My Thoughts on the War in Ukraine and How To Help

Digital Nomads for Dummies:

Kristin:    00:00:00    My first book, Digital Nomads for Dummies is available for pre-order now wherever books are sold. You can find it by searching on your favorite retailers like Amazon or Barnes and Noble by using the link in the show notes or by going to travelingwithKristin.com/for-dummies. That's F O R dash D U M M I E S. 

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.  

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:00:47    Hi everyone. Welcome to episode 147 of Badass Digital Nomads. I had a different podcast planned for you today, but in light of what has happened in the past week, I felt that it was only appropriate to talk about one topic, and that topic is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this podcast, I will share with you some of my thoughts on the topic, as well as providing some resources for you to follow the developments there. And at the end, I'll also share where I've been getting my news from, and it's been three completely non-traditional sources, and of course, I'll also share quite a few ways for you to help. Now, events on the ground in Ukraine are unfolding so fast and they're being covered from so many angles that it doesn't make sense for me to rattle them all off to you here. I'm sure you've been bombarded by information about this topic, but for the record, because people can be listening to this at any different time in the future.  

Kristin:    00:02:04    On last Thursday, February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine. And this was a particularly surreal day for me because I happened to be in airports on my way from Miami to North Carolina. So I woke up really early and was traveling all day in and out of cell phones service and only able to get the news intermittently. And then I proceeded to spend the entire weekend in the mountains of North Carolina with practically no cell phone signal. And so it was just a really weird feeling to know that all of this was going on while I was in the peace and quiet in the middle of nature. But you know, I'm not a foreign policy expert, nor have I even been to Ukraine. But I am a human being. I am a world traveler. I consider myself a global citizen, and it's just completely heartbreaking to bear witness to what is happening there.  

Kristin:    00:03:16    And of course, I am vehemently opposed to any form of violence in Ukraine, anywhere in the world for that matter, but for Ukraine's independence to be in question, the entire notion of an invasion of Ukraine of regime change, I just wholly denounce Russia's actions, which might be more attributed to one person in particular, Vladimir Putin, rather than to the whole country of Russia. I have friends in Russia and I know that there's many people opposed to this war who are Russian citizens, but although that I am devastated for all of the innocent people who are being displaced or affected by this crisis, I have also been moved and inspired by the strength, the resolve, and the comradery of the Ukrainian people and the international community at large. And all of the teamwork and stories, uh, which have come to light so far among this collaborative global effort to stop the invasion.  

Kristin:    00:04:40    And although war at a global scale might be unheard of in our lifetimes, war itself is nothing new. And if you love traveling and if you've traveled a lot, you've probably learned a lot about international conflicts through your travels, potentially more than you ever learned in school. I've always loved visiting history museums because I found it so informative and educating and helpful to get this distance from past conflicts and to absorb the historical interpretations of what happened in different countries in different empires. And I really always appreciated this perspective and sense that can be made of things that in the moment must be so ob, obscure, and disorienting and kind of the way that your head is probably spinning from everything that's going on in this moment. In my travels, I've always imagined what it would've been like to live in certain places during certain conflicts or during natural disasters.  

Kristin:    00:06:03    And this has given me such a profound sense of gratitude for the time that you and I live in today, despite wars that are going on in different countries, the first war on Earth was reportedly recorded around 2,500 bc but surely there have been conflicts as long as there have been humans. It reminds me of this time that I traveled from Croatia to Albania a few years back, and passing through Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro. I remember walking through the streets and Mostar in Bosnia and still seeing bullet holes and damage to buildings from the war there in the nineties. Uh, same with Serbia. And I remember particularly standing on top of the Rozafa castle in Schkoder, Albania and just marveling at this site that I had never even heard of before in a book. And this was a fortress and a- a hill, a very important historical site that has been fought over since antiquity, Athenians, the Romans, the Ottomans, the Catholic Church.  

Kristin:    00:07:33    And for centuries it was fought over. And then today in modern day, it's just basically this abandoned pile of rocks on top of a hill with a view. And it's just so surreal to walk back through, uh, castles, battlegrounds, concentration camps and to reflect on the suffering that took place there. And also the senselessness of violence and war. There's always a different war. Conflicts change. The reason behind conflicts change. Land, borders change, the perpetrators change, but this struggle for money, for power, for resources, it never seems to go away. So from a macro perspective, this can feel a little depressing. You might feel helpless in the face of a natural disaster or in a time of global crisis. But one thing that's always helped me get through tough times is this quote, and I don't know who said it, but it was something like, look for the helpers.  

