Fujiko Suda

Reflection

Yesterday was the last day for me to work as an employee of Steelcase. I've been thinking I am socially handicapped because I did not experience a real family life until I was well into my thirties. Well, well. In hindsight, for the past 5 years, I was living as a part of Steelcase Japan family. Not only that, but each time I worked for a company in the past, I was part of a family.

I bought blank greeting cards to write thank you notes to each of 18 members of Steelcase Japan. Once I started to write, I realized I could write pages to each one of them, about the things they taught me, things I loved about them, good and bad times we had together. For five-years, I spent more of my waking hours with them than with my kids and husband.

You don't know what you got 'till it's gone.

The old cliche came to me with feeling of joy and surprise tinged with sadness. I have left Steelcase Japan team because of timing factor. I am not yet in financial pinch as I might be in a few years as our mothers will begin to need care and kids will want higher education. If I am going to do anything crazy, this seems like the right time. So I am now working independently, working like a midwife to people giving birth to their creation. Midwives work on project bases, don't they?

Remembering I am what I am today because of immensely happy years working, learning with the members of Steelcase Japan family, I step out into a new world. But for now, I savour the frosted sugar cookies the company president's wife baked for me as going away gift. Sweeness with colorful tiny crunches. I look at the beautiful yellow and orange tulip bouquet arranged in classy style produced by the Steelcase Japan designer. The beauty she so easily creates.

Italian friends

I enjoy reviewing my blog access status each day. My unseen friends are mostly those living in Japan, second in US, and third in Italy. Italy! I am fascinated that some people in Italy are reading my blog. I wonder if these people are Japanese living in Italy, or Italians interested in whatever I write about (workplace?). I have been to some countries, but never to Italy. I have always wanted to visit the land that produced people who influenced the world civilization so thoroughly. In my past, I was in love with Renaissance art, fascinated with Machiavelli, Dante, Galileo, marvelled at beauty of pasta, impressed with office furniture.

This might be a very good time for me to visit Italy.

Sunset of a day of Winter into Spring

Sunset at Mohabe Desert was salmon pink. It was not silent. The desert sunset I experienced was so alive with the whistling of whirling wind. In the desert, I learned that I could see and hear the wind in the distance approaching me. Dust rising in far foothill of a dark mountain, silhouette against pink sunset, the great dancing body of dust approaching me with gathering whooshing sound. So fascinating, so beautiful. Sunset in a strange land.

Sunset at Yokohama is salmon pink. Getting over my cold sickness, I was feeling so happy as I rode my bicycle along Tsurumi River on this cold, clear, winter day. I see plum blossoms blooming, bare purple cherry tree branches so pregnant with anticipation of full spring flowers. The winter is turning into spring! I can feel it. Having gone through several months of cold weather, my blood somehow thickened, and it recognizes the intensifying strength of sun ray.

Am I prepared for the spring? Have I done all the work I could have done during my winter days, so that my branches are ready to spread my inner strength outward? Winter has been comfortable. Slow, economical movements. Looking inward. But have I rested enough?

It occured to me that I have gone onto my winter journey when I sought Mohabe Desert one and half years ago. No other human soul in site as far as I could see, as I walked alone in a vast, salty desert, hearing the wind in pink sunset, faint twinkling of stars, crescent moon rising. I was walking into my winter. Riding in the sound of wind, sunset bathing the white concrete building in salmon pink light in Yokohama, I have come to realize the winter is turning into spring.

Fever

My fever was high. It's been a long time since I last was this sick. But then it gave me a sweet experience.

I was curled up in bed, in daze, dreaming in wakefulness. It felt warm, comfortable. An airplane flew by high above our home, and it's droning noise took me back 25 years ago to Seaside, Florida, lying on the beach in warm sun, the place with sugar white sand and green sea.

I was doing the best I can then. I didn't know where I was going, what the purpose of this life is about. Well, I am back again. Still doing the best I can. Still don't know where Iam going, what my purpose for this life is about. If I am to think in generally accepted perspective that I am supposed to be richer, live in better place, have more stuff around me as I grow older, I have failed completely. Not only have I not achieved such worldly success, but I seemed to have squandered my youth away, never realizing how beautiful I was physically, never learning to use my beauty as weapon to gain things.

Laying in my second son's bed in a small dark room, I felt so tranquil and happy, thinking these thoughts. I am somehow learning to accept happiness as I have, limit struggles to the time I need to fight. So I have lost my youth and beauty. But how wholesome, how sweet it is to accept the things as they are, to do what I need to do now knowing it will give me exactly the kind of tomorrow I need.

