Real Life

Something occurred to me yesterday as I was wandering amongst commuters, taking note of their mobile phone usage on the BART and MUNI lines heading into and out of San Francisco. I spent two hours on public transportation yesterday, and another few hours observing people at the mall. I'd jot down their age, their gender, the type of phone they were using, race (if I could venture a guess), and what they were doing on their mobile phones. This meant that I had to stand over many people's shoulders, awkwardly watching from above, hoping the subject wouldn't notice.

Oddly enough, no one noticed me. Ever. Not even in the mall when I edged up next to their bench, or in the food court when wandered up behind a whole group of tween boys, and especially not when I was on public transportation. Oh yeah, except for one kind, middle aged Indian man returning from SFO who offered me a seat. He didn't have his mobile phone on hand.

How is it possible that I could be observing hundreds of people from such close proximity, and only one of them notice me?

So I'll tell you a little of what I saw people doing, and perhaps this may serve to explain the conundrum. Earphones plugged in, they were obviously listening to something while texting, looking at other people's pictures on Facebook, thumbing through their emails, playing simple games, and a select few seemed to be reading the news. The MUNI snaked its way along the upper border of Dolores Park where the view of the city is breathtaking. I looked up from my clipboard and soaked in the view as we pounded down to the wakening Castro streets. I don't think many of them noticed the view, they were all looking at their phones.

I'm not here to write about the results of the research; that's going to be saved for a more professional blog on my sister work-blog site. Rather, I want to discuss the fact that ... everyone's going to work to create things for people, things that people will, ostensibly, like and use. And so they wake up, put in their earphones, drag themselves to the MUNI, and drown out the world with Podcasts and emails to friends, meanwhile thumbing through those friends' photos on Facebook.

Doesn't this just sound ... wrong? First of all, how can people enjoy a life like that? And second, why aren't people looking around anymore? It's like, reality just isn't good enough, it's better to see friends in short messages and candid photos. And if we're really creating things for other people, then why aren't we watching those other people, interacting with them, talking to them? Do we really think we're going to innovate in an office?

Later that night, I went home feeling uneasy. All that people watching served to depress me. I kept wondering what the world would be like today if we didn't have boring 9-5 jobs. Something tells me there would be a whole lot less emails and messages to people we don't have the time to see, less time spent in mindless games, and more time spent creating amazing things.

Creativity

"But this joyful, imaginative, impassioned energy dies out of us very young. Why? Because we do not see that it is great and important. Because we let dry obligation take its place. Because we don't respect it in ourselves and keep it alive by using it. And because we don't keep it alive in others by listening to them."

The Good Kind of Chinese Torture

I just got back from spending a week in Shanghai, China, and without realizing or expecting it, I am suddenly seeing the world in a very different way.  Strange because I lived in China for over three years, and have returned multiple times.  This experience, though, was fundamentally different than the others.

I arrived on a Sunday night, jetlagged, choking on my unpracticed Chinese words, and living in a typical Chinese style business hotel.  Everyday I would wake up, walk to the subway, and head to the company's office out in the sticks of Pudong.  I was in China to help a successful mobile app company create their US launch strategy, present it to the Board, and come up with their product roll-out plan.  An interesting project, no doubt, but the most interesting part for me was ...

I was basically reliving the old life I had lived in China three years ago.  The job was different, but the offices were strikingly close to one another.  My daily schedule was remarkably the same.  I met up with the same old friends in the evenings, and went to the same restaurants, bars and foot massage parlors.  Same food, same smelly water, same breathtaking sunrise over the river, same frustrations, same sound pollution, same shockingly kind and friendly strangers, same momentum, same camaraderie with other foreigners, same interesting, adventurous friends, same feeling that the impossible is simply not so.  Same same same.


By the end of the week, I was speaking Chinese once again as I had years ago.  I had grown comfortable with the food again.  I'd even sunk back into the old habit of walking around the office park's garden area on my own at ~3pm, automatically launching my thoughts into planning elaborate escape routes back to America.  I'd suddenly remember that this time was different, no need to devise escape routes, I was leaving on Saturday.


At the end of this bizarre week or reminiscing, something crucial happened.  During the board meeting, as I was presenting the 24 month financials on the product rollout in the US, one of the board members asked, "So, I see that you have headcount in the US for a few people.  Surely these can't be Chinese people.  Who are they going to be?"  The CEO of the company jumped in, answering in speedy, slurred Chinese, hoping I wouldn't understand. "We will hire her, she will head up our office in Silicon Valley." 

Rather than feel flattered, I suddenly felt worried.  I have finally left the workplace to be out on my own.  I've really done this, and I'm doing just fine on my own.  Slowly but surely I'm gathering more projects, and seeing the success from the previous consulting projects.  I love the flexibility.  I thoroughly enjoy the travel and the new people.  Oddly, I left the office that evening feeling disoriented and concerned that I might be the US general manager of a company that makes feature phone video chat applications, devoting my life to random encounters over Wifi, 3G and cellular networks.  Why would I accept that job?  It's scary to be out on your own.

