830 On Hold

Why I have been so away from writing this blog post? Surely I've been busy, tied up to business as well as my family's and my own health problem. But this is not the sole reason why I tend not to try to post. I have many reasons. I'm getting to like to write with pen and notebook more often. I've been involved in much more physical practice and activities than before. I'm not fully satisfied with this blogger style to express my ideas, thoughts and opinions. I'm getting to express my view more in conversation, dialogue and chat with my friends, family and colleagues. In short, somehow my world is getting expanding and opening. Somehow I will reach out to the best way to combine my new lifestyle with the act of writing. I like to write but blogging is not the only way. Still, it's something.      

829 90's Alternative Still Rocks

 

I don't make it a rule to always search for new music, nor only to support the music of the time when I used to live like "No Music No Life" in my school days. Simply put, nostalgia is not something I like. But this time suddenly I felt like I should turn to 90's alternative rock music to which I listened again and again, for hours, throughout my junior high, high school and college days. Maybe I don't need to explain what it was like to be in the movement and to name the favorites of the special ages. After 20 years+ time, I can honestly say that they remain just great and the heritage of 90's alternatives keeps me excited and delighted. 

It is not merely a nostalgia that I still like these great songs. It had a reason to lead us, move us, identify us when we were teenagers listening to them on radio and MTV, and it still has reason to survive the time and change of life. I don't care how it is now theoretically located and described in pop music history, but I just feel it was revolutionarily cool and somewhat bitter but creative (I wish it could have been a bit happier, but that was the air of the time). It still has a reason to be the music with which we live.

828 Script

I have a friend who knows I'm a huge fan of Star Wars (not for recent works, though) and would like to watch the whole series again, as she actually had seen them but the memory was quite vague. So my friend knows the utmost surprising fact in Episode V, and also knows how young Skywalker cannot help but turning to become Darth Vader in Episode III (vaguely). We fall into the conversation over Star Wars saga and I suggested I could explain all the stories and plots (furthermore, maybe most of the memorable sentences). She welcomed my idea and it ended up I took 2 hours to text all the stories from Episode I to Episode VI. 

She was surprised that I had done this without looking any of materials but only by my memory, which is not surprising to SW fans I guess. The thing is, I was surprised to learn simply how great a movie script is, especially in the case of such long and mythic epic. It's carefully structured with indispensable storyline and events and characters all over. It's amazing a script can expand the universe of the galaxy, surprise us, enjoy us, move us, and finally close the story. SW is not actually a huge nor complicated, it's all about a family, faith, and fight against evil, but the work of script is marvelous. I was impressed by the tale of a tragic but mighty father and a genuinely good-faith son and his friends, following the 6 episodes. By texting the whole storyline and plots, for the first time I learned it. Transcribing one of our favorite movies is maybe an awesome training to learn the power of a writing.

827 Drop the Mic

Almost a month I have been away from posting my blog. Occupied, as always for business, and I had to focus on taking more care of my injured foot and moreover on improving my living environment. I have been spending more time than ever to my health and daily conditioning. Inevitably, and naturally I don't particularly feel like opening my PC and spending late evening time to describe what I feel and think and enjoy, which I tend to write down with pen and notebook rather than via digital tool recently. Also as I started my initial learning step of mindfulness. I am not good at meditation at all, but Taichi practice and breathing practice might be of some help to me. This is the area where verbalization does not work but feeling and sense can rule. That might be another reason why I have been away from my blogging. I am not good at meditation probably because it seems sometimes strongly connected to experience of sensing something intangible and spiritual (or maybe I'm wrong but anyway). To me it feels like surrealism, so to speak. But I am getting to learn it as true realism in fact, of sensing the state of actual physical body and works of mind. As long as I find my discoveries or new influencers in my life interesting, it's worth verbalizing to me. I'm trying to continue this little practice a bit longer.

826 Avengers : Infinity War

Imagination never ends. I always like to see Marvel Studio films because there is definitely something that we have never seen. Aside from its cinematic perfection or reputation, I think it's safe to say Marvel Studio is one of the most and state-of-the-art of today's entertainment. The great thing is the unforgettable challenges make us imagine more, and they go beyond our imagination. Avengers : Infinity War has lots to talk about and discuss as to its super fantastic visual effects and storytelling, sparkling chemistry of characters, and needless to say its unexpected, shocking ending. It's so unlike ordinary hero movies. Then Marvel is probably trying to redefine "hero movies" or creating a brand-new brand of new heroes. It's a great fun to discuss what's going to happen next, what's the meaning behind some words and sequences because we trust Marvel will not just unfold a hidden map of this epic but also go beyond it. Brilliant work.