Expressing in words

I've come to realize that on many occasions, especially on important occasions, I don't say what I really have in mind. I suspect most of people I know are like that. Is it because we are trying to protect ourselves? If we don't say what we really feel or think, then people can't ridicule or criticize our true feeling or thought. Maybe we cover up our true self because we are hurt easily. If other people ridicule what we say and not how we really feel, it's easier to bare it, because they are not ridiculing real us.

Or could it be that when we feel something, the immediate word that pops up in our heads that describe the feeling is simply off the mark? Our haphazar association between feelings and words? I remember reading in Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins, that moans of dying soldier and man in ecstasy making love sound the same. I guess that means body reacts in the same manner for strong opposite feelings. Love and hate, joy and sorrow. Maybe we don't often mistake the words to express the strong feelings, but considering that, it seems understandable the mistakes we make in feeling-word association.

No wonder this world could feel like heaven or hell, that to express heaven, one must know hell. But going back to the fact that I don't say what I mean ... what would happen if I start to say what I really mean?

Pursuit

I was vaguely thinking of how Ichiro loved baseball so much, he practiced 3 hours or more in batting practically everyday since he was 2nd grade in grade school. I am talking about starting such practice at age 8 and keep going throughout his school years, then onto his professional life. Then I thought of Tiger Woods, who did the similar sort of thing with golf.

Pursuing perfection were not the thing that drove them. It's the love of whatever they were doing.

When I first read about this, I thought, how great it must be to love something so much that you would want to keep doing it for hours, for days, for years! Today, I thought: how does it feel when these days of pursuit is over? When they become old. When they are injured. Being able to pursue what one loves is such a blessing in life. The thing I thought about today is, how does one go on living after that?

Beauty all around us

These are some of amazing beauty I noticed today:

Escalator at the Ueno station. How can these things work? Another feat of human invention. And the details of the ceiling of the station building near the Hard Rock Cafe area.

Rows of Himalean fir that had branches cut off so short, I wanted to cry when I saw them last winter. As I walked through them today, I noticed the branches did not look cut off at all. The trees were of the shape of narrower arrows pointing to the sky, compared to last year before they were trimmed, but they looked just as handsome as they used to be. I was so very relieved and wondered at the way nature worked.

The plum blossom shyly beginning to bloom. Pink red. Small but courageous early boom.

Just before the last of sunlight is completely gone for the day, the shreds of clouds in the gray sky are black, ponds and rivers are sliver.

Orion high up in the sky. Light of airplane slowly passing by the stars, becoming a part of the nightly stars' .

Misty full moon over a silouhette of stately leafless tree seen from the top of a hill. Feels like a sad but warm smile.

While on the subject of Movie

My aquintance in Nagoya loves movies. I lent him my Galaxy Quest DVD, and he loved it too! Of the movies I watched over the last few years, Galaxy Quest is very high in ranking. Great story, parody of Star Streck but had good solid story line of its own, great actors, actresses, great CG. Action, laughs, feeling of satisfaction about plot and flow of the story.

Shaolin Soccer, Shrek, The Fifth Element, Scorpion King, Emperor's New Groove. These are my favorates. In my DVD library, my other favorites would be Moonstruck, 6 Days, 7 Nights, Blues Brothers 1 and 2. I watched these DVDs more than half a dozen times each. Of old movies, my must have DVD would be the Black Stallion. I read the book when I was 10, and it was a story I could not forget. When I saw the movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola (I was 20 years old) I was captured for life. I have the video tape, but since I will probably watch that movie for many, many more years to come, it's time I get the DVD.

I don't know if any of my kids will ever share my tastes of books I read, but it's great that I am sharing my tastes of movies with them.

Over compensation

My "Cool" coach and I had another great dinner on Thursday evening. We talked about wide range of topics while having home style Korean food. One topic we talked about in length was about over compensating for a weakness. People often tell me that I have a sunny personality. If you were a flower, my friends would say, you would be a sunflower. Although I think of drying, drooping big flower with lots of seeds when I hear such comment, evidently, they mean to say that I am always looking at the bright side of things. Well, I would like to declare that this is nothing but me over compensating for my sad, pessimistic personality.

I remember when I was five, attending kindergarten, I was a silent child. I hated excerting myself physically, and I used to love to just sit around, drawing or reading. I could not bare anybody other than my parents or grand parents to touch me. I felt extreamly uneasy being around other people, especially younger kids, because they showed their emotions, being angry or sad one minute, happy, laughing the in next.

When my friends and aquintances first hear about this, they laugh, saying, sure, right, uh-huh, what a great joke. But its the truth.

I am like this. So I could imagine these people who seem so confident, so talented, so whatever, might just be that they are over compensating.

