autumn tactics

昨夜搬入帰りながらかなり重要なことを気づきました。最近写真展の客さん評判を心配したけど、気づいたら、評判は重要じゃない。そもそもこの写真展の趣旨は大切な友達を感謝するためです。そして写真展を準備しながらその人たちのことを愛情込めて賛辞として作りました。それでもう成功です。

This is important so I’ll say it in English as well.

Recently I’ve been worrying about the critical reception to my show since I’ve invested so much time and money into it. But when I was on the way home from the installation last night I realized something: it doesn’t matter what sort of critical reception I get. The original motivation behind this exhibition was to celebrate my friends; the ones that pulled me up and helped get my feet under me here in Japan. And when I was preparing for the show that’s what I did; I fondly thought of the people in the pictures, all they’d done for me, and I made these photographs as a tribute to them. So the show’s already a success.

Thanks for helping make it one. 皆さん本当に有難うございました。

The sound of rain is comforting. The movement of fire is transfixing. The warmth of a blanket in autumn is soothing. We are best not to be misled by the five senses, but we are not meant to refute all comfort in this life, are we?

I am lucky. No, maybe that’s not the right word. it is good to have dear people to share things with. Giving thanks is important for many reasons. It keeps our soul supple. It helps foster compassion and charity; I think. I learned these words twenty years ago, but I didn’t understand them. But I think I felt I understood them to a degree. Maybe now the extent I think I understand them is misplaced as well. Experience does that, deepen your understanding of words. Until we die perhaps we will always be deepening our understanding. There comes a point where you can’t dissect the motivation behind an action discretely anymore. You’ve lived too much to break it down into a few fundamental components. So ultimately I guess we all just have to do what we feel is right, and trust our instincts, which more and more are fueled by the endless crevices of our mind.

A good person is truly good when is kind and generous during unsatisfactory conditions.

How much of having children is selfless?

Gentenkaiki, autumn 2006.

原点回帰から帰ってきました。其れなり「原点回帰」でした。ただのパーティ、ただの友達の集まりじゃない。四年前に優しい心のパーティーピープルが僕を迎え入れてくれたから、経験を重ねて自分の希望と懸念を超えて、やっと元に戻った気がします。過去との折りあいをつけました。再び皆さんのお陰で成長できました。恩に着ます。

これからの自分はどうになるかちょっと不安ですが、後悔なくて誠心誠意で進みたい。

And so the wheel turns. I tried my best, I spoke from the heart, I gave it my all.

これ以上どうしたら良いのか分からない。

If you speak from the heart, you can’t go wrong. But, it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. でも、よくあるね。そういうもん。

Thank you Buddha for my friends.

Thank you for loving the imperfect me.

I need to grow. But I am growing, or…

Plants grow, or they die. If they don’t receive the nutrition and care to sustain life, they die. But if they do, they grow. How they grow depends on a number of factors, some of which may be attributable to chaos theory and randomization, but more or less if you give plants a certain kind of environment to grow in, they grow a certain kind of way.

So I eat food, sleep, and move about. Life is sustained so I grow. Do I grow well? That’s another issue.

I think I am growing differently these last few months, and I think this is a good thing. It’s painful, but I think it’s more honest and truthful. Honest to myself more than anything I suppose. I wish it would hurry along, bringing all of the love, peace, and fulfillment that my stirs in my heart. But maybe it won’t be, or maybe it will be, but not for weeks, months, or years. I just don’t know. There’s so much that doesn’t make sense now.

But when a tree is cut, and its trunk is bent another way, things will always be unbalanced at first. So that’s what I have to find, balance. But balance takes time. So for now I focus on my ideal, and I pray.

今日また家の中が暑いです。額には玉の汗が吹きだしてきました。疲れが溜まって筋肉がいたぎもちいい。

準備は全部土日とためでしたので、今日予定なにも入れていない。珍しいけどちょっと幸せ。これから久しぶりちゃりをぶらぶら乗って、芝大神宮のだらだら例祭に行きます。生姜をかって、人生に感謝します。

天気に感謝。いたぎもちいい筋肉痛に感謝。友達に感謝。

とても長い間に頭を使って、技能と腕で世界を制覇できると思った。けど徐々に別のことが重要のは気づいていた。

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

on the corner of main street
just tryin’ to keep it in line
you say you wanna move on and
you say I’m falling behind

The stars are blazing
like rebel diamonds
cut out of the sun
can you read my mind?

- The Killers

There are so many forces at work. In fact there always are, but the way they affect one’s consciousness varies. Sometimes you pay it no mind, sometimes it’s everything in the world. For the first time in a long time I’m caught in those forces and instead of me controlling them, they’re controlling me. It’s sweet and tough and scary and thrilling all at the same time. Humbling and glorious.

I’ve come to the point where I recognize the value of advice, and the tried and true nature of axioms. The reason people say the same thing so often isn’t because it’s fashionable, it’s because it’s the truth. Chew your food. Look both ways when you cross the street. Relax. Be yourself. Good things take time.

I can’t get my mind off it. It won’t go away. I can’t force it, just like anything else involving feelings. So I need to just let go and enjoy the ride, for wherever it takes me. The push and pull of youthful angst; it’s alive and well in my blood still.

How long has it been, I can’t remember…

Thirty years old and still a fool.

But I think that’s ok. It means I really haven’t changed inside.

Here’s to the foolish me. Cheers.

Sometimes you come back to things and they aren’t just what you expect them to be. Times change. People change. That’s the way the cards fall, and you have to be ready to adapt to it.

Being back in southeast Asia is envigorating. The streetside chaos and crumbling disarray of public infrastructure is a nice change to the polished avenues I walk back home.