SPOILER ALERT!!!
I'm not going to tell what happened in the ending but tell one thing that I think would be one of the key foreshadowing for the next Avengers... and this is not yet discussed among movie fans as far as I know.

The planet Titan is playing a very mysterious role. Peter Quill, the Star-Lord mentioned in the sequence where he had just landed on the planet, that the star is quite strange, in its state of gravity, etc. I wish that means something. And what is Ravagers doing? 

825 Music Video

I haven't seen music videos for a long time since I finished my school days and got into a professional life. I thought I didn't have time to search for videos that I liked and would like to watch again and again. But even though I didn't notice clearly, here we got the change of the way we enjoy worlds' entertainment. Music videos are not only on TV but on Apple Music and YouTube, with more flexible and intelligent attraction. I can enjoy them as easily as I read books, and more comfortably than watching them on television as I used to. I started to think, that music videos are for people who really don't have time. They can attract you, make you happy, make you imagine and send messages. I never imagined that these  5-minutes short films can be powerful enough to change the state of mind at once.

I found Taylor Swift's new video "Delicate", which is fantastic, hilarious, happy and really charming. Today's music video seems somehow different from those I watched every day in late 90's, and it feels like more personal. The musicians, performers are incredible stars for sure, but they seems to be a bit closer and real person who is not only talented and celebrated but also struggles and get confused. This might be a perspective of grown-ups.

Taylor's "Delicate" has a wonderful dance sequence almost like "Singing in the Rain".

   

824 Mentor

A mentor is supposed to be someone who guides young generation. But I think life is a learning at every step and every age, and we need our mentor maybe for all our life. That is not because we don't get mature as we get older, but we learn a lot, more and more, than the times we are younger. Learning and growing up never ends in our life. A mentor doesn't always have to be an elderly people but maybe a friend, or a person who you have never met but keeps inspiring you. Life never has a final answer or a defined goal but always has change and growth. Maybe keeping mentoring other people leads you to meet your wonderful mentor.  

823 LEGO

When I was a kid I used to play with LEGO. I loved this toy so much and I played with it all day long, every day, for hours. My big brother had a series of spaceship LEGO and mine was a series of town buildings and knight's castle. We shared them all the time but I remember my favorite was to build a normal house and structure a street. There was something really exciting in creating a space, interior, garden, robust wall, stairs and window. I remember when I was playing with LEGO and creating my architecture, everything was totally left behind, except the sound of radio or music I was listening to with playing. These time was definitely one of the happiest moments in my memory and I am now wondering how I could possibly reproduce the moment in my current age and interest and the way of using my time. I suppose it will be possible.

822 Counter Writer

There are so many great stories and novels all around the world. I have my own favorite books. I like to read them again and again to the extent I get to memorize the dialogue and storyline. Still I keep reading them to purely enjoy the storytelling. What makes me keep reading the same book? It's partly because simply I like text itself, but surely it owes much to the charm of an unique world of the story built by imagination and described entirely by words. 

Sometimes I wonder if there is a "counter writer" to my favorite stories, which is, an author who descries the same story from the perspective of the major counter-part, co-star in the story. For example it's like "Pride and Prejudice" written from the perspective of Mr. Darcy. Even if it does exist, well-written in true Jane Austen's style and wit, it would never surpass the original, but I would very much like to read the story and can even imagine the work. Such imagination is possible because the story is great. A masterpiece is such an immortal.  

821 Balance

Spending two months with experiencing series of injury and its recovery, I think it was the time to learn about my body. And the learning never stops and I hope I can be wiser enough to use my body in the best way, in the better way than ever. I practice dancing, Tai-Chi, and kickboxing, these action teach me that body will slowly learn and after continuing practice and effort, eventually it will start to move as I wish. 

But body is a very delicate equipment that is structured with high precision. It's not easy to get rid of unwise practice and replace them with good one. Still it's worth challenging.

