Paper-Cut : Work & the Lonely Planet
March 13, 2010
So how are all my fellow bloggers and readers doing today?
Got off to writing for my BLOG after a small gap, so many opportunities at work to do so many new things. Work has been a two faced monster, one face friendly and inviting and the other draining me and challenging me to re-think my work strategy. One thing I do know that is from time to time I try and draw inspiration from Peter Drucker 365 days writings or Jack Welch’s “Winning”.
They offer some age old advice on how to know when one is ahead of the game but also the fact that the enterprise today is a leaving breathing organism and not a machine. An enterprise is also fuelled constantly with the energies that we apply every day, sometimes we fuel change and sometimes which is the rare moment that we fuel inspiration.
Winning is important, the world puts that in our face all the time but at what cost and how much are we willing to pay. My team mate and I recently won an award from the clients that we work for and all the appreciation and smiles and admiration were heady.
However we took a step back and realized that it’s a moment very short lived and memories are fragile and volatile so we didn’t really want to linger in it. Something kept reminding us of the fact that both success and failure are indeed imposters. Here today and tomorrow is another day, not to say that we were cynical. The key was to enjoy and breathe in that moment of culmination of all the effort and then prepare to stay real and focused for the next day. We did do something but it was not life altering magic. Have I made my mark on planet earth, have I etched my emblem and served a greater good ?
Not sure but I have started this journey of self-reconciliation, trying to always look in from the outside and preserve a sense of “The first time”. Time and again we should do everything as if we were doing it the first time and suddenly it all makes sense, maybe for a moment. A moment is enough.
In my regular jaunt to the book store in search of a delectable piece of literature or a new writer making waves I came across this most wonderful magazine called the “Lonely planet” magazine.I looked at the glossy cover and being an amateur photographer and writer it pulled me like no other book possibly could. I scrambled to feel the pages in my fingers and smell the fresh soft paper, in an instant it was Nirvana. Too strong a description you might say but I traveled a 1000 miles without moving a finger. I stayed hypnotized as the authors summarized their experiences in Turkey and Vienna. Orhan Pamuk from turkey is one of my favorite writers and I owed it to him to savor the word filled gravy of turkey laid bare. It was haunting and exciting, everything I imagine turkey to be, I was transported to cappadocia, from the evil eye key chain that a cousin once gave me to the famed Turkish tea and the soft rugs, there could be no joy greater than to feel turkey so close. For a civilization ruled by the greeks to the ottoman turks and the Byzantine what I read pleasantly surprised me. Every piece of history, every brick, every pillar and every church is preserved as a testament to history. Like a time machine, the city could well move you into a different realm. I must say that the writing on Vienna did not pale in comparison either.
The magazine has given me a picture to keep in my mind forever, maybe I will go see turkey one day but till then I have the lonely planet with me.
Till next time folks, ciao and comment soon…
