Slap on the wrist

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things…”

I got a ‘talkin to’ last Friday. Actually it was a “What the FUCK were you thinking sending out an email to (a large group of co-workers)’!”

My answer: “What’s the problem?”

Boss: “The problem is that you don’t FUCKING just send shit out like that to everyone.”

Me: “I don’t want to work at a company that doesn’t allow me to voice my opinion. This goes beyond work for me.”

Boss: “You work for a corporation. This isn’t FUCKING art!”

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I’ll stop the rest of the conversation from here. They mostly contain expletives and emotional rage.

I’m 32 and still believe that design matters. Everything I create is a painful process for me because I CARE about the output. I care about design and usability to the point that I become an emotional wreck. I want others to remember to care. There are many that have in the past, and many who still do. But something is happening. Every time I look around there are less of us. Something distracts them and they take other paths.

That very same thing is starting to make me forget. Infusing me with self-doubt. Telling me that the things that I’m holding onto don’t matter. And the scary thing is that I’m starting to believe, that its true. My spirit is dying, and my work is suffering. “I don’t believe in it, so why should I put so much energy into it?”

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Picture a soldier. He starts off with a belief. It get nurtured through training. His focus is clear. He believes that he can make a difference. He believes that he WILL make a difference.

Now, imagine him stepping off the ship onto the shores. He is weighted down with the supplies he will need for battle -food rations, ammo, rifle, extra clothes, canteen, etc.. All of these things are essential in his battle to ‘make a difference’ -to battle an enemy who hinders progress and wants to turn the world’s people into a hive-mind. For his enemy there is no place for individuality, progress can only be made through the direction of ‘The Board’, it knows what’s best for the world, and individual freedoms are a threat that needs to be contained.

As the soldier ventures forward, years pass and he begins to forget what he is fighting for. His comrades slowly fade away. Some join the opposition. Others lose their minds. They fade away is if they never existed. They have forgotten themselves, and the world has as well.

Still something pushes the soldier forward. His supplies become lighter. The walk heavier. But his feet keep moving. He wants to believe that he can make a difference, but maybe its all just a fairy tale, an ideal which exists in an alternate world with unicorns and tin men. Even so, even if it can’t be possible in his world, its still important for him to believe in. For it is ideal which moves him forward. He will die, but be reborn in a world in which it exists.

A card stuck to the side of the fridge

Originally published on September 6, 2012

Just got off the phone with my cousin Alex who’s currently on a nation-wide tour with his band, The Paper Raincoat. This is a guy who’s always been an inspiration for me growing up -one of the few people that I can look back on who have helped point me to where I am today. After our talk, I started thinking about not only his, but how the creative nature/sense/ability of my father’s side of my family has left an imprint on my life. Not only are we creative in nature, but, and this is important, being Asian, we have struggled with accepting and feeling accepted by our family to pursue our careers and ultimately our destiny. If anything, it shows me that you can’t staunch natural creativity. Sooner or later, it has to come out. It is a gift bestowed upon for a reason. To influence and inspire others. It needs to be seen. Every note that played, every word that is written, every brushstroke, and every website that is designed and experienced by others, makes a difference. And like the butterfly effect, sends waves through humanity, adding to the modern-day zietgeist around us.

Being one of the youngest cousins I was more of an observer to their fanatical lifestyles. Always wishing to join in, but being too intimated to do so. I couldn’t speak their language, and I felt pressured whenever placed into a social situation with them. However, it never stopped me from looking up to them and mimicking them in my need to belong. Proving that I existed to them, would prove that I existed in the world.

Presently my inspiration comes from Alex. It all started with a card stuck to the side of a fridge. I must have been around 9 at the time, but remember it so clearly. It was a drawing of Garfield jumping out of a pile of money thanking our grandmother. Being a huge Garfield fan, I was amazed at his ability to mimic the artist’s style so accurately. I must have stared at it for awhile, studying every nuance, and thinking of ways that I could create something if not as good, but better (Seems as if I always had a competitive streak). For years, I drew Garfield on everything, from cards to wrapping paper. It got so bad that my parents, misunderstanding my true intentions, started buying me Garfield pillows, bed sheets, stuffed animals, stickers, etc..

Flash forward to college, and Alex working at Razorfish as a graphic designer. Flash forward 2 years later and I’m working as a graphic designer at Sapient. Working through the dot.com boom.

These days he’s out on international tours with various bands, doing exactly what he was meant to do. Living a life without an office, fancy car, a six-figure salary. In the end, isn’t this what life is all about? For him, its been a long journey towards acceptance. He still worries about what the family thinks about his lifestyle, but he shouldn’t. Because it doesn’t matter. Happiness matters. Living matters. You are born alone, you are responsible with how you live your live in-between life and death. Thomas Jefferson had it right when he wrote the Declaration of Independence and included the words, “-(we) are endowed by (our) Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. With these truths we should also remember that the pursuit is the harder road to take in today’s culture. We are brought up with the notion of conservative self-preservation, one that is built on more money than we actually need. What we forget is that money is only a means to an end. Money is an enabler. It gives us the freedom to pursue our destiny, our dreams, our love for life. Its not about accumulating it over time to spend in our golden years. Its to be used now, for in our ‘selfish’ pursuits, it is the now where we can affect the most change.

