Leave The Wall Alone
17 May 2012 3 Comments
in English Posts, Life
Old people leave, and new people come. Remaining people move to new roles. I sometimes feel very sad about things changing, and it makes me think. But any change is a good change. Change is always positive, so I believe.
I happened to remember my last day of one of old companies. It was the worst in the history. When I was leaving the office, the boss cursed me that I can’t do anything valuable in the rest of my life if I leave the job. They also threatened me that if I leave, I am never be allowed to continue studying my major and profession (no one can stop that though), and even threatened me that I have to tell people that I didn’t leave the job voluntary. Instead I have to tell I was “sent” for temporally transfer by the company and will come back soon. It sounded quite ridiculous but i said whatever you are comfortable. It was quite an experience.
If I look back, the boss might have had some serious mental issue, which was actually not very unusual in our field. He occasionally used to pick somebody to bring down and tell bad stories of the person, and my turn came eventually. He started abusing or ignoring me which other colleagues blindly followed, maybe to save themselves. And the circumstance around me turned to become violent. It is actually one of typical Japanese group psycho dynamics. I could sense the fear of people around. What made me most frightened was the nameless people around who blindly admired and believed the influential person and changed their perspective in a brink. Many things happened, and they almost damaged me. It took a few years for me to realize I am not the one who is crazy. It took another one year to recover to the level that I could make a move to escape from it.
Because of the all last words I was threatened not to leave the job, even now, I often see a nightmare that I am still working in the same company and can’t leave for some reason. That is the scariest nightmare of me, not a ghost, not a serial killer, not even a black hole that I ever be falling down, but still working there. I know you can’t imagine. When I wake up heart-beating fast, I tell myself I would kill myself without hesitation if I had to go back there even for one day.
People are weak.
We are so weak that we don’t realize hurting other people, because we are sometimes too busy to cover our own eyes by hands not to see what is actually happening in front of us. Taking in it, only thing we can do is to realize it and make the world a place that we get to be happy as we are. Why do we necessarily brame each other for being weak if that’s our default setting, and that’s actually one of beauties that we could have? I want to live in the world of kindness and grace.
After all those things, I clearly set a rule to myself; in any situation that I am sprit for two different interests and opinions, I will always take my side as an individual. I will never want to take the side of anyone else, any other person, groups, ideology, organizations, or countries. I am scared of myself leaning over something else for my ease and safety, and stop using my own brain. I will never stop questioning. I will never stop thinking.
Haruki Murakami said in his famous speech, “Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.” I love the line. Well, if it was me, I wouldn’t support the egg committing suicide attack, but would say to him “Don’t bother and waste your time. Leave the wall alone and go do something fun.” That’s the kind of freedom of soul that I am seeking in my whole life. I support everybody who choose their own life, or at least try to choose it by themselves. If that is the world becomes looking like, even the Holocaust would never be possible to happen, maybe.
Update About New Blog
13 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in English Posts, Work
I have started a new blog for work memo and sharing on stuff like marketing, branding, design, photos, videos, web, etc. This one is literally just a blog, meaning I do so-called “blogging” to share information with some memo. It’s purely a practical blog for ideas, not much writing, so check it out only if any above keywords clicks you. Otherwise it doesn’t concern you much, so please stay in Bombay Dog.
http://benonpareil.wordpress.com/
A Japanese famous thinker, Takaaki Yoshimoto, reportedly said that everyone can be a professional if we continue the same job for ten years. Well, I have completed my five years, so it’s a half way. It wasn’t really intentional to come this way so far. I guess I have convinced myself that it’s already the time go a bit more intentional and design my way.
Reaching Somewhere
08 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in English Posts, Life, Work
The Crazy April is over, and now it’s Crazy May. I am planning work for a Crazy June these days. I have a physical pain in my heart.
I work in very hiper-active and agressive way at office, though it is actually by a lot of intentional effort. I am slow and merrow by nature, more poetic than logical, which only close friends knows well. I trained myself considerablly hard over years and kind of created a work-personality which is quite different from my natural character. On and off.
People have different motivation and value at work. Money, self-growth, friends, achievement, finding-self, social causes, whatever. I think my motivation is to go see far, as far as I can, and dig into detail as deep as I can, because only that way work can be meanigful. Some people think that I make a big deal of every little problems all the time, but if you compromize for one tiny thing, like a badly painted wall soaks rains and gets weaker by time, you end up compromizing many other things and only achieve a compromized goal in the end.
Poeple get used to compromization. It’s a simple psychological theory; once you say yes to what you are not proud of, you carry a burden of the compromization and feel less confident to say no to other coming stuff. One thing leads to another. I see such situations A LOT, a lot. Every day, every week. So I try hard not to get myself into it, nore to let other people too. Because in the end, everything bounces back to us.
