the disposable culture

Anyone who's ever owned Ikea products know that they're not built to last. Today I picked up an Ikea drinking glass and saw it had lost its shiny clearness and gained a haze around the bottom. The glass is a few months old. I looked at it and thought, figures, that's what happens when you buy inexpensive cheap disposable houseware.

Ikea invented, or at elast perfected the disposable furniture. They are stylish and affordable, plus you get all the fun of assembling the pieces together. Like life-size Lego or jigsaw puzzles. There's genius here, a lot of it in fact. Ingenious Swedish designers have invented mechanisms and parts that go into an overall system so that you can mass-produce parts and map them to any design and then churn out the pieces so the design becomes reality. Connectors, screws, dowels, nails, and particle boards, and voila, furniture for the masses. But stylish so you can also express your individualism.

But of course there are flaws to the system. At the end of the day, Ikea furniture is not made of firm sturdy material. Not the maple, cherry, cedar of yesteryear.

Contentment and old age

Today I wished I was old.

Forget the next 30, 40 years. I'd like to skip ahead, way ahead into the ripe old age of 65 or thereabouts. I'd like to be gray-haired, wrinkled, maybe even bespectacled. But I would like light and life to shine in my eyes, balanced with a sense of well-being and contentment with life. That's where I'd like to be.

I went to the dedication for the Huntington Library's Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Sciences. Now that's a mouthful. The Huntington, being in Pasadena with a big garden, regularly draws in wealthy older folks from the nearby mansions. That and the garden club invites even more older women who love plants. Not only that, the dedication was at 9am on a Monday morning. So who'd have the time to go but those who don't have to work. Or in my case, those whose work was related to the Conservatory.

So there I was, 9am Monday morning, stepping on dewy morning grass amidst a sea of men and women of retirement age. Finely dressed in their best suits and outfits and sipping tea and greeting their garden club friends, neighbors, what have you.

I felt a little out of place, to say the least. But it was interesting to observe the ladies and gentlemen there. Many of the ladies look like the "ladies who lunch" type. I overheard an older couple talking with another woman--okay I kind of eavesdropped--the couple were the Clarks. She's worked for the Huntington for a number of years on a part time basis but has since retired. Her husband taught at Cal Tech and also recently retired. They seemed happy and content in their stage of life. I think they must be close to 70. They're enjoying life. They have wisdom and discernment from their many years of living, having done everything they needed to, and now they are just enjoying life peacefully and gracefully with each other. I loved that the man's name was Kent Clark: Superman's name reversed.

anyway I looked around me and felt like the older men and women all around me seemed to have this self-assured peace and contentment about them. Peaceful. Content. Happy. Enjoying what life had to offer. And I longed for that.

It made me want to skip all the years ahead--all the changes and decisions I'll have to make, all the directions my life will turn, all the hoped and dreams that will bring both disappointment and joy (I hope), or expectations unrealized, all the twists and turns the road of life will lead me. Frankly I am tired. I don't much want to move on at this point. I'd like some rest. Better yet someone yank me off the path and put me at the last stretch of the path toward the end.

I want to skip a few steps and get to the end. I want to cheat. Unfortunately I have no power to make that happen. I just want to be old. I want to fast forward through the next 30 years...

In the Event of Catastrophe...

Is this terrible for me to think? That in the event of a great natural force like Hurricane Katrina, it's simply about survival. You do everything you can to save everyone of course, but it should be understood that the weak and the elderly are most likely to be injured. That's just logical isn't it? Survival of the fittest. You can thank Darwin for that.

I am not saying you leave those people to die and save yourself. Absolutely not. You do EVERYTHING you can to save everybody. But knowing that there is a limit of what can be done, some will be left to their own devices. I absolutely think that the defenseless should be first priority. But for everyone that you cannot save ahead of time, for those that had to suffer through the storm, isn't it common sense that the elderly, the sick, the very young, are less likely to survive?

So was it surprising that the people in the nursing home didn't survive?

There is great sadness to what Katrina has left behind in its wake, the harm it has done to so many lives. And it's heartbreaking to think that there was a community of sick elderly patients who were too sick to escape. They were not able to survive the storm.

Rejects

Every other month or so I receive a random magazine addressed to me. A few months ago it was a magazine called "Organic Living." I think it was a new publication and they just decided to send it to people as a test.

The other day I received a copy of Metropolitan Home in my name. Other than paranoia that I might get billed for a subscription that I didn't sign up for, I was happy to get a free issue. And the fact that I was sent Metropolitan Home hopefully meant I was on some mailing list that thinks I have a good taste. Or that I live in a home that could look like one of the homes in the magazine. (I don't. I live in an apartment building which I find quite ghetto much of the time.) Or maybe the publisher magically sensed the hidden architect in me and knew that I would appreciate an issue of their publication.