Kristin:    00:08:51    In times of crisis, in times of sadness, in challenging times, there are always people helping no matter how dire the situation is. And when it comes to violence, terrorism, war, one of the most infuriating things about it to me is that one person usually seems to start it or a small handful of people. And then it only benefits a very small group of people, usually with some sort of vested financial interest. And even then it seems useless because these perceived benefits that they might get are only temporary. The fallout inevitably puts those leaders in a worse position than they were in before declaring war. That was certainly the case for people like Adolf Hitler. However, the destruction that one person or one decision can cause also has a flip side. And that is that each and every one of you are more powerful than you think.  

Kristin:    00:10:09    And it's not like you ever got this in a textbook in school that just said, Hey, guess what? You are as powerful as a president. You are as powerful as Albert Einstein. You are as powerful as a famous leader or emperor from history. But it's really true. It makes me think of the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is this theory where a small change in one state of a system can result in large differences in a later state. And this butterfly effect was originally proposed in 1972. It was a mathematician and meteorologist named Edward Lawrence, and he posed this question, does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? So it was originally the idea that a small, seemingly insignificant, tiny cause could have a large impact on weather systems on the other side of the world. And this idea that small changes can have big impacts on the weather has broadened to encompass everything.  

Kristin:    00:11:33    And I really think that it should. This idea that one person can change the world for good or bad has kind of become so trite and so simplified, and yet it is so true. But we are always taught to look outside of us for answers outside of us, for solutions to someone else, to some leader to fix the problems that are facing us today. But it's my belief that there are 8 billion people on this planet for a reason. And it's not so that a handful of people get to dictate what happens in the world. Those people who have destructive powers only have them when everyone else gives up their power. And so putting some, some attention to the ways in that you can make a difference in the world, this is a way that helps me cope personally with these larger problems when I start to reflect on positive changes that I can have in my life and the lives of others, and when I start to acknowledge all of the good things that other people are doing in the world.  

Kristin:    00:12:50    Just a couple examples from the past week, I just played a DJ set in Miami, which if you know, if you've been listening to the podcast, I only learned how to DJ during the pandemic. I've never thought of myself as a musician or even an artist for that matter. And I just played my 13th DJ set in two months, and two men came up to me afterwards. One was someone's dad, and he said it was his first time ever hearing electronic music, and he just came up and looked me in the eye and just thanked me for playing the music. He said that he was just sitting in the corner watching my set and that he felt like it took him on this trip through different countries around the world. And that really struck me because he wasn't a traveler, but I explained to him that I've traveled a lot and maybe some of my musical tastes and inspiration have come through those travels.  

Kristin:    00:14:00    And so he said, even though people were there dancing and he didn't dance, he felt like just sitting there and closing his eyes and listening from songs that were produced by musicians in those countries, right? And that really struck me because I realized that all of my years of traveling and getting inspiration from other people who I met or who I saw play music in other countries had culminated in this particular mix of songs that I played on this night that wasn't planned in advance. And this combination of the sounds had this impact on other people who I had never met before. And um, even another guy came up to me who was, he happened to be a Columbian chef who was just passing through town and somehow ended up at this bar, and he gave me a hug and he said that the music moved him emotionally.  

Kristin:    00:15:02    And he actually sent me a message on Instagram later that night and it said, keep doing what you're doing, Kristin, bringing the message exactly the way it should be with your music. And I love music because it does bring people together. It is a universal language, and it's something that everyone from every culture and every background throughout history has bonded over. And I've seen so many Ukrainian artists, actors, producers, athletes, DJs, musicians in the community, um, come together to raise money and raise support for the fight in Ukraine. And I'm gonna give you some of those links here in just a moment. But that night, after getting that message and after having these - these guys come up to me, I sent a message to my DJ coach and mentor thanking him because he didn't have to teach me or anyone else how to play music. He had his own career of 17 years.  

Kristin:    00:16:13    He could have focused on himself on, on his profile as an artist on his brand as a DJ, but instead, he decided to start an academy like basically this garage. And through this academy, he's taught probably 40 or 50 people already in just a few months how to DJ, myself included. And every time one of us goes out and plays, we have a positive impact on the people in that room. And one of the girls in my class who has never even left the United States since she came from Venezuela years ago, said that people were listening to her DJ mixes on SoundCloud in countries that she's never even heard of, like thousands of people. And so this might seem off-topic with the war of Ukraine, but this is just one example of the butterfly effect, how the decision of one person to do something to help one other person has this immeasurable exponential impact in the world.  

