I can’t seem to figure out how life has been able to take me to places I never expected to go, made me feel things I never though I’d feel, and me do things I never thought I’d do.
Curious to know what that life looked like so far and want to skip the whole intro? Click here.
This blog is an attempt to discover the how and why, and to reason my way out of this seemingly serendipitous life.
One way to solve this puzzle is to trust the universe and to believe in one continuous eternal flow, the dao, string theory, or some kind of god. Now, I don’t say that I do not trust the universe, but I still like to use my own reason to try to make sense of my life before I surrender.
Reason is the capacity of consciously making sense of things, applying logic, and adapting or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.
Wikipedia
So here goes.
#1 – I’m the second one
One reason probably has to do with the fact that I’m the second child (I have an older brother). My sister in law recently warned me I was doomed to be the second one. Let’s see how far we get.
My parents were likely to be a bit more relaxed when they got me (as is usually the case with the second baby), and as such I was allowed a bit more freedom too while still being extremely young. The impact of that little bit of extra freedom can’t be overstated easily. This also mean I felt more safe when taking bigger risks. So I climbed high up trees, raced as fast as I could on my bicycle (I still do that today), made small fires (I stopped doing that when I turned 30), stole candy in the candy shop (uhm…), while never felt really like I was in danger. Surely I knew my limits. Especially when the police showed up on a Sunday evening around 8PM at my parents’ home. I was watching the show Friends upstairs in my bedroom I vividly recall. It was one of the most embarrassing moments in my life. I think I was 13 and my friends and I had stolen a few small souvenirs like key chains and lighters from local tourist shop and had to explain it all. I also had to work a full day in the forest a few weeks later as a community service: a seemingly useless task of moving around large pieces of wood from one spot to the other. I remember it as if it was yesterday. Especially the uselessness of the job. Anyways, life was more or less an experiment for me and I was learning by doing I guess. I can see how a continuous curiosity was born in my early years. A curiosity that has calmed down but hasn’t stopped propelling my life forward up until today.
The second reason may be related to where I’m from.
However free and experimental my childhood was, it wasn’t until I was 16 years old before I travelled beyond a 500km radius from my hometown. So although I knew from much earlier age that poverty existed, it wasn’t until I went on a school trip to Rome in the year 2000 until I saw what I identified as poverty or the first time. With poverty here I mean the relatively large amount of beggars on the streets. Especially the ones with a missing leg, arm, or both. This unmistakably made a huge impression on me. They were often holding babies in their arms and in my memory they were all especially looking at me (perhaps because I was so focused on them). It was my first face to face realization of how wealthy I had grown up.
Over the years, traveling the world has shocked me repeatedly and only awakened more curiosity. It wasn’t only poverty that struck me but also the incredible wealth of some places that blew my mind. In fact it was the difference between the two that intrigued me most. Especially when I found both extremely rich and extremely poor people t be living side by side, my confusing reached its pinnacle.
The third reason might be my teachers in school.
I have an intrinsic interest in finance and economics which got me into writing a thesis on the financial crisis in 2008-2010. This event showed me how unsustainable, fragile, and bizarre our idea of economic growth actually is. At that point, a dead end was all I could see basically.
Fast forward 10 years and I’m working on my fourth official attempt to contributing to solving some of the global issues we face. Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean I only focus on things that go wrong in the world. On the contrary, someone once said when you want to do good, you need to be part of the solution, not of the problem. Now, in this piece of text / blog / writing / brainfart I’d like to zoom in (just a little) into those four attempts.
Career path
#1 – Working on European Financial Integration
Fresh out of college in 2009 my first official role as one of humanity’s guardian angels was at the Central Government Bank in the Netherlands. It was just after the start of the financial crisis that brought down the bank I once desired to work for (Lehman Brothers). The world was in dire need for more problem solvers, not more problem makers. Seeing a job opening titled “collateral risk analyst” was enough for me to get excited as I just finished my thesis on collateral policies. I got in at an exciting time when things were changing fast in a building in down town Amsterdam that housed over 1700 financial experts.
In this luxury office tower I walked around with the responsibility of making sure policymakers were well informed about the growing risks in the European financial collateral pool. During this time European banks were depositing massive quantities of collateral in return for equally massive outright loans that were needed to keep them from going bankrupt. This process is called Quantitative Easing (QE) and is the main tool of Central Banks around the world to keep the economy going during times of stress.
To conclude: Did we learn from the 2008-2010 crisis? Yes, and no. In a way we understood that the financial economy was too interrelated and therefore we worked hard to decrease the level of contagion in our system. However, the risk of a global debt bubble bursting is not gone. Today, public and private debt levels around the world are higher than ever, and considering the evidence that history provides us with, this must lead to another crisis soon. I personally believe that this is something everyone in the world should be aware of, and if you wonder what you can do about it the answer is fairly easy in theory: don’t buy a life you can’t afford and be satisfied with less stuff. Help others by understanding compassion better and be less greedy.
#2 – Bridging the cultural gap between the West and East
Ultimately I was not destined to sit behind a desk in an office tower all my life. I clearly remember the moment when I was overlooking Amsterdam from the top of that tower and told myself: I want to venture into the unknown and discover how to change things from the roots. I was convinced I was better at creating a bottom up strategy by becoming a full time entrepreneur. Having We tried to bridge the gap between the West and East by co-founding a venture called About Asia.
About Asia brought me and my partners Michiel and Roel across the massive Russian land mass to the Far East nation of China. Never having set foot there before, I was surprised to discover how distinct it was in terms of people, culture, food, and as a society as a whole. We spent the next 7 years traveling and working on and off between China and Europe on projects that we so wonderful yet hard to fully succeed in.
#3 – Bringing real dance floors to China
One of the most impressive, memorable and exciting times in my life was a project called TAG. To Another Galaxy was not just a nightclub with loud techno music. It was much more a sub culture that we established together with a small group of like minded friends in Chengdu. Link to interview with Chengdu Living
#4 – Realizing technology is taking over the world
After 4 years of diving deep into the underground music scene of Chengdu, I was ready to take on a new fresh challenge that would bring me back closer to where I wanted to go. Chiangmai was the start of a new era in my life. Read about my current endeavours at Nomad Cartel here.
