i defining i: design

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December 3, 2015

pause (v.)

[Disclaimer: Not for the faint of heart. This one's really all over the place...]

If I’ve learned anything from not working for a month (for the first time in five years....) is that time moves much more slowly when unemployed - and that working, whether you love it or not, speeds things up. The fact that it took me a pause from work, the not doing of anything to ponder what exactly it is that I am doing, made me look this one up. Interestingly enough, the verb itself "to pause" came from the noun:

pause (v.) mid-15c., from pause (n.) and from Middle French pauser, from Late Latin pausare "to halt, cease, pause," ultimately from Late Latin pausa.

The experience of a hiatus encourages reflection and inspired in me more effort to continue pausing and reflecting, even while incredibly busied with adapting to a new life here in London.

hiatus (n.) 1560s, "break or opening" in a material object, from Latin hiare, "to gape, stand open," from PIE root *ghai- "to yawn, gape. "Sense of "gap or interruption in events, etc."

All of this thinking has come at a time when I spend quite a bit of time talking to people here about their work. While I'm navigating my job search and making contacts, I'm balancing it with enjoying the time I have to not have to be anywhere; but I know that finding work is essential, and on more days than you'd think, I envy those who have somewhere to be (especially with work Christmas party season on the horizon). But, I also hear many Londoners complain about “working long hours” a lot. On this subject, I’ll wax poetic for a bit. (Oh yes, I am in a position to speak about employment in a city I just moved to and am not working in yet...)

People everywhere complain a lot about work - particularly those working in environments and structures they don’t agree with. Walking through the financial core of London the other day made me reflect on some tragedy of the human condition - our urge to climb, to have, to get elsewhere only to find that ‘the top of the world’ isn’t really the top. It may be more about depth, I think.

The only way to combat the pity I feel for those who overwork themselves, often to the detriment of their health (we hear the Wall Street stories and suicide rates in corporate climbing...) is to think their work is their choice. But I do also wonder how voluntary it is. From afar, it may appear like a glass cage, a cubicle trap; but from the inside, you adapt. We are creatures of habit after all. And creatures of survival.

These characteristics coupled can quickly turn one small decision into a big life change. Days turn into long hard hours, which can quickly turn into a long hard life. And the way to keep that from happening is gaping things open a bit and becoming more reflective - pausing, even if for a moment, to become more mindful.

Judging from conversations with new friends here when speaking about their work and office cultures, I wonder about that; I wonder how many people reflect on what they are spending their long hours (or any hours) doing and what it’s all really for; what it’s really worth. Do all the rules make sense (must a lunch hour be only between 12-1?…How much do grandfathered-in policies actually improve productivity? What is my paycheque going towards? - and I won’t get into politics of where our taxes go here.)

Do we pose the questions necessary to derive meaning from the things we think we want and have to work for? Or do we avoid it because we fear it will unravel the puzzle and start asking us about our needs?

puzzle (v.) 1590s, pusle "bewilder, confound," possibly frequentative of pose (v.) from Old French poser "put, place, propose," a term in debating, from Late Latin pausare "to halt, rest, cease, pause."

I am no expert in the psychology of the workplace, but I have read research on how happiness is the ultimate motivator. The bottom line is that happiness boost the bottom line, which regardless of how we actually feel about the systems in place, if we can find joy in our work somehow, it's a win-win for everyone.

(I'm making assumptions here and know I come from a place of privilege; it's a luxury in a way to be able to pause and appreciate one's work relative to the rest of the world. Not all work can be a easily enjoyed, but I do think it can be done with integrity and this increases its value and one's appreciation of it.)

For those of us in the same corner from which I speak, those of us privileged with opportunity and more choices than most, why do many of us still complain?

Don’t be mistaken in thinking I have qualms about working hard. Contributing to the activity of culture and society is important in our self-establishment in the world. Work is a remedy to the symptoms of the alternative, (like existential nihilism (!) or chaos, which isn’t sustainable on an individual or a social level).

chaos (n.) late 14c., "gaping void," from Greek khaos "abyss, that which gapes wide open, is vast and empty," from *khnwos, from PIE root *gheu- "to gape, yawn."
(Also, meaning "utter confusion" (c. 1600), extended from theological use of chaos for "the void at the beginning of creation" in Vulgate version of Genesis (1530s in English). The Greek for "disorder" was tarakhe, however the use of chaos here was rooted in Hesiod ("Theogony"), who describes khaos as the primeval emptiness of the Universe, and in Ovid ("Metamorphoses"), who opposes Khaos to Kosmos, "the ordered Universe.")