Therefore, I usually respect people who mess up my plan by suggesting something new, because only they can take me and my project to a higher level. I like people who make things complex by bringing overlooked problems (and I like people who also help me simplified in the end). Oppositely, I cant get along with people who don’t really care and take failures like a bad weather or natural disaster, because they never learn, and I don’t learn anything from them. Persistence is the key. It’s an obsession, in the other words. It’s important to let things go sometimes, but if you let everything go, there won’t be anything remaining in your hand.
Actually I never really care what happens to my personal life. I just let things happen like a natural disaster and accept whatever happens. It’s easier and happier. Often, I question myself which way I want to go further. But I guess, for now, I think I should just blindly walk far and far withoug looking back, till I get to a place where I can really feel that I have reached somewhere.
Is India Safe?
07 May 2012 Leave a Comment
I’ve been following a few online forums which discusses about the safeness of India here and there, especially for women.
Many India travel guidebook might tell you traveling to India can be tricky. I met two travellers (one is Indian and another German) who were stolen all cash at his guest house, or a new digital camera at a beach. There’s a famous myth that someone drug you with chai on a long distance train to steal your luggage, and I actually saw a big campaign poster at the train station “Don’t take a tea offer from stranger.”
Bombay is not as safe as any Japanese city, of course. Whenever I walk back home, often one bike or car stops in front of me and try to get me ride on. On the way to the office, at least two people without a single missing day make a fake Chinese noise to me or a group of people giggles at me in disrespectful way. Some people chased me to my place so I once walked around the town till the guy gave up walking more or I went inside my room and wait for 20-30 minutes before putting a light on. Such things are my daily life. Good Bombaykers and Indian men friends often don’t believe that such things are in the other aspect of my life in India, while all my girl friends (Indian, non-Indian) do get it.
Still my answer to the question is “India is generally safe, especially in Bombay.” I believe the rate of bad people in nature is the same everywhere. You might meet more number of bad people in Bombay than you meet in Tokyo because of the population (also because you don’t meet so many new poeple in Tokyo if you don’t try to, actually), but you also meet more number of good or great people at the same time, and that’s best part of living in India. For instance, when you are robbed by one bad guy on the street, ten more people around run to help you with no doubt.
Technically speaking, imagine, you can not be isolated in Bombay as there is a huge population filling up each square mater of the city. And most of people are great people like you who have a decent family and great friends, job responsibility, philosophy of life, love, and great memory.
パラダイス・ゴア（４）「深夜特遅」バスとホテル・パラダイス
19 Apr 2012 2 Comments
週末の２日間かけてゴア・トリップしてきた。ゴア・トリップといってもホントにいわゆるゴア・トリップした訳じゃなくてただの一泊旅行です。過去のゴア記事は（１）、（２）、（３）参照。
土日はほとんど平日できない映像編集の仕事でつぶしたので、まったく心の休まる暇がなかったのがここ１〜２ヶ月。新年度になって新しい仕事と責任がふくれあがって、ちょっと太刀打ちできなくなってしまったので、ここは無理矢理にでもブレイクを取らなければ、と思い立ったその日にゴア行きのバスのチケットを取った。幸いフットワークの軽い友人が「行く！」と一瞬にして返事してくれたので、旅の仲間もできた。
ゴアはボンベイからバスで12時間、飛行機で１時間ぐらいの距離にある。電車がいちばん安くて快適なんだけれど、その分人気なので出発の3日前にいきなり取ろうとしてもなかなかチケットが取れない（後で聞いたら、出発前日限定の緊急用の席が取れるシステムなんだそうですが）。結局バスを取ったんだけれど、この深夜バスがゆっくり走っていたのかなんなのか到着に18時間かかって、金曜日の夜に出てゴアに着いたのが午後２時ごろであった。
