POSITIVELY PICKY

I thought about different moments and contexts after reading some posts on creativity and variables affecting it. It seems (see links below) that those we are surrounded by affect us....i.e. if they’re creative and productive, we’ll be prone to be creative and productive as well (I guess it might not really work well with those with a lazy nature and no interest in creativity...I guess). It happens for sure too with motivation.

At work...

I have many good memories from the years working as consultant. I felt lucky to be working in teams with productive and motivated people. The atmosphere in general was very positive and we were eager to help each other. I couldn’t really (still I can't) understand when friends and relatives told me about bad atmospheres and relationships at their workplaces....why do some "enjoy" acting in conflictive and lazy ways and having negative attitudes?  Unfortunately we can’t really choose the places we end up working at nor the people we’ll share many hours with. But what if we try to be the positive variable, the positive influence (the motivator, the enthusiast, the creative one)...no matter if we end up being some kind of outsider or the odd one out?  I firmly believe in what the articles I read say and I believe in positive features and attitudes being contagious. Besides, if I feel I'm doing something right, social acceptance is secondary. It should be something secondary if we're acting towards improvement for all.

Personal relationships....

Many kinds of relationships and many people come to my mind. Some people remained somewhere in the past, some other relationships changed, some others came back. Nothing is mathematical when it comes to personal relationships and it makes little sense (or none?) to rationalise them, since emotions lie on their basis. I’ve always preferred quality over number and those who know me know that I wouldn’t be a facebook enthusiast nor would boast about how many contacts-friends or whatever I might have.

Back to the influence of those among us in our productivity and creativity, I’m really sure that I’d rather avoid those who might bring me to stagnation, to “plain” and “shallow” conversations, who are full of prejudices or who just don’t “think forward” and ask themselves questions.  It might sound like I’m a demanding and picky person but I just know that those sort of personalities would do no good to me. They are likely to make me feel bad (emptied, useless, numb, lethargic) and sad (somehow, as the consequence of those feelings I just mentioned). I need challenges, getting the most of the short term and learning always new things, and questioning things and that applies also to my personal relationships. And sometimes I end up feeling ok after some people fade away in the past or some relationships change just because it means that some negative effect goes away.  Ah...and it’s not related with being a well educated person....it’s all matter of attitude.  I admired one of my grandfathers, who had always a particular sense of humour, thought about possibilities and improvement, accepted challenges, and so on. He just didn’t go to university but was an intelligent and clever person who managed to grasp reality in a particular way. ..and spread something positive affecting other people’s attitude, motivation, productivity.  

It's good to be positively picky. Yes.

Some links on the topic:

--Being Around Smart People Makes Us More Innovative | Psychology Today

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201309/being-around-smart-people-makes-us-more-innovative

--Why Your Friends Shape Your Happiness, Creativity, And Career | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

http://www.fastcompany.com/3021184/leadership-now/why-your-friends-shape-your-happiness-creativity-and-career

--Why Our Creativity Depends On Who Surrounds Us | The Creativity Post

http://www.creativitypost.com/business/why_our_creativity_depends_on_who_surrounds_us

ORDINARY LIVES REACHING DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS

Talking with a friend about movies made me remember scenes from classical Japanese movies. I didn’t expect to be exchanging opinions with somebody about Ozu Yasujiro’s movies and, in general, Japanese cinema in the 1950es. I remembered some characters and the atmospheres portrayed. I kind of liked the aura of simplicity that transcended the story, as well, as some kind of beauty that scented the daily lives of the characters. I wonder if the same stories, filmed in western culture settings would have been the same. I don’t really think so.

Then, these days the media talk about Tokyo Kazoku (東京家族) in cinemas. This modern film, by Yamada Yoji, was described as a remake, very positively by many critics (and not so positively by others, obviously). It all made me think again about the feelings mentioned above. Even though the action takes place in modern Tokyo, I do believe there’s still something that can reminds us of the atmospheres and characters in the classical Ozu movies. I sort of idealise the 1950es simplicity in general because, from today’s perspective, people seemed to give a different value to things and to other people. True... Societies  back then were much more conservative, but there are many precious things beyond conservative-liberal values (much more beyond prejudices, inequality, discrimination, etc.) which are hard to find nowadays in the way we treat things and people. Those old movies brought always to my mind the expression “物持ちがいい”　(ものもちがいい, mono mochi ga ii), which refers to handling and keeping something carefully.  I’d say that there’s some of it to be found in the film by Yamada...but there’ll be for sure a lot that reminds us of rush-throw when useless-replace-violence-shallowness coming from the younger characters and the westernization since the context is radically different. Would Ozu have kept the essence of his films if he was to film something nowadays? What a hypothesis. I guess I’ll end up watching Tokyo Kazoku...

