Deconstructing DIY
by elmine on Apr 17, 2010
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In my presentation for SHiFT 2010 I deconstructed the term "Do It Yourself" and ask myself the question why I should DIY.
In my presentation for SHiFT 2010 I deconstructed the term "Do It Yourself" and ask myself the question why I should DIY.
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Then I started to think about what I could say about DIY, and then things started to blur a bit. Because these words may sound like a coherent sentence, but once I zoomed in on the words, I immediately got confused.
At the same time, these three words immediately impact me. This small sentence shouts at me: “The power is yours.” Hearing this sentence immediately urges me to act, right here, right now, and it sounds like something anyone should want.
But I think it’s good to step back for just a second and reflect on the meaning and implications of these three words.
What I really want to know is What is good about doing it myself?
There are a lot of questions in this question:
- Is DIY indeed a good thing?
- Is there any other way?
- What exactly should I do myself?
- Am I better than others that make me more qualified?
- But if I beleive I should do it myself, then one should expect others think the same and do it themselves too.
- I can’t do everything myself.
- Why should I do this myself and leave other things to others?
- How can I choose?
- How do I know what to do myself?
Let me tell you two stories
I’m educated as a communication philosopher. If you haven’t heard of that combination, don’t worry. It doesn’t exist. Not in the classical sense anyway. There is no Master’s program to become a communication philosopher. I created the program myself. At one point I was unsatisfied with all the marketing talk in classes and wanted to take a minor in philosophy. It was the starting point to skip most of the prescribed classes during my Master’s, find a teacher to guide me and take on the challenge to look at weblogs from a communicative, philosophical view-point.
I created my Master program myself.
I’m an independent worker. Some call it freelancing, others call it entrepreneur. I’m working on the things that I think are important and I work for clients to whom I can contribute. Working independently is something that happened, I never thought it would happen when I went to school, or university. When I got my degree in 2004 there weren’t that many jobs around. Imagine a 25 yr old looking for a position in communication explaining she is an a philosopher in weblogs in a world that didn’t know about social media, yet. Considering the outlook for a strong-minded 25 year old, on a half-time job in marketing, perfectly suitable for the less aspiring working mom. So if I wanted to continue in the field of social media, there was only one option:
Doing it myself.
But doing it myself professionaly doesn’t mean I do everything myself.
Imagine your on a wild adventurous trip. You’re in the desert, or in the jungle, there is no communication possible and the nearest village is miles and miles away. You cut yourself and the cut is rather deep so you need stitches. You’re on your own, but you came prepared. You carry a survival kit, especially for these kind of circumstances. You do not hesitate and get a needle, wire and desinfectant from your kit and start stitching your cut. Even though it hurts like hell, you go on, you need to survive.
These two examples show that the context you’re in, the circumstances, your knowledge, what you carry around, determines your action and your view upon the words DIY.
It’s interesting to know how comes I DIY in one area, such as my education and professional life, but can’t or just hate to do it in a different area.
Thinking hard enough about it, I can’t seem to escape the thought that it must be about passion.
Loving to do something so much, that you’re willing to put time in it, almost regardless of the consequences.
That passion is one of the main drivers for me to do things myself.
But passion alone is not enough to explain why I DIY. I do a lot of stuff on a daily basis that have hardly anything to do with following my passion. And I could have become a doctor and be just as passionate about that profession, as I am about interviewing people. DIY is not a goal in itself, it is a means to an end. And that got me thinking what DIY often leads to. And it started to dawn on me. Doing It Yourself is a way to EMPOWER yourself.
When I’m allowed to be following my passion for sharing and telling stories using video, I am more than willing to put in the hours, work on all the different aspects involved to create a piece of film, and thus I learn to do more things than just point and shoot video. Learning this stuff empowers me to to create more valuable materials and work for others.
So if you would ask me now, why I DIY, mys answer would be that the empowering force of these three little words, Do It Yourself is why I’m doing it myself.
Because I can never do all of it myself. I’m only human, there are 24hrs in a day, and I like to sleep a considerable part of that time. I can’t do more than my body allows me to do and neither can you. Therefore we need each other.
And if we start scaling the empowering force of DIY up, we can start thinking about the bigger picture here: a friendlier and cleaner planet.
So I want to take this opportunity to suggest what we could work on together, on stuff that matters to me and that, hopefully matters to you too.
I believe every person on this planet can be more helpful for stuff that matters when they are empowered themselves.
I believe that every person on this planet is more capable of doing it themselves than their governments seem to think.
- Empower people by educating them. School is a good start, but also in sports, in music, in art, in electronics, in engineering, in drawing, etcetera;
Trust in them to do good and empower them with space and tools to learn, in every thinkable way.
Dear listener, trust the person sitting next to you. Trust that he or she will have something to tell you and could empower you.
Enjoy your lunch. So I want to take this opportunity to suggest what we could work on together, on stuff that matters to me and that, hopefully matters to you too.