Archive for the ‘feeling’ Category
I paid a visit to a man that will soon be 99 years old. He was – at one point in my pre-divorce nuttiness – a lover of sorts (he was well over 90 at the time). He is now a man who I have grown to love dearly, even if his bottom set of dentures fall out during dinner. He’s just that great of a guy.
Then I biked home to my daughter who was curious if I had somehow experienced his death since I had been gone so long (at his age, she reasoned, you really never know)… A very clever teen who is absolutely on the emotional money nearly 100% of the time.
There was a message on my machine from a man who had enchanted me only two nights before and he had me utterly tickled again to hear his soft voice telling me sweet things that (this time!) were of a more personal nature. A man who spoke to my soul because he had said, basically: BEAUTY WILL HEAL YOUR BRAIN. Well, sort of. But it was as if the speech he was giving was the one I had been formulating in my head for years, where you sit there in the audience going “yes! yes! duh! yes! God, I know! yes!!” and your energy is shooting off in all directions as you forget to breathe.
I guess I have a knack for falling in love immediately (and irretrievably!) with brains. That was the case with my 90 year old, that was the case with the ethics and beauty man on stage. Looking back, that was the case with just about every relationship I have ever been in, from the get go. I beg that 50% of the world’s population will forgive me, but normally, it happens to me with members of the opposite sex. It just works out that way, for the most part. With the exception of one or two dear friends and Rachel Maddow – as I certainly love them/her and am indebted and inspired to Rachel by what she contributes (literally daily!) to society.
But falling in love – while nice – isn’t enough to sustain this particular body. Being loved in return is what gets the glow going. Which, although the day had been going better than expected in regards to reciprocity … I was having an awful time with something else:
… the man on my machine made only one mistake during his lecture. He said that designers would have “plenty of work.” While I am sure some do – and what a wonderful thing for them – I seem to be in a process of becoming something else – from designer to ? … what exactly is not quite clear yet. It has evolved into fact that I simply cannot handle the eminently shallow, art and creative directing, better-and-wittier-than-thou and we-are-all-that types in agencies. To their credit, they are doing what they have to do. But are they REALLY giving us true cultural contributions? Ästhetic value? Deeper moral spaces? Now that they have perfect command of flash (after years of code study), are they REALLY going to let us in on something truly interesting, inspiring and culturally relevant? I suppose perhaps some are, but unlucky for me, I have never met them. Would they REALLY also be able to watch a 90+ lose his teeth after biting on roast duck and still not miss a beat in their devotion (or lose their appetite?) because they know what “it’s” REALLY about? Are they loving their own partners intensely against all physical odds (giving birth, aging, too little exercise, gravity)? Are they learning about sharing food with snails in their own gardens because killing all of them is just plain impossible? Are they acting constructively as often as possible on matters of absolute importance to the world? I certainly HOPE so. But I have my share of doubt, and it’s growing. Sadly. So much for the upholders of the truth, the good, the beautiful.
And even if agency life wasn’t so bad, then there are the clients. Clients I have lost only because they found me to be “educational” (the word, when spoken in German, smacks painfully of being a condescending wench that has no business talking to marketing directors like that). Indeed, I had been trying to teach the man about taste. Meaning. Clarity. Beauty. Truth. My career as a teacher at a design school was beginning, so he was a unwitting prophet, bless his naive heart.
Then there are other clients that essentially order you to do things you would never, ever, ever do. And you put up and shut up, or you lose a client. Which, considering that you are now working for less than a third of what you had been able to charge five years ago, you of course do. I’m not complaining about price, I have learned the value – quite literally – of less. But culturally, ethically, you know you are making a mistake. You know you should get up and walk out. You know you should start producing your own dandelion wine for sale at local farmer’s markets before you continue to put up with such degradation for even one more minute. The only problem: you have virtually no clue how to make dandelion wine. And getting the recipe online just doesn’t seem to be the right way to go about it…
And so it goes. Despite all the thunder and lightning, the heat isn’t going away.
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity, they say.
They USED to say. I think it’s time to re-think all four expressions. Fighting and fucking have been lumped into one strange space as have peace and virginity (failing that, at least a chaste style of living - those that claim to be celibate are only claiming to live outside of wedlock, which is a pretty big part of society these days, not only clergy and “holy” men and women…).
