To grow like a tree in a machine
Plants among the metal sheets in Hiatus Coffee, Malaybalay
The current era has us moving at machine pace. We are already at a time that built technology which threatens our very existence. The pioneers and creators of these technologies themselves warn the world at large how it renders humanity obsolete, and so we do our best to wrangle with it. Some might say suspicion or rejection of technology will inevitably leave them behind. On the other hand, blind adoption leads to many contentious issues such as weaponized misinformation, overdependence, and unjust systems.
We cannot deny nor reject technology; that would be hypocritical of us. Typing this blog on a laptop for a website which is a digital space existent due to hordes of CPUs is nothing to sneeze at. Scientists are creators as well, but they pursue enhancement or transcendence beyond our human limits. We respect that as a craft, but that doesn’t mean we cannot also be cautious of the technology created.
In business, many investors now tend to put their money into things that scale fast, hard, and big (lol). Tech has the ability to explode like an atomic bomb, which is a fitting metaphor for the Western mentality. Big tech and venture finance follows these types of methodologies.
We recently finished an accelerator program that gave us the opportunity to pitch to investors. The feedback was relatively good, and we were surprised to see them like the idea given their backgrounds. They gave helpful critiques that cemented how the philosophy of the Balay is inherently for organic growth amidst an industrialized landscape.
Visions for the Balay are not cheap. We wish to pay creatives the money they deserve for the work that they do. But to achieve the amount of money we need requires quite a bit of convincing for people to part with. We cannot force all the money to come at us at once; that would be like a typhoon that floods us with the weight of expectations and financial returns.
We must patiently tend to our endeavor and allow time to bring it to fruition. There will be days that are dry and difficult (there have been many), and there will be days where we are fertilized. We are adapting to the metallic environment we find ourselves in, diligently and furtively trying to grow despite the inorganic ground we find ourselves in.
We don’t hate technology. Both RM and I are products of this era. I identify as a futurist myself, but I seek a future that is tailored for us. A Tropical Future.
Futures built on methodologies that aren’t designed for our landscapes only lead to incongruency. It led to the systems that fail us daily, that crush us under the weight of its motion without regard for our well-being. Technology does not have to be simply mechanic. After all, it is defined as the “application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes”. The West may use it for industry, but we must now discover our own to wield it as a tool for surpassing the gates placed around us.
If we continue to follow and compete with the machinery made by industrial cultures, we will stay lagging. We must rediscover our ancient wisdom and innovate from there; reconnect with the design that survives in arid air, and able to crawl above dead concrete.
Growing in a machine is not easy, but it is not impossible. We must survive. The new type of matter that comes out of this journey (as adaptation always shows) will truly be a wonder to behold.
~ Nikki