And it’s not just about money. Whatever the work (tending a garden or tending a hedge fund), it is in our pursuit of activity, of experience, of doing more, living more so we don't get bored, and ultimately, of survival - in spirit and body. I think, we forget this all too often.

And don’t get me wrong; long hours can be good; and there’s nothing wrong with dedicating your entire life to work either. So long as you reflect on it and do make it a conscious choice. Without that I think it’s hard to derive enough ~~happine~~ joy from work. It may also give you the impetus to, at the very least, complain less and be a more positive energy in the world - and make other people’s work better. To all those who complain about their work without seeing what else it makes possible for them, to those in positions of power who ignore the potential for positive change in their office cultures to make them more...dare I say, human, and to those who just mindlessly don’t care much....I urge you to be more mindful about it.

And for those who do think and work mindfully and ask the tough questions, is the answer you come up with something you can truly live with? Can it stand the true test of time, all those long hours...and the many more that await us?

(yah this post is so nutty that I even have a poem)

We are all trapped by whatever life we live - this is a reality;
Whether we be bankers or bonkers
or hipsters or hippies
or immigrants or ignorants,
Madonnas or Marys,
or teachers or preachers or any kind of creatures….
We are all puzzle pieces, I think.

In order to fit in, each of us must conjoin with the other puzzle pieces around to form a picture, a whole, something that makes sense from some wider perspective.

Are you doing that? I don’t mean, fitting in; we all do that; I mean actually looking at what it is that you are creating when finding your trap and living in it?

trap (n.) "contrivance for catching unawares"

It doesn’t matter what it is; it can be any box, but don’t get caught up in someone else’s wrapping and bows, otherwise you may find your long hours will wrap up quick and you’ll bow down to your own mortality with a buyer’s remorse; regret. A puzzling picture of what your life became instead of what you made it be but taking the time to....pause and reflect and become more aware.

November 10, 2015

jest (n.,v.) Reflections on page 223 (+ beyond) of DFW's Infinite Jest

Sometimes when there’s so much going on after a big move, all you want to do is be productive - whether by sending resumes or looking at apartments or by taking advantage of having the time to wander around and learn the new place you’re by getting outside and taking it all in.

And sometimes, you just have to curl up with yourself and do exactly what makes time disappear for you, which for me tonight was this (you can also read it on Medium if you prefer):

Some Thoughts on the Dynamics of Chronology & Storytelling in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest

According to many reading guides for David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, page 223 is one you have to get to; suck it up through the confusion that is the book’s first 222 pages. The guides also tell readers, once there, to bookmark that page as they’ll constantly need to come back to it. At first, that page gave me hope when the book seemed too much to take in and get through. I trembled as I flipped page by page in the 200’s with anticipation. However, once I got there, I was underwhelmed. I realized that maybe they had played a trick on me.

[spoiler alert]

Those who have read Infinite Jest (or as least past page 223!) may agree. The page is to act as an aid to readers by listing the chronology of otherwise unnumbered years to help them piece together the narrative’s events in a more linear fashion. If we know when the events unfold, we can make better connections and better understand correlations and cause and effect that gives reason to the story. Presumably.

But maybe the years don’t matter; maybe a chronology of that kind, formalized and “historized” actually doesn’t matter as much as we think or as much as it should. Which is the point and perhaps why I was so underwhelmed by page 223 and it’s “intel.” Sure there are politics and “milestones” that touch characters’ lives — the same as those that touch our own here — yet, at the end of the day, the longest chapters, the most colourful — at least to me — were those internal dialogues describing more of our banal moments in life (Erdedy, for one). In some ways it didn’t matter when these moments were occurring; committing them to memory is what gave them their weight, as they informed my understanding of each character and DWF’s overall messages about progress, consequence, anticipation, ambition , passing time, and ultimately, the human drive to find “happiness” — or rather, meaning and belief.