For example I need to keep:

 - my ribs stretching and keeping the distance between pelvis
 - my ankles smooth and flexible
 - my head sitting right over the spine
 - my scapula movable
 - my toes standing firmly on the ground
 - my shoulders relaxed

It is not going to be easy to stay in the ideal posture.  But at least I know how to do.

820 Amateur

I am lucky to have friends who share my passion and interest for architecture and design. It's great to have fun with these friends when we visit architecture exhibitions. They might have professional view, comment and knowledge that I don't have, but I have words to share with them to express my impression and wonder when I face great design and architecture. I feel extremely happy to describe my amateur opinion, because that is the view they don't have and is likely to amuse them. My simple impression might be out of the professional context, which I assume, can possibly serve them as a catalyst to sometimes find unexpected side of the fact that they have been familiar with. I, on the other hand, gain significant benefit from the experience to listen to their professional words that helps me to understand professional perspective.    

819 Gravity

I like looking up the sky and seeing stars, moon and sun. People sometimes asks me if I like to be at seaside or in the mountain. Both are great, surely, but honestly I like to be in the sky the most. I'm happy looking at the sky and space. I feel like I am attracted by, literally, their gravity. Earth, moon, sun and every singly stars we know have its own gravity. So I wonder if human has its own small gravity each other, even though it's in much more minimum scale, could this thought be possible?

818 Less Is More #3

"Less is more", what an insightful saying. It's clear that the words especially fit to me since this is the third time I write about this here. This blog is apparently not my diary, and more and more I get inclined to themes that naturally, instantly come up to my mind.  It seems "Less Is More" theme can easily and repeatedly catch my mind, though I don't think I am a minimalist. I like this idea because it's true. Recently I've been trying to make my place a bit clearer. I got rid of some pictures and photos from the wall. All of a sudden I understand that I feel better looking at the blank wall. The new platform for imagination and cleansing of mind and brain emerged instead of pictures, photos and colors. 

817 Professional Kitchen

I seldom talk about my business here but here's to show some of my thoughts in work. I have clients and receive emails and calls every day. I try to get back to these inquiries or requirements as shortly as possible. It doesn't mean I am good at finishing my work fast. Sometimes it's not even a finish but a start of the conversation. But in any case I try to give my answer / feedback / deliverable little by little, and try not to hold my response even though I cannot provide right answer at once. What matters I think is the speed of communication. It's simply good to deal with issues while the recognition is fresh and clear. Dealing things while it's fresh, clear and small, is likely to easy. It's like always making tools and counters keep clean, organizing food, and clearing the kitchen while cooking.  

816 Light Up

I was looking at the traffic in the evening light. Cars, bicycles and bikes on the road, or jets and helicopters in the sky, (and if I could see river or sea, the boats on the water alike) were all with light and their movement looked like dynamic illumination. I was just wondering it could be brilliant and beautiful if the people walking in the street were also wearing light of their own and could join the wave of lights of vehicles. They may wear light in the shoelace, or as a headlight, or anywhere they like. Light of cars moves fast, and light of people moves slowly. The imaginary vision fascinated me much. (And I guess it also contributes to the traffic safety in the night, doesn't it?)

815 Black Panther

Beautiful. Black Panther is a masterpiece filled with every moment of entertainment, speed,  and artistic perspective on visual arts and music. This movie is not only cool and breathtaking but also very human. It's like the movie itself has an identity, character and soul to speak up something, to motivate, to inspire us. Marvel Studio once again proved that comic hero movie can become a modern myth, just as Star Wars started the path and succeeded. This is a true successor of our age. Awesome.

814 Pet

As a pet, I have only owned several small goldfish in my childhood. I liked them very much but you cannot take goldfish to a walking. I never owned dogs or cats, and if I imagine I have one now, I would be able to spend happiest time with them while I am walking with them. My imaginary pet is likely to appear in outdoor and not in a house where I am supposed to sit on a couch together with them, to feed them in the kitchen, or to be welcomed (hopefully) at the entrance when I get home. Silly as it may be, but it's a fun to imagine that I have my wonderful pet and walk with them wherever I go. 

813 Sunday

I am enjoying my work but I agree Monday is not something that we welcome. A notion that a new week starts with many complicated tasks and works is not surely a healthy feeling, but work is inevitably complex and challenging. So I wonder, how about changing my mindset little bit to think that a week starts from Sunday, a week starts from holiday and be closed in holiday. The five days in the middle is for activity and challenge. How about making Sunday not "weekend" but "week opening"?