What happens when I stop practicing

What happens when I stop practicing? First, I get rusty. Then, eventually, I wouldn't be so good at it. Then, I forget that I was ever good at it. That's what happened with my writing. Unlike painting and drawing, writing did not become painful as I grew older. The joy in writing grew as I grew older, at least the entire time I was in school. It didn't matter whether it was in Japanese or English, I loved to write compositions and reports. I loved the process of writing, reading what I wrote, making corrections and adjustments, then reading, repeating the process over and over until I felt like the work is finished.

I've recently started reading On Writing Well by William Zinsser to improve my report writing skill. The moment I started reading it, the book reminded me of the English classes in high school days, the English classes I loved so much.

The grammar lessons, learning new vocabulary words, writing compositions. I loved them all! And I used to take pride in myself for the understanding of English grammar, having good range of vocabulary, writing neat compositions. What happened after not writing seriously for 25 years is that I have become unsure of English grammar, forgotten half the vocabulary words I learned, and I dread writing any sort of work related piece, report, letter, or e-mail.

Like learning to ride a bicycle, I haven't forgotten altogether how to write. But like everything else, sports, cooking, arts, any practical skill, once I stop practicing, I am going down hill.

The feeling started to come back since I started writing into my blog last February. The feeling started to grow, and by reading On Writing Well, I have come to realize what happened. One great thing about this re-discovery is that the feeling of enjoyment in writing came back. It doesn't matter if the language is English or Japanese. I know what to do now. Keep practicing. Don't stop.

Gorin-no-sho

I am finally reading "Gorin-no-sho", and I love it! The concepts, logic of what I read so far feels right to me, natural to me, these feelings, thoughts expressed simply in explicit ways.

The way he lived, how he pursued the thing that mattered to him in his life, how later in his life he wanted to pass on his experience, his learning to a deciple, but going back to his belief that no one can pass on experience,
that one must learn in his own way, in domain of his life situation, with his own natural ability.

I have been struggling with the fact that I am not able to learn from someone else's experience but reading Gorin-no-sho shed light onto my predicament.

Happy

First time in over 4 weeks, that I actually have no super urgent work that I must finish over the weekend.

Yipee!! It feels great!

This morning, I was half asleep hearing the interacion between my husband and my kids, and one at a time, Kenzo and Kanta jumped into the futon giving me boyish hugs and kisses saying, "Good morning mom! I love you! I love you the best in the world!" Just as soon as they jumped in, they bounced out going about with their play.

The secret of this morning's happiness. I feel happy because I have bases for comparison. I experienced years in childhood that there was no one at home when I woke up in the morning. No one to say "Good morning!" to. I experienced years that I had to wake up early in the day regardless of how I felt to change daipers, to household chores. I experienced these days that I had tasks that required hours of concentration, despite of temptations of staying in futon....

I feel happy because I know both sides.

Pearl

I can't believe it was only one week ago that we were visiting Mito! Not being able to go into the Aiki Shrine with the group is still on my mind, feeling of regret. But then I know my choice was right, because by not going in, while waiting for the group in the car, I did get a whole lot of work done that I needed to do to keep my promise with my client.

One must choose sometimes. And sometimes, either way, the other choice remain with feeling of regret, even if the choice was right. I guess this is what adds subtle flavor to a person. This is something that was discussed in our training session in US when I was there. Living with such aggrevation is like a grain of sand that gets into oyster that eventually becomes a pearl. By living with regret, working it out with sincerety, in time, it becomes something beautiful.

To move on

My trusted advisor said to me, "You must kill the ideas, that is, to put behind things that you have developed and made your own, by writing a book." Yes, I have done a bit of living over the past 43 years, and have a few ideas that I embrace and would like to share with others. The ongoing thoughts and ideas, I now share in this blog. But those ideas that took me years to come to, some professional, some personal,which might help some people, especially young people, who are going through certain difficult experiences in life, the best way possible to do that while continuing on with my professional development, may be to write books.

My buddy has been encouraging me to write a book for over a year now. And as things got crazy over the past month, it is beginning to seem more of a practical solution than something noble to do. It would allow me to move on.

To move on! Sounds so exciting, so thrilling!

Become un-self conscious

Ever think about why people change, become? I do. And only because I am so self conscious of myself. Over the last few days, I have been a bit overwhelmed with meeting with so many great people, and once again I wondered, why are they the way they are?

It's frustrating that I am only capable of learning from my own mistakes, my own experiences. It's amazing the kind of work I have started to land over the past few months, that these are kind of work I've always thought that I will be most appropriate for, but for many years, they did not come.

Why? Because I wasn't ready for it. You can read it in the books, see it in the movies, hear it in songs, but it didn't sink in to me until I lived it. We rant and rave about unfairness of life, of chances that never come our way. Once again, I had to learn it the hard way, why things are the way they are.

