Geshito had on texas boots. The black dust of Rajastan filtered the blue light off the boots. He hadn’t cleaned them from his return, and now sitting in a cafe in Sydney, he wondered how far, they had come. His legs felt good, fit, after all the walking, the emerald city, the harbour, the opera house, the sky so bright. His girlfriend Hamiko was busy taking photos, and passing the camera to strangers off the ferry at the Quay to take pictures. Her in front of the bridge clicksh, marine terminal clicksh, Hyatt hotel clicksh. The World the ocean going apartment building was docked large and silent and white, with people streaming across way overhead. Walking had become natural to him over the past year or so, doing around 12km per day, he had managed to blend his interest in the air, the scenery, flowers, grass, wildlife into a blur, for this now had got into his heart. He could not hear his heart beat except when he looked with fondness on his girlfriend. The heart had become like a musical instrument, a metronome, it’s slightly chaotic rhythm had synchronized over time to his feet, so that now his walking, his heartbeat, his mind had got cycles all listed together somehow with happiness. So now sitting down he felt ok in the sunshine at home. Where next should he go walking ? Should he tell his friends ? Should he clean his boots of the dust ?
Tsunami Elephant Dreaming
But darling said Ferodo, I can’t get home before the end of the world. I am on a beach stuck out here and I cannot get a flight back. I can’t even get out of the lobby door here.
Never mind about the end of the world, it can’t happen said Helen. Did you know that elephants are evolving to have no tusks ? she asked.
No, but you don’t understand, this wasn’t mean to be a beach ! OK seahorse hotel, but last time I was here, there wasn’t any beach, and no waves. I have sand filling up the corridor to the main hotel doors , and I can’t get out..its all wet. There WAS an earthquake, didn’t you see that.. it was on the news.
“No here it has been raining, and I haven’t seen any news about that” she said. You are not meant to be coming home for another week.
There is no other week he said, this is it, last day, last hour. Last hour got it. and I can’t even get out of the lobby to the street.
There had been something serious happen to the whole hotel. The walls had dissappeared and he could straight through the sides and the whole lobby corridor had tilted down toward the street. He’d been in the bar and must’ve fallen asleep over a few beers. Harpoon it has to be said is a nice beer Ferodo. The street had disappeared and he could see blue bright strong sunshine coming in at the sides. His favourite hotel, the Seahorse hotel was basically evaporating in his mind was a total surrealisation of the world and his world view felt zoomy and jetlagged. At midnight the night before the news had been all about the rapture, some kind of Thessalonik event, and life had suddenly got real complex and quiet. The phone’s still worked, he was on one.. but his wife down in the southern hemisphere seemed to have absolutely no clue.
“Whats up ?”, “What are you thinking ?” she asked again..
There was a noise, it was related to the wind, and wide waves were coming in, and laying sand all over the place. He had managed to scramble up to a dry place to make the call.. he felt sure that with no walls, and when the sun went down in the west, it would get cold and windy, and what about the ocean, and what about the walls ?
He guessed his wife had a right to be concerned that elephants were evolving without tusks, and natural selection had meant elephants with tusks got killed off for their tusks. Any luck they would just develop tusks later in life and they would be shorter, so no one would kill them.
He didn’t know and couldn’t answer. He said “bye darling – God bless” and put the phone down.
Things settled a bit, but he had noticed that it had started to smell, a lot like Kerala in India, like elephants, and the walls and roof of the hotel lobby had turned into an elephant. The whole fabric of the hotel became like elephants legs with no tusks. The waves rushing up from time to time between them, and he felt at peace, almost as if nature and man and his abode were evolving in a wave of change, so rapid and strong and secure it felt like rapture, down there at the Seahorse Hotel.
Death and Stone Sculpture – The Kiss of Memory
How hard is it to remember people well. We can remember faces, but even after a few weeks of not being with someone, their memory or the detailed memory of their faces becomes hazy and generalized. Our minds seem to have a forgetting factor. In the Cimetiere Montparnasse, in a corner, in the shadow of a tall building, in the sunshine there is a sculpture by the famous Brancusi – “The Kiss”, carved in sandstone, it will weather over the years, but the sculpture itself is really devoid of detail, almost like the artist wants us to realize that the memory of a kiss will start to fade, and the details of the faces also, but we really remember is the fact of a kiss, and the fact that we loved that person, buried there in the ground below. In life, a kiss can be the most amazing event, since it heralds in itself hope for the future – and so the sculpture for me at least recognises how close and affectionate it might have been, but the details have faded from memory.
There is joy in walking though that cimetiere in Paris. Particularly when the sun is shining. There are always flowers, it is always peaceful, and the sculpture that is placed there is imaginative and thoughtful.
We can remember them, the people and who went before, and be thankful that they at least had an artist create for their memory something that said something more evocative than just mere words.
Note:
Really inspired to write this blog entry today, on the death of the son of friends of ours. His name Daniel. We knew him as a child, and saw him grow up, but his life ended tragically in difficult circumstances.
Postscript: This blog entry updated. A memorial service is to be held. The matter is closed for now.
Innovation 5 – Step out into the Gale of Reality
Ferodo had got a solution, it was crystal clear, his team, a handful of talent, had reached his objective some months back. There were in fact many innovations that had been proposed to solve a particular problem, which if implemented could make quite a difference to his product and the customers who really wanted it. His team had been congratulated, along with other teams. So it surprised him that from that glorious day he was congratulated in winter, to now – late spring, nothing had happened. Nothing at all. He went back to his day job, and so did all the other team members.
recently heard through the grapevine that his CEO Galarbha had asked, “so how is it going then ?”
Ferodo said to himself, and his ex team mates : “You got to be kidding me” what is going … theres no budget.. theres no project team.. “, “why ask this, doesn’t he know we all went back to our day jobs ?”
And so a new challenge.. how to get the idea out of his room into everyone else’s room. He had not budget, but others did. He had no team, but others did. The innovation was also not in his area of responsibility, actually belonging to another department.
And so Ferodo started on a new journey, one which took him through many parts of the massive company, one where everyone had an opinion, an experience, a reason why they did what they did, and all these seemingly conspired to prevent his idea from becoming a reality.
So having developed an idea, he had thought of the Michaelangelo, and Picasso, and others who had innovated. Even Miles Davis came to mind. These people had ideas, but they also had an incredible sense of voice and identity, which allowed them to be able to see an expression of the idea through others. To modify, to adapt, and to be able to express the right idea at the right time, at the leading edge of man’s desire to improve or move on.
Ferodo decided to start to work the idea through the system. Conference call after conference call, stupid email after stupid email, but gradually as he stepped out of the innovation room, into the world at large, he found that many others had also thought of his idea, others had also come to the same conclusions. But occasionally ideas have to come at the right time, to fill the right dreams, and the right ordering to make it all work. Holding onto that idea, but getting out of the innovation room into the real world, really makes a tough test for an idea. If the idea is good, it can withstand the winds of opinion and experience of the people that have to take it forward. If it is really good, then those people outside the room will be convinced it was their idea all along, and now is their chance to take part.
It dawned on Ferodo as well, that even though others felt it was their idea, usually only part of it was, actually the only guy with all of it in his head was Ferodo. Once again thinking of key designers and artists in particular, he realized he just had to keep the threads going and eventually something great would result. But it’s been a while now, and Ferodo cannot even remember where his innovation room was located. He never went back to it. But his customers and his CEO are happy with the result.
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