About me

Image credit: originally a video by Frédéric Cerez on Yayimages

Long Version – TL;DR

Feel free to skip 🙂

I’m Patricia Brun Torre (Brun = maiden name). I’m born in 1970 in Geneva Switzerland and still live near Geneva, in Versoix. My primary language is French, I also speak much better English than a few years ago. Currently learning Italian, Spanish and Hindi.

Work

During my twenties I traveled a bit, and between long travels to Asia (mostly India and Nepal). I worked as a temporary secretary for around twenty companies, on behalf of Adecco agency. I saw a lot of different types of companies, and discovered who I wouldn’t want to work for in the long term (architects, lawyers, etc.) and that I preferred working in industry’s bigger companies.

From 2000 to 2006, I had a permanent job at the “Services Industriels de Genève” (SIG, Geneva’s public utilities) as an IT support agent. Although it was a very good job, I preferred to work for myself, as I found difficult to cope with the hierarchy and enless meetings. I left that job to run my own Virtuaza services, creating websites and offering maintenance plans for small businesses, clubs, associations and self-employed, interrupted by a long period of inactivity for maternity leaves and when my children were very young (thank you Joël for providing for the family!). My then Virtuaza services is very little money for a lot of hours of work, so now I’m concentrating on creating websites that matter: an entrepreneurial community: Interaction.Site, new offer on Virtuaza for Interaction.Site members, a local community, and other projects, see the full list here.

Other passions and interests

Science at large, Evolution, Neurosciences, Secularism/Humanism, History of Migrations and Invasions (studied through linguistic, genetic, and religious massive conversions), Music (prog rock, a bit of metal, a bit of folk, chill out and world music, but no “mainstream pop”) and alternative arts, ethics, linguistic, travels, social rights, minority rights, altruism, peace and love, diversity : bio-, social-, cultural-, saving the world’s ancient languages and traditions, and of course environmental issues.

I’m also interested in genealogy (partly to continue the work of my aunts). I enjoy getting in touch with living distant cousins (in fact, everyone on earth) and am less interested in the names and birth/death dates of ancestors…. I like the fact that at one time long ago we all came out of Africa, and I have to admit I enjoy it when white racist people get their Ancestry DNA results, much to their surprise 🙂

As you can see, I’m a multi-passionate and probably multi-potential person, I may or may not talk on this site about any of the subjects mentioned (I’ll edit and add links whenever that happens), or even other subjects as my interest can rise very quickly on any new thing I come across.

Family

I have three children born in 2007, 2009 and 2010. More than just love, they are a source of inspiration and make me want to do more and try bigger things for them. I’d like to travel more with them so that they can discover and interact with lots of people from different cultures and places. I’d also like to teach them that we all have an impact on the world. This personal website could contain articles about my family, about bringing up children, about the difficulties of family life, but also about the joys of everyday life.

Why talk about Core Values and Beliefs?

This page is important for my introduction, and much of what is written below is part of who I am.

And for some people, particularly those who don’t know me in person, if they’re ultra-religious for example, and they start to come into contact with me, professionally or personally, and suddenly ‘discover’ my position, the fact could upset them, which is why I prefer to be clear from the outset. If you come into contact with me, it’s for me and the values I stand for, not for religion Beliefs below). We can all work together and be friends as long as you don’t try to convince me. I don’t want to be the target of proselytism. For other aspects of my ethics, I don’t want to come into contact with racist and closed-minded people, read below, thank you.

Values

– respecting others: not doing all the things we wouldn’t want others to do to us (attacking, harassing, stealing, raping, despising, trying to impose an idea, etc.), and instead doing to others what we would want others to do to us (caring, listening, sharing, teaching, showing how to do things, guiding, helping, giving). And no, some people told me those are christian values, I do not agree, they are humanism values!

– learning from others: I love to learn something new every day, I like to hang out with people who know something I don’t, and share it with me.

– share: especially knowledge, science facts, discoveries, languages, food, travels, I love to share an information and knowledge with people who don’t know about it, I feel it’s like giving a present.

For me, sharing knowledge is a kind of elevation, a bit like the universal knowledge they aspired to during the Renaissance.

– Social: It is important to note the wide range of meanings of this word. For example, the word socialist is extreme left-wing in the United States, and almost considered centre-wing in France.
And for me, when I say social, it’s not in the sense of the far left dictatorship examples we have, of course, it’s in a global sense = social … a state should support its citizens and provide free education, healthcare and try to keep the state in good financial health. Of course, it sounds a bit cliché and utopian put like that, but you know what I mean, don’t you?

– LGBTQIA+ rights
I’m proud to have been called “an ally” by a lesbian friend. Read more about being an ally here.

The person you love or the gender you feel you belong to must not interfere with fundamental rights and the right to be treated like anyone else. Trivial example: we don’t judge someone because their taste in food is different from ours, do we? So we shouldn’t judge someone for having a different sexual orientation or for the gender to which they feel they belong. Especially as it’s not a choice!

– Minorities rights/anti-racism

Many people are unfortunately forced to emigrate, and it’s not for the pleasure of saying “yes, let’s go to Europe and earn some money”, it’s often because their family is starving, because there is hope of a decent life, or to escape war! or even because it has been decades since their ancestors came to settle. But often they are not welcomed enough, they are too often the victims of racism. I’m talking here about what I see here in Europe with migrants, in particular with people from Africa or the Middle East who often are mistreated.