In my quest for the perfect peace logo - which I remain convinced must include a circle of some sort, in some manner - I have waded from one “fight” to the next. Looking back, I realize that I have fought many personal and professional “wars” in an effort to attain a semblance of peace in my life.
The Wiki-Warrior definition (I love using Wikipedia as a starting point, right or wrong, it fixes a spot in the fog):
The first literal use refers to “someone engaged or experienced in warfare.” The second figurative use refers to “a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics.”
Or as in love, relationships, business, child-raising, gardening…
… or being human.
At another meeting of great men thinking great thoughts for the betterment of mankind (not a drop of cynicism here, I assure you it was so), I postulated that peace and the striving for such a luminous state could be more appropriately expressed with the capacity to explore, develop and “withstand” ecstasy. To “stand with ecstasy” is not an easy feat. It takes willpower, dedication, practice, committment. All of which are attributes found in any classic “warrior”. The fact that life moves with twists and turns and is unpredictable makes it all the more important to exercise flexibility. Flexibility of thought but also of action that is fueled by the underlying birthright and intuitive striving for … ecstasy. Jefferson was cautious and called it “the pursuit of happiness”, but language has become more matter-of-fact, perhaps raw, uncovered, outright. And with perhaps just a touch of… impatience.
The report on the logo, for all involved up to this point:
The group of men are carving out the legalities and a name has been established: “Bell Amani”. Although the official deadline for logos has long passed, I welcome anyone who feels motivated to still contribute a logo to the process. At some point, there will be an exhibition involving all entries with the details (assuming permission has been granted) of all involved. The first 470+ kilo bell will be transported to Vienna soon, positioned around the unfolding of this event: http://www.afrika-tage.at/
Stay tuned for more, if sporadic, information.
JUMP!!!!
… and?
How was the feeling? Gliding through the air in a sudden burst of compact body energy, hot with anticipation yet totally released into the unknown?! The millisecond of breaking the surface of the water a plethora of sensations, all appendages on alert, sucking in which one felt it first while it all melts into one simultaneous moment of explosive cannonball. Or jacknife. Or bellyflop.
And so it is, 2010. Watching the planet turn, every day brings some new piece of news to jump into, the surface of information just as unpredictable, as impossible to imagine or comprehend, the process of letting go on the flight into it just as intense.
Why Haiti? Why bitter poverty? Why obscene wealth? Why destructive, faulty food? Why polyester fibers? Why atomic power? Greenhouse gases? Supreme court rules so obviously without wisdom or even the vaguest bit of (intelligent, democratically just) supremacy? Why all this pain?! Surely a benevolent God would never let all these horrendous things happen…
JUMP!!!!
How do I feel? Am I upside down? What part of me is struggling? Where is the surface? How deep am I? Kick, kick, kick! All systems go to rise above the surface? There are two elements: me, and everything around me that is seemlessly surrounding my thrashing, giving me something to push against, kick into, hold in my hand without being able to grasp it at all really, to exercise my might and will upon.
Water. News. Life.
JUMP!!!!
(Dedicated to JM, in the hopes that he begins to understand – and please note: no one ever finishes understanding!! – that the precious beauty of our world lies precisely in its infinite complexity and perpetual newness in which we swim. I love you very much.)
Yesterday I decided I had screwed around enough, read enough, twittered enough, cooked enough and worked enough. I decided to do a few minutes of introspective meditative practice. So here I am, doing my better-than-Tai-Chi stuff - which was indeed wonderful – and then move into the sitting position. Float, one could even say.
And there he was. Since my eyes were closed, I could only guess what he was. Or if it was indeed a she, which is pretty difficult to determine as a lay person that doesn’t specialize in insects. One thing was clear, whatever it was, it had wings. And was pretty pissed. Or frustrated. Or both. Meditative practice being what it is, I refused to “go there”, took it all as part of the immaculate picture of the moment, and finished up.