Whatever we see fitting to be spotlighted in the central story we tell ourselves is what makes up our lives because it drives how we live. We can look back to the time we waited for something for what seemed like eternity but forget that it also happened many times before and nothing great came of it (Erdedy); we may remember the wrong phone conversations and recall inconsequential ones (Hal and Orin); we may never forget how sick we got all those times, cold-sweat and shuddering on the bathroom floor — except the time that it nearly kills us (Joelle). Those everyday struggles and banalities, the points in our lives that we orient our understanding of ourselves around are what make up our lives, perhaps even who we think we are. Even if there are larger uncontrollable events and circumstances primarily driving our lives forward, what matters is what I’ll call our holydays.

holy (adj.) Old English halig “holy, sacred; godly,” from Proto-Germanic from *kailo- “whole, uninjured.” Primary (pre-Christian) meaning is not possible to determine, but probably it was “that must be preserved whole or intact, that cannot be transgressed or violated,” and connected with Old English hal (see health) “wholeness, a being whole, sound or well,” and Old High German heil “good luck.”

However big or small — whatever are the before Then’s and the after That’s (the “before J. Incandenza’s suicide” or “that night before Interdependence Day”) — these are symbolic days in our minds. Though most obviously our experience of them is linear, what meaning we draw from them can be somewhat arbitrary. Events tend to “reveal” themselves later to us and change in their relative importance as time moves on, and when they occurred becomes less important than the fact that they did. In an effort to weave together a story of our lives that has some semblance of meaning and holiness, we alter and skew, whether consciously or not, our belief or understanding of what really happened. It helps provide us with more more weight as we float so that we may better anchor ourselves — so that we may find some kind of buoyancy in the havoc that is otherwise likely more of an existentialist void, an infinite/simal phenomenon or some metaphysical accident than objectively “a chronicle” or “history” at all. Our “life story” is no happy accident though. It’s a work of art!

luck (n.) late 15c. from early Middle Dutch luc, shortening of gheluc “happiness, good fortune,” of unknown origin [go figure!]

Without those relatively inane, though wholly personal holydays, we cannot find a way to establish our identity, to bookmark our tiny selves into the massive life continuum with whose limits and edges we know little of.Without them we are nothing, unidentified and unidentifiable, with no story, arc, nor denouements, No Amens or Hell Nos; no Holy Cows to accompany the moments that fill the empty hole that otherwise could be any life in this dumbfounding world.

continuum (n.) 1640s, from Latin continuum “a continuous thing,” meaning a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, but the extremes are quite distinct.

We need reference points in our experience of the world and what better place to start than with the personal. Many moments the story of a single character or two sweeps the reader into forgetting about some of the dystopian details in the book. However, every time, just as I started getting used to a character, the fractal chronology of the novel took me to a new place, a new time, a new story. DFW forays into the personal amidst a highly complex setting to “authorially” remind that it’s the personal stories and our own ability to relate that help us understand the world — any world imagined by the author, be it Wallace or you.

It’s easier to relate to modern-day addiction or competitive tennis and training than the abundance of rampant feral hamsters, teleprompter assassinations, mathematical equations and Latin cognates hidden in scientific terminology. DFW’s words are not always inclusive, and this only further makes his ideas less accessible. It seems essential that we take an extra step and consult external indexes, online wikis, or at least the book’s own footnotes, to get a fuller understanding. And even then, we never quite get everything. It helps if what we’re learning about is somehow already in our vicinity; if the idea introduced is related to our own milestones or somehow touches something already familiar to us — especially in real life — it becomes more interesting (we’re egotistical like that) and thus, more accessible.

Ultimately though, absolute clarity can never be achieved — and perhaps only slowly refined if we actually live out the story ourselves and build out the pieces that are missing on our own.

The stories we tell ourself makes each of our lives feel more sacred and unique. This “life storytelling” that moves us through this world marks some of our experiences holy, often obscured, and others and more often, forever lost in the corners of our life. And just like that, as we get caught up in our own holy days, we eject ourselves from the larger picture — akin to when when we pick up a book and get lost in its story, we forget our own.