I started getting these work, simply because
1. There are such projects out there
2. I have the capability to do it right, after all I've learned over the years, arming me with the skills I need.

I seem to be still at "ri" of "shu-ha-ri" cycle in creation of my own "kata". And so am still self conscious.

Features of beauty

So much fun over the past three weeks, full of intense work, travel, training for performance enhancement, accomanying French guest to meetings and visits!! In a way, I was stressed out about my bad performance due to overload on one of key report I was to produce, but I knew it was one of the lessons to learn, so even though I was stressed out, I was okay.

Great thing about accompanying non-Japanese guest on visit is that Japanese people try to explain the special features about whatever they are trying to explain in as simple way as possible, often making comparison with non-Japanese examples, and because I did not receive higher education in Japan, it is wonderful way for me to learn.

One of memorable learning I had last Sunday is that of learning the features of beauty by Japanese. We visited Kiki-Rakuza, and there, Yamaguchi-san explained to us the difference between Japanese ceremics and Chinese and European ceremics. Chinese and Europeans pursue perfection in their work, thinner plates, symmetrical shape, flawless painting on the plate. Japanese purposefully bring in warp and uneven texture to their work, painting simple but not repeated.

Features of beauty in ceremics. Yamaguchi-san said, Japanese don't like perfectness in ceremics. They don't like perfect people. I had a glimps of buddahism when I heard her say that, because nature is really not perfect. World is not really perfect. Nothing happens in planned, neat, clean way. But it is in this uneveness, this imperfection lies beauty of life, through imperfection one learns to appreciate other imperfect things. I fell in love with the concept of Japanese ceremics, because it is such true expression of all living things, perhaps all of universe. Yes, people are same, like all plates are same. But like Japanese ceremics, people are each so unique, so different, so imperfect, so beautiful.

Knowledge management

Maybe the fad-like interest in "knowledge management" is waning now, but I do hope instead of being content with having knowledge, that we will learn to actually use these knowledge.

Soichiro Honda never used the word, knowledge management, but he did say that most important thing is people's ideas that ultimately serves people. He said his company's mission is to produce products that would serve people.

When we talk about "knowledge", we can't forget that knowledge is idealy to serve people.

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Fragile existance

Unusual night. Disturbing feelings because of what was happening around me tonight.

Tokyo was full of demonstrations and lots and lots of military and police about the town, because US President Bush is in Japan today. Funny, I felt most unsafe when hundreds of armed guards were marching towards me down the hills from Roppongi area. All the guard buses parked alongside the road. I heard a man said to his companion, "This is the safest place in Japan tonight!". But there's something that evokes hate when force is gathered, kind of force that would not question value of life. Force that kills when ordered.

I know individually, these military men are human beings, but dressed in uniform and in formation, they became more of machines who merely reacts to orders. And those people demonstrating against whatever. Those individual human beings become something else when they are gathered together, united in anger against something.

I guess I have been most fortunate, because this was the most collective hate emotion I have ever felt around me in my life so far.

This made me think of how people behave sometimes. Treating another as non-human. So when I came home, I opened up Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. How he survived the concentration camp during WWII.

One of the demonstration tonight was about Iraq situation. These people gathering together to hate Bush, hate US, hate the Japanese guards who are herding them.

I am hypersensitive to people's emotions, and I react immediately to people's emotion around me. That's probably why my older two boys learned how not to show their emotions too much, because I would be right there, reacting to and augmanting their feelings. I felt such big collective "hate" tonight. It felt too hard, too sharp at the edges, too patchy, too miserable.

Still on Reflections on the art of living 2

Actually, if I wrote of all the thoughts that wells up from inside of me while reading this book, it would surely be one thousand pages in small prints.

Heinrich Zimmer is quoted in the book:

She is the mute security of lif in itself: from the ashes of burned forests she raises eager fresh flowers whos decay is pregnant with new life, a new life which all around it sees only life in its transitions and transformations with no shadow of death, just as we ourselves, when we sink our teeth intoa ripe fruit, or draw a living plant from the garden, are without awareness of death.

Ashes. Dusts. It seems the ultimate of life into nothingness. But stars are formed from dusts gathered together by gravity in the space, right? By human time frame, it might as well be forever floating in nothingness, but there it is. Ultimately, new form emerges, the Genesis in the making. It isn't like the feeling one has when walking away after seeing the 2001 Space Odyssey. It seems more familier and more grand than we think.

Serendipity

Mahayana Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara who is represented in Japan as Kwannon ... I was reading about that. Then my husband chooses the place for our vacation at Kwannon Point, which is only 1 hour away from where we live.