We don’t judge someone who has green eyes when we have blue eyes, do we? If eye colour is simple, so should skin colour be.

I can understand that there may be cultural or religious clashes, but this is not racism, it’s a problem of mutual understanding and lack of respectful communication.

The worse form of racism in my opinion is where whites are not the original inhabitants but migrated en masse and became the majority (like on American and Oceanian continents for example) and they dare to be racist towards others: the native people or the descendants of those they brought as slaves! This is really something I can’t understand.

And anyway, come from migrant backgrounds, and out of Africa, in the more or less distant past… and besides, I’ve never understood the concept of nations and borders, a human-constructed system.

– we are all brothers and sisters… peace please
one of my projects’ site is mostly about make a better world, work in direction of peace, through world federalism and open-sourced governments.
and peace means to respect others, and respect others means not to try to convince they are wrong in their beliefs, but rather learn from each other.

– food, environment

I still eat meat, because unfortunately I like the taste, but knowing how animals are treated, and how this affects our environment, + the large-scale food industry, including soil pollution etc… I may eventually become a vegetarian, I’ve already reduced my meat consumption a lot (for example not more than once a week) … the idea is growing on me!
I’ll update with links when I’ll write about it.

Environmental issues: we are in a state of emergency, it’s not just one solution that we need to consider, but all the solutions, and I’m still hoping that science will help us. CO2 levels are accelerating in a vicious circle. The main goals would be to have more trees (so fighting deforestation is a must), to transform industrial crops into organics ones (they reabsorbs the CO2), and many other possibilities. I’m not sure that humanity will succeed, especially when those “in charge” put money and business before that fight.

Beliefs

You can read my blog post about XMas here. I published it on 24 December 2023.

I’m a “peace & love atheist and humanist”, it’s defined as :

– atheist [wiktionary : “from Ancient Greek ἄθεος (atheos, “godless, without god”), from ἀ- (a-, “without”) + θεός (theos, “god”)..]
I do NOT believe in a supreme deity (god) who could see us, judge us, and listen our prayers. I do NOT worship any deity, so I do not think there is a god and a devil, do not believe in heaven and hell concepts, neither in a judgment, so when I do a so-called good action, it’s really what I mean, and not just to deserve a place in my eventual afterlife. I consider myself free, religion-free, dogma-free, and I do choose which human ethic rules I do follow, and not ones gathered in the name of a religion.

– however I do consider the possibility that there might be a kind of life after death, it’s possible that the soul doesn’t die with the corpse. I had close people experimenting out of body soul journey through meditation and yoga, and I think the people experimenting a near death experience (NDE) are seeing something with lights and tunnel (and I love that this is scientifically studied), and my mother got a message from her deceased father at the time he passed away, etc.
I do not know if we go anywhere neither where do we go (as I do not believe in heaven and hell, judgment, karma, god, etc).

So the 2 above statements might be contradictory, but it’s how I feel. Also I know the human mind is very easily tricked into that kind of beliefs, so maybe the NDE is only a chemical-induced hallucination to people in coma, and the message from my deceased grand-father to my mother might be due to her simple desire to believe that. How the human brain functions is highly interesting to study. So I don’t know if the soul survives, and it’s not that important for me to know it now.

See, I’m an atheist/agnostic, and have a secular humanist approach and I’m very much “peace & love” so I won’t judge people who think differently, I have friends who are christian believers, of all kind of sub-movements, and especially among friends from the USA (amazing how much I stumble upon the words “Christ Follower” on profiles when I search for marketing, writing, self-development sites and can clearly see a difference between USA and Europe over this).

I have friends who are following religions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, some Buddhism, some Paganism, and a lot of Atheists are among the greatest persons I know, etc… and some are talking/singing/painting about hell/devil stuff, mostly in an artistic/provocative way like often in my favorite music 🤘, but of course I do not believe there is any devil as well 👿

And usually, we do not talk about religion with friends, unless it’s to learn about the history of religions, how it evolved and mixed through centuries. I also think even though religions *usually* teach to be tolerant and love each others, it brought a lot of wars, submission and domination in the history, too bad. I also really dislike the “I’m right and you are wrong” state of mind. Also, on personal level, how many people just feel guilty for natural things (ie sex) just because their religion teaches that, I feel sorry for them. However, I reckon some beliefs can be a relief for some people, if they need as a guide or help in grief for example. I do not belong to that group of people, but I can understand that, if it’s good to them. In any case, I think that all education should be secular even if people live their religion.

Furthermore, I must tell that I’m particularly surprised that some people still think the world is only a few thousands years old. I’m very much into science and take the evolution of species for granted. While I try to respect everyone’s beliefs, I steer clear of extremes and obscurantism.

I strongly believe in the evolution of species, we are in the same family (primates) than apes and other monkeys, and there has been other forms of humans species now extinct. I love those subjects.

Added in 2022: since 2 years and the COVID pandemic, I have been shocked to see how some people have fallen into an “alternate reality”, chosen to follow neo-gurus, linked to alt-right stuff without realising it. I saw people I thought I knew become totally endoctrinated. This triggers different feelings in me: shock, disbelief, a kind of pity, but at the same time it’s quite interesting to see what led to that situation socially. I mention above about respect for other people’s ideas, of course, but there are limits, when it comes to putting others in danger, so certain medical, environmental and political opinions are dangerous for the rest of society. When people don’t think freely and have been manipulated, it’s a good idea to help them out of their sectarian movements

Well, that’s all for now, this page has been written over the years since 2013 (now 2024).