Need time to ferment: my transiency at FoAM

Posted Dec. 19, 2014 by Michka Mélo

I have been very lucky. One of the lucky few able to spend a year to experiment with - well, with just about anything. FoAM offered me a room, breakfast, lunch and dinner, a little money, and fifteen years of knowledge on change management. For the rest, I was free, as long as I documented what I did.

After some time getting used to very light external constraints on my daily life, I timidly started to try out new activities. I learned stuff. I failed. I changed my mind. I discovered that internal constraints were way more tough to get rid off than external ones.

While trying out stuff, I got rid of the Self-Sufficient Lifestyle hypothesis I had drafted before coming. I decided to leave room for things to happen. I worked on my fear of emptiness. I fought against procrastination and pernicious addictions. I unraveled some nodes strongly tightened deep inside, and possibilities opened up.

The second half of the year flew by way too fast. I am still living in the bubble of the overwhelming encounters and experiences I lived. These experiences paved the way for possible futures. I finished the year trying to set up conditions to retain space for experimentation and deep personal work in my post-transiency life. Because more than meticulously designing a bright future, what now seems most important to me is to understand better who I am, and work to find answers to the deepest questions that torment me.

I am not sure I can remember the last time life has felt so impassioned.

Read more about my transiency on the Libarynth:

- Looking back at my year of being a Macro Transient

- My transiency journal, with documentation of the processes, reflections and findings