とはいっても着いたら気分はもう休暇。着いたらビーチに突っ走って、あとは日が沈むまで、飛行機の時間まで、とにかく泳いでデッキチェアで昼寝して、また泳いで、昼寝して、本を読んで、ビールを飲んでまた泳いで。おいしいエビやイカやキングフィッシュをたっぷり食べて。シーズンオフだからビーチには人もまばらで、海を全部独り占めしているみたいだった。真夏のゴアの海は、ほとんどぬるま湯に近いぐらい水が暖かい。だから泳いでいても波と遊んでいても、なんだか巨大な温泉に浸かっているみたいな気分だ。たった24時間の滞在だったけれど、時間を忘れて、まるで何日もいたような気持ちになった。ゴアのそんなところが本当に好きだ。
今回は一日しかないので前にもいったOzra Beach（別名Small Vagator、アンジュナから北にバイクで10分)にさっさと向かって、目を付けていた安いバンブーコテージ、「パラダイス」に宿を取った。季節外れなので2人で一晩300ルピー（600円ぐらい。もっと安いところはこの時期200〜300円ぐらい）。
この「パラダイス」、見かけは素敵なんだけれど、なんせ自然素材でできている高床式住居なので、隙間だらけだし歩くと揺れるし、窓は布一枚。シャワーとトイレは共同である。隙間から当然蚊も入ってくるのでベッドには蚊帳がついている。防音機能が全然ないので、通りを走るバイクの音や人の話し声がどんどん聞こえてくるし、ふにゃふにゃの壁とドアなのでちょっと力を入れれば誰でも入れる感じでセキュリティがまるでなってないので、多分繊細な人は怖くてよく眠れないかもしれないけれど、一日海で泳いで疲れて酔っぱらっていたらどんなにうるさくても死体のように眠れるものです。
どれだけ建物がふにゃふにゃで防音設備がないかというと、ネパール人従業員が集まっている受付に歩いていったら、従業員のお兄ちゃんやおっちゃんたちが集まって黙り込んでいる。「ねえねえ」と声をかけると、受付の隣のコテージを指差しながら「耳をすませて、よくみてごらんよ」と言う。注意してみて見ると、コテージがぐらぐら揺れて女性のあえぎ声が10メートルぐらい離れた受付まで聞こえてくるのだった。
長期滞在のヨーロピアンカップルが昼間にワイルドな１ラウンドをこなしていたらしいんだけれど、従業員達が口をそろえて「あの人達、あの調子でほとんど24時間営業なんだよね」「そうそうずーっとやってんだよ、朝、昼、晩と」という。「無料ポルノだねえ。ラッキー？」と聞くと、「まあなんというかもう、午後の素敵なミュージックだね」だそうだ。こういうカップルは奥の方のコテージに案内した方がいいと思うんだけど、まあ受付付近にいてくれればシーズンオフの暇つぶしにはなるかもしれない。「あ、はじまったよ」なんていって、暇なネパーリーがバードウォッチングみたいにじっと立ち止まって人間の営みを耳を澄ませて聞いている。のんきだ。
そんなゴア。ボンベイに帰って来た瞬間、空港のリキシャ・ドライバーに追いかけられて、マンデーブルーにやられて、一瞬にしてそののんきさはぶっ飛んだけれど、行ってよかった。また行こう。
※「パラダイス」はバガトア・ビーチの横の小さなビーチ、オズラン・ビーチ沿いなので、アンジュナの観光ガイドにオズランのパラダイスと言えば問題なく連れてってくれると思います。
Indian Diet
10 Apr 2012 2 Comments
in Culture, English Posts, Life Tags: beauty, chapati, cooking, diet, food, health, healty, indian food
OK, I admit that I am becoming a little bit “round shaped” these days, in other words, gramorous (maybe it’s a wrong word choice for me but still).
I had been a very thin person in my whole life and used to get sick very often. But when I went to Japan twice in the last three months and was fed the fatty rice every day, I passed the certain weight called “the standard weight.” I don’t get sick, I have more stamina, so I don’t lose weight easily also, good or bad.
Like some Korean mothers, my Japanese mom quite cares about her single daughter’s beauty and often send me some cosmetics, diet protein, and a series of books titled “How to become the most beautiful woman in the world” written by a famous diet consultant of Miss Universes. It sounds ridicurous but I actually learnt how much my life is against being nominated for Mss Universe.
My mother is a kind of person who buy three exact-same shirts from a discount cart and wear every day and who never wears cosmetics in her whole life. So I am not really convinced when she tries to educate me on beauty. But basically her point is that if I don’t start being conscious in my 30th, I will pay a prise in my 50th. That actually makese sense.
My colleague taught me how to cook chapati
I wanna stay in fit and look hot in my 50s too, so I do little by little. Eating healthy food, doing light exercise, drinking lots of water, etc, etc. I basically hate makeup, am pretty bad at selecitng cloth (my concept of shopping is also basically a buy-one-get-two t-shirt cart), and I am a major meat eater and drinker. So those things don’t naturally come to me. It needs a certain effort not to come to the office in gym t-shirt with jumping messy hair.
The beauty book tells me I should eat brown stuff (brown bread, brown rice, brown sugar) and avoid white stuff (white bread, white rice, white sugar), so I cook chapati, use jaggery for taste, and drink tea and red wine. Indian food can be fatty but also healthy if you select and cook well. I am sorry but I can’t avoid potato chips even all books say it’s the world worst food ever, because I have an old tie and emotional connection with them.