Thus, it would be reasonable to hypothesize that:

1) Any moment spent reading is not really valuable nor holy until we make it applicable in real life. If we can take what we read, however fictitious, and apply it to our own life as metaphor, fodder for cliches or descriptive inspirations, we may better devise ways to sanctify the moments that happen to us. This can help us find more meaning as we run the chapters of our lives from Capital to period. from life to death, and all the calendar years in between.

2) We should be able to extrapolate our “life story” and its sanctity and meaning more universally and/or objectively. Otherwise we’ll be narcissists, self-possessed theatrical drama queens, perhaps even laughing stocks. Which brings me to:

jest (n.) from Latin gesta ‘actions, exploits’, from gerere ‘do’. The original sense was ‘heroic deed’, hence ‘a narrative of such deeds’; later the term denoted an idle tale, hence a joke.

sorry for the #longread

p.s. I’m only halfway through the book.

p.p.s. I also realized that (and only Infinite Jest readers will get this), November 8th was #InterdependenceDay - and also the day I landed in London. Symbolic much?

September 9, 2012

face value (n.)

Last week, I divulged some fatalistic philosophies, about the design behind all we face - in ourselves and our reactions, and in the behaviour of others. (After all, interaction is just a bunch of reactions firing off.) I then briefly concluded that it's important to look for the story and intricacies behind things that are happening in order to appreciate them, even if (especially, if ) they're bad. Finding compassion and understanding helps you react more calmly, get less flustered, and think your reaction through a bit better before you act and set off a negative chain reaction.

You better believe it there's a book.

Jumping to conclusions is based on expectations. Our expectations can affect our attitude toward ourselves - take for instance in yoga class: How deep we can go into a yoga pose; how long we can hold it for; how we should look in it, etc. That's why I think that we should look into the design of things to try and understand the motivations behind things that happen (or don't happen); in short, we should be trying to avoid judging things at face value.

Just like we have certain expectations of ourselves, we also have expectations of others. We assume people will act a certain way, and when they don't (or when they do, to our discontent) we often forget that they, too, are dealing with their own challenges, and reactions; the best we can do is not further perpetuate an icky chain reaction by being only concerned with their face value. Don't judge a book by it's cover!

A tension always exists when human beings try to face difficult truths. So, the best we can do when we are faced with a negative vibe from ourselves or someone else is to read it beyond what's simply seen right off the bat (it could be a foul or a home run, a strike or a walk, a hit or a fly ball... Except in life, it's often more than just one of these outcomes!)

Observing the world, every nook and cranny of it, rather than just reacting to it, makes it all the more satisfying to be a part of because we realize that every truth has many faces. Perhaps we'll see that the challenge is just a facade we've created to avoid having to take on new opportunities that may help us to prevail, improve, succeed. It's always easier to just throw a tantrum, freak out, turn into a baby, clench up, etc., etc.

A lot of this thinking has actually been inspired by a show that I religiously watch: America's Next Top Model. (Don't judge me, or it, at face value!) As I watch the girls endlessly battle it out in photoshoots and get all catty with each other in the house, I am reminded that I shouldn't take it at face value - like all TV, it's edited for a certain audience with certain objectives in mind. It isn't a straight-up representation of what went down in the actual competition - duh. But there's another lesson to be learned: The entertainment value of it is still in its face value. Sometimes we just have to be a bit lazy (of body and mind) and coast a bit to enjoy life. Just don't forget to look beyond the shell, the cover, the screen, the face; otherwise you'll get duped into believing a reality that just isn't or doesn't have to be.

January 3, 2012

resolution (n.)

Yes, I'm going to post a blog post that's really lacking in spontaneity - it's that time of the year, and of course we're gonna talk about those lovely goals many of us set out at the start of every January, to help us 'turn over a new leaf', 'start the year off right', and all that lovely motivating gush.
But remember, we're celebrating the start of a new year, not the end of the last....

It's funny though, the notion of "resolutions" really just hit me while I was Photoshoping an image for a sponsorship package I've been designing for SFU LipDub (a certain pic was lacking resolution..and I wished it was in vector format like the logo I designed).

I thought it funny that the making of resolutions - of turning decisions or desires into actions - has a particular connection with clarity, sharpness, flexibility, and vision. It got me thinking about how the new year's resolutions we make and their potential to empower and actually improve our lives have a lot to do with how clearly and realistically we look at both the past and the future.