Feelin’ a Bit Rand-y

I’ve almost finished Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’. It’s definitely more ‘cult-like’ and extreme in nature when compared to ‘The Fountainhead’. Even still, her yearning for society to find their individualism in a world in which it is easily lost and sacrificed rings out to me.

It is true that we are taught that self-immolation is the highest of virtues, and that the fruits of our labor ought to be distributed to those in need. In Rand’s view this notion is evil, and self-sacrifice need be replaced by selfishness. This is her ‘objective’ reality. This is the basis of her life’s work. I can understand to a certain degree -and even agree. There have been a lot of times in which I’ve questioned the virtue of self-immolation without reason. It’s something that, honestly, I could never find reason to honor -the conclusion leaving me feeling guilty and evil. All my life I’ve been questioning ‘goodness’ and what it means, and it seems so intangible, so unattainable, so subjective in nature that I can’t ever feel confidence in ‘being good’.

Then again, I can’t live in Rand’s cold world -a world which selfishness and happiness is found within the individuals own morality. Objectivity definitely exists, A is A in a lot of situations. I also believe that true happiness must be found in oneself and being proud of one’s accomplishments and not necessarily in giving ‘alms’ to the undeserved. But I can’t believe that everything is so black and white and that virtue and happiness can come from a multitude of sources -not just from oneself and their own world. I look at Rand’s world and her characters as ideals -her ideals which can never be fully realized because it is flawed and extreme in nature.

What is ‘need’? Who is needy? What determines neediness from helping those who are able to help themselves? There are definitely people out there in ‘need’ -people who are born in impossible situations which requires the ‘virtue’ of others to step in a help. But who are they?

In Rand’s world, you are either a creator or a ‘leech’/’second-hander’. What about those who are born with physical handicaps? What of those who are born in war-torn nations? When she speaks of ‘savages’ she speaks as if the ‘unfortunate’ are victims of their own inability to survive -and thus ‘leech’ off those who can. In my opinion that is where she falls short-sided. It is in this view that intellect fails.

In any case, she has made me question what the value of self-sacrifice, or rather the meaning of it, really is, and what I, as an individual does with it.

Friends as Bosses

There are days that you do things that you regret, but can’t take back. It’s like taking an elevator with a bunch of co-workers and farting. Everyone feels uncomfortable but are too polite and embarrassed to say anything. Meanwhile you have 15 more floors to go.

I was in a meeting with six other people and basically told my boss to ‘shut up’. OK, it wasn’t exactly “shut up” but more like, “I have a problem with you opening your mouth”. I forget exactly what he said to prompt me to such an ill-timed, unprofessional response amongst colleges/clients. It’s not that I’m intentionally mean, it’s just that when I’m in a train of thought and someone interrupts or someone says something offensive I get derailed and say things without thinking about the setting I’m in. Also, my boss is actually my friend and we often joke around outside of work so maybe that has something to do with it. The same thing happened when I was at frog when i told my friend/boss that he made the stupidest design decision (and other things).

If anything I’ve learned that having a friend as a boss can be difficult, and to think about where we are when I decide to insult them.

Time for a change

Sometimes it takes awhile to realize what it is that nags at your core. For a creative, its the yearning to do something revolutionary, to express oneself and go beyond the ordinary.

For the last couple of years, I've woken up feeling a strange sense of loss and emptiness that I couldn't trace. Was it that I wasn't growing as an interactive designer? It certainly seemed plausible and I focused my goals on creating something new, to come up with something that the digital world would take notice of, to create a new form of interaction and usability. Now I realize that those are all catch-phrases instilled within me by working in the world of corporate media -trying to push boundaries and ideas through, only to have them pulled back to the familiar, risk-reduced form of the ordinary.

I've gotten compliments on my design style, but to me that's all it is -style; nothing new, nothing pushing me past the familiar use of shapes, colors, grids, fonts, drop shadows, gradients, and all the other things that, while effective, are restrictive in their options.

I've tried focusing in on the strategy and conceptualization of projects thinking that it would strengthen my final designs as well as my growth as a designer. However, I quickly realized that, while this is a effective path to take, it isn't MY path. While it has made my designs 'smarter', the emptiness hasn't dissipated.

At some point in life, the soul forces the conscious mind to take a journey to find it. It can be frustrating and painful, and you quickly realize that it would be so easy to ignore its voice until it becomes but a whisper. As cliche as it is, it truly is a fork in the road -a choice to either take the climb or descent, and unlike other decisions there are no grays.

For the last couple of years, I've picked up hints, analyzed them, came up with hypotheses, and have followed different routes. Each exploration has taught me more about myself, spawned more hints, and brought me closer, but as of yet, the puzzle hasn't been solved.

Now it's time to make another hypothesis and this time it requires me to make a big change in my career and to somewhat abandon the field that I've worked in for over 10 years.

UI design, the early years

January 2005

I never really thought of it before but the industry that i work for, in a general sense, is actually REALLY significant in changing the ways in which people live and interact in the world. In a lot of ways people are people and will react to new things based upon basic instinct, and in this way, nothing is really ‘new’ and alien enough to warrant genuine dumbfoundedness.

I suppose what’s really hitting me now is the fact that a lot of what my collegues and i do is fabricated and tested as we go along. We’re literally at the forefront, working with variables we manipulate and are able to see almost instantaneous results in the advancements in communication and exchange of ideas. It’s just amazing to think that my job entails such a huge responsibility and appreciation of this opportunity is a huge part of what keeps me going on.