As I swam along with the sea of people in the subway that evening, I observed everyone around me. Each was ending a long week of work or school or retirement, heading home to their boxy apartments in the enormous city of 20 million, playing games on their phones, chatting with their friends, trendsetting with various gadgets and hair 'dos. I then truly realized something dramatic: most of us will live and die and be forgotten.  

It is macabre, but it's true.  Despite our best efforts, we might be forgotten.  The best chance we have is making sure that we devote ourselves to something truly meaningful.

Most companies will start and end and be forgotten as well.  Most things, and concepts and activities will have the same fate.  Here I was, back in Shanghai, the only person reminiscing my own life and the things that I did in China at one time.  It's time to start examining the time spent on what, and making sure that the most effort goes to the most good.

Kauai

I just spent the last three weeks in Kauai, and in doing so, I realized that if you want to do things in life, you have to just go and do them.

It started out as an experiment of sorts.  I was out of my 9-6 full-time job for months already, and had passed up offers at other companies so that I could "do all the things I'd wanted to do."  Yet I was still lingering around San Francisco wishing I could really get out and do some traveling.  Meanwhile, my boyfriend fiance was celebrating his law firm's one-year anniversary, and was ready for a little R&R in a tropical place.

We both love our jobs, though, and neither of us could afford to take time off work.  Solution: book a trip to Kauai for three weeks, find a beautiful place to live, and split working in the morning with vacationing in the afternoon.

Get this, it worked.  Few people really missed us, no meetings were un-reschedulable, and, magically, we both figured out some pretty great ways to optimize what we were doing.  Not to mention, what a beautiful place, I'm so glad I got to spend some time traveling and living somewhere else for a bit.

Nostalgia and Murakami

My boyfriend drove me to the airport in the worst, rainy, cold weather I have ever experienced in San Francisco.  The raindrops pounded the car and shoved their way inside as I swung the door open to race for the terminal.  San Francisco is one of my favorite places in the world, and the most wonderful place to have called home for the last few years.

Lately, though, I’ve felt its wear.  A particular afternoon in downtown comes to mind when I think of the turning point of my love affair with SF.  Homeless people poked me asking for money, throngs of tourists body slammed me as they ran for the entrance to the Gap on Market Street, and the mismatched din of teenage gossip and crackhead mumble jumble throughout the half hour ride from Powell to Noe Valley all banded together to gift me with a screaming headache.  A headache that now returns every time I even consider traveling into downtown.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic to accept a weekend far, far away in the land of Louisiana…

One of my friends from college was having her bachelorette party in New Orleans.  She had worked for nonprofits, attended a top law school, and was enjoying the life of being paid not to work for a year while her firm waited out the recession.   This friend was a blast in college, and I imagined that her bachelorette weekend would be a muted, nearing-thirty version of the weekends we once spent together in our early twenties.

I had never been to New Orleans, and expected the city to be a pretty backdrop of an otherwise insane weekend.  As soon as I stepped out of the cab onto a tree-lined, cobblestoned street, I breathed in an aroma that was to bewitch me for the rest of the weekend. 

Humid, dark evening air, mixed with jasmine, azalea, SUV exhaust, rum and a hint of early spring fresh cut grass.  These are the smells I remember from my childhood in Richmond, Virginia.  I felt my entire body sigh with nostalgia.  Oh Louisiana, thank you for hugging me with this familiar southern spring air. 

For the next forty-eight hours, I was accompanied by twelve other girls partying away with a rotating brew of cocktails in hand and the haunting presence of that sweet Louisiana air.  Whenever I had a moment, I would steal away to the front porch, pull out my book, stretch my legs into the sun, and read Murakami with my old childhood friend.

To Business School or Not To Business School

So, I was accepted to business school recently.  I'm definitely excited to be counted amongst the few who were honored with the option to attend this particular institution - without giving details yet, suffice it to say that it is a really fantastic school in a gorgeous part of the US.

I have had a long and turbulent relationship with the general concept of business school.  I applied, was accepted, and subsequently planned to go to Darden in 2008.  I packed my bags, moved home from China, jumped into the family car in Richmond, VA and drove to Charlottesville for orientation.  I walked in the front door of orientation, took a look around, walked past the coffee and the crisp collared students, and right out the back door into the courtyard.  I just couldn't do it.

Two years.  All the money.  All the case studies when I could just live them for real.  And what if I didn't like the people ...

So, I moved back to China for a couple more months before finding a job at a social media startup and returning to the Bay Area.

And now, here I am, three years later with a similar decision ahead of me.  It's no longer a concern about the people or the money (although 80-grand isn't exactly a drop in the bucket).  It's really about the time - I'd be 29 when I start - and the concern that business school may actually squelch my creativity, or G-d forbid, make me risk ... averse.

Decisions are tough.  I've made rash decisions, highly informed decisions, economically-motivated decisions, and decisions based on the simple fact that I would have always wondered what would have happened had chosen to to take the more extreme option.  I'd love to know if any of you out there has a framework you like to use for big decisions like this ...

New Website and New Blog Post!

I mentioned a year or so ago that I started my own business.  I revamped the website recently and secured some new inventory, and wanted to share the newest version.  Check it out and let me know your thoughts.

www.ethos-gems.com