Personality types

Problematic? You bet.

Trip

I just got back from the Malmö-trip and the weather and atmosphere in Helsinki is sort of strange. It's not quite dark yet, but it's by no means light either. The clouds seem to hang quite low, the humidity is quite high and it would appear as if we'll be getting at least some rain soon. But then again, the wind is also non-existent, and I live in Lauttasaari, right on the sea shore. Could this be the calm before a storm?

The trip, albeit brief, certainly gave some perspective and helped clear my thoughts a bit. It's time to come out and admit it, I've reduced my life into a set of routines. More or less. Some sort of shake-up would be in order. While walking around downtown Malmö and then taking the train to the airport on the outskirts of Copenhagen, I was sort of sad that I was coming back to Finland. Or that was the overall general mood. Of course there are also some things in Finland which I'm looking forward to engaging in again.

I haven't been travelling that much recently. When I was younger, my parents were quite keen travellers and I was subjected to a bit of globetrotting. So in that sense I would guess that the Born Global -model has been present with me in some way from the get-go. But since then I've been mostly keeping my feet firmly on Finnish soil. Not that I have anything against travelling per se, but too much of any single thing will cause you to suffer from overeating. This trip helped to wet my appetite again.

Now, travelling is of course sort of fun and enjoyable. But being a tourist is annoying. If I go somewhere, I don't really give a damn about the history of the place or doing any organized siteseeing. That's just annoying. I guess I just want to fit in. To be a part of the large organism, typically a foreign city, rather than just observing it through the lens of a camera. And the best way to achieve that is to just spend more time than a week in one single place. Maybe get a job or study something. To just lead a normal life there. To experience more than the shallow and superficial surface that tourists either cannot or will not dare break.

Oh, and while I was writing this, it started to thunder. So it would certainly seem that we might be getting one of the first storms in Helsinki this year (at least as far as my memory serves me right).

Airports

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I like airports. Then again, I don't fly that often, so I'm not that annoyed with them yet. And when I fly, I usually don't have any connections, so I don't have to sit 10 hours at the gate, waiting for my next hop. Flying itself I don't like. But the airports are sort of like true melting pots and hubs of life. At least during the daytime. You see all sorts of people, going about their lives. You see the business men in suits, scurrying to the lounges and fighting with Outlook and their laptops. Then there are the groups of people who're going on a trip and are getting into the mood by downing a couple of pints before the flight. And of course there are us, the lone travellers who are not on business, but nonetheless need to fly for some reason or another. And tons of other types of people too. It's fun to observe them as they go about their business of buying their tax-free products, catching a quick bite before the flight, brushing their teeth in the bathroom after being stranded at the airport for the night, and so on. But, time to go as the boarding is just about to commence...

To err...

Nokia has recently revised various strategy-related items, such as missions and visions. The new stuff is available on the Vision and Mission page. Now, consider what Alexander Pope said...

To err is human, to forgive divine.

And then consider the statements on the page that's linked above...

... we take a very human approach to technology

How are we supposed to interpret this...? ;)

Golf

It's the 9th or 10th season that I'm playing golf this summer. Can't quite recall. I started when I was at the seventh grade. Can't remember whether it was before or after the grade, but close enough, anyway. Last summer was sort of quiet on the golf front as I was mostly marooned at the office. I think I played something like five rounds then. I'm hoping to play a bit more this summer.

Golf is an interesting sport since I think that it's one of the most psychological games in the world. In the sense that it's all in your head. On a give day, everything might go perfectly. And then the day after, your swing all but disappears entirely. And everything in between. Granted, this problem could be alleviated to some extent by just playing more regularly and just more to get the routine. But still there are people, professionals, who just may lose their touch with the game all of a sudden and are then forced to retire.

I was already knocking a few balls on the range last Friday, and as typical, my swing was in a surprisingly good shape and out of 60-70 balls, I only hit one top, 4-5 quite off-center hits and the rest were average or good shots. But as typical, I'm also betting that come season, my game will have deteriorated to the usual hell that it was last summer. Going to go play my first round this morning, so...

Soul and romanticism

The two words of the topic might not be the first to pop into mind when discussing Jeremy Clarkson, of Top Gear fame. Yet I've been reading Jeremy's I Know You Got Soul and can't help but agree with some of his views. Back before people started to worry about 4Q2006 and whether or not they could leverage the economies of scale to help create a sustainable competitive advantage, the world was a lot more romantic. Or at least that's what intuition would say; of course back then people were just as interested in viewing themselves as important, efficient, etc. But concepts like heroic failure and such fit fairly well as some of the ventures of the older times have been completely useless, yet they have this certain appeal. Clarkson talks about, for instance, the Zeppelin (not Led, but the other flying kind) and how its purpose isn't really to take people from place A to place B as quickly, efficiently and cheaply as possible. In fact the primary purpose of the Zeppelin might not have been to really go anywhere in the first place. It would be fairly nice to just float around in one and observe how the world goes about its business.

