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.
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.
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.
Supplemental Effort
18 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in English Posts, Work
A company is a purposeful playground. If you observe it in long view, some kids come to join, some leaves. One idea is continued, another idea disappear. In another words, people and ideas are like body cells. Even everything inside changes, a good company has its own character which remains the same over years because who and what it wants never change.
Each person has his own character, too. The good thing is, as long as you are working in an organization with multiply diversed roles, you don’t need to be a perfect person as other people can cover up your weakness. At the same time, you should also be good or keen at something which can cover up other people’s weakness.
I often think what if I become a perfect me, and the thought always gets into a mase. Does it mean that I overcome all my weakness and become more well-balanced? Or does it mean that I go extraordinally in my small strength? You may say both; then it’s a long way for a short life.
After I came to India, I was influenced by people around and forced myself to be open and direct as much as possible. That eventually became a habit of mine. It sometimes go too extreme and create some troubles, but that is another story. At least I am confident people know what I am good at and bad at, which gives people to make a fair judgement on who I am.
If you believe in people around, showing all your cards you’ve got is the best way to win the game. The fact is, your career is created by others who observe you, not always by your intention. It is also the same for a company business. When we work on even a small single job well, clients think “OK, let’s try letting them do another one also.” When we fail, they think “Then let’s ask that to someone else next time.”
Decisions and judgements are always made by someone else in the end; it’s never be ours. Only thing we can do is doing our best in what we love to do in a commited manner. Like Hayao Kawai, the thinker said, “Effort is just a supplement, but it’s a worth supplement as there’s nothing else we can do anyways.” So let’s just relax and do things come on the table right.
Working Smart
08 Mar 2012 4 Comments
in English Posts, Work
My boss started a new rule in the office; “Come early, leave early.” You pay the penalty if you overwork. It helps the team members to plan works efficiently and balance work and life. I’m impressed for the fact my bosses are encouraging it.
Working smart is a tricky business. In short, to work smart, you have to go through the phase of total mess. To “do” things less, you need to “think” ten times more. To be “simple”, you should know the complexity very well.
If Einstein said “Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work”, Now way I can avoid hard work. Some people are naturally smart worker who do less work to make the same performance as hard workers. Actually I don’t like nor respect them much. My ideal smart worker is who doesn’t save their time and power. They work hard, and make explosive performance out of it. I want to be someone like that.
It’s a difference between a cool smart worker and a hot smart worker. I am baically anti-cool as my principle of life.
Or, in other words I don’t have a talent to be a cool smart. Whatever I do good is through painful lessons by banging my head against the wall like one hundred times. And I don’t know if there’s any other ways on the earth to make something new or creative without banging heads, seriously. So often when I manage completing work without a dead heat, I feel less happy and unsatisfied. I feel like I would have done much better in a different way.
So it’s another tricky thing; living on the thin line between a heat and a burnout. You need a skill to hung in there.
Yet, I think the rule is working. It makes me think. Does hard work comflict with smart work; can it be combined? Does quality really suffer in heavy schedule? Yes, sometimes no. It’s a forever theme.
A Prayer For A Warm Sunny Day
12 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in English Posts, Family, Life
My grandmother passed away on February 7th, Tuesday, which is five days later my grandfather’s death.
I just describe for my record.
We don’t know why and how that could happen. She was just recovering from burn injury. In the morning of the day, her doctor reported that the result of her examination shows that she was going to die in a day or two. But she was watching TV and talking to my mother and even walking down to the bathroom by herself. It was difficult to believe. In the last moment, she suddenly lost her breath.
Two of my grandparent’s photos are in front of the Buddhist altar next to each other in their small house. We ask to nowhere why, now and then, but no one knows an answer. The priest lightly joked “I couldn’t prepare two different speeches in front of the same family in such a short notce.” A staff of the ceremony hall said “This is the very first unusual case I have ever encountered in my professional life.” A staff of the crematory said hello to my cousin’s little daughter, “Do you remember me? We met last week, too.” While we were having lunch in the ceremony hall, my cousin brother joked out, “Am I having a deja vu? I think I had the exact same lunch box last week.”
Everyone is still puzzled and shocked. My bigger aunt thinks after all my grandmother thought that she was the only one who could take care of my grandfather even in an afterlife. It could be so. After my grandfather’s death, my grandmother was on her bed actually telling my smaller aunt, “Grampa is calling me.” For God’s sake, why did he try to pull her in, why on the earth did she listen to him?
We don’t know who could influence the timing of her death; is it her will, is it God’s will, or is it my grandfather’s will? Or it’s a mixture of all, or maybe no one’s? In the confusion, I think I started believing in an soul and an afterlife. It all makes sense now.
But we try to get into the phase that we don’t question why anymore and accept things as they happened. We had a very small funeral with close family. Everyone cried, everyone had many vivid memories of her. She was one of women who were meant to be born as a mother. She took care of literally everyone; her husband, three daughters, the daughters’ husbands, the daughters’ husbands’ siblings, friends, grandchildren, grandchildren’s wives and kids. She was worried about everyone surrounding her. We wonder how she could do, and whether any of us could ever live like that. She had so many friends, too.
She expected me a lot. I was the only girl grandchild of her and she had so much dream on me. I wonder how good I was as her granddaughter. I might have dissapointed her being away from home. She wanted me to be a master of dressmaker or a kimono maker. She also trained me to be a master of tea ceremony, a good cook, or a decent wife with all these skills. I tried, but they didn’t interest me in deep after all. Although she kept complaining that I didn’t come back to Japan so often, I knew she was also very proud of having a grandchild working in India. She wanted to visit me once, but she was already too old to travel abroad.
We have to live life without her. All of us. We all have to be a little stronger.
I don’t know how to conclude here, so I don’t try to make a conclusion yet. On the way to Narita airport leaving my family behind, I saw the electric board on Nozomi Super Express showing the weather forecast of tomorrow. Without checking the actual forecast, I just started praying for a fine sunny day in Aichi tomorrow. I think I will always pray it will be a warm sunny day in Aichi that will make all my family a little happy and peaceful every day.
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