But the bounce upward once I had determined I was done was pretty springy indeed. I immediately saw what it was: a huge yellow-jacket wasp, perhaps even a queen. Aren’t they the bigger ones? Or is that just with bees? Either way, I knew it needed saving. Watching its predicament, I was reminded of a bee in the same state a while back where I wondered about the frustration such a creature may/must feel. They see the great outdoors right there in front of them. See the trees, the open sky, the clouds, perhaps even smell it all, and they crawl hither and thither and cannot fathom why they cannot get back to that state of openness. It’s just the simple, stupid pane of glass that separates them. Easy enough for us, maddening for them.
Sometimes my life feels just like that. I see it all, I feel it all “out there” - and yet, the pane between makes me do all sorts of things that get me nowhere. Of course, you may think, “just open the door/window”! Were it so easy for the bee or the wasp! The door is opened by something bigger than either of us, that much was clear that morning as I fumbled for a glass and a piece of heavy paper to transport my co-meditator outdoors.
Sit and wait? Hardly. I find myself in the unusual position of having not one but two elderly “patients” - people I visit on a regular basis. For whatever it’s worth, both seem to benefit from our sessions. The one, a 97-year old man, is alert, alive, vital - just old and frail. The other, a 94-year old woman, is blind, slightly dement, not very vital, but usually pretty healthy and perky. On my last visit to the woman, another elderly woman sat next to me and began to talk about how her life used to be (being outside), how she was in charge of her own household, etc., and how it is now (being on the pane) about her many fears, and how awful it is to be so frail…
Sitting on the other side of me was the blind woman. Essentially crawling on the same pane of glass, “my” 94-year old said that “She can’t complain. She’s healthy mostly and what more could you want? Sure, she’s old, but that’s just how it its.” (For the record, that is pretty much the same sentiment that comes from the 97-year old man, though he lived - and lives - a life of relative luxury…) And there you have it, I thought.
There’s the door. It’s as easy as that. And I took her hands in mine and looked in her blind, glowing, beautiful, toothless face and was full of admiration, love and contentment. Just being.
It took only two of the thousands of applications offered for the iPhone to convince my partner: it became a “must-have” product based on the weather and the compass apps. Naturally, he now is spouting off about a variety of other functions. But those two functions (on my phone, before he ordered his) knocked him over the edge. He is, if I may say so, a changed man due to this product.
Mind you, he is no designer. Truth be told, we are diametrically opposed regarding our level of education and the ensuing social stratum. Normally, that would give you a few clues as to the car he drives, the clothes he wears and the newspapers he reads. Or does not read. So goes the cliché. The richness of discovering how wrong clichés can be is part of the lesson here. An important lesson, I believe, for the future of design, specifically product design in the most varied of sectors.
I would postulate that there is some connection between the aesthetic value of any given design and the development of consciousness in the broadest sense. This is a big statement that I intend to expound upon some other time. But very briefly, it is my belief that the things we touch, hold, use, need, value also touch, form, affect and develop who we are. Not just in the banal sense of - as any old American knows - giving us our position in the socially conspicuous consumption caste system. The fact of my mobility being assisted by a Ford, an Audi or a Bentley defines me more quickly than anything else to anyone else. And getting out of the car with Jimmy Choos and a Louis Vitton bag cinch the picture. But it’s also reciprocal. My Audi teaches me about curves and textures and pictograms. Inside the car. Because that is where I live large chunks of my life.
A tiny part of what made my partner a “must have” for me was the fact that, no, he didn’t have any academic titles and yes, he began his factory career at the age of 15, but he had a Braun razor! His shoes were lovely. His undergarments were spectacular. An essential fact to understand why I say this, is that I am a designer by trade and passion. These things matter to me in a way no non-designer would ever understand. But I understood that the choice he made in choosing these products on an extremely limited budget stemmed from the way his inner world worked. He valued value. He turned things over again and again before finally making that choice. (And still does, btw.) Watching someone choose less is much more valuable than watching someone choose more. (If I would ever spend thousands of dollars on a purse – which I wouldn’t – I would never purchase a Louis Vitton bag. The “why” in that is an essential element in this theory that needs further study.)
Which brings me back to my postulate. Allow me to dream for a moment. Take the iPhone as our first example of a massive shift in consciousness caused by design meeting function (– it wasn’t, of course, but this is a dream…). Suddenly, people realized that having a sleek, intuitive, truly “sexy” product in their possession was not only a positive notch for their social status but truly, authentically, aesthetically fun. Easier. Joyful. That product raises the bar on all products (not just phones) from that point. At least for iPhone users. It may not make people run out and buy a different car, but I do think it changes them, in their aesthetic sensitivity if nothing else, from that point forward.
