Limits work best when they're pushed

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Inverting an expectation seems (to me) to be the most enjoyable path toward exceeding it.

  • In school, everyone joined the choir.  I joined the orchestra

  • In Canada, everyone plays ice hockey.  I played field hockey

  • On the field hockey team, everyone wanted to be a forward. I chose to be a goalie

  • Most doctors go to med school.  I got the title with a phd

  • Most people dye their hair to get rid of the whites.  I like the white

It started with wanting to be different.  But it has become much more than that.  

This world seems filled with arbitrary restrictions, norms and boundaries that mean well.  But following blindly rarely captures their underlying purpose.  All too often, we need to push the bounds in order to truly fulfill, if not exceed, the very expectations we have broken. 

Pushing the bounds means going the extra mile.  But doing so in a way that only you would do.  

Push the bounds.  Re-set them for yourself.  Then push the bounds once more.

Dr. Aliaa Remtilla is an anthropologist and filmmaker, whose mission is to improve understandings of the human experience.

Originally trained as a filmmaker at Harvard University (USA), Aliaa is able to take complex ideas and communicate them to the general public through emotive storytelling in the visual medium.

Aliaa is also a professional researcher, with an MA and PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester (UK). She has worked as a researcher at both the Institute of Ismaili Studies (UK) and at Simon Fraser University (Canada). Together, she has conducted research in over 20 countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Portugal, Tajikistan and Tanzania examining the confluence of religion, economics and politics. 

Aliaa has also served extensively with the Shi’a Ismaili Muslim community through the Aga Khan Councils in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Aliaa is skilled at shaping the strategic direction of community organisations at all levels: for example, at a grass roots level, supporting youth to navigate their Muslim identity while living in a Western context; or at an institutional level, establishing strategic partnerships with government and civic entities.

Aliaa is currently the Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of StoryTiling, a platform that social sciences and technology to help companies reshape or strengthen their culture to be more authentic, connected and inclusive.