インドの夏と停電
09 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in 生活, 日本語の記事 Tags: インド, ムーミン谷, 停電, 夏
ボンベイの4月は暑い。生きているだけで汗が出てくる。うちにはクーラーが無いので、天井に大きな扇風機のあるホールにベッドをよっこいしょと運んで来て、なんとか暑さをしのいでいる。週中はオフィスにいるのでそんなに気にならないのだけれど、週末の日中の室内は温室みたいに暑いので、カフェに避難して本を読んだりして過ごしている。停電があったりしたらもう暑くて床のひんやりしたところを一人ごろごろ転がっているしかない。うん、去年もこんなかんじだったな、とけだるく思いながら。
新しい年度になって、新しい仕事が山積みだ。アイディアをギュウギュウ絞り出してぐいっとまとめて形にする仕事ばかりで、時々頭が熱くなりすぎて気絶しそうになる。仕事はマテリアライゼーションの面白さと恐怖の間にいつもあって、無心に走りながら、いい意味で自分を失っている。余裕がない。やりたいことが、未来の余白が見えないぐらいに積み上っていて、よけいなことを考えている暇もない。
仕事の手があいたら、旅にも出たい。まだ行っていない北インドやネパールも見てみたい。お金がたまったらアフリカやヨーロッパにも行きたい。気楽にゴアにも友達と１週間ぐらいゆっくり行って休みたい。読みたい本も棚に積上っているし、時間ができたらじっくり書きたいテーマも手帳にぼちぼち溜まっている。写真や映像編集、デザインも先のためにもう少し勉強しておかなければ。そう思いながら、ほとんど手がつかないままだ。
それでもふと、摩耗しきって床に転がって天井を見ている週末の午後や、リセットしきれていない頭でなんとか一日を乗り切った月曜日の深夜に、油断していると心に降りてくる小さな孤独のような空虚な感覚にとらわれるときがある。一定のスピードで生活を送っていると、「置いてけぼりにされた何か」がこんこんと心臓をノックしているような気がする。そんなときには、どんなに仕事がうまく行っても、やりたいと思っていたことができても、心から楽しめない。だからぼんやりと天井を見ながら、その何かについて考える。
そういう種類の孤独は、どんなに親しい人がそばにいてもどうにもならない。いわば自分と自分との乖離だから、静かに辛抱強くもう一部の自分が追いついてくるのを待って、せーのでまた歩き始めるしかない。一人でものを考えて暮らすのに慣れてくると、そんな風に壁に向かってテニスの試合をしているような気分になることが時々ある。それでもまた歩き出して、発信して、誰かとふと心が通じた気がするときはうれしい。
「ムーミン谷の夏祭り」で、ばらばらの場所から集まった仲間が停電の真っ暗闇の中で小さなろうそくを見つけてつけた時に、まるでみんなが一つの人間になったようなほっとする気持ちになった、というくだりがある。いつも、孤独な停電の向こうにそんな瞬間を探している。ろうそくの代わりに扇風機がまわってくれればいいのだけれど。
Creative Outsourcing
09 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in English Posts, Work Tags: creative, inhouse, Movie, movie projects, outsourcing, video editor
I have been scratching the surface of videographics and a little bit of animation since last November because I had a burning movie project to take care by the deadline anyhow otherwise my boss was almost killing me.
Outsourcing is not a piece of cake, especially in creative projects. You’d shop around external vendors and freelancers, prepare concepts and instructions, spoonfeed and give feedbacks, (even takes care of the editors’ self-esteem and pride issues) and would even scrap the project because of quality in the end.
After many attempts, I gave up and decided to give it a shot by myself. I just couldn’t find a better alternative to meet the deadline. It worked to some extent and I quite enjoy learning new skills and gain freedom through it. (Still contact me if you are a great editor and want a job, because I am more than happy to give up this super timeconsuming work).
After editing a couple of movie projects, I found that editing is about love. Love to the objects, love to people. When I am spending hours to pick up the best phrases and smiles of a person from movie materials, I am actually in love with him or her, thinking so seriously how I can communicate who they are in the limited short crip. Also I now understand why there’s an editor’s cut version of mega hit movies, as there are many scenes that I am dying to show people but have to cut because of the length.