I proceeded to flip through the magazine, looking for an article that would catch my eye. As I flip through the mag I noticed there was something taped to the back of the magazine. I turn it over to the back cover, and what do I find but a piece of white paper taped to the back cover. Across the paper in big black capital letters spelled the word "REJECTS." And when I say the letters are big, I mean they are like 60 pt. size font. REJECTS. For a brief second I thought it was part of some clever advertising. I hoped anyway. But reality quickly set in - we're talking about Metropolitan Home here, not Maxim. Metropolitan Home does not contain clever, tongue-in-cheek, risque ads. Advertisers like that don't buy space in magazines like that. Nay, the ad on the back cover was for Bodum glasses.

So it wasn't the advertisers. I suppose it was the publishers. In any case, SOMEONE taped the word "REJECTS" on the back of my magazine. Labeling my copy of Met Home a reject. And I felt like someone just slapped the same exact sign on my back. Oh what a tease. Give me an unexpected surprise and then call it a reject. It is at once comical and insulting.

But how true that feels of life...walking around feeling a little bit like a reject and doing what you could to cover that up and act like you belong. And somehow on this one magazine back cover lies the truth. REJECTS.

What else can I say?

Our Lives are Stories

It was a good reminder, sitting down and having a cigar with Bill, to hear that our lives are stories. My life is a story, as is his. We sometimes focus so much on the inane everyday things that we forget to step back and take a look at thte bigger picture. For example, I work too much. I spend more time working than most people I know. Work consumes me and I have time nor energy for little else. And that frustrates me sometimes. But really that's just a small part of my story. Unless I intend to work too much for the next thirty forty years. I still have the choice.

In essence, what I'm living now is just a small part of the story. We have phases and that's normal. Phases of infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood. Up until our mid twenties there were consistent stages to look forward to. Now as we enter adulthood sometimes it feels like everything comes to a halt and I don't know what is next. Now that everything is wide open and anything goes--there is not a set path ahead of me, I don't know what to do. I don't know what the next stage is. Many would say fall in love, get married, have kids, own property, become responsible. But truly, none of these things are required of you.

Growing up, being part of a family, going to school, those were all things out of my control. When my family immigrated, I had no say in the matter. You accepted things as they were because you were a child and your parents made decisions on your behalf, based on what they think is best. Puberty/adolescence, that was also unavoidable. That's just biology at work. Everything up until college. But beyond school and into the working world, as soon as a perosn becomes fully self sufficient, we more or less become masters of our fates, in a manner of speaking. (I don't really believe that we have full control over our fate.)

So now what? It's an often frustrating question. I think part of the frustration is that I believe in fate and destiny and that makes me powerless to act at times. But our life is a story. It's weaving itself out. Not that it's good to feel stuck or anything, but it's good to know that although at the moment life feels somewhat motionless and stagnant, this is only part of a bigger story. And it's okay. For a little while.

But I do feel like there is too much immaturity around me. Too much whining and people looking for temporary pleasure. People who just don't get it. And it gets annoying to be around that all the time. I don't feel that my time is wasted. I'm honing my skills as an office drone. I'm working at being better at my job, at making decisions and getting things done. At negotiating and facilitating communication. I am energized by my work. I actually am. I am interested in the design challenges and the technical challenges. I am less phazed by the annoying client who tries to badger me to please them. I am learning to draw the line and be firm when necessary and becoming more tactful. These are all important things. My time is not wasted. Even if a majority of it is spent at the office. I know that my work is more interesting than most. And that I count a blessing.

This too, is part of the story. My work contributes to who I am. And whether we like to admit it or not, this is true of every person. We spend too many hours of our lives working--it is part of our story. And of that we need not feel embarrassed.

Getting Back at the Inane Annoyances of Life

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/nyregion/15annoyances.html

I loved this New York Times article about the inventive ways that people have created to combat life's little annoyances. All the things that irk and bother us, but we think we have to live with because they're just part of life. Like junk mail and computerized operators. As absurd and obssessive some of these acts of rebellion may seem, they are in fact small acts of human triumph against big business practices.

Because you know what? I AM annoyed when I go to Starbucks and ask for a medium, and my BARISTA corrects me with, "you mean a grande?" Come on, I think we both know what we're talking about. It's the middle size between the smallest and largest sizes you offer, and by definition, that means a medium. Don't try to fool me by calling it a "grande."

And I can't even tell you about the countless times I have had to call FedEx's 1-800 number to get a simple question answered, only to have to battle through the computer operator, punching through a series of options, and never getting what I need. Look, I am running late on getting this important document out, and I need to know the latest FedEx location where I can drop this package off that's within a 20 mile radius. And since the FedEx web site gives inaccurate information in their location finder (sometimes it simply doesn't work), I have to call the 800 number. I'm in a hurry, I need to make sure I'll make the last drop-off, just let me talk to a live operator who will actually understand my request and be able to find the answer for me.

Therefore, it was exceptionally gratifying to see that there are people out there who are fighting back. (On surface this seems a little passive aggressive, but by taking action, these individuals are actually acting assertive.) I'm too busy to spend months stuffing business envelopes with dead weight myself, so I can imagine that Wesley A. Williams is doing it on my behalf. In fact, on behalf of humanity. Wesley A. Williams, you're my hero.

Anyone else out there fighting the annoyances of life? Using the "little weapons people use for everyday survival?"