With some baggage to boot. :p

I have thoughts on what blogging means now. Wrote a quick intro at clippings.claudrod.me.

Monday Michiru (Monday満ちる) - ‘Sands Of Time’ (aka quite an old song)

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There are things in this life that I clearly know I own. And oddly enough, they’re not exactly material things, but I have no general term to describe them, as they’re a mix of things that don’t necessarily come in material form, but they are tangible in the way that they are felt alive through my senses. One of those things is being made teary-eyed and extremely emotional (without much physical expression, though my insides are hyperactive, whilst overwhelmed~) by some songs.

Monday Michiru was an MTV (literally, that TV channel that plays almost only music videos back in the day) staple during the ‘90s, so she takes up her own little box in my mind space of childhood memories. There’s something about the thought of her that makes me smell something nicely warm under my nose (like a light scent of cinnamon or caramelly hot chocolate), with the feeling of gentle wind lightly touching my skin. It’s an odd thing to have feelings this way, because it’s not synesthesia (one can only imagine what that really is like) but in a way, I think I get a glimpse of it when certain life things trigger sensations. Whenever I get this feeling, it makes me extremely grateful to be alive (you know, despite life’s hardships) and I end up crying a little bit. Truly, through sometimes inexplicable mental and bodily functions, it is made clear to me how being human is complex and amazing.

It also makes me think sometimes, that while I spend some waking moments disappointed in how I pursue life, I am happy to be me. I feel like it’s a blessing (maybe even a superpower of sorts) to have very meaningful moments in small, seemingly mundane...things. But having that thing that no one else and only you can understand is quite special.

“There’s nothing inherently wrong with gifts, but it’s irresponsible for us to believe that purchasing presents is a holiday requirement.”

Posting mainly because I’ve been thinking about how to approach gift-giving this year. The challenge now is how to make people feel they’re remembered, without relying on giving material gifts.

Walter D. Wintle’s ‘The Man Who Thinks He Can’  /via Wikipedia

“You’ve got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win the prize.”

Kim Bost’s talk about design being beyond just craft is inspiring. It couldn’t have come at a better time. :)

My key takeaways:

People become brave with the work they do when they’re with a leader they can trust.

In building trust with stakeholders or coworkers, it is best to express it through channels of warmth vs strength. Better understand and connect people vs proving your worth through your (technical) skill.

A manifestation of one’s design ego is being able to make visible work (craft, in this context). Design goes beyond that, as great design is about great collaboration.

Alignment vs agreement (asking for a consensus, for all to share the exact same opinion) . Always aim for alignment, as you can individually approach things differently, but the direction is the same.

There are so many things on this list that I badly want to repost! And as I was thinking of what to quote here, I realized I almost wanted to copy everything as written. Which doesn’t make sense, so I simply implore you (really) to go straight to the link and read everything. I love how Mr. Chimero humanizes our approach to work by articulating things we all want to do for ourselves as we  continue on with our (tech) jobs. We have to, have to, have to remind ourselves that we are not machines.

Probably one of the most important reads on the internet today. Pulling out a few quotes:

“Bad taste is real taste, of course, and good taste is the residue of someone else’s privilege.” #wow

Because I consumed quite a lot of things this week—a list!

Sodium - In the form of Lay’s Mexican Chicken flavor from the corner Chinese grocer, and Berocca, which apparently has a lot of it, as I was a bit down with a cold.

TV - I finished both Barry Season 2 (which was GREAT, character development- and acting-wise), and Chernobyl (as prodded by Y, who rarely watches TV things, but devotes his attention to quality releases, I think). That may have taken up around 9 hours of my life. It’s a work day’s worth; now that I think about it, it’s kind of pathetic. But not really! As time devoted to some fiction (Barry) may teach you some form of empathy (not an excuse), and time devoted to learning a bit more about world history (albeit the potential bias) can actually be empowering.

Medium posts - Working for the R&D team of a financial institution (Surprise! New job, yes) makes you want to keep learning and learning and learning, especially when surrounded by people who desire to do the same. And Medium, despite the amount of content (elegantly) hosted by it and the occasional pay wall encounters, is an awesome treasure trove of technical and design documentation. If Tumblr is for memes, Medium is for things that make a ton more sense. I love it.

Tatsuro Yamashita - The City Pop craze never ends in my tiny spot on this world, and I basically had his For You album on loop all week via YouTube. I am a huge fan of brilliant producers who are able to make their stuff, but also ‘curatorially brilliant’ enough to know who will sound best playing the stuff they make. (Also, I have proven, yet again, how playing pop albums on loop really helps me focus while doing work. 🤷🏻‍♀️)

I decided to write this list for my own sanity, because it seems like I took in a crazy amount of the same things this week, that I had to do an inventory of sorts.

“It's a fair trade to take a hundred failures for just one success, because failures are free.”

Gotta love the internet for valuable videos like this.

My intense desire is to be humble enough to go through failure while I’m still young (but not really), and to keep learning from them.

“I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” - Daryl Hall and Chromeo

Possibly one of the best collaborations borne out of the internet (this was made for a web series!). Everyone looks so in sync and having so much fun!

Gilberto Gil - ‘Palco’

/via Poets.org

“Kerala” - Bonobo