812 Trust in Body

Once I feel I can communicate with my body, the next step I am learning is to have a trust in my body. As just one little example, in kickboxing training, I am not good at making pivot backward after kicking to turn back to the initial position. Partly because of the minor impact of injury, partly because my relatively weak stability of body axis, it's difficult for me to make it by one turn. But in the middle of training yesterday I found it was good for my performance, even if it wasn't always a success, to believe in I could do it. Trust in body is not to push nor burden it, but to facilitate it to move.

811 Rest, Care and Cure

Through the process of taking care of my injury it is simply great to know the way to connect to my body. I've never understood what it would be like to "talk with your body" kind of thing and still need practice, but the experience means much to me. My problem was the extreme tension in the muscle so I needed to learn to soften it, stretch relevant muscles and approach joints to broaden its mobility. I also needed to change some movements in my daily life in order not to lighten the impact of the move that the waist had to be involved. On the other hand I needed to learn to cure the injury by using the muscle and joints, not by just leaving them in tranquil posture. 

These proactive approach to my body and efforts to enhance the power of self-healing is what I've been lucky to learn through relatively light injury. From my experience I think it's safe to say that you can deliver message to your body (even if you cannot catch the feedback of the communication), and if you are to deliver such message as telling you are trying to cure or heal your body, the body will somehow understand the message and will send you back "thank you". It might be just my imagination, but it's really interesting to imagine my body has its own language and communication that I never be able to directly understand. It's still not easy to make my body feel happy, but it's a communication. So far I've learned that the body does appreciate rest and care. 

810 Walk on Ice

So first of all I fell on ice and hit my lower back. In the moment when my feet slipped, reflexively I got my both arms on the ground to support. Inevitably the impact was huge. But I am rather thankful that I didn't hit my head, ankle, knees, or elbows. I just hit hard on my lower back and what mattered most was not the instant damage but the excessive tense in my muscle around the bruise. Bruise itself was almost nothing, which was cured within 2-3 days. But the heavy muscle tension caused by the impact and the pain afterwards, was the problem. I was confused first because I didn't feel I hit the tail bone. But it turned out that remaining pain was caused by the heavy muscle tense that led to poor movement of joint. And the tension was not only tied to the impact of bruise but also, naturally, it was due to the condition of whole body. I have been learning that muscle in each part of the body does not exist independently. Muscles in waist, hip, back, thigh, knee, foot, shoulder and neck are all connected. It's clear to me that if I was able to keep my muscles flexible and movable, the trouble could have been much smaller and lighter. 

I learned the importance of care of my body. Care is absolutely indispensable like a sleep. Whatever I do in the day, work, talk, walk, training, travel, dance, kickboxing, or Taichi. I didn't realize it before the injury but I learned. Given the importance of the lesson, I even appreciate the damage was kept to the minimum.

Anyway I could have avoided to fell on ice if I was more cautious. I've been wondering what I should have done, in front of the very slippery ice covered with water on the slope. Maybe I should crawl on my hands and knees. It might not be the best idea but at least I could keep myself from falling. Or maybe I should take off my shoes and walk in socks? Maybe the best way is to spread sand over the ice because I remember in my hometown there is always a sandbox for driver's use in winter on the snowy, icy slope. Maybe coffee grounds will also work, won't it? 

809 Rising Every TIme We Fall

I have been with a little but important problem for the last 2 weeks. At the end of January I suddenly I tore my right leg muscle, and couple of days later, I slipped and fell on ice. It hurt my lower back and I've been trying to cure it and reduce the pain. But this time I know I am the person who always look at the better side. It hurts, but never made me unhappy. I've been curious (a bit worried, naturally) about what's happening around the pain. I've been learning a lot about my body and how to treat it. It's all simple but I failed to follow the basic rule and listen to my body. There are lessons learned all around. Going forward, I'm going to note what I've learned, though it might sound a very common life hacks.  