The place is sad: history of war in the past. How did the local people feel when they spotted Perry's ship coming into the bay? The people chiseling away the rocks and stones to create roads to protect the country, to prepare for war. Those people who ruled the country, many wished for power, had ambitions. Yet people who toiled to fulfill those ambitious people's design surely gained insights and fulfillment through work they performed. The roads and paths within the beautiful Kwannon Park. Outside of this beautiful national park, beaches full of rabbish and trash. We have much work to do. How? How do I start?

The place is enchanting: kites hovering over the bay and mountains. Incredible sunset into the mountain, moon rising over the island.

Riding the windy road along the bayside on my bicycyle was such a treat. Serendipity, because I just started learning in ernest about buddhism. And I was lead to the place with its name.

Still on Reflections on the Art of Living

This is not a big book, Reflection on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion. It's only 311 pages. But every page or two require me to think, reflect. And often light from sudden understanding of tacit aspects of my thoughts and feelings bursts out. It is taking a long time for me to read it. I can only read maybe 10 to 20 pages at most per day, because the book touches on basic struggles I have been going through all my life.

Like questions about God, eternal life, science and where it leads, love and war that never ceases among humans, death wish that just will not go away, so many feelings, happiness, jealousy, sadness that keep coming and going.

Then the words

To say "yes" to life:
"yea" to it all.

Participate joyfully
in the sorrows of the world

The sorrows will not ever go away! Neither will this joy that keeps welling up inside of me when things seem quite impossible.

The great Mahayana Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara who is a man and a woman at the same time, who is represented in Japan as Kwannon,

in another manifestation has thousand hands surrounding him like a halo, and in the palm of each is an eye that is pierced by the sorrows of the world...

I've thought all these years, why can't I be truly optimistic? Why do I feel others' joy and sorrow so keenly? Understanding Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, it means it is natural, human to feel like that.

I've hung on this time. I hung on to the feelings I had, not bolting from them, accepting and then seeing if it departed or grew. Fear, anger and hate departed. It became something else, peaceful joy. I felt there must be something wrong with me wanting to say yes to all, but light needs darkness to know it is light. There was nothing wrong with me. It may not keep happening in the future, but the spell has been broken, the vicious cycle of fear that lasted for over 40 years ended.

It peaked over the last few weeks. It has been feeling as though I was stuck in the mud. Slow thoughts, mind in thick field. Body not able to move in agile manner... But then it gave full bloom to beautiful lotus flower. Bright, shining, knowing the sadness yet rejoicing.

Business Organization Life Cycle

Any living organism is born, lives, and dies. Business organization is a type of living organism, and it seems many major companies in Japan are getting to be ancient in age.

Maybe some companies can transform itself. But I believe best life for organization is just like in human's life, that is, born, live, give life to another being, die. So it seems that the best way for company is give birth to companies (subsidiaries), let them go (for God's sake, don't send people who became redundant at the existing company!), and live out the remaining life fully, then die.

Perhaps our unwillingness to plan for death is reflected in the economy situation.

how I think

Some people comment that I am a hard worker because I read a lot. Well, not really. It's the way I learned how to interact with the characters in the book when I learned to read at age 3. It is a way I focus, how I think.

Reflection on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion:

My Confession would be that I'm a thinking-intuition type, short in both the feeing side and the sensation side. Okay, that's the boat I have, and that's the one I'm using. My sensations and feelings are there, but I couldn't guide myself by them.

What's my boat? Do I know?

When we talk about scientific truth--just as when we talk about God--we are in trouble, because truth has different meanings. William James said, and it's valid, "Truth is what works."

What a way of putting it! I like it.

When they get that tremolo in the voice and tell you what God has said, you know you've got a faker. When peope think that they, or their guru, have The Truth--"This is It""--they are what Nietzche calls "epileptics of the concept": People who have gotten an idea that's driven them crazy.

I guess I have been succeptible to this. I live my life with lots of exclamation marks. I go mad, then return to sanity. Repeat.

Do not give up your vices.
Make your vices work for you.

If you are a proud person,
don't get rid of your pride.
Apply it to your spiritual quest.

The best thing cannot be told

From The Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflection on the Art of Living:

My wonderful friend, Heinrich Zimmer, my final guru, often said, "The best things cannnot be told." That is to say, you can't talk about that which lies beyond the reach of words..
The second best are misunderstood, because they are your statements about that which cannot be told. They are misunderstood because the vocabulary of symbols that you have to use are thoughts to be references to historical events.
The third best is conversation, political life, economics, and all that. And that's what we are usually dealing with: the first three chakuras.

