Who are you ?

I am always amazed by the way environment and moment are important in the way people perceive you.

You don t see what I mean ? Let me explain...

A long time ago, I was working as a leader of a rather large team (I was in my thirties and I managed 29 persons in my department, as the head of publishing), and I had a hard time with the image my team was sending back to me : authoritative, obsessed with result and money, "a wolf among the sheeps".

It was an image I could not relate to, and a friend gave me the key.

She told me about the amazing experience she had done for a French university working in human relationships : from her regular job (she was working like me in publishing) she had been, for the research, suddenly transferred to a totally different environment (I don t really remember which exactly, but it was something like a industrial restaurant as we have in France for people who are working, where they eat lunch paid by their firm). 

The university searchers had a complete description of her personality filled by her co workers in her regular job (publishing in a non profit) , and after her two weeks as the head of the team in the restaurant , by her staff there (industrial food processing)

And the researchers had then compared results on her "personality",

taking into account the environment, and the needs of the two different jobs.

The results were amazing.

When in her regular job she was considered "fast and tough", "not caring for people and obsessed with results"

in her two weeks experience she was qualified as "pretty slow, bad at following figures and money, and very human". 

Not that she had changed between the two jobs,

but just because the rules of the two worlds were so different that the same person was seen totally differently - even though she was the same basically.

It helped me at that time understand why in my previous job, at a French publishing company called Nathan,specialized in children's and scholar books,

I was called "Mere Theresa" - because I always worked as much as I could to keep my products accessible to all children, with low prices, when my colleagues were more obsessed with the bottom line profit.

And from there , how I had gotten to the situation, in the non profit firm I had joined, to be called  "hitler en jupon ("a French Hitler in skirt " - yep, tough to hear I can tell you )

When I had not changed.

It was just the environment, where rules were different.

I was thinking of that this afternoon while queuing in Amarillo with my Yeti and my trailer, 

in the middle of all the huge trucks waiting for their daily lunch in diesel.

Five minutes before, on the road, I had felt like big and powerful, because all the cars that were besides me looked like small frogs from my upper point of view. 

We were the king of the highway, my truck, my trailer and me.

And suddenly, in the midst of all those huge trucks, in the oversized gas station were we were all waiting, I felt small, and like a mouse lost among elephants.

Though I had not changed size in the five last minutes, I was different. Just because of my environment. 

And helpless and weak where five minutes before I was triumphant.

Environment and moment are keys on how we perceive people, 

and we forget how they really are if we get stuck in a single perspective, our own rules and world.

Take me...

As an artist I am over sensible, and I feel emotions - even from far - of people to which I am connected. I use that. It makes me draw better art. 

I can connect through a picture and capture emotion and soul through my sensitivity.

But some people may resent that as theft.

Because they don t get the artistic and human perspective.

As an internet specialist I am since I started to work in that field in ... 1995 (at that time, Internet was so young, my first provider was the English Compuserve, for there was no internet provider in France, and my first mail address was still number only , no letters allowed !)

I am pretty good at gathering information, 

and I have spent much time in my life gathering these information either to spread information (for example I worked hard on the only French website fighting against meth, www.alerte-selsdebain.com), or to warn friends on how easily information could be found on them and help them protect themself from the huge market of personal information that's internet today.

but some people feel scrutinized 

And some don t get the point of what I do to help them.

It s just a question of perspective. 

Of rules of game that can be different , depending on where you work, in which country you are

Or simply at what moment of your life you are.

I am just what I am, 

And I do what I can to be good at what I do,

And for the good of the others too.

But I am a "product" of my and your environment,

Like you.