👢 Bootstrapping
When capitalists say "pull yourselves up by your bootstraps", many forget how it is a physically impossible feat.
Yet so many are expected to do this in the "startup world". People with ideas are asked to absorb the risks (mostly financial) to make their vision a reality. Much like a pregnant mother, one truly has to give their life source to birth this new being, and it will come with much pain and strife.
In effect, anyone born into the Global Majority are always asked to perform this in a system that was designed to keep most people out.
When I decided to pursue Balay Kasamtangan back in 2023, I was already well aware of the difficulties that would come with it. I grew up with a family business, and was raised by a capitalist. I was tired of being in places that didn't align with my values and treated me with very little dignity, so it was a deep-seated frustration that finally came to a peak.
What I didn't expect is how spiritual my journey would be in growing this. Three years later, I look back at all of the amazing people I've met, and the things that I've learned and unlearned. I am grappling with the financial precarity that comes with being a Zillennial (between Millennial and Gen Z) in their 30s, furiously trying to make this work.
I am constantly faced with reasons to give up: growing debt, systemic injustice, and burnout. When all the news covers unnecessary wars, abuses by those in power, environmental degradation, and the alarming rate of exploitative technology, it's easy to feel helpless.
I am also constantly searching for beacons of hope, and I choose to contribute whatever small way I can to keep these amazing people going.
People like Jen Horn of Ugnayan Cards with her latest fundraiser for The Good Food Community, brave souls like Bea Tulagan of Tala Story Studio, the warriors in Concerned Artists of the Philippines, writers of The Good Citizen, the paradigm-shifters in The School of International Futures. Just a few off the top of my head that are fighting for the basic right to live, even when it threatens their lives.
I wanted Balay to be a place of reprieve for people that are tired of how this world is built; built by a very specific few on the backs of the rest of us, the Global Majority. I wanted it to be a resting place for myself as well, who has been working in the development industry and is exhausted by it.
Honestly, I have found myself wanting to give up on living many times given the circumstances, but then I am also reminded of the small miracles brought about by the constant effort of those who choose to keep going.
I hear the voices of the powerful, the voices that echoed within my own family unit, that discouraged me, thought of me as delusional, ungrateful, and ignorant of the world's "realities".
Delusional is a word that the current young to mid-life adults have been given, and we have willingly co-opted. Sure, you can call us that since we do not operate by the logic of those who came before us.
If asking for a fairer future is delusional; one where people do not have to fight over skin color or who they love; one where we restore what we have extracted from the earth; one where we do not have to beg to survive from the invisible forces above us; one where food is not forcefully made scarce then sold at inaccessible prices; then I, among others, will continue to be delusional.
I will continue to seek something what others call a fantasy, because if justice and equality are rendered such, then I should hope to uphold this fantasy for those that need it.
I am terrified, but somehow I continue to "lift myself by my bootstraps" because that is my own survival instinct trying to keep me alive even when I am asked to perform the impossible, especially when you are left with no other choice.
~ Nikki