And thus the action and thoughts are always true to reality, whereas words in conversations are tricky business, and words in prints, through technological dvices like internet, movies and televisions are even less reliable. It is so in dealing with the family, master, diciple, one's self.

Individually and in business around me, it seems so true.

Lord of the Rings

I needed to go back to Lord of the Rings, and I finally got the DVD, Fellowship of the Ring and watched it. It was such a pleasure! I must have read the triology over 30 times, and I was afraid it might be a disappointment like the animation movie that came out years ago. No the movie was not 100% true to the book, but minor parts that were altered made the story flow better as a movie. The movie enhanced the story by magnifying each person's struggle against the temptation for the kind of power that corrupts. Everyone was tested, weak and strong.

The story is so timely. It shows everyone, great or small, counts. It is up to each person's kind heart. The Middle Earth is saved by humans, dwarves, elves, hobbit, ents, animals (like horses, eagles). Gollum had his own part in saving the world.

King Arthur's legend is about nobilities and their power and their lives. Lord of the Rings is about the power serving the people.

Of course when I read this story when I was 17 years-old and going through back surgery which kept me in bed for 2 months and crippled for one year, I didn't think about these things. It was a wonderful world for my spirit to live in. I walked with Frodo, laughed with Tom Bombadil, marveled at Lothlorien, cried at the passing of King Theoden, fallen in love with Eowyn and Faramir.

And again, the story gives me what I need now. Just what I need! That is, not take myself too seriously, marvell at how I ended up where I am in life, laugh out loud.

Love only grows

September 16th is my oldest son, Shingo's memorial. He died 3 days after he was born 17 years ago. I think of how he could have been. No doubt a difficult child, yet delightful. Somehow, he's grown in my mind. Somehow, I feel his presence near me, although now a days only few times a year.

As I visited where his remains lay today, I've thought of how much I loved him. How much he has taught me over the past 17 years. He and his brothers taught me of unconditional love, of unconditional love's capacity. When I lost him, I thought, I could never love no one more. Then he and his brothers taught me that unconditional love is never divided into smaller pieces. It is doubled, tripled, each piece growing bigger everytime I love. And they taught me, unconditional love is not only for the children, family, but is for all the people around me. I've learned the meaning of the word, agape.

Today, I've come to realize that I am not showing my love in the way that will make neither my children nor myself happy. That I can let go and love more freely.

All these years, and he keeps teaching me. Thank you, Shingo.

People change

I was reminded of this theme when later in the day, I saw the movie Hero. People change. Somethime for better, sometime for worse. Barabasi introduces Jorge Luis Borges's saying in the book: "Everything touches everything". This is also applicable to Hero too, I thought.

After the movie, Sugar Ray and I talked about the movie, arts, spiritual, our day to day grinding as usual. We were fascinated that in the movie, women's base for action was emotion, short termed view, men's base for action as morality, long termed view. Perhaps in life, that's just the way it generally is. I certainly seem to fit the profile.

I thought of who the "hero" is in the movie. They all were. All fulfilled their capacity, they all were living the life given to them, in circumstances all so varied, with all they have.

Historical Perspective

My friends and I often discuss the advancement of countries in historical perspectives. The fact that a country does not stay in power for more than a few hundred years, if that long. We had a great conversation when I returned from India, marveling that when Indus civilization was flourishing, our Japanese ancestors were still hunter-gatherers, living primitive lives.

Reading one of my favorite "real people", Misao Makiuchi's book, Knowledge Creation: Pioneer the Future talks about doing the right thing at the right place at the right time. For instance, his small business as an accounting firm flourished because he became independent when Japan was going through incredible economic growth through manufacturing, and they needed accountants who were easy to talk to, and who were service oriented.

Right place at the right time. Is Japan a passe, because it's strength was in abiding by procedures with discipline? Because it has good percentage of people who would gladly follow the leaders, and during the years that manufacturing in consistent way was an art and the followers who were good at incremental improvements had their place in the sun? Now that manufacturing is no longer art understood by few companies but norm, Japan's past giants are floundering.

In one of conversations I had today, I made the correlation between organisms like human and organization. Both are complex system that has life span. Both will born, grow, decline, die. It is inevitable. In order for such system to live extended lives, it will have to reproduce, and that is the only way. Therefore, does that mean only way companies like Matsushita, Honda, Yamaha, Fujitsu will survive is through subsidiary companies that were born from them?

And the question also remains: Will the set of skills that were so right for the industrial revolution age be of use to fill the needs of after internet age? Or is Japan now joining the past veterans like Spain, Italy?

See, if you e-mail, you can blog!

Hi TK,

Hope you arrived at your next appointment without much problem yesterday. And that your trip flight today was pleasant.

