There's More to Life than Happiness

This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/

China house

China house located near kings cross station in London, finally my long awaited sweet and sour pork.
Sweet and sour pork can be used as a bench mark on the influence of the Chinese population overseas, its crispy pork that's both sweet, and sour. No Chinese riddles to its name.

reflections: Life of PI

Ang Lee's Life of PI, thoughts

"I have just told you two stories. In both, the facts are the same. In both, the boat still sinks. In both, my family dies and in both I still survive. Which do you believe? " 

Two strong themes in Life of PI is that of belief and truth. It suggests that truth is separate from fact and that it is our beliefs that filter the latter into the former.

But. What is truth?

//thoughts provoked by "Photoshopped Sherman"

"Photoshopped Sherman" offers analysis in the ontological shift in the reading of Cindy Sherman's work when moved from costumes and make up (atomic manipulation) to virtual (bit) manipulation. 

//definitions

data: precursor to information and the equivalent of gibberish if not processed. over-consumption leads to confusion.
information: precursor to ideas and essential in its formation. over-consumption leads to idea constipation.
idea: infant of knowledge and  fun to play with.
knowledge: a matured idea that affects one's beliefs
beliefs: biases we accept as the only thing to be certain about.

//extracts from "the information diet"

//thoughts provoked by The Information Diet

(triggered by a reading of The Information Diet by Clay Johnson)

It's disgusting, living in this bloated state.

its hard to think when there are so many memories, opinions and situations floating in brainsoup.

how to filter without throwing out the good parts?

its like filing.

writing is essential to organize.

concentration needs to be exercised

Dear Penny

Today we were again sluggish with the drawings at the Office. This is an issue that has been nagging at our behind for a while, and it will soon bite us in said region if we don't nip it first. Attempts at marathon trudges have proven valiently useless. Perhaps a checklists of qns to guide the decision making process will be best to tame the erractic mouse clicks and useless panning. It is working between scales so fuildly that gunks me up, I suspect.

The frustration is the inablitity to help this useless tic. But even when I want to leave and say fuck this, I can't yet do that without achieving a level of success. You can only walk away from something if you get there in the first place, no? And we're not there yet. We're far from it.

A second and deeper frustration is with the futility of the task at hand. Sometimes, it feels like I am but providing a service. Always, it feels like "I did not kill 5 years of my life to end up here". Where is my faith? Hidden under a rock, no doubt. Until then, we fight for the bite-sized victories. This week, the theme is

Success with personal accountability is well. We now have a balance between flexible freedom and some structure to order a fruitful day. The distraction to purge, perhaps, might be the internet itself. The hack-and-slash information stream we get is intriguing, but I wonder at how relevent the scattershot of information I'm exposed to really is.

Today's information net included several talks by Bruce Sterling - he who is an asshole but interesting enough for everyone to overlook. He calls our age a move away from the narrative, from historical accounts. If we are moving away from that, then where are we moving to? How important is it to have a narrative shape to a story?

In Jewish culture, one takes a year long sabbatical after every nine years. This gives one time to reflect and plan for the next few steps. It is a breather to construct a narrative from what has happened and decide where to take it. It is something that I think I will do. (*note, a 6month sabbatical has been added to the Calender for the year 2016.)

"You are being urged not to stagnate in your life, but instead to take positive, direct action toward a brand-new way of living." If the stars will it, so be it: for a new way of living, one needs a new way of dressing. To the Shopping Center! What is a usable uniform for work and cycling?

Over and Out,
Goodnight and Goodluck for your morning run/yoga
,lenn
20 Feb 2012

Dear Penny,

How do people relate through each other? Common interests breed familiarity. So
do shared spatial boundaries and histories. Thus, categorically, spatially and
chronologically.

Oma oozed ennui today at lunch. This was quickly replaced while grocery
shopping: she perked up and pottered about the aisles, offering advice on how to
pick milk - the later the expiry, the fresher - and produce - Fruits in brown
bags mature faster. All this was mixed in with anecdotal memories. I suspect
that sharing her knowledge, and through it, a bit of herself too, made her feel
relevent and connected. So it is true, Everybody needs somebody somehow.

