Hej!
I’m Floris
and I don’t believe there is anything to life 🌸
Uhm—Hello, well, that’s not a light conversation starter, is it?
Oh haha, no, it really isn’t, sorry about that. But since this is an essay I thought I’d dive right into the subject matter at hand.
Riiight...
Riiight, so would you care to elaborate?
Yes, gladly! ✨ So, when I think about why we exist, I always end up at something like “no reason” as an answer.
Why do anything?
Okay, alright, so why do you do anything if you think there is no reason to live?
Well, that’s the thing. If there is no reason/meaning, you should create it yourself (i.e. I’m floating somewhere between existentialism and absurdism here). And for me, that’s my own happiness: I want to be happy as much as possible for my entire life. Of course, though, there can’t be ups without downs and no rainbows without rain, etc. etc.
Uhm, egocentric?
Isn’t that kind of egocentric? To just care about your own happiness?
Hmmm, maybe. Either way, I’ve noticed that I’m happiest when I am nice to others, regardless of whether those others are humans, animals, plants or objects. So I try to be loving and empathetic in everything I do, because it gives me happy feelings and because I believe that it makes it easier for people to be nice and loving to me, too. And that, in turn, makes me even more happy.
Wait...
Wait so you say you’re trying to make it easy for people to be nice to you? That sounds a lot like you’re designing yourself; or at least the interactions you have with people.
That’s fair! I think the statement “everyone is a designer” is quite true. For example, when you decide to put your alarm clock away from your bed to make sure you actually get up in the morning—I’d call that designing. Something like ‘purposefully manipulating things in a way that helps you’ (or the intended user, in case of our profession). The only difference between ‘designers’ and ‘the rest’ is that designers have way more tools and knowledge about what works.
Ah, okay...
Ah, okay. By the way, it feels like you’ve analysed this quite a bit. Would you say you’re analytical?
Yes, most definitely. I try to fit everything in boxes or frameworks whenever I can. The more things are in boxes, the easier it becomes to act. And I’ve noticed that those boxes also make it easier to communicate your perspective to others, especially if you are able to visualise it, either mentally or on paper/screens.
Interesting...
Interesting, so does this all have a connection to you as a designer?
Well, I would say ‘loving everything’ is why I do design and ‘analytical’ is how I do it. But I think I can explain it better by just focussing on that why on four levels. And then you’ll notice my analytical mindset in the meantime (I hope).
Cool, go ahead!
Loving on levels
1. Myself
I think it’s easiest to start with loving myself, which I do by keeping my surroundings minimal. Not in the most extreme sense of the word (I have some decorations and quite a few plants), but I do try to removing everything from my living space which does not have a direct benefit for me. So that’s kind of how I design a part of my life, but it also translates into how I want to design products; as minimal as possible, while taking into account that some decorations can serve a worthy purpose, too.
2. My surroundings
As I said before, I try to be empathetic towards everyone. If someone is mean or curt, I try to stay nice by realising they might have a really shitty day. In teams I also try to show love by helping people achieve as much as possible through constructive feedback and trying to create an atmosphere where people feel comfortable to share if something doesn’t work for them. So you could say that I design my team culture so people are comfortable, happy and productive.
3. Everyone and everything, now
In the kind of design projects I do, I also want to show love for everyone and everything. So, when choosing what to work on, I would rather design for non-profits and governments than corporates. I’d want to help make social welfare or (mental) health care more accessible through simpler governmental services, rather than making an exciting experience for a large sports clothing brand. The ‘everything’ would ideally present itself in designing for animal welfare and nature protection, but I’m not yet sure what kind of products or services would help there.
4. Everyone and everything, forever
Lastly, I also want to show love to future generations of people (and animals, plants, etc.). And even though I don’t really like corporates, I feel like that is the place to help make our society more sustainable/less polluting. For example, by helping IKEA make their product offering circular, I could make the furniture industry a little less ‘destructive’ than it is now. Designing systems for people to save energy or systems for energy suppliers to manage renewable energy plants would also help to ‘make the world a better place’. However, I do always wonder whether this has any real impact, or if the only real solution to our destructive behaviour is in legislation for the oil, aviation and meat industries. And in that case, I might want to work on products for ‘now’, which just use as little resources as possible.
next
Okay so maybe I should have said that in principle there is nothing to life, but that I actually think there is a lot. Especially by loving everything, and designing whatever you can with that in mind.
I think that’s it.
Thanks! If you don’t mind, I’ll move on to grading this now, because I have a few more assignments to grade.
Sure! Please do remember to take a break sometime, though. And drink some water. In the meantime, I’ll try to figure out why it felt really pretentious to write this, because I didn’t like that.
Haha, cool cool cool, I will. See you!
See you!