Looking back today I can see that since I was a child I have challenged the movements and changes in my life. Maybe you feel the same way…

At 20 I used to see life manifesting itself as movements.
Movements coming from me into the environment or from people who are together with me. Movements coming from my surroundings and causing my reactions, joys or worrying me with thoughts and questions.
And then – every time there is a meeting of movements – new movements are generated – something coming and going, and once it comes back at least someone decided to keep something new which was internalized (because that made sense or he accepted to keep it).
And so, successively, we generate realities, through our social abilities.

A decade later, I realized that when a lot of people maintain a set of beliefs, values, and goals, we build our communities, societies and nations, which in turn hold – over time – a demonstration that we call “culture”.

Movements and changes that, together, turn into collective manifestations. We may represent cultures as such: as the creation and maintenance of what many continually conserve – whether consciously or not, in a dynamic way.
Repeated behaviors generating collective consciousnesses or even collective expectations, which may be seen as truths – or perceptions, following over time – guiding thoughts and behaviors from people and nations.

This was my meeting with Culture. At the age of 20 I was already thinking about projects for change, thinking about solutions. I visualized a solution, I would draw it in a complex environment, reflecting on people’s interactions and implementing it with a team, during a consistent period of time, in order to generate change. This happened several times. And after a long time, I decided to get a doctorate in order to scientifically and objectively explain which magic was responsible for the changes actually happening.

Besides making the subject more palpable, I have found that some movements in our lifes may make us happier and allow us to celebrate our lives with other people. And that these are the most powerful movements and changes we know of, since they generate transformations capable of fulfilling great desires. This is because collective happiness generates – naturally – harmony, beauty and
common sense for a greater good.
I then discovered the cultural evolution leap that we are able to execute all together.

By studying the biology of knowledge, I have learned that we are multiperceptive and autonomous living beings. Each one only retains what he accepts – objectively or subjectively speaking – whether it is by pleasure, fear, pain, or love.
This is why cultures may seem so distinct and sometimes very consistent. But they can also change if people decide to follow movements which are different from the current one and if more and more people decide that, there will be systemic changes.
And since it’s not easy – as they may have been held for a long period of time – it’s better to do it through intense relational interactions, open behaviors, genuine questions which generate collective reflective thoughts, around a common desire.

A single person may generate movements capable of influencing great changes, right?
To live is to move, to conserve, to include, to discard, to choose, to decide and to change. We can all act with autonomy in order to realize – individual and collective – desires retaining what instincts may react to or what our conscience chooses.

You can and should be aware of this in order to have more ownership over the consequences of your acts in the world and the magic of exchange and the meetings which build constructive cultures through changes that we consciously choose.

Patricia Dupin
March, 2019