About Me — Desiree Driesenaar
The story continues
Three years after my first Medium story in 2019, I have grown up as a writer. This is my first story. Three Seeds Make a Sustainable Future. Published in Age of Awareness.
And this is my most often-read story. Business Models: from Linear to Circular to Regenerative. Published in The Start-Up.
In the meantime, my audience has expanded wide and far across the globe. I love the conversations I have with my readers. And with the other Wild Writers whose work I love to read so much here.
So, this new about-me-story is for you. For all of you who support my work as a biomimicry writer and educator. And for all new tribe members. We are in a wave of change together. No one is leading the way. We’re just a swarm. A murmuration. Staying close to our neighbor.
Dancing freely through the clouds.
My Writing
Let me first introduce myself properly. I’m a Wild Writer who started out writing as a kid. I’m Dutch, and I live nomadically with my husband. We have no house. We live where we land. We are Born Global.
My (Dutch) fiction stories were published in Cosmopolitan (1991) and combination books when I sometimes won fiction competitions. English is my second language, and I love the sound of it. I play with words. And I still keep them simple for the mere fact that I’m not a native speaker.
My real love is for knowledge, though. For explaining to my students about the big changes we’re going through as humanity right now. We are aligning our actions with our planet so our descendants can live happily ever after.
The more I know, the more I realize how much I don’t know
No climate shaming for me. Yes, we made a mess of our world. Wars. Poisoned environment. Destruction in the name of money and power.
But we are a learning species. We have only been around for 300,000 years on this planet. A toddler species. And we are now at a point in the evolution where we shift. Where we figure out how to redesign our world in better ways. Adaptable ways.
We will combine masculinity with femininity in our future. And start to understand that our planet creates in cycles. Cycles of birth, exponential growth, death, and composting.
Transformation into something new. And the cycle starts again.
Biomimicry & Internet
Simply said, the cycle of industrialism and shipping goods around the world has just died. It’s on its last legs, just surviving and polluting because of some resisting technological and commercial lockins.
But believe me, the cycle of oppressive geopolitics and colonialism is on its last legs.
What’s the future?
- we bring heart and soul back into our world
- we restore ecosystems big scale to increase the carrying capacity of our planet
- we redesign human systems
The birth of the new electronic (not just electric!) age beyond industrialism started with the internet in 1989. We are now designing interconnected, distributed systems with minimum material. And with blockchain and Web3, the internet is becoming fully distributed and democratized.
Just like nature is.
These are all good things. Knowledge and information are spreading wide and far. And with this information, we can go deep. We can connect dots that have never been connected before. Connect cultures.
Give people who didn’t have a voice before a huge influence on the future. We, humans, are adapting to our planet now.
And adapted species are thriving species.
Biomimicry has become the #1 innovation method around the world. Which is good and logical. Biomimicry is so much more than just mimicking the form of nature. It starts with Ethos. And Reconnect. And only then do we start emulating functions. In systems. With processes. The form is just the cherry on the cake.
Technology will always follow WHAT we need to design in fully functioning and fair human systems.
Only when we adapt our human systems to the planet can we include sustainability in an affordable society. Cheap. Affordable for all humans. And all other species. We’ll break down walls between budgets to do it. We’ll calculate with cashflows. And we’ll make vibrant economies like beehives.
With reciprocity.
In my work, I’m a systemic designer redesigning economies, societies, and business models. I’m a certified biomimicry professional and an expert at the European Commission. And I am just me to all of my offline and online friends and colleagues.
Silly, dancing, mermaid me.
In my writing on Medium, I do a bit of all of this. I just hope to inspire and change mindsets.
From scarcity to abundance.
Mermaid with Cancer
I often feel like a mermaid because I love the sea so much. Not our boring, polluted, busy Dutch sea, but oceans full of dolphins, whales, and slow sea turtles.
Clashing, whirling, powerful oceans such as the South African ocean where I went alone and might go again with my husband Mike. Or a clear Mediterranean water depth where we can snorkel and be one with the fish and seaweeds.
I’m an Aquarius. I’m a Blue Resonant Night.
A water girl. An iceberg underwater. Daring to face my unconscious in the dark. The night. A river mermaid among the swirling vortexes that clean the river naturally.
In our travels since 2019, I wrote about Indonesia where we went for three months to work. I wrote about Ibiza, where I was part of a change-making community of courageous, powerful women The Heroines. And then in Greece, where we spent three months setting up the project Olive Bliss.
A business model based on Margin & Access for all local people and visitors to the healthy benefits of wild olives. High phenol content. Health in every drop of olive oil.
At the turning of last year, I got diagnosed with breast cancer. And my world stopped for a bit during chemo. I was ill. Seriously ill. I made my environment very small, mainly my family, while I was in and out of the hospital.
Loving knowledge, I studied. I really felt I was living my studies now in my real life. And it wasn’t easy. I reconnected deeply to my body and healed. I’m still working on it. The tumor has disappeared but I still have an operation and radiation ahead of me.
But Mike and I have a bit more faith in the future right now. And we are starting to make careful plans again. Mike is my partner in life and work. Co-founder of our international think-and do-tank Abundanism.
We publish a free weekly newsletter on LinkedIn full of systemic design examples and easy methods to design human systems in line with nature and our planet.
If you want to get this newsletter in your inbox, please follow me on LinkedIn and subscribe. Of course, you can also subscribe to all my stories on Medium. I promise to link all that I do in my stories here on Medium so you won’t miss a thing.
We are working on the book Abundanism right now to explain what we see as futurists and imaginators of a better future. Redesigned human systems. It can be done. It is already full-on happening. And we just want to show our audience what we see.
So, we can all take up our role and build a new tomorrow together.
The Next Three Years
Three years have gone by since my first story here. May 2019-May 2022. Three is the favorite Gaia number. And three was the number with which my first story started. A sacred number with the Kelts. And 3, 6, and 9 are the numbers of Vedic, sacred geometry.
Nature is mathematics and astrophysics.
And if we understand the scientists who relate everything to nature, we’ll get a completely different world. I talk to them very often. And I include their insights in my stories. I’m a polymath after all. Loving knowledge.
Dancing with what is. And with what will be.
In the next three years of my writing, I will really focus on providing you with valuable advice for your daily life and work. Simple and understandable. With lots of examples and easy exercises. Wisdom needs exploring and experimenting.
Because what’s right for me, isn’t necessarily right for you.
It’s your life. And you know what drives you to live your best life. How to hear the singing of YOUR heart. But I can give you my perspective. And it might help you get on with what you want to do in your life.
For me, a good future is very important. I have two bonus daughters and three grandsons. And many, many young students around me who want to live a good life. In a healthy biome. On a healthy planet.
What I tell them in daily life, I want you to hear as well. As my online friends.
So, I’ll write about health hacks. Environmental hacks. Business and economy hacks. Technology hacks. Leadership. And the future.
And of course, I’ll also add in some poetry.
Just because I love writing English poetry.
I hope to be with you for a long time still. And I welcome all comments and conversations. After all, the more I know, the more I realize how much I don’t know. And you might have some missing puzzle piece for me.
Let’s talk. I’ll listen.
Some old-school credibility for my writing can be found here. I’m a certified biomimicry professional and external expert to the European Commission.
Thank you, Mike, for adding your wise energy to my words on Abundanism. Systemic Design for a good future, and Wild Writing. © Désirée Driesenaar, 2022