Thank you very much for having me as your intepreter for the client meeting and for taking time to meet with my group yesterday! It was great fun for me, and I think participants of both groups gained much through their interaction with you. Of course, I learned a lot from listening to you, and you can bet I will integrate much of the information you have given me in pursuit to improve the work environment in Japan and other parts of the world. I am truly greatful both to you and Chiho.

You amaze me that you are so oblivious to your fame, and admire you for your ability to stay you. What got me is when you said, "When the book was published, people's perception of me changed, thinking I know a lot more than I actually do. I'm still the person I was before the book was published." I guess that's why you don't have any web site in your name, but as Tom Peters so loudly speaks out in his book, people are brands, and you certainly are identified as innovation brand to the readers of your book. I think you will be able to meet more wildly interesting people and bring your company more outrageously cool projects if you established a web site in your name, introduce the contents of your book and advertise for your new book and speeches there. I would certainly look into your site if it existed, like I do with http://www.tompeters.com/ and http://www.peter-drucker.com/ .

Okay, you can judge if my blog site is too personal or not:
http://www.syncworld.net/blog/suda/

Again, THANK YOU! I am your fan, and at your service!

Best regards
Fuji

Globilization 2

In my last entry, I have focused on existance of both extreme good and extreme bad on "globilization". But as mentioned briefly in my last entry, there are "others", general mass of people who are just trying to make good, honest living by working. These people needs jobs, and both Dr. Livingston and slave hunters paid them for their work.

So good and evil both exist, and it creates opportunity for more people to work. Another factor of globilization.

Globalization

Maybe it was 15 years ago. I have distinct memory of the images of thick, moist African jungle, man grimy from long and hard travel on pathless way, blue hopeful but fearful eyes on lean face, all on the television screen. The man said:

"Dr. Livingston, I presume?"

It was a documentary about pius life of Dr. Livingston who wanted to save and offer eternal life to the savage Africans by converting them into Christians, and about slave hunters following Dr. Livinston's path in pursuit of prosperous business.

The contrast shocked me, good, kind, determined man versus greedy, self serving men. And there are those who served these men for living. Their paths followed one another, each fixed in his own mission.

I was distressed that a mere television show had such profound effect on me, but the effect was so powerful, the images and the lesson stayed with me all these years. Good and evil are two sides of a coin. One does not exist without the other. Nothing new about this thought, it is so prevalent in Asian religion, Buddhaism, Taoism. But only after having experienced irony in daily life often enough, then to have that one revealing lesson that hit the right place at the right time, will one learn.

Perhaps that is what globalization is. Good will be followed with greed, local people just trying to make a living. In trying to pursue environment to somehow improve the quality of people working in call centers, I am distressed with all the political factors, each with fixed mission.

This is the lesson I have been trying hard to learn for years and years. Who am I to force my views onto these people? Each person has his own lessons to learn. I hate political factors where people are so determined to gain an upper hand. When all is said and done, what does my work mean? What difference am I really making? Am I spending my time wisely, on this kind of work and not more time with kids, family? Am I making difference in anybody's life with my work?

Globalization seems like another Dr. Livingston, except this time, it is not in the name of God.

As A Man Thinkth

Sato-san recommended James Allen's As A Man Thinketh, so I read it. I think James Allen was one of the writer that inspired Margaret Thatcher when she was growing up. ( I looked for her biography, Path to Power on my bookshelf, and was annoyed I couldn't locate the book...)

It's a very short book, but full of inspiration. The philosophy of it, especially the way the sentenses felt, struck me that it sounded very similar to the book of Buddhaism. Particular line I thought of was the following:

"Rouse thyself by thyself, examine thyself by thyself; thus self-protected and attentive wilt though live happily..... For self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore curb thyself as the merchant curbs a noble horse. By one's self the evil is done, by one's self one suffers; by one's self evil is left undone, by one's self one is purified. The pure and the impure stand and fall by themselves, no one can purify another."

The entire book of As A Man Thinketh specifically explains this concept, your life is result of what you think.More l live, more I try to learn from my life, it is becoming truer and truer. Work, love, family, it's all about what you think and the action taken.

Thank you, Patrick!

Patrick is leaving our company to attend USC for MBA. He is 8 years younger than me, and he was my boss for nearly three years. As I reflect on how we worked together, I realized that because of him, I was able to really do things that I felt was good for myself, client, our company, and we ended up with great results.

Our personalities are just about totally opposite to each other's. My personality is very much like that of his wife's. (Guess it was good.) I read about, hear about people who succeeded by of having someone who is opposite to their personality that gave them balance. I think Patrick was such a person for me over the past three years. I truly want to thank you, Patrick!!