I think a certain sense of naivety is precisely which makes the older times so romantic. Especially around the time of the start of the industrial revolution, a maybe a bit before then. Judging by today's yardsticks, the methods of those times were, well, not very good or efficient. And not everything made economic sense. Such as the Zeppelin, for example. But people did it anyway. And there were Barons and whatevers. There was this whole gentleman-esque aura to the thing. Now it's all pinstripes and quarterly reports and the like. And we've lost the cute, innocent, naive view of the world. Granted, this is premature again as in 100 years people will most likely think we were so cute and gullible with our ways.

Spring...

Spring this year, as always, is turning out to be very depressing. Or I don't know if it's just an excuse or the actual reason. In this current state I'm sort of indifferent to that, too. I guess in parts it has something to do with the extra light. Some people argue that winter is long, dark, and gloomy and that when spring arrives, they feel re-energized. I'm the opposite. Darkness is nice. It helps in covering up all the stuff you don't want to see.

If you're arranging a party of any sort, what's one of the worst things you can do when trying to set some sort of atmosphere? Turn the lights on at full strength. There's not a single person on earth who benefits from extra light. The light just helps bring out the faults in everyone. And everything. The room that was so nice the night before turns into a dusty and soulless place when the sun rises and sheds its light on all the untidyness which up until then seemed to just bring a certain romantic appeal to the situation.

It's sort of similar with everything. I think it may be universal, but mediocrity is quite possibly the worst thing in the world. I prefer the extreme ends of the scale. Mediocrity, at least for me, leads to apathy. To indifference. When everything is grey, there's no more black and white. And the lack of contrast annoys me. I've been told it has something to do with age. Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows. The people who typically tell me that elevate themselves to a sort of upper ground by offering semi-nihilistic views. That's too easy.

I guess this is all pretty irrelevant and the point I'm trying to make is that I want to apologize to everyone who I may have offended or may offend in the near future. The spring never brings out the best in me.

Every breath...

Who said students of technology are the only ones with a good (albeit a sort of twisted) sense of humor...? (Thanks for the pointer go to Mikko M.)

Some thoughts on clothing

I ordered Nicholas Antongiavanni's The Suit a while back and apparently it arrived today. Too bad I was leaving Helsinki in the morning and when I checked the emails on the train, it was already too late to pick the book up from Sanomatalo. I should be reading Organizational Behaviour for the Work Psychology & Leadership exam right now, but instead I've been reading Antongiavanni's articles online. And I must say that I have fairly high expectations for the book right now.

It's obvious that I don't agree with everything he writes, but that's not an issue. I actually prefer when instead of being all politically correct people actually offer something provocative to bite into. Especially when the person has demonstrated a fair bit of knowledge on the subject. And in this case I would think that the aforementioned author is quite knowledgable in said field.

Anyway, some things I don't agree with him are, for instance, that men shouldn't wear black suits. His argument ran along the lines of black being such a dominant color that it eats up all other colors. I personally, however, like black suits for the crispiness and contrast. And besides, formal wear is something that is worn less often these days, so I don't really feel that tuxedos and tailcoats own the exclusive right for black any more (ok, dark blue might, according to some sources, be an even more preferrable color for a tux than black...).

Then there's the issue of stripes and tapered suits. The issue with pinstripes or chalkstripes is understandable in the context of tall men. I won't argue with that. But I happen to like stripes and because I don't need to please anyone except myself, I'm fairly content in wearing stripes. The second issue was with slim suits. I've already given my views on slim suits before and I don't really like this ultra-slimness. But Antongiavanni suggests in one article that tall men should prefer more cloth over less cloth. I would prefer to take the route of doing some exercising and trying to develop a somewhat, shall we say, bulkier physique to compensate for the tallness. And I would also offer the point that if a slim and tall man wears suits with more cloth and which don't bring out the physique of the wearer, there may be a problem that the man is lost inside this big pile of cloth. And that's not a pretty sight.

Granted, I'm sure that Antongiavanni has mastered the art of clothing and that his suggestions are very good and knowledgable. However, I personally prefer some things over others and my personal preference overrides other things, where possible, and I feel that instead of trying to hide the slim and tall body, effort should be spent into developing the body itself and then embracing the good features, not trying to hide the slimness with various trickery. And as said, I like pinstripes...