in Gaza) from an entirely different perspective (what if Palestinian refugees were allowed to return to their homes).
That is to say, 80% of people in the Gaza strip are refugees who by UN Resolution should be allowed to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors. Over 500 towns, villages and cities in Palestine have been mostly destroyed but left uninhabited (a difficult word to pronounce, surely, also a sad truth potent with possibility). What if a Travel Agency existed to help them make possible a return to re-inhabit their homes? A beautiful fantasy.
If we can’t imagine it, it will never happen.
If we CAN imagine it, it’s not inevitable but it becomes possible:
An invitation to explore more :)
Something to Pique Curiosity
A few months ago I envisioned a retreat for parents who would want to gather together as part of their personal journey to strengthen value alignment, deepen healing and allow for a more open and grounded ‘showing up’ for our children whom we’re raising, in community with other conscious parents.
The retreat as I imagined it would happen in France in a special place surrounded with natural beauty, able to host a small group who are curious about taking a “gender expansive” approach to parenting, planning for communal wealth, and healing generational trauma. I would need to make a website, book a location, set real dates, figure out appropriate pricing, get the word out (like I’ve never done before) and design the program from scratch. It would take a lot of work, and no one was saying I had to do it.
Since then, however, I have told enough people about the vision, it’s become so concrete in my mind, I know it will come true. I still have work to do claiming my right to lead this type of transformation. Yet the momentum is there, and the energy inside is irresistable. Can’t wait to announce it more officially! Soon.
Something to Listen to
When I was little, my mom (maybe yours too?) would sometimes play a casette tape of Raffi songs. (Baby Beluga, Apples and Bananas, the More We Get Together…) He’s world-renowned as a children’s music singer, so probably you’ve heard of him at least.
Wanting to play some of his songs for my kids, I recently opened Spotify and saw by surprise that he’d released a new song! (“ABC Democracy”)
Then I saw that he had in 2019 released an album that collected a whole slew of songs he’d written and sung over the past two decades; it’s called Motivational Songs. A simple message and an inspiringly gentle way of getting some valuable points across.
This one, for example, starts with a playful “123 count with me,” and then switches at the chorus to a critique of GDP (gross domestic product) — a way of measuring the monetary value of a nation’s inputs and outputs that economists, governments, corporates use to rank how far “Developed” are the nations of the world.
Adding indiscriminately, that’s what’s wrong with the GDP /
Counting only the money, makes no sense to me /
It’s time we measured quality, the mark of true prosperity /
An Index of Wellbeing for the betterment of life. /
Something to Practice
Have you heard of the Good Country Index? It’s one of many indices that exist helping us to look at our “economic society” in a way that is less reductive (only focused on the money) and instead more holistic (seeing all the factors that matter for a good or healthy world). The Global Wellness Institute counts 9 other indices (measuring tools) that help us get concrete and specific.
Sometimes we think the tools we have are “good enough” or the “best we have,” so we accept something inadequate and stop exploring. If only we would stay curious, we’d learn that better tools ALREADY exist that simply require wider adoption.
Though you’re probably not an economist, as a human you’re an active participant in this collective imagining that we can do creating something better. I encourage you to explore one of the indices of well-being, linked to above. Take 5 minutes? 🙂
Count with me, 123
We might live in a better world
If only we’d learn once more
To dream,
JPC 😎