L’AMPLITUD D’ONA, LES CRISIS I TROBAR RODES ADIENTS

Fa no gaire vaig encetar un llibre preciós, Absolutely Small, de Michael D. Fayer, sobre física quàntica explicada per a no avesats en la matèria i defugint l’ús de formulacions matemàtiques complexes....Clar, això no vol dir ni que el llenguatge sigui planer ni que sigui senzill. SI quelcom és complex en la seva essència, aquesta qualitat romandrà encara que fem servir unes altres paraules.

Les explicacions sobre les ones (en totes les seves variants) m’ha fet pensar en l’aplicació del concepte d’amplitud d’ona als cicles econòmics. Quant de temps entre punts àlgids de l’economia d’un estat i els punts més crítics de depressió-crisi? Es tractaria d’una amplitud d’ona expressada en anys. No m’aventuro, però a pensar en la freqüència i a extreure’n conclusions relacionades amb el sistema econòmic capitalista i les seves dinàmiques. És potser un tema en què pensar més aviat quan hi hagi bonança econòmica. Potser.

Havent llegint un article a La Vanguàrdia sobre patinadors nocturns per la jungla urbana vaig recordar la sensació d’esdevenir lleugera anant sobre rodes en moments d’inèrcia i els instants en que l’equilibri queda suspès en un canvi de postures i de forces. Impuls-moviment, impuls-moviment. Res no sembla constant i en la lleugeresa del cos sembla esvair-se la pròpia dimensió física mentre les ones dels cicles de l’economia segueixen el seu curs. Sobre rodes, un cop agafat l’impuls pot ser més fàcil anar de la part baixa de l’ona fins un altre punt àlgid. Cal trobar les rodes adients, les que millor ens funcionin o que millor s’ajustin a les nostres característiques físiques i no físiques. S’hi troba també l’equilibri per no caure, i endavant.

ALGORITHMS ARE HERE

Having studied and read quite a lot about SEO I ended up trying to figure how its philosophy transcends marketing and computers. Optimization is always welcome and it’s linked to much better outcomes when it’s done without tricks or doubtful methods.  

Beyond search engine algorithms, there are other hidden algorithms in the analogical world. We change and so does life’s algorithm. In this case it’s also better that it keeps being kind of unclear, mysterious. Just having some hints about what matters to it to bring us some or other results, is enough. As in SEO and Google Panda, Google Penguin and more recently, Google Hummingbird, it’s better to focus on doing things right, focusing on what we aim in a honest way, doing things right and ethically.

Yes...algorithms can be beautiful and priceless since they can make things better and make us thrive and also get positive results.

川の流れのように...*

No sabem com pot ser el corrent del riu quan ens hi hem de tirar, quan l’hem de travessar, quan l’hem de contemplar, quan l'hem de vorejar...Tot flueix. Savi Heràclit...

Per què arribar a caure en el parany de pensar en arguments o plantejaments basats en un llarg termini inherentment difús i incert o de donar les coses per suposat si fa temps que no s'hi acaba de creure? Millor sempre centrar-se en un present sòlid amb actes, les conseqüències dels quals siguin positives i profitoses per qualsevol mena de futur, bé sigui immediat, bé indefinit (o un llarg termini plantejat en clau d'hipòtesi). A més, es perd molt si es perd la consciència del moment present i del fet de ser-hi.

Agafo ben fort la meva coherència en un dia de núvols i de grisor omnipresent...Som-hi endavant!!!

*cançó que dóna nom al títol a aquesta entrada: kawa no nagare no you ni (fluir com un riu), de Misora Hibari.

REMOVE THE LABEL

Never black and white.
Features blend. Be creative

The space they lived in as well as the air they breathed were prone to some sort of stagnation. Lacking some inputs from the world outside, too quiet in a holiday-mood period of time, their selves saw something else at the mirror.

Our human nature leads us usually to routine and sometimes, unexpectedly, after some time unconsciously facing ourselves with reflections and different perspectives, things have to keep changing. It could be tiding a room differently, buying a new and very unexpected item, trying something new in a meal, cutting (or getting cut) our hair....or more radical changes such as moving or looking for a different job or career.

I do believe that being labelled erodes us somehow. It might be comfortable to have everything and everyone around us perfectly labelled so as to be able to know how to act and know what to expect. Our self is dynamic, not static and our changing throughout life collides with the label the others assigned us and also with that one we chose for ourselves.

