Next to being an entrepreneur, researcher and engineer, I write to help ambitious or aspiring peace activists notice and overcome the paradox of wanting to nurture loving kindness while blaming themselves or others for not having it yet. I wish to let anyone be more confident and effective in dissolving persistent or reoccurring conflicts or challenges in their own lives and those of others.
And with peace activists, I mean everyone who doesn’t accept waiting for others to change by themselves before being able to enjoy cooperating and relating with them. Because, how can we ever have any enjoyable relationship or fruitful cooperation without peace?
A parent who wants to contribute to an enjoyable cooperation with their child, or a husband or wife wanting to build an enjoyable cooperative relationship with their spouse. To me, these are all aspiring peace activists, since they all want to take action to have more peace in their lives, rather than waiting for someone else to change.
Background
Although I have been enjoying over a decade of research on computer vision and pattern recognition, I have always been drawn towards the practical side of knowledge. Furthermore, a sequence of discoveries and events have expanded my interests far beyond technology alone.
After being intrigued by Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication in 2008, my interest in improving human relationships, conflict resolution and sustainable peace has been sparked in a way that just seems to keep on growing. And three years later, on October 15, 2011 in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, my concerns, hopes and focus for a viable future of humankind took another passion-increasing impact. By participating in the very first steps of the Occupy London movement, as well as engaging in meetings and discussions with protesters over the following weeks, I had been compelled to find out why so many people are not able to find sufficiency and security in our modern economies, and what could be done to improve that.
The imaginary bubble of safety that had kept my mind at an acceptable level of peace before had burst. I had no choice but to find something else to trust on…
The result of all such haphazardness is a seemingly random brew of interests including person-centered psychology, conflict resolution, nonviolence, complementary currencies, permaculture, homegrown food and improving health with wholefood plant-based nutrition. To my own surprise, these diverse topics share some fundamental similarities in the principles of their effectiveness. This has allowed me to distil some basic principles, or ‘laws of nature’ if you will, and which can be leveraged to make thankful use of any situation that life might throw our way.
Purpose
Through my writings, I hope to empower readers on various personal, global, political and environmental topics, by integrating ideas from different sources in ways that make scientific knowledge and timeless wisdom more accessible for practical application.
Jeroen