Timbre was the venue of choice last night with Jint and Gang. 53a rocked out,
with Alv like a bruce-lee rockstar. We watched from a high table, covered by a
plastic canopy. While standing at the bar, surrounded by a cacophony of tables
covered by a claustrophobic plastic canopies wrapped over our heads.

Before it was Timbre, it existed as the Fat Frog. It was an empty concrete recepticle for a cocktail of activities under the canopy of several magnificent ficus trees whose roots burrowed between the concrete walls.

,lenn.
19/02/2012

cycling home, 3 indians sit by the roadside under an orange streetlamp. All three have laptops open, a break from the construction yard several meters behind them. I like the indian occupation of space: feckless colonization

//@ SCI-ARC

//Ode to Old Friends

Things change, people grow, situations move. But sometimes, despite all this, everything is still the same. This is the feeling that one gets with a kindred spirit. This is the feeling I get with John: that the relative space between us remains the same.

This same intuition makes me doubt my extended flirtation with all things material. "Everything is the way it is because it got that way," writes D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. He argues that an object is a thing in constant making, a diagram of the forces that shape it: a product of its extrinsic environment.

However, what he was not aware of at the time is the role of genes in pattern formation. That is, the intrinsic force is an important scaffold for vectors to act upon. John today shared his plan for the next few steps: to work in SF or move to Europe. Both are wildly different from his earlier ambitions but were not surprising given the tenor of his character. It felt in line.

Being in line is something that should always escape explicit definition: instead, it is a bandwidth within which one operates: a modus operandi. This is different from a raison d'etre. The former is unconscious: it is about embedded actions/reactions. A raison d'etre is how one uses this to an explicit end.

With this I wonder about my raison d'etre. I am trying to remain mute about it right now, because previously it suffocated the horizontal growth of my modus operandi. But now, with little to no raison d'etre, it is hard to react to things because I lack a position. The best I can muster is an open appreciation of all things, which usually means smiling alot, laughing more and saying nice things. To some extent, it is starting to feel like flat platitudes.


links:
On D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

My extended flirtation with all things material -

Today, we met again for

//The Bruce Lee in All of Us

Charles is of a different breed. In a nutshell, which his small frame could easily fit in, he is japanese but born in LA and later moved to NY. He studied architecture but worked as a photographer. Now, we work together in the office.

He dresses billowy white shirts and walks with bowed legs, slightly hunched like a short japanese version of bruce lee.

Two nights ago, we were chilling in his dungeon, a walk up apartment in a manegy street off Little India. It was close to 11, with a party in the background,  but he was still working on a project, focused in the haze but calm. Always calm, yet he has the work ethic of a dog.

Consider this as an ethic: Charles does wrong things the right way. Charles's raison d'etre is to stick it to The Man in a proper fashion. "Did you know, there is such a thing as the Big Boy Club, Len-nard", he preaches on the subject of star-chitects. Accordingly, his comments are seasoned with "dirtyy", "thrashy", "under...ground" and "cog" to taste.

Sometimes, I'm not sure if he is serious or a caricature. And its hard to take it all in full on. But he walks his talk. It may be the year of the Dragon, but Charles is a mutt through and through.

//Books List!

http://io9.com/5874770/all-the-books-were-dying-to-read-in-2012

//Dream Job Versioning

[http://syynlabs.com/]

//Musical Ghosts


 

to cut soothe and calm

::STRANGE FRUIT::

Physical Prototype #01

plants are bio-machines that harvest the sun's light and converts it to alternative forms of energy.
strange fruit is a prosthetic that latches onto this cycle.
it is a low-cost, distributed system that operates on principle of massive redundancy.

'fruits' of different sizes are then used to power a variety of low-technology devices.

this project is part of the alternative futures initiative and licensed under the Creative Commons v2.0. 

"lennard is currently in Singapore for a year gaining practical architectural experience. He is concentrating on details and on small to medium scale projects."

Is a Brick Wall more Primitive than Hollow Wall Partitions?

A brick wall is simpler and more direct. It has a supply chain length of two: kiln, to wall. A Hollow Wall partition on the other hand, is light. But this lightness has behind it a long chain of research and production.

If we are to imagine a new world, I am one to favour the brick wall. The Partition is entangled in a supply-chain mesh. With it are a whole host of hierarchies that enable it.

If we want a new world, we need to simplify to rebuild.