I recently had an interesting chat with a person who I know regarding relationships and what to value in them. I'll grant that the person in question is a young person (even when compared to me), so we'll be very nice to them. But regardless, I was more or less appalled by what I heard from her. Supposedly the three main attributes in the significant other, in order of importance, are 1) outlook, 2) IQ, and 3) social networks. I don't even know where to start enumerating the issues that I have with this approach, but I shall try, anyway.
Outlooks. This is entirely random, and if you are looking for a person with whom to spend the rest of your life, it is of course important, but hardly the deciding factor, I would say. The issue is that however beautiful or ugly a person is, if it doesn't click, it doesn't click. The physical appearance, I would argue, is a sanitary issue: your significant other needs to look good enough that you will in fact want to wake up next to him/her. But I would hardly say that outlooks weigh much more than that; in fact, physical attractiveness is a diminishing attribute in the sense that people get old and unattractive. Even more so with women. So in the list of things to score, I agree that physical attractiveness is important, but it is hardly the most important aspect. And to top if off, physical attractiveness is in fact entirely random: the way you look is more or less random and you typically have not really had that much say in it yourself.
Then... IQ. Intelligence is traditionally measured by Mensa and other such institutions. The metrics have received a lot of criticism and rightly so, as there are many different types of intelligence. I understand that what she may have meant was intelligence on a larger scale, but she did not specify the criteria in any more detail. Again, while I list intelligence fairly high in my list of things to value in a significant other, it is again, at least, secondary to that "click". Intelligence is hard to measure and again mostly the way the metrics work can be studied and learned and thus if traditional IQ metrics are used, I venture that it is possible to train oneself in those. This is why Mensa does not allow you to do the test very many times and this is also the reason why traditional IQ exams have favored people with western educations... The tests are biased. Again, I would suggest that the metrics are difficult and again, even if an absolute IQ that covered the Mensa intelligence as well as e.g. emotional intelligence could be determined, the problem is still that these are things that you are essentially still more or less born with, and again can't affect too much.
Now, social networks. These are of course important. I would argue that from a "young" persons perspective there are multiple types. From my personal perspective I know two types of people: people who actively shape the world via political and economical (e.g. business) mechanisms and then the rest. The problem here, as I see it, is that you on some level inherit social networks. I personally wouldn't know these "big names" based on my own merits, but I do know them via other routes. And then again, if valuing a social network, the "other people" aren't really that important. So valuing the social networks that a person has is again fairly silly, since the most valued acquaintances are again established beforehand. If you are born into circles who know people, then you will more or less automatically learn to also know the people who have the power.
Out of these three dimensions the common denominator appears to be that these are in essence things that you can, at best, inherit through your parents and your genes. And because I'm a keen advocate of meritocracy, I reject this view right up front. I personally don't see any intrinsic value in these: you are either born beautiful or not, you are either born intelligent or not, and you either have social networks or you do not. As I discussed previously, it is in fact the movement that I value. I personally don't really give a damn where someone comes from, it is the amount of movement and velocity that they demonstrate, be it in a career or by building a functioning family or whatever, that's what counts. Out of the three dimensions listed above, I would argue that only the third one, social networks, is one that a person can actively develop, and thus might be a thing to consider. And in fact, many people in the venture captital world who I've had the pleasure of meeting also agree that it isn't necessarily what you know but who you know that counts. But the discussion at hand is about significant others, and I personally do not give a damn who my ideal significant other knows or doesn't know.
In light of this, in the scope of significant others, I value this intrinsic and extremely vague concept of "click". If things "click", then you've found a good significant other. If things don't "click", then get rid of the situation and move along. What that means, I have no idea. Base it on intuition, I would suggest. But whatever you do, do not apply the same metrics as you would apply at work; they should be kept very separate. Along with "click", I also judge by the amount of movement and momentum that a person is able to gain. In terms of outlook and appearance, I would not value (outside the basic sanitary requirements) how the person looks by default, but I would in turn emphasize the way they've created and found their own style, how comfortable they are in that style and so on. Intelligence is difficult to measure and arguably should not even be done, but if movement is required, I would value intelligence from the perspective of how well a person is able to manage abstract concepts, deal with social situations (e.g. behave in public, understand and discuss about emotions, etc.), discuss about current events, be opinionated, etc. This is not necessarily movement as such, but again, I would not wish to measure this. Instead I would use the concept of wavelength. You are either on the same wavelength or you are not. If you are, you are able to communicate very well with your significant other, otherwise not. And finally social networks: depends on the type. Facebook friends do not carry any value at all. If you seriously want to value social networks, then you need to analyze the networks in respect to what you can benefit out of them. The beneficial type of social networks may be a good indicator for some attributes that a person may have (e.g. leadership, sociability, etc.), but I would hardly classify it as an intrinsic value by itself. In business acquaintances I value connectedness, but in a significant other I just value the match and the "click".