This is a change that is happening more rapidly than ever. In my humble opinion and experience, I would say that Braun was the “pre-Apple” type of company that recognized the usage-consciousness connection early on and followed their design principles without compromise. It would not surprise me in the slightest if many an IT and/or design professional in and around Apple had Braun calculators on their desks. Or is there a coincidence in the calculator app on the iPhone?
As a former native of Detroit, I’ll take the argument to automobiles. Driving in yet another motor city I call home, I noticed a compact Alfa Romeo that they have named (we still have progress to make in this department) “Mito.” Impressive from the front. From the back, I was reminded of the unfortunate mistake – my size 14 opinion – of the back of a Ford “Ka.” The back of the Mito coming from Italians, I hesitated and thought, “well, perhaps more men DO like fat bottom girls than Paris will lead us to believe?” (Most car designers still being men, from what I know.) Because that’s what the forms of both the Ka und the Mito bring intuitively to mind. Wide, squatty. That may be a tremendous comfort to millions of women worldwide, but –come ON – is it joyful design? (In all fairness, the Mito is fun from the front.)
But what happens to you when you see, as was my experience on the same road on a different day, a small, silver, completely perfect “compact” Bentley? It evokes the same feeling as when you meet someone who is completely and totally beautiful in a physical sense. Where bones are positioned in breathtaking places and you just cannot take your eyes off of their sheer perfection. You are truly transported to a place of visual bliss. (Forget the near-immediate “wanting to own” reflex for a minute. Just enjoy the bliss in the moment.)
We’re still dreaming. Now imagine this happening to you with, say, a toaster. Or a cup. Or shoes. Or a chair. It is already happening to you with your (i-)phone. Imagine this happening to you more and more – and it is an affordable, achieveable fact for each and every factory worker worldwide. It may not stop global warming. It may not solve world hunger. But when we come to expect bliss in the tiniest of consumer products, we may move on to expect more bliss. And then more-than-bliss. We may be happier with less for longer. Designers/companies can turn the clock of obsolescence around and make things last longer. If they are beautiful and bliss-inducing, we will want them to. With the world’s resources fast disappearing, we made need them to work on such solutions more quickly than we think. We (the people) may remember, as any good designer knows and intelligent companies never forget, that “consumers” are humans first. And humans have a right to bliss. Sooner or later, they’ll fight for it.
“Beziehung ist eigentlich Energie, etwas, was zwischen zwei Menschen entsteht, wenn sie aufeinander treffen und zwar ganz von selbst.
Es lebt sich das, was leben will, wie immer das aussehen mag.
Aber wir rennen los mit Vorstellungen im Kopf davon, wie eine Beziehung sein soll.
Statt zu spüren, was uns in diesem Moment anrührt, suchen wir mir dem Kopf - wir zwängen unseren Geist in ein Korsett aus Werten, Normen und Regeln.
Und wir glauben, wenn wir finden, was dort reinpasst, wären wir glücklich.
Aber wir wären glücklich, wenn wir den Mut hätten, all das fallen zu lassen und einfach zu spüren, was jetzt ist, herauszutreten aus dem Gefängnis beengender Vorstellungen… das ist es, was ich für den Weg halte, für den einzigen Weg, Liebe zu erfahren.
Sex ist eigentlich Energie, etwas, was zwischen zwei Menschen fließt, wenn sie aufeinander treffen und zwar ganz von selbst.
Da lebt sich, was leben will, wie immer das aussehen mag.
Aber wir rennen los mit Vorstellungen im Kopf, wie Sex aussehen soll, zählen uns unsere sexuellen Vorlieben auf und meinen, sie müssen erfüllt sein, um Befriedigung zu finden.
“Was magst du?” Mir ist die Frage zuwider.
Ich mag alles! Und nichts! Denn ich mag nichts immer und nichts nie.
Es geht nicht um die Vorstellung im Kopf, es geht nicht um die Form, es geht um Energie und die produziert ihre ganz eigenen Bilder, wenn sich entladen darf, was sich entladen will.