Kristin:    00:17:21    Like when I sit down at the computer to talk about something, whether it's my favorite places to travel or why I left Costa Rica, or how I feel about living in the US after living abroad, I don't know that millions of people are going to watch those videos or comment on them or share their experiences or share them with their friends. Like that's the butterfly effect. There's probably millions of ideas that you've had in your head, and if you just share one of those with one other person or do one thing to help one person in their life journey, it's always going to have a positive impact. It's always going to have an impact that is greater than yourself, that is more than the sum of its parts, and it's going to have an impact long into the future in ways that you can't even know about or conceive of.  

Kristin:    00:18:20    Just the other day, I watched a Ted Talk and I read in the comments that one girl said that she watched that Ted talk three years earlier and that Ted Talk inspired her to make music. And so she was coming back to comment on that video because that video inspired her to produce songs. And the girl in that TED Talk, which has been watched over a million times, she might not even read that comment. So it's just, these are just a few examples from the past few days. But the common thread between them is that if you're lucky enough to be alive during this time and listening to this podcast, you have self-sovereignty and you get to decide what actions you take in life and how many of them, and you can't always know the impact that you're gonna have. But if you act with pure intentions, it's always gonna be something much greater than yourself.  

Kristin:    00:19:29    And that's something that doesn't get talked about enough. Like it only kind of gets mentioned in passing. Like, yeah, one person can change the world. And of course, I don't have to tell you that Gandhi or Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa changed the world, like we already know about some of these people. But for every famous person who wins a Nobel Peace Prize, there are millions of other anonymous people who really make the world go round and don't get enough publicity or any publicity for it. I really, really love this quote by Marcus Aurelius, the stoic philosopher, former Roman Emperor. He says, he wrote to himself, if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach. Anything that is humanly possible can be done by you. That's a huge realization and responsibility. It's like Anthony Hopkins said in that movie, The Edge, what one man can do, another can do, you are much, much, much more powerful than you think.  

Kristin:    00:20:46    And it's not enough to simply watch what other people do or don't do and say that we agree or disagree or tweet about it or complain about it, or argue about it. It's part of our responsibility to participate in life and to vote with our actions more than our words. So my call to you today is that despite wars that are raging right now in Ukraine and Yemen and Afghanistan and Syria and beyond, you can make a difference in your life today or in someone else's life. Today, you might not be able to single-handedly stop Putin. You might not be flying to Ukraine to join the Army, but you can do something like you can reach out to a friend in need. You can donate to a cause that you care about. You can buy a web domain and finally start that blog <laugh>. You can start a foundation, you can start a movement, you can do whatever you want to do, but not everyone has that freedom.  

Kristin:    00:22:05    So don't let world leaders and anxiety and the news cycle dictate how you feel and what you do today. Let's all remember that we can assert our self-sovereignty and self-will, and we don't have to be paralyzed in the face of bad news. We can use that as fuel and motivation to get up and do something and take action in our life to counteract any of the negativity or things that we disagree with. There are pro-Ukrainian, anti-war protests, erupting all over the world right now. You know, join one of them. Do what calls you. If each of us does something today to make the world a better place, it's gonna have an exponential positive impact, even if we don't know what that impact is. So a few ways that you can help, well, I'm gonna post links to all of these in the show notes.  

Kristin:    00:23:08    The first one is just a list from globalcitizen.org, which is 20 Ways to Help Ukraine. It started as nine ways. It ended up as 20 ways. It'll probably keep growing, but you can find 20 ways to help Ukraine right there. There's also the United Nations Ukraine Humanitarian Fund that I'll link to. There's this Ukrainian charitable foundation called Everyone Can, and I really like that name because everyone can do something. And it's everybodycan.com.ua. There's also the Vostok SOS organization. I think I'm pronouncing that right. It's um, supporting democratic transformation and human rights in Ukraine. There's the Red Cross, there's Save the Children, which is ukraine.savethechildren.net. I feel like children, civilians, elderly, are always disproportionately affected in times of crisis. And then very importantly, supporting independent news sources in Ukraine. Like any independent newspapers, freedom of the press, I always have so much respect for people that take personal risk to be able to speak out and share the real story and real information.  

