Five For Your Hive
Mathieu Beth is the co-founder and educator at Gosh! Kids. Every other week, he writes and sends out an email that centers around 5 insights, stories or ideas that could help you at life. You can subscribe to it here:
In December 2021, I did something crazy. I uprooted my entire family from our comforts in Singapore and relocated to Fukuoka City, Japan. I abandoned everything: I quit my job, shelved our business, left behind my loved ones, and carried my six-month old into a country that was rampant with coronavirus. For 400 plus days, I committed my life as a full-time missionary under an international church organisation.
It was there and then I opened up my journal and started writing. I continued writing, and then did more writing. I haven't stopped since.
But before all that, I co-founded Gosh! Kids, a creative arts education programme that empowers kids aged two to sixteen years old in photography, art and overseas creative-culture camps. The vision is to transform kids from passive consumers into active creators, and through the creative arts and foreign creative-cultures we harness in them the most powerful force in the universe: human creativity.
I am also an Associate Faculty (another word for teacher) at a local university where I journey along students of the biz/design/comms school.
When I'm not working with kids or young adults I'm on the field getting smashed (literally) by the biggest and heaviest men. For the last 15 years, I had represented local premiership clubs and the Singapore national team. Off training sessions, I would be coaching kids and teens at a local club.
Living overseas opened my eyes to a completely new world. To rationalise my feelings as an outsider, I turned to writing. Away from familiarity, away from noise, I could process my thoughts clearly through words. It was also at my lowest point that the very act of writing fed me a life that was somehow taken away from me.
So, in the last four years of my career I've been searching out a way to live: through spirituality, through theology, through philosophy, history, life experience and reading tons of books, hoping to find that hidden nugget(s) that could make and break a good life. The practice of writing is the final stage of this process: to pen it down where you and I can read it, because words, as William Hazzllit said, are the only things that last forever.
Conventional wisdom says to keep your passion unmonetised, some hobbies sacred, because as soon as you get a paycheck for doing something you love, you’ll love it a little less. I contemplated about this and what it would mean to venture into the deep sea of writing.
Then I thought: What makes one write? What makes one teach? What makes one do anything?
I realised I answered myself. I do it because I can, I do it because I love it, I do it because…that’s who I am.
Mathieu Beth is the co-founder and educator at Gosh! Kids. Every other week, he writes and sends out an email that centers around 5 insights, stories or ideas that could help you at life. If you want to connect with him, business or pleasure, find him at @mathieubeth, or on Linkedin, or email him at hello@mathieubeth.com.