Wenn dieses Loslassen gelingt, dann ist wirkliche Ekstase möglich… das ist es, was ich für den Weg halte, für den einzigen Weg, Befriedigung und Erfüllung zu erfahren…”
This is a performance by Perpetuum Jazzile, an a cappella jazz choir from Slovenia doing Toto’s 1982 hit song “Africa” - especially moving is the beginning. How amazing is THAT?!
Of special note is the guy doing the air drums and percussion (with his mouth!!). This was the geeky, pimply dude annoying you with that sort of thing during high school, right? You know the types I mean. All he needed to do to become brilliant was to find the context that worked for him and he becomes glorious for everyone. There’s a lesson in there…
Excuse me Seth Godin. Even EXCEPTIONAL Designers (and though I won’t name any names, you know who they are…) are going through what this video so excellently shows.
Look for us now disguised as massage therapists, taxi drivers and tap dancers.
Sitting smack in the middle of 2009, I wonder.
Slowly, slowly, the ugly head of doubt is beginning to wipe the sleep out of its eyes – as messages filter through that drowsy, still-flooded sea of dreamworld impulses that are all too captivating – giving itself the last little nudge into wakefulness… slowly, slowly. It has, quite clearly, no choice.
Is doubt the right word, I wonder, again? Perhaps we could term it “reality” - or simply the “is-ness of now” or perhaps even – dare I think this? - “awakening”?
There are things to be done, places to go, people to meet, choices to make. Every little, last relationship, big or small, minute or grand - the taxi driver, the stinging bee, the lover, the sister, the cashier, the sunny day - weaves in and around us and affects how we go about our “NOW.” Each day, every day, every second, these interactions shape who we are. We shape who they are. It’s a non-stop dance that we are always, always in the middle of, patiently watching. Stoically bracing for the next twirl, the unexpected twist, the uplift and a tango-ic sink. Without this patient, clear and passionate observation from a mysteriously unflappable center, life would be painful, even unbearable today. These days.
Are we indeed learning that “Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature.” Nature being everything around us, everything we plant, destroy, walk upon, breathe, touch, see, eat. Agreeing with all of that is obviously not a small task. Especially with challenges like this:
I posted two short tweets back-to-back a few weeks ago. The first one was a very stinging article related to torture. Pertinent and timely. I would link back to it, but due to internet posts now rapidly becoming a “let go” phenomenon, the link is lost to posterity. Whatever you do, don’t try to hold on to what you say. Or what other people have said or written. It’s very zen, actually. To give an impression, though, this link works just as well for more on the topic of torture.
Everyone has an opinion about torture. Some are very vehemently opposed. Others have a more blasé - as long as it doesn’t affect me - attitude. Others are all for it in the name of whatever sees that route as a means toward a cause (stopping/fighting/ridiculing terrorism, for example).
I rather expected the response I got. People looking up. People re-tweeting.
What I didn’t expect was that the tweet that followed, one about a family that was forced to choose between keeping their home or paying for their cancer-stricken son’s medical treatments, got virtually no response. You could hear the virtual pin dropping in the great void of buzzing digital activity.
My point was, and still is, that torturous situations are rampant this year. Perhaps it was that way EVERY year from the get-go of becoming humanoids. You don’t need to be a prisoner of war, or a prisoner at all. You can be a very normal human being, going about your business and WHAM! it hits you. The leather belt of foreclosure from the right. WHACK! The steel-studded whip of unemployment. Or BOOM! the din of debilitating illness coming upon you or yours that you cannot find appropriate treatment for because you cannot afford it - despite having sustained so much pressure, for the profit of others, for so long.
In agreement with nature means, for me, in agreement with human nature. There are, of course, common-sense charters and proposals (from the United Nations, for one) that agree on some basic premises like the fact that all people should have enough food to eat. Which is, quite obviously, not the case. Isn’t hunger a form of torture? Doesn’t it make sense that now would be a good time to take a look at making sustainable humanity more than a buzz word? Making that “virtuous will” a basic skill set for going from “politically correct“ to “human(e)ly correct”?
Failing that, it’s all anyone can do - myself included - to focus on the unflappable center. To stoically brace while the madness whirlwinds around your ears.
