Feeling free inside oneself is being free. A quote by Rei Kawakubo. I found I haven't got time to spare for updating this blog. Yes I am extremely busy and I have no obligation to update. Still that doesn't mean I don't have things to say, feelings to be noted, and images to keep in my mind. I find Rei Kawakubo's clear and brilliant words fit to me right now.
I get up a bit early, at around 5 am every morning. I spend 2 or 2.5 hours before I leave my place to office, so not much of an early bird in the office. I believe morning time is too comfortable to be spent for work at office. But sometimes I write this blog in 10 or 15 minutes in these morning times. Morning activity is good in two ways, first : you have energy full charged, and second : you cannot spend too much time because you must be in time for work, so naturally your thoughts runs sharper and brighter. Then I reread it some time later in the day and most likely feel that I liked my writing. It sounds clearer and more lively than the other time I write. It's official. I am clear, sharp, bright and lively in the morning. Now I am writing this in the middle of night, when I am not supposed to be best to write, well because, my blog doesn't have to be perfect.
It is always nice to see people sitting on a chair and feel relaxed, calm and laid back. We take it granted that chairs are there for us but they do a great job everyday. Chair can support us and provide us a little but only independent space to makes us comfort and peaceful, and to get us ready for the next action. This is something I discovered at the airport lounge, not in the luxurious one, but in the narrow and crowded corridor filled with chairs. People sit, eat, work, sleep, chat and wait for their flight. People can do all these things because simply, chairs are there. Then I remebered that so many greatest designers and architects have created chairs as their masterpiece work. I'm almost thrilled to feel that I should learn more about the design of chairs, because they're just wonderful.
I grew up in a modernized, tidy and large city in a local area. The city has a blessing combination of fun of modern city life and rich nature. My early life was so much in the latter as my family had been living in a garden suburb. The condominium was built on the bank of the river and between the two long and gently-sloping hills. The whole area was full of green. Actually everything but the road was filled with and surrounded by rich green. I spent my childhood here from age of 5 to 18, so it's no doubt how I need to be close to green and feel extremely familiar with the sight of green.
At that time in my room I used to devote myself to music, drawing, reading, thinking and imagining. At night the outside of the room was a very quiet suburb landscape of river, hill and trees. There was nothing that distracted my attention, and everything encouraged my pleasure and training of deep reflection, free imagination and scrutiny of generating words.
Today, living in a middle of the capital city, not just almost everything outside my window urges me to go out, take some action and have some new experience, but also a great amount of SNS posts and messages are always interrupting me (which, of course I am enjoying very much). From my friend's lucky experience to the world's greatest or funniest moment are floating around me 24 hours a day. It's so hard to feel in the quiet evening as if I were the only one who is awake at the moment, just as I used to feel in my younger age in my quiet suburb life, but sometime the sense of the moment suddenly comes up. Probably, this is a sort of the-end-of-summer-feeling.
How can the Internet of Things make our life happier, healthier and funnier? There we've been aware of tons of great innovations and ideas. Electronic appliance, furniture, house, car, watch can be not only intelligent but also connect with internet and database around the world. Our environment can possibly read our mind and learn what we want before we decide what we want. But the image that has impressed me most as an almost-real vision of future bond between technology and human is, the laboratory in the Iron Man. There he can talk with Jarvis, an artificial intelligence, but more like a butler than a robot, and with a quick wave and move of his hands as if he was touching, tapping, swiping and pinching an invisible large iPad, he can structure the virtual reality modeling and the next moment (at least in the movie) the model becomes a real thing. What is cool and wonderful here is he is totally controlling the information, intelligence and virtual reality which surround him, with a very clear vision of what he is going to do, what he wants and what he would like to create. If the ordinary things can be so smart, we should go beyond and become more aware of what we can do and what we can bring to innovate the real world.
I've been fond of architecture photograph so much. Actually, photograph is the only way to know and learn architecture masterpieces of the world. But even if some can pretty much understand the architecture and can appreciate the beauty, uniqueness and sense of spacing only from the photograph, others never be able to and I'm the latter. I need to be there in the architecture and to walk around it, touch it and then I can only sense it. Architecture is something like outfits, food, shoes, or cars that require you to actually experience it in order to understand or evaluate it. Furthermore, architecture has also its own invisible feelings like sound, heat or smell.
Recently I had quite a wonderful experience to visit a residence work made by an architect Sou Fujimoto at an exhibition. It was truly amazing and fun. It was like a wooden brick with panels and open frames which is structured like a fortress or a jungle gym combined with stairs. There is no roof over the whole structure so it also looks like a courtyard surrounded by wood fence. Within the boxes of wood opening for the air, there are lots of open spaces and decks filled with green as well as inner rooms of much functionality and with necessary privacy. Everyone on the site looked surprised and delighted at the same time. It carries a free spirit, sense of wonder and liberation. It's a secured house but we never feel constrained. I just admired it and thought the architecture is a work of genius. I'm trying to describe the greatness by my words and photo as much as possible, but the thing is, if I were telling about my experience to myself, I would just say, "Go and see it".
I have just started to looking at the job opportunities out there. I don't mean "looking for" but "looking at", though it's not uncommon to regularly move on from one firm to another in the financial industry. But I never want to be a job-hopper. The last time I was seriously involved in finding a position was back in early 2014, just 2 and a half years ago. Before that I was lively searching for an opportunity in late 2008, in the middle of Lehman crisis. This time the things seems different. In a word, it's matured. Sometimes I have been offered to meet a person, not to take job interview or to take qualification test. Meeting a person is not much of a tense trial as it used to be, but more like a chance to broaden my view and network. However, given my current age and experience that I write in my CV, it should be like that by now.
Another thing I found interesting is that I have been building my own team, a strong supporter in the industry without recognizing it. In about half of the positions that I've been introduced or offered, luckily I find someone who can be quite familiar with the firm or the job. I can ask my friends, teacher, or ex-colleagues about a position in investment bank, government agency, university, consulting firm, and so on. I have never downgraded the importance of human relationship and network and in fact they have saved me again and again in my life. And now it once again proves that network built on trust and friendship can work alike a strong team. I remember the other day my young friend who were my ex-colleagues asked my advice on their career. I can get support from my own team, and I can also be a someone else's team. It's a simple but beautiful fact, and one of the greatest treasures a person can obtain through years of experience and reflection.
