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Barcelona Loves Entropy

Barcelona is already prepared to embrace the capacity of its citizens to transform the "disorder" into energy

We're been told again and again the inspiring story about someone who start a valuable project against all odds, a kind of project that change the way we live, forever. All that thanks to an unprecedented complex cocktail of stamina + focus + passion, We're been encouraged to do the same.

Actually is not that easy for any individual to overcome the big gap between chaos, ideas and implementation, even more difficult on a social and economic disadvantaged cycle. Fortunately this sum of ingredients were and still are common in the production of new concepts, alternative solutions or even entrepreneurship. Nowadays Barcelona is living on a fragile state of political, economic and social equilibrium which is only permitted by its own citizens, but that's not simply strange or merely a result of lucky circumstances for the political leaders, in fact that's just evidence of the cohesive feature of any strong society.

"...If the government is not going to help us, We're going to help ourselves..." architect Hiroshi Naito after 2011's Earthquake-Tsunami disaster.

Resilience is the topic used by the media to explain the capacity to overcome harsh or unfortunate events. The correlation between individuals and the group appears to be the clue to resilience, so it's not merely a matter of private versus public. In a worst case scenario common forces found each other and make the necessary efforts to transform their grit into ideas and those ideas into action.

During the last century it seems that social unrest against status-quo has been placated or redirected by the discourse of unity over differences for the sake of survival, nevertheless markets has proved a slightly different and temporary more efficient solution for social difficulties. An example could be that some of the most relevant business ventures of 21st century are not about unity but about sharing. The concept of union for the mere value of idiosyncratic strength doesn't get sustainable results in a long term, that's probably because there's evidence that mankind's history is shaped not only by gregarious behavior but also a hierarchical predisposition and that's precisely what keep our society fighting against social injustice after all these years, Barcelona is no exception, but here comes the opportunity.

"...recent research in cosmology has suggested that universes that produce more disorder, or 'entropy' over their lifetimes should tend to have more favorable conditions for the existence of intelligent beings such as ourselves..." Alex Wissner-Gross

Like other remarkable urban nucleus, from an early age Barcelona welcomed an important percentage of non-original residents coming from different cultures, different hierarchy structures or different community aspirations. Those citizens were interconnected, nourishing a peculiar fabric of experience and knowledge that I'm freely include in the definition of entropy. Today citizens who experienced living aboard are more connected than ever bringing with them the complex view that works as a change agent or disruption detonator. Right now Barcelona has many problems inherited or provided by the negligence or abuse by some of their own citizens (some of them locals). Despite this uncertain and precarious environment, the characteristic entropy deep within the Mediterranean city is still its own source of continuous innovation.

Even so, it really doesn't make any difference investing collective energy into more advantages for the same oligarchies. The authentic value will not come from those who are plenty of resources but from those who are lacking of it, because those are the ones who create.

Only if Barcelona citizens are able to avoid, adapt or surpass the constraints of their own freedom of action (thanks to the active ingenuity coming from this entropy around them) the prosperity of the city is guaranteed. The opportunity is not merely on the crisis but on the transformation coming from it. Fortunately Barcelona as a brand already did it before, as a living entity the city is always one step into tradition and another into transformation, Barcelona loves transformation as much as loves entropy.