Boats, paint, trucks,
pastel, odd distribution of space
I’m stronger now, but more somber growing up, growing deeper into something.
Something here but not clear yet.
Something missing.
First breakfast.

There’s something I was supposed to do today… lots of things, actually. But for the life of me I can’t remember any of them. I am alive, very much so, but exhausted to my core and rind. There is an effervescent haze that encircles my every thought like a Shanghai summer, coughing up black.

Tomorrow I leave for Thailand, fulfilling my two international trips a year quota early. I want to be quiet and peaceful, I want to say little and listen much, I want to walk through ruins that look like the set of Ico and have ages’ old Buddhism seep into my subway-texting deadened pores and give me some kind of vibrance deeper than I can extract from any brown, small caffeine-laced bottle.

Oh the road so far out it doesn’t even make sense from a map or my mind. The texture of stone.

昨日代休を取って、海に行った。初めてクラゲが刺すの経験した。変な感じ。

今日色々作品を整理して、写真ワークショップ久しぶり出席した。夜にマイちゃんの誕生日会．．．カラオケ、ボウリング。なっくんが居た。古い友達と楽しめた。新しい人と知り合った。

心の中で、懐かしい好奇心が生えた。思案しています。

やわらかくて刺激的。

Waiting is.

I can’t remember the last time I was at the ocean at night. Actually, it was probably at a company retreat about four years ago, but that doesn’t count. It wasn’t with friends, or vacation. So the real last time I was at the ocean at night was… San Francisco. When I was at GDC in 2004. That was also for work, but that time I had Amy show me around I think.

The times that stand out in my mind are the ones on dates. Shirahama in 2002 with Nobue my first summer in Japan, or any number of beach weeks at Myrtle with my fraternity.

The humidity is doused with the wind rolling off of the ocean. Today it rained like crazy but tomorrow is going to be a beautiful day; the moon is fulling and peeping out from behind the clouds. There are a few pairs of lovers here and there sitting close in the darkness, lighting sparkles and whispering softly. I almost felt like walking up to them and saying hi, working the rarely seen foreigner angle to help kill the loneliness, but then I remembered when I was eighteen, I would given anything in the world to have a few uninterrupted hours with a girl I was crazy about. So I think I’ll do my past self the same courtesy I received time and time again when I was eighteen, and just make my way back to Hotel Pierre alone to retire for the night.

Time moves on whether you like it or not. Suns rise and set, the days go by and you do your best living. There is progress whether you choose to be conscious of it or not. Perhaps it’s the simple idea of things progressing naturally that’s reassuring. As humans we are inclined to feel a need for control, that we can stop the car whenever we want. But there’s a special peace of mind that comes from the expected, even if it’s out of our control. The plants will grow, the birds will sing, and time will go on, giving us an infinite array of moments to experience, savor, and smile upon.

I have big plans, and sometimes when they don’t go how I envision them it bothers me. But as time goes by things not going as you plan comes to have it’s own appeal. You’d think that as experience grows you would become jaded and accustomed to the world. But it’s not like that. You can be surprised every day of your life if you just give yourself the chance. I’m enjoying it.

People come and go, meeting only for a moment or joining hands for the rest of their lives. And all of them are special, unique, and to be treasured. From the girl you catch a smile from on a crowded train to family member who will be with you until the end. In the world there is so much chaos and unpredictability, but that’s not a challenge, it’s a blessing.

Tickles.

I don’t usually write about work anymore, except for the occasional, “Gee, I’m busy”, but I had some insight in the shower this morning, so I thought I’d send it out to the ether.

I was thinking about it over the past several months I guess, in the back of my mind, but this morning in the shower it bubbled its way up to the surface of my consciousness.

An important part of being professional is detachment. We build software. We’re software engineers. We need to evaluate the software we write and the software we use clinically, and do what we can to improve upon it– as it currently stands and in the future when we write new software. This has to happen objectively. It’s not about who wrote it, or what the person is like. Because I think a lot of my frustration for a long time was about “he/she keeps screwing this up, and that’s why I’m here now.” I didn’t think this actively, but I think the feeling was inside of me somewhere. Whether it was a team member’s code, or the incomplete spec coming from design, or whatever. All the frustration grew out of there being a victim and a perpetrator. Though they most certainly didn’t intend to cause this kind of hardship, by what was produced that’s the atmosphere that developed. Even without the intent though, it was the fact that someone else created this condition, and I had to deal with it. I didn’t sit around actively thinking these things, but those kind of tones were in my frame of mind, and it frustrated me, which in turn made me stressed and tired, which led down that negative spiral.

But you can’t think that way. Not just for your own good, but for professionalism’s sake. And when you realize that it’s not about who did what at all, that actually it’s just about the job at hand, then it’s easy. There is no guilt, no victim, no perpetrator, no right or wrong. It just is. We analyze the software in question, try to improve on its current weaknesses in a symptomatic (bugs) or theoretical (refactoring) aspect and move on. Experience brings better judgment and refined sense. If we can just open our minds to this truly detached mindset of appraising and using software, then there is no cause for worry.

Maybe that’s what my senior meant when he told me years ago that I needed to work without making it personal, without being emotional. I still like to see people have fun, to be able to allow them to have fun. I can feel that, and that’s ok. It’s actually very important when you’re in the entertainment business. But when it comes to the method of my work, of engineering, then there is no feeling, no emotion. It’s just critical evaluation and corresponding action to improve the entire game development process.

“Easy” is a relative term. Everyone has their standards for difficulty, success, and merit, but for me software development has gotten much “easier” since I stopped looking at it as a high school drama of who did what to who and just saw it for what it really was, simple engineering.