Kristin:    00:24:40    I've been following the Kyiv Independent and they have a great article that I'll link to in the show notes on how you can support the Ukrainian military. And as I mentioned, you can also join Ukraine's new International Legion Army. On February 28th, the president of Ukraine lifted visa restrictions for foreigners, wishing to join the fight against Russia. And thousands of people have already applied. It's very easy to join. All you need to do is contact the embassy of Ukraine and your country. You can either go in person, you can call them, or you can send an email and I will post a link with more information in the show notes. And then as far as news sources, if you wanna get unbiased information about what's going on, as usual, I've found the US mainstream media to be quite shallow and repetitive, like very surface-level commentary that's not really productive or helpful, that just sows fear and anxiety.

Kristin:    00:25:48    So I have been following Naval's war thread on Twitter that I'll link to. And then also the Kyiv Independent Telegram Chat, which has over 35,000 subscribers. That has been the most informative and straightforward news source that I found. You can just open Telegram. If you don't have Telegram, it's basically a communications app, just like WhatsApp. And you can join groups, you can actually subscribe to groups. And so if I wanna know what's going on, instead of having to watch videos or like filter through the BS, I can just open that Telegram chat and see like what's going on. In the past few minutes, I've also been following my friend Johnny FD, who has a YouTube channel. He owns some property in Ukraine. He's been there for quite some time now, and he and his friend, who also has a YouTube channel, bald and Bankrupt, they just finally left Kyiv.  

Kristin:    00:26:50    I'm so relieved that they left and they headed west. So as a long-time friend of Johnny, I met him back in 2018. I was of course very concerned for his safety and wellbeing, but also for all of the other innocent people whose lives are being affected, um, during this time. So I'll link to those sources for you as well in the show notes. And then I would also like to take this opportunity to recommend a book that I've talked about in the past called The Artist's Way to You. And you might think that's random, but one of the things that struck me the most when I visited that World War II Museum in SW Air Norway, uh, in the Arctic of Norway, was this discovery of Hitler's secret Disney paintings. If you haven't seen that video, I'll link to it in the show notes.  

Kristin:    00:27:50    But basically, I stumbled upon this Nazi paraphernalia museum when I was traveling through the islands of Lofoten Norway a few years ago, back in 2019. And I went to this museum right before it closed. It was right next door to my hotel. And I ended up getting a private tour from the owner of the museum. And he discovered, and the back of these picture frames secret drawings and sketches and paintings from Hitler. And as a recovering artist myself, I recognized that Hitler was probably a suppressed artist. He was this man who was so angry and, and so hateful and so destructive, but yet he had this other side to him, and he could actually draw and paint landscapes and characters and beautiful things. And so, you know, maybe Putin's a closet artist as well, who knows. But in the artist's way, the author Julia Cameron writes about how when repressed artists create, they become happy, productive, functioning people.  

Kristin:    00:29:03    And having done the artist's way twice, I'm actually on my third round of reading the book and doing the exercises. Now it's changed my life for the better, and I've gifted it to some of my friends and family members. So I wanna recommend it to you too, because if it's worked for hundreds of thousands of people to reconnect with their creativity and to find fulfillment in life and to be happier in life, then you know it could work for you. And then I'll also link to that video, so you can actually see Hitler's paintings, uh, in the show notes. But I was just shocked to see that, you know, when Hitler wasn't charting his world domination or killing people, that he was painting pictures and that he clearly was either embarrassed by this or felt like he needed to hide it. But coming back to the present moment, coming back to your life and your day, let today be the day that you do something for the good of yourself and others.  

Kristin:    00:30:07    Maybe it's the day that you decide to start your blog or quit your job, or just make a $5 donation to the Red Cross. But let this horrific situation impel you to do something positive, to change your life, to change the lives of others and the people around you for the better. We have this ability to communicate with each other. We have the internet, we have unprecedented access to information and tools, resources at our fingertips. We can collaborate with other people, we can change the world, but we can do things that our ancestors could only dream of. My relatives were refugees from World War I. They immigrated after World War I because my great-grandfather almost had his arm amputated. I mean, if you haven't been forced to take up arms in your hometown, like we're the lucky ones. So stop this podcast. Do something for yourself. Do something for someone you love. The antidote to fear is love. Get out there, seize the day, and see you again next week.

My first book, Digital Nomads for Dummies is available for pre-order now wherever books are sold. You can find it by searching on your favorite retailers like Amazon or Barnes and Noble by using the link in the show notes or by going to travelingwithKristin.com/for-dummies. That's F O R dash D U M M I E S.