We have to look closer as well as step away from the past to get a sense of what we want to envision for ourselves for, let's say, the next year.

We have to set the right resolution to get a good overall end result, I guess. It's like working in vectors, which enables an image to flex in response to changes, rather than working in pixels, which can make the whole thing fall apart under pressure.

So, in the spirit of this dorky denotative connection I've made, I've decided to create a list of resolutions that reflects a vision for the new year that's possible, challenging, and motivating. My list this year inspires me to actually stick to it the entire year rather than give up the moment my bouts of (January) inspirations leave me. One part of it is that my list is specific. I think this helps in actually making things happen - so rather than saying stuff like "get fit" or "save money", it's better to say "do yoga 3 times a week", or "save $1000 so I can go to ___".... See what I mean?

I've created a list of goals, which work together as a whole and set a pace that I can keep up with the entire year. Instead of pushing for an overly ambitious, post-party/champagne-induced list of 10-15 resolutions, (which, if individually abandoned, really help dismantle the whole thing), I've resolved to try for only three goals this year. And it's been tough to choose - but I think the added effort in choosing wisely (like using Illustrator this year for the first time!) will pay off in the long run - and help me not lose the resolution even if my goal appears to be a bit of a stretch.. (gosh, I'm a pun-freak.)

My list is comprised of:

one goal I'd like to continue doing (as a reminder that I've done - and can continue to do - something I'm proud of);
one thing I'd like to improve (as it lets me start with something tangible, to motivate me); and
one new thing I'd like to begin or take on (as a challenge, however great, which the other two help fuel).

Together, they make me choose wisely and within some kind of reasonable limit, while also serving as a reminder that I've gone about things right in the past, or that I've at least tried but just need to keep working at it. I also think picking fewer goals makes more room for them in your mind's eye and encourages the act of actually seeing them through.

And there's no need to post my list here. To keep it somewhat unique, my cookie-cutter new year's resolutions entry will not have any resolutions in it :)
And of course, just because I've made a short list doesn't mean I can't do other things to better myself and those around me in the new year. I make a habit of making goals throughout the year (I admit, I'm a bit of an OCD list-lover) - The start of a new year is as good a time as any.

And with that, I bid everyone a very happy and healthy New Year. Good luck on your resolutions, your visions, and if things seem a little fuzzy, step a little farther away from the picture and I'm sure it'll appear more clear.

May 6, 2011

patience (n.)

patience - a noun. Though it really should be a verb.

Over the last three months, I've been putting my design skills to work by offering my volunteer services to Mothership Stories Society, a non-profit organized by Marilyn Norry, which dedicates itself in collecting stories about mothers as written by their children in order to archive a valuable history of ordinary women, which otherwise may be forgotten. Without such efforts, legacies of interesting, perseverant women whose lives tell us about women's roles and experiences and the times in which they've lived, may never be recorded.

Today, after weeks of editing, typesetting, caption-collecting, resolution-fixing, exporting, merging, and flattening, we finally printed a final version of: My Mother's Story: the originals.

[Stay tuned for news on where to buy the book!]

The seven hour ordeal (made all the less chaotic and stressful by Oscar's Books' Adam and Barry), entailed changing margins last-minute for 120 minutes, fixing files to fit new printer specifications, and reformatting photos till we got them just right. We chose paper stock, grew impatient with the printer at times (oh cream paper why must you curl?!), but eventually came out with a breathtaking book that just made us all fuzzy inside.

During the process, I also just learned the importance of patience and how it helps to find the humour and joy in stressful situations so that you can stay functional. Find contentment through patience instead of making things worse by giving in to impatience, its evil sibling.

I also realized why, when saying patience, we're kind of saying "pay" "ssh" "sense".

Pay
Without patience, you pay the price. If you lose it, get hasty and decide "oh whoooo caaaares", it bites you in the ass. I thankfully didn't experience this today, but was nonetheless tempted to give in to this illogical bargain.
You also have to pay a certain amount of attention and find focus, energy, diligence, and good stamina in order to get patience to really work its magic.

Ssh
You have to keep that little voice in your head that's screaming "WTF %^&#@!!" and other such unhelpful and wasteful filth from clouding your mind. You must shush that angry, impatient voice so that you can keep your focus on what's really at hand - what really matters in the end. You don't want years of dedication and months of hard work to go to waste just because you lost your nerve right at the end.

