The literacy rate in Japan is one of the highest in the world, and Japanese consume loads of books, magazines, and newspapers, etc. Partly this is because public transportation is fantastic and most people read while taking the train to work. It's hard to read while driving to work in places like the USA, I suppose. Anyway, I was standing on the train today when my peripheral vision notice something that looked familiar. (This was my mammalian brain at work I guess, which is always scanning and asking: Will it eat me? Can I eat it? Is it a potential sex partner? Have I seen it before?) The man in the middle was reading the Japanese translation of Presentation Zen -- I notice the photo in the book. I know that the books have been big best-sellers in Japan, but I had never seen anyone reading a book I wrote before in the general public. It was kind of a weird feeling to stand in front of someone who was reading something I wrote. I wanted to ask how he liked the book, but I did not get the chance; he was putting sticky notes to mark pages and looked engrossed the entire time so I guess he liked it. With full color and loads of images, it is a very unusual business book in Japan
The quote in the slide above is from a speech given by Jon Stewart at the rally in Washington D.C. today. This line really stuck out to me. Kind of reminds me of the famous bit of wisom by Lao Tzu: "He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know." Usually, it is better to listen more than speak.
I've always said that presentation is more art than science. So what is art? In a recent interview with David Siteman Garland, Seth Godin said this about art in the context of work. What is art? "Art," says Seth Godin, "is a generous action— it's when a human connects to another human and makes a change." The work that we do could be art, but if you are just following the rules, playing it safe, and sort of working-by-the-numbers (as in paint-by-numbers) then the work lacks connection and difference...and art. The best presentations too are art in a sense. The best presentations necessarily connect in the spirit of contribution and generosity and help people make a change. The worst presentations or speeches are the usual ones, the ones that are perfunctory, routine and safe. No one ever got fired for doing the expected and the safe, at least they did not in the old world. But it's a new world now. And the professionals who are remarkable and want to make a difference — teachers, doctors, engineers, aid workers, and business people of all types — are the ones who create art.
The slides above reference the server staff at your local coffee shop or your favorite teacher. Anyone who works with people and chooses to eschew working-by-the-numbers and instead chooses to be different and remarkable via the connections they make and the little differences that they create bringing art to their work.
While researching a documentary by Ken Burns called The War, I came across a remarkable bit of insight that serves as a reminder for all of us about the destructive nature of hate.
Glenn Frazier is a WW II veteran who survived 1,353 days in a Japanese "slave labor camps" in the Philippines and Japan. His family had been officially notified that he was dead. (His high school sweetheart who waited for three years for him to return, finally married someone else after she learned of his alleged death.) So when he called after his ship had reached San Francisco after bringing him and other POWs back from Japan, his mother, and then his aunt, both fainted when they heard his voice on the phone. Upon return to his home in the US, Frazier battle nightmares for many years. "Just act normal and you'll feel normal" military psychiatrists told him. Even though he married, had kids, settled down with a job running his own business, the war would not go away. But while watching the Ken Burns documentary (The War), it is these words by Glenn Frazier that really hit me—they provide a life lesson for everyone. If there was anyone who had a right to hate, it was Glenn Frazier after all he endured as a POW. And yet, listen to his transformation: "I hated the Japanese as hard as anyone could ever hate for so long. The hate was so deep. I think I was justified in the hate that I had. But there came a time when it was not affecting them—they didn't even know that I existed. They were over there (in Japan) having their fun and getting their country straightened out, and here I am over here hating and hating and hating and hating and having these nightmares. And...I had to get rid of it — I had to throw it off because it was just completely destroying me. So I prayed, and with the preacher's help, I got to the point where I woke up one morning and I felt a little bit more rested." I think this is a simple yet profound lesson — a lesson learned not in a book but through real-life struggles. Glenn Frazier is right: hatred serves no purpose at all and usually it harms no one except yourself and the very people you love most. Hatred and anger are totally destructive. This clip below from the documentary is not the one which features the quote above (the passage above comes near the end of the long documentary series), but it does feature a tiny glimpse of Glenn Frazier's experience in the war. I must warn you—it is not for the faint of heart. In spite of all the hell Glenn Frazier went through, he still was able to throw off his hatred eventually. Glenn Frazier's page http://www.axpow.org/frazierglenn.htm
Where there is fear, there can be no true happiness. Where there is fear, there can be no freedom. I like this short video of Thich Nhat Hanh discussing what is Nirvana. "Non-fear is the true foundation of great happiness. As far as fear is there in your heart, happiness can not be perfect." — Thich Nhat Hanh "Nirvana is not something you get in the future. Nirvana is the capacity of removing wrong notions, wrong perceptions—which is the practice of freedom. Nirvana can be translated as freedom....When you get in touch with reality you no longer have views—you have wisdom and a direct encounter with reality." — Thich Nhat Hanh
A girl in sheep's clothing. The fist time she has needed a jacket. The cold temps come late to Western Japan but they do come. Fall is really lovely here.