808 Artificial Intelligence

One of the best, most impressive machine characters in movies is K-2SO in Rogue One. Or Jarvis in Iron Man could be as artificial intelligence. It's fun to imagine what is the life with these nicest buddy. I sometimes imagine that it would be wonderful if they can follow, memorize, organize and record the data of my sudden inspiration or flash of ideas that is too fast for me to catch. Well I know that this is achievable with a pen and a note with me. But this is one of my most delightful imaginations of living with great artificial brains.   

807 Hoodie

From The Sartorialist

In the utmost coldest weather in this winter, I realized the most important role of hood is to protect our head and face from cold. Hoodie is amazing tool because it can be also stylish, and can hide our face to create a separate world in which we feel somewhat really cozy, only by this very simple structure of a garment just covering our head. It is unlike cap or hat, it feels closer. It limits your scope of your sight and partially turn off the many sound surrounding you. It's odd to say but I feel I can better concentrate to myself when I'm wearing a hoodie. Wouldn't it be fun if companies start to allow us to wear hoodie in our business suits in our business hours?

806 Maison Hermes

Every time I see the statue on the roof top of Maison Hermes, in the morning or in the night, every time I feel uplifting excitement. There they have a statue of a pyrotechnist holding the iconic Hermes scarves in both hands, not a knight on the horse holding two flags as it is often seen. But it does look like flags to celebrate the light path and the person looks like a knight or messenger sent on a fast horse. It actually looks like telling something. It looks always inspiring and mysterious. I wonder the reason of the excitement when I see the flags flapping and whipping  the wind. 

805 I Smile to Your Smile

Before even recognizing it I had decided to be a person who enjoy conversation with other people. Originally I was not outgoing nor sociable type of person. I was a bit shy with strangers. But somehow I learned in the course of growing up that I might be able to own other side. I stopped avoiding talking with new people and learned usually people (not always, though) are ready to be open if I am ready to be. The person may not be my best friend, not be a person whom I can share my view, perspective, vision, sense of value or sense of humor, but it makes sense if the communication is made. I smile when the person are having fun or telling funny stories that is totally amusing to the person, even if I find it not that funny. I smile not because the person or his/her story is funny enough, but because I'm happy about seeing the person is enjoying and having a good time. 

804 Hashtag

I think whatever I think of about digital technology might most likely be already realized in somewhere, but this is not about technology. This is about business tools. We must see a lot of, tons of emails every day. How about, all the emails in our business lives should be labeled with one or more hashtags before being sent to the recipient? It's nothing tricky. All we have to do is to put some hashtags on the email we are about to send, such as "project silver" tag and "not so urgent" or "you mush reply" or "it's a good news". etc. Your Gmail or Outlook will show the subject, date, sender, attached file, or size, but before everything the hashtags (in a very lean and smart way I'd like to imagine) so that you will be certainly able and comfortable to prioritize every single email you get. I'm sure it's not technology but protocol. 

803 The Last Jedi

Usually I don't write about movie that I don't like much, but this time this is different. Star Wars The Last Jedi received so mixed reputation. As one of the true fans of the saga, I don't think I like it. The reason is simple, this is not the Star Wars universe we adored and believed. I would welcome bold challenges but destruction of the myth and legend in this movie is not justified in the way it is trying to push the boundaries. I will not strongly dislike this work, but feel strongly this is my official farewell to the new generation of Star Wars. This just doesn't feel like the universe of long time ago in the galaxy far far away, which was full of imagination, humor, spirit, sensitivity and creativity like these.

802 When They Were Young

My parents were both working in 1960's. They worked at PR agency and music publisher. Now I get older than the age of their days in 60's and just wonder how they looked like and lived as professionals. I wonder how it is like to work with them when they were young. I don't mean I want to see them in younger age, but rather I want to know how they acted, spoke and communicated as business person. I used to see them in the sole role I know - my parents - but I had their own different role in society and their own world independent from their family lives, the life as wife and husband with kids. Can I make friends with them if I meet them in 60's?  
   　　

801 Happy Flight

On New Year's Day we call, send text or post message on social media, to family and friends. In any style, it would be own way of celebrating the start of new year. I usually don't join the countdown party and go to sleep long before the midnight. Instead of sharing the delight of the very moment, I prefer (when it's possible) getting up really early in the morning of January 1st and take the early flight to catch the first sunlight in the airport or in the sky. To me nothing is more exciting to welcome the new year in the dawn light, in the airplane about to take off into the bright sky.