And I started thinking; if it’s about love, the thin line which separate between amateurism and professionalism is just about sense and skills. So when I think of outsourcing such creative projects, my dilemma is if the editor or designer can get really deep into the message or the theme, and if they can share the same heat and spirit as inhouse staff shares. Would they care as much as we care? Would they fight not to compromise as much as we don’t want to? Whold they be happy to give 120% output by gaining the same amount of money? This is the challenge. Not easy in any kind of works. (No conclusion, unfortunately)
Running High
27 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in English Posts, Life, Uncategorized, Work
March makes me feel scared of April. And April makes me more scared of May. Yeah, all day, all the time.
The moment you set a target or a goal of your work or life, though we say it is a motivation or a drive putting it in a positive way, crap, it also becomes your weakness. The higher you set the goal or standard, or the more you want it to become true, the more you are scared of being failed. So the challenge is; how can we keep our spontaneous and relaxed attitude while running in the maximum speed you’ve ever be?
Marketing and sales are clearly driven by numbers; whatever you do, you don’t do, you do great, or badly, affect the numbers very clearly. Ask anyone in your marketing team and they would tell you that they see the dream of being chased pretty often. How to deal with the pressure depends on the person.
I basically try ignoring the possible fact that I may not be capable of handling the goal as hard as I can. I try to keep myself in running-high all the time to pull myself away from the slight sign of fear. Most of the time, feeling fear is the same as feeling isolated. Isolation creates a doubt of myself and stop my own system of openness and creativity. So I try not to be scared; of people, of mistakes, of future, of being annoyed, of seeing the reality, become alone, or whatever. Even so, I am often caught and feel like doing a deadman walking. Let’s say that even President Obama or Manmohan Singh may also feel the same way quite daily, or at least let me say quite a few Japanese prime ministers have actually quit because of stress, pressure, or gastric ulceration. Fear is one emotion that is very difficult to make others understand. The higher the position be, the more the person is lonely because of the gravity of the fear.
I sometimes feel that my heart is squeezed up and almost stopping because of stress and pressure, and often can’t sleep thinking of new project’s failure. The good part of being in Marketing is that you are always trying something always new because of rapid trend change in the technology and market, but the bad thing is that you are always challenged to adjust and go beyond. Do I have an idea? If I have an idea, do we have power or knowledge to execute? If we have all of them, do we have money and followers? Even when you made a success, you are facing a higher goal next day. An endless civil war.
Junior staff or non business people sometimes ask me why and how we set a goal so high. Their point is “Okay, at least I understand the George Mallory’s word ‘Because there’s a mountain there‘, but you guys don’t even have a mountain but you’ve created the imaginary mountain. Why bother?” Yeah, point taken, but it’s just, I mean, we’ve got to go, and let us just see how the world will look like when we climb higher.
Still I tell you, the good thing of setting a goal is that at least we are running towards it, not we are running away from what is chasing us behind. In other words, it’s just like you are drawing a picture of the beautiful landscape that you’ve seen only in your dream. The picture in the end should be more beautiful than the one in the memory. Let’s speak this way.
年度末は忙しい
21 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
年度末である。今年のまとめやら来年の計画やら、考えることや納めること新しくはじめることがいろいろあって忙しい。まあプライベートでは特に3月だからってやることはないんだけど、オフィスでの話である。
時々ふと、仕事ってなんで毎日毎日あるんだろう？と不思議に思うことがある。数珠つなぎと言えばよい方で、むしろ3重、4重の螺旋状に複数の仕事が平行して永久につながっているのが現実である。不思議だ。「アルマゲドン」の石油発掘チームみたいに、１つの仕事が終わったらお金をたんまりもらって長期休暇に入って、またお声がかかるまで遊んで暮らすみたいな生活ができたら楽しいのにな、と思うけれど、しがない会社員はそうも行かない。
忙しいときは当面新しい仕事が受けられないので、「ごめん、来週の金曜までにやるから」と適当に楽観的な先送りにするのだけれど、気づいてみるとあっという間に来週の金曜日になっていて、先方から「なんでやってないのさ、1週間も待ったのに」と苦情が来ることは非常に多い。わかっているんだから最初から「ごめん。やれない。私に頼むんならあさって来てください（丁寧風に）」と言えばよかったんだけれど、仕事はある程度頼まれてなんぼみたいな貧乏性のところがあるので、その時は自分を過信してできるだろうと思って受けてしまう。最近はちょっと趣向を変えて「来週金曜日までにできたらやるけど、その不確実性および遅延が我慢できないようなら最初から誰か他の人に頼んで」とはっきり言うようにしている。
経理なんかもばたばたしているし、来年の不安もつきないし、年度末だなあという感じだ。早くこの1週間がすぎて、新しい年になったら何かが変わるのかと思うんだけれど、根本的なところは変わらないんだろう。とりあえずしばらくは止まらず走るしかないみたいだ。
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