Notes of Doubt

This template was originally designed by Derek Powazek, creator of {fray}, with slight changes in stylesheet of personal preferences by Ken Loo.

He writes:

"In my time as Creative Director of Pyra (the makers of Blogger), I got to watch which blog templates were adopted and which ones didn't. It was fascinating, and often counter-intuitive. In general, the most widely-adopted templates were the once that started off simple, and let the blogger fill in the personality.

Powazek calls this the "Trainblogging", and suggests:

"Orange is the new orange!"

      

On my journey, while taking another corner, I ponder. My toes are definitely heading at the front, though I am not really sure if I am heading towards any direction. Saying to myself, keep going, keep walking, don't stop. Somehow, I feel hopeless as if I'm in the middle of a desert, anywhere is nowhere, and yet anywhere can be somewhere.

Can the stars guide me? I don't know. It might gives me some guideline though at the end, I am still the one to burden the responsibility to make a decision.

My toes are still heading at the front.

      

Last Friday at lunch, one colleague said she got a coupon from McDonalds. She ordered a cheese burger and a french fries. When the girl passed her the order, together she was presented a coupon saying "because she was kept waiting longer than 60 seconds, so next time when she orders, she can get a s-size french fries for free."

Another colleague said she had a similar experience with Starbucks before. When she received her ordered coffee, she was reminded that the cup has a cut which the customer (my colleague) might not like, she was given another plain cup together, instead of changed her ordered coffee. She looked at the so-called cut, but it wasn't a big deal, and without been reminded she might have not noticed at all.

Could this over-reaction is because of the the sue case from customers to shops? Could be. More than that, one commented that it is more like a service-appeal strategy. "Attention please! We are serving good service, do appreciate and don't sue us!"

A few years back, a professor, who taught Japanese literature in a university, has written something about the writing style by his students. He was surprised that all of his students wrote like Murakami Haruki, a famous modern Japanese novelist. But to his surprise, most of them never read Murakami's novels at all. Murakami's style of writing is kind of different. That style of "appealing" gave me a glimpse of the trend that's something what youngsters want to appeal themselves. That includes me.

Same article, when asked about career, lots of them answered they want to be a writer. But asked what kinds of novels do they read, most of them in fact didn't read much. Everyone wants to be famous, wants to get attention from the others. To let others know about their existence.

Different article, a general trend about teenage's commit suicide is that, most of the attempt is more to get attention from the adult, not that they really want to die. Having less member in a family, and less gap between the elderly and the young one (other than accidents, people now live longer than before), or someone like me live far way from home (which is most the case for anyone who crowded in a city), hardly we experience someone close pass away. Not that I want more people around me to die faster. Or, in other words, is the society getting younger?

Learned a word "attention economy" yesterday. You can do business even with just start a web site or whatever. But, seldom you get enough attention for business. It's the same with blogging or driving traffic to ones site. The attention is the thing which we can't buy. That's why we want it so badly. Everyone of us is a lonely island. Anything passes by, we will just wave and shout and may be burn the whole island in order to get noticed. You may be not, but I do. But, what is the point?

Talking about getting attention from other people, it reminds me about control. Nature grows wild, but we human want to control everything, birth control is one. Basically, human being will not control ones sexual desire, somehow birthrate gets less from so-called developing countries to post industrial countries. Want to control others but never want control ones own greed? God, do you hear me, no more kids for me, but more fun please.

Give me a few hundred billions yen and I can get a titanic to travel around the world. I'll have the world looking at me. But who is greater, me or the titanic? It's the money that is doing all the job, not me. It may look as if I'm the one who got the power though. Anyone who has the money can do that easily. What is it that make human being eager for attention? Human nature? Are we still belong to nature?

I would prefer to be away from the crowd, like J.D. Salinger.

      

Ikezawa Natsuki, a writer, review a book in Shuukan Bunshun (Weekly Bunshun) few weeks ago. The book, entltled Kazoku wo ireru hako, kazoku wo koeru hako (rough translation, a box for family, a box beyond family) by Ueno Chizuko. In the book, the author interviews with many architects discuss about the problem of housing. Why, Ikezawa questions, among the three requisities of life - food, clothing, and shelter - the first two has changed tremendously, but only shelter (housing) hasn't changed according to the market demand.

Especially after WWII, Japanese housing has been based on nLDK (n is the numbers of rooms, plus Living, Dining, and Kitchen, the general demand is 3LDK.) when building family-type houses. Somehow most of today's Japanese family doesn't live with their kids especially when the kids start to go to college after graduate high school around age 17 or 18. If to divide life into three period, about 20 years are spent with kids in a family, the rest are most probably with ones partner or on their own, he analyzes. The housing should be more flexible to fit the need, he comments.

Besides, marriage in modern life doesn't seem to promise any benefits than to be a single in Japan. So, n of rooms that designed to have children is in fact not realistic. Besides, there are Japanese who spend their whole life to buy a house with life loan. For instance, my Japanese relative, husband and wife got a loan that keeps them pay for the house till age 75. They are in their 30s now. They at least got to work till 75 to make sure that they pay all in order to own the house. And by the time they got the house, it is already an old house that may be need a renovation. They got to work for a dream that it might never turn real for the rest of their lives. Two of their kids most probably will be on their own about 10 years from now. Is that a happy family?

A so-called happy family is always consists of a father, a mother, and two children, one boy and one girl. That was the ideal image of a happy family. I wonder where does the idea came from. If each family's house roof is openable, and if I attempt to open it, I wonder what I would see inside each Japanese family's pandora. Or may be it is better to leave it as it is without open it.