631 Power of Words

I've been enjoying writing. I like reading even more. And I do like viewing and listening to fine TV show, interviews and TED talks (funnier is better). I like reading some cinema review blogs not for gathering information of the movie but for enjoying how the author describes the work. I like reading the same novel over and over again just because I like the style of the writing. Sometimes I can keep talking with my friends or family for hours. Very often I even enjoy a stressful presentation to the client or speech to the colleagues. I know I do like words. That's why I keep this blog. 

But maybe I've been behaving a little too formal and humble. I've been prioritizing my aspiration for perfection over my delight of writing. This is, and will be a place where I train myself with words, but I think I should enjoy the words a bit more, by becoming more straightforward.

Words can be really powerful. Words can break your mind and heal the mind. Words can give you a severe attack or a deepest happiness. Words are powerful alley and weapon, yet sometimes words are just useless. More strangely, words means everything to someone and nothing to others. I always value words very highly, but others not. That's really tricky. 

Nevertheless I am fascinated with the magic of words that inspires and save our mind. I wish I could use words as such, and also wish to defend myself from indeliberate words that might hurt me. At the same time I understand that human mind is not all about words, on the contrary, the action, feelings, impression, intuition, passion, and communication without words. Words are not almighty but I believe in the power of words that makes us laugh, feel lively and deliver the same magic to the next person.   
   

630 Hangout

I used to go to a Starbucks store just in front of the office building. Every morning and every evening, for a cup of black coffee or grabbing a sandwich, I went there at least twice a day during weekdays. The store staff were extremely friendly and warm, one of whom, a very talented college student has actually become a good friend. 

Then the office has been moved to a new building that is five-minutes' walk from the prior place. The new building has other coffee chain store. Furthermore a new coffee machine has been installed to the office. Most of all I have been stuck in a deal that kept me at my desk all the time. So naturally I have been long away from the store.

Suddenly the change came and somehow I've returned to the customary visit to the store, not everyday, but with frequency of 2-3 times a week. I've been welcomed by familiar faces and we are really glad and satisfied to meet again. It's amazing how just a little talk, smile and coffee in the morning make us feel like we are old friends. This is the magic of Starbucks, and that's why it is my favorite hangout.   

629 Unmarried

I've been unmarried and will be, possibly, as far as I foresee, all my life. I always hesitate to write my personal issues here so I've been thinking that writing about my personal, or super personal view on marriage would provoke such an awkward feeling to me. But actually it's not. Marriage doesn't seem to concern me at all. I cannot help feeling like it is other person's affair. 

The reason for it (like not a few people who has same idea), I have lots of other things to do in my life, or I just don't need it, moreover, I don't want it. I've never wanted to find someone to build a new family. I know my feelings are far away from the ordinary definition of happiness in life. I just want to think that it doesn't matter if my life does not follow the statistics, nor the formula of happiness. Because my happiness comes from liberty. 

628 Zootopia

Definitely Zootopia will be remembered as one of the greatest Disney animation films. It is about prejudice and discrimination. It is about inner darkness and weakness that everyone has. It is about fight against pressure which makes you become the thing that the society or community wants you to be and that you never want to be. It is not about pure, simple dreams-come-true story. It is about "an inconvenient truth" of the world. Yet it is full of amazing images of attractive animals and landscapes. It is full of jokes, sometimes too risky and edgy for a Disney movie. It is full of thrill and adventure, feeling like you are watching Indiana Jones or Godfather. And for the most part, you cannot help falling in love with these cute animals. 

Above all I strongly feel and appreciate that the splendid film is about the beauty of diversity. Given a world where rabbits and lions can live together without one chasing the other, it should be due to a highly balanced understanding and wisdom. Humans are in the same species but we are different. We may be like a rabbit, a lion, a fox, a mouse, a wolf, a giraffe, or a sheep. We may be able to create and live in our Zootopia, if we can make it to become as wise, autonomous and inventive as these animals.  

627 Virtue

If you have some good things in your personality that you like or be proud of (I think we all do), do you think people around you like it as you do? Can other people like you as you do? Sure, it can be said that they don't hate you because of what you think is good point of you, but people cannot see you as you want them to. Yet sometimes, in friendship or other strong bond and trust between people, they like you not because what you do to them, but just because you have those virtues in you, even though they are entirely inner beauty of you and nothing to do with human relationship skills. 

People cannot expect too much to others, and it's always difficult to balance avoiding too much of expectation and still keeping belief in people and yourself.

626 Rhythm

One Saturday afternoon I was watching my friends dancing to the music at the studio. I was feeling happy and uplifting listening to the music. I noticed that I unconditionally liked the dance that was capturing the rhythm of the music and could be understood and shared with others by the loyalty to the music. I don't say I dislike the dance which is more focused on skills than its truthness to the music, but I am just being one of the dancers who like and value the most on the unity to the music.

Rhythm matters other than in dance. 

At the cafe, on the sidewalk, in the train, we are surrounded by so many voices of the strangers. If the conversation, slow or fast or whatever, has its own rhythm, balanced and harmonized, will make us comfortable as if we are listening to the sound of nature or looking at an architecture carefully designed with rhythmic shape.    

625 Tears

Does everyone knows that washing your eyes with tap water is not good for the eyes? It feels refreshing and we think it as similarly healthy as gargling or washing mouth. It isn't. It's simply because our eyes are protected by tears that is ultra-functional and perfectly designed to fit the purpose. Tap water is not good because it even could harm the work of tears. I know we are always controlled, managed and protected by thousands of great function of body and it'd be greater if we learn more about and master them. In that way, possibly we could be an ideally balanced being.  

624 Branding in Practice

I have my hair cut and styled by a long-time friend who owns and manages a beauty salon. We talk a lot and exchange opinions about fashion, style, design, travel and movies. He remembered that once I had talked with him about brands and branding, and the other day he suggested that we should start discussing future collaboration of a kind, asking me if I could be of his help to kick off branding his shop. He wants branding, not marketing. A branding for a beauty salon? I was instantly interested in and excited by the idea of the project. What he wants is not to increase customer or sales for the coming months, but to make his store keep its philosophy and identity for a long, long time even after he retires. That's the branding. I'll take it.