weekly Go Flip Yourself

If Japan truly were a minimalist paradise, why would it need Kondos and Sasakis in the first place?

The world still turns to Japan for things; it also turns to Japan to rid itself of them. There’s only one problem: Japan isn’t anywhere near as tidy as outside observers give it credit for.

Subtractive is contemplative; additive is stimulating. But, above all, the Japanese are master ‘editors’, he says, picking and choosing between polar opposites to suit the occasion. This is why Japanese people continue to remove their shoes indoors, even as they choose to live in Western-style houses. It’s why they continue to distinguish between Japanese-style and Western-style foods, hotels, even toilets. To Matsuoka, the subtractive and additive approaches aren’t inherently in opposition; the distinction is simply a matter of context.

‘Today, the idea that you’ll hold on to a lot of things for your whole life is fading,’ said Tsuzuki. ‘Take clothing. It used to be the case that good clothes cost a lot. You’d buy them and take care of them and wear for years. So you’d naturally build up a collection. But now we’re surrounded by low-cost retailers that are just good enough. You wear it for a season and that’s it.’

The distinction between the two modes I’m trying to define is that one side takes the position that being fascinated with something or someone in the world has a benefit that is self-evident. Being able to feel love towards something or someone is a gift in and of itself. The other side (the side that annoys me) orients fascination or association or effort towards a direction with the primary goal of having some kind of quantifiable reward. But if you’re really focusing on the moment, on something you love, on something in the world that feels like it’s made for you, you can’t be thinking about how it will benefit you, or how it will reflect back on you. These two modes are at odds with each other. True attention requires that you don’t view something in the world through the lens of “what can this thing do for me?”

• about culture cycles

• about the danger of caring more about the past rather than the future [are you holding rights? or are you creating what’s next?]

• the battle between macro-culture and micro-culture — and while the former is declining, the latter might thrive

• “you can’t reduce things to formula”

• the difference between art and entertainment

• we need mind-expanding experiences

• there is a real danger in going full-passive consumption; which is bad for the culture

• “i spend more time reading than i do writing” => “any process you have in the world, your output depends on your input”

• fluid intelligence versus crystallized intelligence

• now being similar to 1800’s: back then, power went from the industrialists to the creative people

• you get luckier if you force yourself out of your comfort zone

• what Internet allowed is: direct contact with your audience, your people

relationships are stories.