I talk about environment, importance of "ba". Well, without people that have good chemistry together, it means nothing. Knowing this from experience will be such an asset to my job in helping companies to create nurturing environment.

It's all about learning from experience. But I love the poetic way Paulo Coelho puts it in The Fifth Mountain:

"He who maketh no choice is dead in the eyes of the Lord, though he go on breathing and walking in the streets.
'Moreover,'the angel continued, 'no one dieth. The arms of eternity open for every soul, and each one will carry on his task. There is a reason for everything under the sun.'
Elijah again raised his arms to the heavens.
'My people fell away from the Lord because of a woman's beauty. Phoenicia may be destroyed because a priest thinks that writing is a threat to the gods. Why does He who made the world prefer to use tragedy to write the book of fate?'
.....
'Thou knowest not whereof thou speakest," the angel replied. "There is no tragedy, only the unavoidable. Everything hath its reason for being: thou needest only distinguish what is temporary from what is lasting.'
'What is temporary?' asked Elijah.
'The unavoidable.'
'And what is lasting?'
'The lessons of the unavoidable.'"

Wedding

She and the groom looked like a perfect match, like puzzle pieces that fit together to make a picture. Over the past month, I have attended two weddings, and both Ozaki-san’s and Maya’s weddings were immensely satisfying to attend. Both were filled with great people, style very different, yet so relaxed. Those weddings were great ways to show love and appreciation in many ways, love for each other, for their parents, for their family, their friends. And I felt love for her, so happy that she has reached another significant peak in her life. I think that’s why I found these events to be very special. They weren’t show offs. They were ways to show love for people, for life. Maybe that’s what weddings are supposed to be traditionally. Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t know, who didn’t understand. Like meaning of many writings, sayings, I didn’t know the true meaning until I understood by experience.

I know well enough that getting married is just another marking point in life. Good and bad continue to happen, laughter and tears. Whether or not they stay together is not as important as how much they will grow while being together. Yet it is so wonderful to have a significant other in one’s life, someone to grow together. Really, being so close to each other, husband or wife would often be a source of great pain that helps the other grow. That is the beauty of being married, I think. Life is so much richer as two people struggle and conquer in ever higher ground in the domain of love. As Paulo Coelho writes, one is never at peace in love.

Having met Maya’s long time friends was something special in itself. I have heard so much about them over the past 3 years I have known her, and knew these were special women, who held their own, who walked paths of adventure and discovery in life. Their love for her was apparent, and I admired and respected them, as much as I do Maya.

The wedding was beautiful, but it shone especially because of the bride. Beautiful bride that signifies the continuation of life. I wish Maya a good life. And I thank her to allow me to participate in one great event of her life.

Making Mistakes

How is your Thursday starting out?

I'm going at snail's pace in reading Nonaka-san and Konno-san's book, Methodology of Kowledge Creation. I've told you several days ago I started reading it, right?

Just wanted to share what I am thinking while I am reading it. I like the book so far, because it attempts to encourage the Japanese business people in growing and making progress. They go all the way back to Plato, Aristotle, then jump to Descartes, on down to contemporary philosophers and scholars. I've just completed reading a passage about Mao Tse-tung, and I see where Nonaka-san got the inspiration for his SECI process.

As much as I enjoy reading this kind of writing, I realize that I am becoming more and more fascinated with how things actually happen. What I mean is, after the fact, everything become data, information, and one could gather them and find thread of common traites in many things. However, in life, things happen so fast, both within and without that knowing these things literally helps only little with any decision making. Experience seems to be the only thing that really affects behavior.

Which reminds me of what I read in tompeters.com last night. There was an article about interview to Richard Farson, coauthor of Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins: The Paradox of Innovation. Well, the title seems to speak for itself.

Hi Pamela!

I always enjoy visiting your blog site, but your April 29 entry
has been particularly inspiring.

I've always liked Georgia O'Keefe's painting, but never
thought of reading books about her. Now I will.

Also, your comment that you were a reader, and felt lonely
as a child made an impact on me. I've always thought I was
lonely because I was an only child. In fact, I try to explain
many things about my behavior, thought process to my being
the way I am through my social upbringing. But maybe many of
the conclusions I have reached about myself are off the target.
Many things come directly from within. Which is an exasperating
thought, because often, I would try to explain my inability
to treat people in sensitive way as result of being an only
child in a nucleus family. I've just had the uncomfortable
thought yesterday, as a matter of fact.

Only in the past few years, I've begun to see who I really
am (not an angel I used to think I was), and it is quite
upsetting! Now I have to discipline myself to change the
way I do some things if I am to grow.

I'll come to your Friday performance with with a couple of
my friends. They are looking forward to your performance
too!

Best