STRIVE, REMOVE LABELS, SHINE

Break it down!!! Is it that necessary to be that labelled? It requires a lot of flexibility and having a “brave” self, capable of applying creativity to its position in the world and to its relationship with others. Not everybody will understand some sorts of flexibility and relativism because it means “breaking” the mental schemes (labels) the others see tied to other people. It might be a bit tiring to try to explain the creative change and the creative fitting and balance between situation-world-self and we might end up giving heuristical explanations based on describing some sort of different label.  But after all we’d have gained a precious space of freedom and harmony through creativity and finding a better fitting for our self and society. We’re empowered to do more things than we might be aware of and balance is possible.

SHARING AND TOGETHERNESS (PLACE AND MIND)

downtown (Granollers, V. Oriental)

Yesterday, 11th September (the Diada), walking around Granollers with a friend I spotted a building hosting the offices of 2 "pretty opposite" political parties: Ciutadans and SI. How might be their daily life sharing that building? I think the elites are much less democratic than citizens and small representations and delegations of parties. It's people who are rather moved by feelings, by belongingness to a collective or a society and it's people who really deal with real problems in any country. And thus it should be citizens who, empowered, manage to change things. It was on the occasion of La Diada that people displayed a shared feeling of belongingness to a collective, to a society and to an identity. I did like the romantic side of such a collective action as was the Catalan Way (I found it beautiful and awe inspiring), even though I can't be any kind of nationalist (I rather focus on non-attachment and becoming a bit more selfless and less linked to any identity). Internationalism has also a romantic side but it's somehow less compatible (I'd say) with human nature and nowadays proneness to focus on the self and personalization of whatever might be customizable. Well, I'm talking about western culture countries in general.

Ah...but there's a nuance of internationalism within any nationalism in the sense that people from any place are prone to feel attached to a sense of belongingness to a culture, to a nation. We're all social creatures and need to some extent some kind of approval and "haven" from our peers. I know I can't deny I belong to a society and a culture, but I can't go beyond that and have nationalist or belongingness feelings. Facts on the one hand and subjectivity on the other hand.

CUINAR SENSE CADÀVERS I LA CREATIVITAT

El fet que resulta més agradable i divertit cuinar per d'altres i el fet de comptar amb algun entusiasta de la cuina vegana (great, Marcel!) i els experiments culinaris m'han portat a engrescar-me i provar de fer nous plats...i afegir interessants opcions als menús quotidians. Les possibilitats de la cuina vegetariana i vegana semblen realment infinites i s'aconsegueixen àpats realment interessants, complets i molt vistosos. Diria que cuinar veganament potencia molt més la inventiva i porta a un procés creatiu apassionant.

Primer van ser els daifukus...vam provar (en Marcel i una servidora) primer amb pasta de mongeta negra dolça ja feta i després ens hem atrevit amb anko. Tanmateix, l'anko casolà endolcit amb estèvia no va quedar gaire dolç, gust positiu per a mi (que no sóc gens llaminera) però insuficient per d'altres.

Després les hamburgueses a partir de tofu, flocs de civada i xampinyons...i, partint de tofu, una salsa tipus tofunesa.

Voltant per les opcions de la cuina d'altres països, vam optar per la mexicana...fajitas i burritos amb "tortillas" casolanes. 

I una de les meves receptes favorites ha estat el formatge vegà, especialment la segona versió, amb més gust de pebre negre i sense fruits secs (però amb més pasta de miso i una mica més de Marmite).

Bàsicament no segueixo les receptes fil per randa i adapto els ingredients als que puc aconseguir i als que tolero (res de ceba, per exemple).

El darrer experiment ha estat kimchi (vegetarià) de col, sense all ni ceba...

INTUITION, SERENDIPITY & CO.

They work in most fields and situations and can be really useful. But those lucky ones who have both intuition and often come across with serendipity won’t be able to measure or prove them, at least beforehand. It’s a bit like having a good taste or being able to see everything creatively. ...or being prone to find right things or surprises by chance.  Both in personal and professional life can all these be really important and useful but can’t be thought, even sometimes it can be read about techniques and strategies to boost some of them or to try to “force” oneself to meet them.

USES:

• Finding the right place or being sure about the right moment for something
• Knowing that something is heading toward the right direction and will work
• Choosing things that match
• Being able to see unexpected but good solutions or alternative

Being intuïtive, being prone to serendipity and chance, being creative...all positive but they can make one feel frustrated since they're hard to defend. Maybe just other intuitive and creative people will be able to notice those qualities. 

SUN RIVER AFTERNOON

It’s possible to create parallel dimensions just for us and for our theories.

We can belong to wherever we want to.

***

There wasn’t anything above us but we pretended to see something up there.

Aren’t we free?

Don’t we have a bondless imagination together?

Isn’t our own dimension flexible and expandable?

***

Parallel and synchronized creatures next to a river on a sunny spring afternoon,

Grey high-heeled shoes and dark violet pantyhose do go with t-shirts with metal band names.

Some other day we became outsiders and also foreigners.