In all of us there is something that we are bringing to the world which needs to evolve and needs to go through a process of transformation
Hector Aristizábal
Hector grew up in Colombia during a time of intense civil war. He lived in a poor community in Medellin, a city which would soon become infamous as the most dangerous city on earth. He went to the same school as Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug trafficker, and many of his childhood friends were pulled into working for cartels and lost their lives. Hector survived torture at the hands of the Colombian military and would go on to commit his life to healing himself and others through creative therapy. It was only later that Hector came to realize that he owed his life to one teacher, who by nurturing the seed of creativity within him at an early age, revealed the gifts that would define his life.
All of us are creative, all of us have a gift.. every single being.
HECTOR ARISTIZÁBAL
In this video (created for Teach For All) Hector shares how the innate gifts within all of us are being in-prisoned by a system that teaches us to consume rather than create. To compete through consumption of prescribed knowledge, ideologies, aspirations, products, understandings of self and others, and ultimately the consumption of the world and all it’s finite resources. And yet this hunger to consume can never be satisfied, the competition never fully won.
When you do not know that you have a gift to give you become a consumer.. and you can never consume enough of what you don’t really need
HECTOR ARISTIZÁBAL
Hector believes that we need to move away from the industrialized growth model of education which is based on competition, standardization and consumption. Instead we need to move towards a model of education that allows the unique and innate creative potential within each of us to evolve and blossom.
Nature only produces originals.. the same with us. Nourish that within people, nourish that unique capacity to bring something new to the world, a medicine that the world needs
HECTOR ARISTIZÁBAL
However, systems and culture are built by people, imposed on people and perpetuated by people. So in order for the system to change, people need to change. We need to shift our own mindsets from consumption to creation. Only then can we liberate our imagination from the prison of our own conditioning and envision new systems that allow us all ‘to participate in the ongoing creation of the world’.
We are all the system, the system can only change if we change
HECTOR ARISTIZÁBAL
To learn more about Hector’s story and healing work check out this previous post.
liberate.ed 