Sense

paper, ink, glue to bind!

This has a dual aspect. In one way, while impatient, your senses become a little crazy and over-irritated, for lack of a better word. You're waiting for the printer to print 234 pages at a time, the glue is heating up more slowly than you'd like, your stomach's grumbling, and you feel your blood sugar is plummeting because you just had to get those margins right before you deserved a break. (Yup, I'm referring to hangriness here again- I'm quite susceptible to it as you can see).
Your senses become a little crazy when you're impatient - the lights are too bright, and you lose sense of time. You start seeing page numbers where they shouldn't be (and really aren't).
(Thankfully, however, I also became hyper-aware and could still tell which "final version" was really the final version; I also somehow still retained a deft hand clicking through InDesign with super-alien precision.)

"Pop! goes the weasel!"

In another way, it also makes sense to be patient. It's always more efficient than impatience - and a whole lot more fun. Though we spent close to five hours at Oscar's today, waiting and printing, and proofing, and changing and printing again, we had a lot of laughs. I got to meet some new people, learn new things about distribution, eat a cookie and a mandarin, watch the Expresso machine in action, pose for pictures, and to our amazement and joy, finally see a pretty copy come out, with a smile on my face.

Here's to a job well done! And please let me know if you'd like a copy :)

And because it's so fitting:
Here's to all the mothers of the world for being the most patient people on the planet.

Happy early Mother's Day!

My mom and I.

February 2, 2011

quoth (n.)

Yup.
Sounds like: a wet cough somehow escaping through your nostrils.

It also is an archaic simple past tense version of "quethe" which sounds like: a wet sneeze that somehow escaped through your eye sockets.

The reason this is my word today - apart from wanting to be kind of Murakami-ish - is that my mind's been very occupied with a paper and seminar presentation I've been preparing for my tech class on copyright.

Some keywords spinning through my head recently:

digital locks, creative commons, social restrictions, unregulated use, Lawrence Lessig, Bill Gates, "quoting", fair dealing, DRM, Bill C-32, copying, sharing, expression, creativity, free culture, remixing, Google, attribution, derivative works, creator, user, YouTube, Share-Alike, commercial use, blogging, published, registry, provisions, technology, distribution, interpretation...

These come up in no particular order (though I hope they show up in some meaningful nature in the paper) and are concepts that really cannot be given the proper attention in 1500 words and a batch of slides on WordPress.

However, to give myself some perspective and help myself embrace the fact that it's not up to me to figure out the solution to current issues surrounding copyright law in Canada.....I've employed some Photoshop skillz and devised a few cartoons I consider to be funny - and I hope you'll giggle a bit, too.

Enjoy.

A short summary of copyright law:

Law of Anne, 1710.

No such thing as unregulated uses?

Length of copyright terms: creator's life + 50 years!

"Google, google, toil and trouble..."
The new Disney?

Have a good weekend,

- Vish

December 22, 2010

resume (n.)

Having neglected this blog for over a month, I feel I've kind of failed at this whole writing thing. Blame busy student life, which goes something like this:

Curriculum Vitae for Fall, 2010

Nov. 28 - Dec. 13 Essayist, Contract

Consumed with XML workflows and articulating their increased presence in today's publishing market

Dec. 3 Lobbyist, "Vish for Lish!" campaign

Attempting to represent Gordon Lish in the controversy about his editing relationship with the short-story writer, Raymond Carver. (Read The New Yorker article to read about what happened.)

Sept. 17 - Nov. 8 "Publisher", HivePress

Mock-book design, -P&Ls, -contracts and more mockery!

Oct. 11 - Oct. 29 "Designer", PUB602

More mock graphic designing - e.g. Talonbooks' Spring catalogue. Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus. And so it goes.

Sept. - Dec. Bedtime Reader, Freelance

The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith; Player One - Douglas Coupland; The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran; Beautiful Losers - Leonard Cohen

Sept. Metadata Geek (real work)

Generating ONIX files for BNC's Biblioshare, CCSP Press and S&D Publishers.

See? My Fall resumé justifies my blogging fail - though, I have officially resumed blogging! Woohoo!