This is not in my strongest quality…. As in self marketing. I try not to be too narrow minded, but the current Internet-culture seems to be going to semi voyeuristic “look at me, what I’m doing and how freaking special I am ”. And I don’t like my beloved Internet taking this ego masturbetative path; it could be doing so much better things. The huge collective information network reflecting our society is developing from kitties and titties to selfies with my gluten free vegan brunch. But then again, the same huge collective information network does create wonderful concepts like blockchain, bitcoin, Steemit and many others to share and improve the knowledge. So it’s finally the time for me to get over my very self-important angst and get started with this amazing platform: Letting the whole world know how special I am.
So my name is Veera. For last 26 years I have been existing and pondering about this existence. I come from this amazing little country called Finland, which is culturally some kind of weird blend between Russia and Ikea. There is a lot of forest and little amount of people. They are hard working, shy but straightforward and little bit mad. That might have to do with the extreme weather conditions, half of the year cold darkness and other half of the year endless light. For me, Finland offered amazing conditions to grow up. In this clean, safe and rich environment I could do whatever I wanted. Seriously. And I did. I lived there for the first twenty years of my life not really carrying any responsibility for anything, experimenting with social standards by being freaky, trying it all different forms of art, having fun, traveling, getting wasted, not having so much fun anymore, dropping in and out multiple times from the best (and free) education system in the world and then finally by the age of 21 spontaneously moving to the other side of the world, Australia, to figure out how is it outside of the social democratic safe bubble.
Me doing the hell I wanted in the streets of Helsinki
And Australia blew my mind, in all the different ways. I went there to do three months internship with my media degree that I doing for the easy student paycheck from government. Suddenly I ended up on over two years journey of learning how to design, code, do animation and working in festivals. I felt so empowered learning new skills and how to provide for myself by freelancing online. I also got to drive a few thousand kilometers around the whole continent on extremely low budget, learn how to understand nature little bit better and generally grow up to be a better, independent human.
Adventuring deep into beautiful red gorges in Western Australia
Still the most important bit of the journey for me was the project I went to complete my studies with. Combined with interesting topic, Aboriginal History of Australia, with possibility to work with the most crazy and creative production team I ever met (Shaman Creative), I was a young girl in love with all of the possibilities in the world. I got to travel to the tribal lands, exchange information with a knowledge keeper (aboriginal “shaman”), develop an incredible story telling platform on mobile devices and expand my perspective. That was even more empowering, realizing what your own brain’s capacity with the right motivation, time and company.
Beautiful Tabulum (took me a while to understand how visiting this place changed me.)
Then it was the time to return back to the harsh reality. Due to some family problems, after two years of sunshine, glitter and bubbles I was back in Finland in the beginning of long and dark winter. By this far my return was the biggest cultural shock what I experienced in my life. Everything looked like before but it felt colder, darker and more socially awkward than ever before. I was regretting coming back, amazing opportunities happening on the other side combined with very dear person getting sick made me feel like I have done the biggest mistake of my life. In the end of the summer I suddenly decided to follow the birds, lift my thumb up and start hitch hiking south with vague plans of ending up in Morocco. I got all the way to Amsterdam when I received a nice job offer from China, flew to Hong Kong to get stuck in protests for democracy, finally managed to get to Chinese business town near Shanghai to realize it’s not my thing and left to explore Southern Eastern Asia. After travelling trough Thailand and Laos I ended up living the easy expat life in little sleepy Cambodian fisher town near to border of Vietnam.
Again family responsibilities flew me back to Finland, this time I was “smart” enough to have a return ticket booked back. But as life is full of surprises, I had a friend from Australia visiting me and I decided we have plenty of time for a little hitch hiking adventure. When my return flight to Bangkok left I was in Barcelona and decided it’s time for Europe again. At the time of writing this text I’m still here in the same city and loving it. I’ve been going trough many different phases during the past year and still learning to listen to my own brain instead of just buzzing around the world all the time. I tried hopping on to the “normal life”, then realized it is not quite for me. I almost ended up travelling again and went to stay in a squat I knew for few days... And now I call it my home.
And now I finally feel comfortable. Recycling food, communal life and alternative ideologies is not exactly uncommon for me from before. This is not about laziness or inability to survive in “normal society”. It’s about the fact that reducing the need for money gives me the time to do whatever I want again. I get to figure out what is the next step after web design. I hopefully one day will actually speak Spanish. Come up with million new ways to challenge my self. I can explore new opportunities. Like Steemit, which my very smart, nerdy and “confident” friend from Cambodia, 
