It was the first of January in the year 1988 that this guy said, well actually cried out, HELLO WORLD! Some say that me being born on that particular day is one of the reasons I walk around in a festive mood all the time, could be true or could be far from true. I like to believe that my life experience thusfar also has a say in this. To fall back on my day of birth, I forgot to mention that it was in Casablanca, Morocco. That is also the place where I have spent the first five years of my life before coming to the Netherlands for the first time. By first time I mean what you, as a reader, are probably wondering and my answer to that is, yes! There is a second time. An answer to the possible follow up question would be: When I was five and moved here, I only stayed a year, moved back to my country of birth and was enrolled to primary school there. The reason for this, somewhat confusing journey, would be because my parents have made the choice that I needed to spend some time studying in the land of the fez to be able to preserve my native tongue, which is Arabic (Moroccan) and to pick up on French. The idea behind this was that I would have an advantage if I came back to study in this beautiful, yet cold country. I have never doubted that choice after I picked up on the ability to reason accordingly. It actually proved to be very valuable to me in many ways and one of them is the fact that I took in and preserved my Moroccan heritage, thus cherishing it. That does not mean that the Dutch part, which was also embedded in my system later on, is excluded in this matter.
Then the time came! The time for me to come back here again. I was 11, as curious as I still am, eager to learn and excited to re-embark on this journey of life. Back when I was five, we lived in Bos en Lommer. Because my father stayed behind in the Netherlands, he managed to move to another part of Amsterdam, which is the Staatslieden neighborhood. This also was our own place, since we had to share the place at Bos en Lommer with relatives. A new home that we could call our own, a fresh start and a you-better-get-enrolled-into-a-new-school kind of attitude from my parents, which I did not mind. I was enrolled into a primary school called the Catamaran. I started in group seven (I will just go ahead and use this, because I do not know how group seven can be translated into English terminology) and noticed that my Dutch was not very good, which is a clear understantement. The first thing I needed to do was learn it asap! High school was only two years away and yes I picked up on it, pretty fast if I may say so myself. Group seven was conquered, after that came the conquering of group eight. These victories within two years cleared the way for me to go to the HAVO (no English terminology here neither). So there I was, 13 years, short, fat, cute in a way and going to high school. You probably know what those ingredients are for if you get to high school? But to keep this positive, high school played a humungous role in shaping me as I am today.
First year of high school, a new place, with new people and new challenges. I was motivated! My motivation was to be seen in the efforts I put in schoolwork, my eagerness to learn, the grades I got. Still there was one thing, fitting in did not come natural. I actually should not have cared, but I did, I think it has to do with peoples need to fit in somewhere. I thought that my place was with the loud, arrogant, bullying and the I-think-I-am-very-cool kind of people. I thought that was where my happiness resided, the place that makes you feel good, confident, the centre of attention and that made you loved as a person. Later on, I realised that the happiness I was thinking of and talking about was the temporary kind. The one that actually resembles the effects of drugs, it gets you high for a while, creates a certain state of mind for a short amount of time, creates a certain feel-good mood and then it wears off and you need it again. The kind that makes you ignore your gut feeling, the one that causes long term unhappiness, the one that makes you realise you do not fit in by fitting in. That is the one that made me do stuff that I did not really want, but did anyway, like getting phone plans that I could not afford, but did because everybody had them, skip classes because that was cool in a negative way, smoke soft-drugs because it made me fit in a lot more. Stupid right? The awareness around this subject started when I tried to divert in ideology within the same group, to divert meant to be rejected. I was hurt and got depressed in a certain way, because afterwards I realised that I did not fit in for being me but for being what I was not, I singlehandedly ruined the chances that I created for myself. At first, I started blaming everything and everybody for what happened to me, without realising that all of the things that happened to me were choice based. Results of poor choices you could say, because I could have said no, I could have been stronger and chose to be this divergent which is happy with not fitting in and loving it, which gets joy by the result of his efforts and which also listened to his gut feeling.
Realising this, a certain mental transition started. I started being more honest to myself, and therefore a lot more honest towards others. This resulted in more inner peace, self-approval, confidence and the motivation I really needed. For once, not caring about the status quo felt amazing, liberating, joyful, it felt like ME! They say that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and YES, this was that step, this was the start of my journey towards rediscovering myself and what I like to do. For once, making mistakes was not wrong because those were the most valuable lessons in life. Thinking for myself made sense even though others did not agree, having an open mind really opened up my eyes, being the difference by being different was awesome! Steve Jobs had this Stanford speech in front of graduates, in which he said: 'Stay foolish and stay hungry', what I think he meant was to never stop wanting to learn and never let that hunger of wanting to get better diminish. One of his quotes that I love the most, is the one in which he praises the people who do not 'fit in'.
To round up, I'd like to add that is would be just the tip of iceberg, even for me. Because the journey to knowing thyself is one that never ceases and this insight is one that I keep reminding myself of. Below you will find links to some of the stuff I like to do as extracurriculars, just to broaden the perspective a bit. Any questions concerning me? Feel free to ask! I'm an open book!
E-motive
Pakhuis de Zwijger
Community Involvement (Dutch)
Youth Manifesto