It may be that I am very simple (hell, I am from the country-side, so what can you expect from a simpleton like me ;), but I feel that in this case the metrics are very skewed. I venture that it has quite a bit to do with me being a supporter of meritocracy (i.e. movement and momentum), but on the other hand with meaningful, romantic relationships, I'm just a simple person who values the concept of "click". If I am happy in a relationship, then I'm happy. If not, then do something about it. Relationships are just one aspect of life, so even though it is very important, it should not be overstressed. Instead, I argue that sustainable happiness (is this analogous to sustainable competitive advantage in the business literature? :) comes from two aspects: 1) a relative balance of different aspects of life (social life, romantic life, work/career, children, education, intellectual pursuits, etc.) and 2) perceived movement and advancement in the different aspects.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Catastrophe!
As I previously noted, I was in London about a month or so back and it was a very nice trip, all in all (even though British Airways insisted on me checking in my James Smith & Sons umbrella, which in turn caused quite a bit of frustration). Anyway, things were fine up until today, when I figured out that I had horribly overlooked one little thing that I was supposed to additionally accomplish on the trip. And no, I'm not referring to the brunch with Natalie, which in the end didn't happen, unfortunately.
You see, more often when considering proper dress, I've always focused on what I wear outside the comfort of my home. Mostly because, well, I'm almost never at home. I've spent this Christmas at my parents' place in the countryside, and all the lounging about has proved a very fatal hole in my wardrobe, namely the lack of a proper dressing gown to lurk around in when not feeling ready to dress properly. Now, London ties into all of this in the way that Turnbull & Asser is one of the stores which, amongst other things, offers very decent dressing gowns. This is an even more sore subject as I did in fact visit Turnbull & Asser to get a nice and nifty ascot tie for myself, and entirely forgot about this gown issue. So now I will have to deal with the situation, one way or another. Of course if the pound sterling keeps on plummeting, I may as well make another nice trip to London later this winter to rectify this error. Otherwise I'll have to search around Helsinki to find nice dressing gowns, but I'm not holding my breath with this choice. I am, however, accepting all sorts of advice on where to solicit a nice dressing gown for myself...
And yes, it is Tom Ford sporting a very decent dressing gown in the photo above. And yes, I blatantly ripped the image from some site I can't remember which I found from Google's image search. So credit goes to whomever wants to claim ownership of the photo.
You see, more often when considering proper dress, I've always focused on what I wear outside the comfort of my home. Mostly because, well, I'm almost never at home. I've spent this Christmas at my parents' place in the countryside, and all the lounging about has proved a very fatal hole in my wardrobe, namely the lack of a proper dressing gown to lurk around in when not feeling ready to dress properly. Now, London ties into all of this in the way that Turnbull & Asser is one of the stores which, amongst other things, offers very decent dressing gowns. This is an even more sore subject as I did in fact visit Turnbull & Asser to get a nice and nifty ascot tie for myself, and entirely forgot about this gown issue. So now I will have to deal with the situation, one way or another. Of course if the pound sterling keeps on plummeting, I may as well make another nice trip to London later this winter to rectify this error. Otherwise I'll have to search around Helsinki to find nice dressing gowns, but I'm not holding my breath with this choice. I am, however, accepting all sorts of advice on where to solicit a nice dressing gown for myself...
And yes, it is Tom Ford sporting a very decent dressing gown in the photo above. And yes, I blatantly ripped the image from some site I can't remember which I found from Google's image search. So credit goes to whomever wants to claim ownership of the photo.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
On movement
Movement is an interesting phenomenon in the sense that it is dependent on both temporal and spatial dimensions. As per definition, speed is the distance covered over a period of time. Thus speed requires two different metrics before it can be determined: a concept of distance/length (typically e.g. meters) and a concept of time (typically e.g. seconds). It is thus synthetic in the sense that it combines two fundamental building blocks to construct a third element. Speed is useful as it implies movement of sorts, and if we value movement, we can say that we value A more than B if the speed (or velocity) of A is higher than B.
This trail of thought is useful on a personal level as well, as it gives us a very simple framework for analyzing the relative movement and the associated speed that we are able to achieve in our personal lives. Very often, especially in western economies, the metric of distance is synonymous to wealth. This means that the faster we gain more wealth, the better. But the framework itself need not be this simplistic, as wealth is a difficult metric and spawns many different feelings from a wide range of people. Wealth may be a good metric in some cases and a very bad metric in others. But if we replace wealth with a function x(a, b, ...), which takes into account different aspects of ones life, and where each given attribute is given a weight of w(a), w(b), ..., this may become a very interesting exercise indeed. Thus, as per our definition, speed is measured by the delta of x(a, b, ...), when we also give the function a temporal dimension and judge the change in the value of x.
What I'm aiming at with this analogy is that people might be well off if the every once in a while evaluate what they've actually achieved (x(a, b, ...)) and reflect that against their on values (w(a), w(b), ...). If no movement is perceived, then something must be fundamentally wrong as the individual is stagnating. This might imply that the individual is already at a local or global maximum, i.e. the person is already as satisfied in life as he or she can be and thus does not benefit from any additional movements. But as this is rarely this case, we might as will just work towards optimizing our movement in general.
Class reunions are brilliant position of time to stop and see what your x() function looks like and compare it to that of others. Sometimes you get motivated by seeing how others are progressing with life, and at other times you get disheartened by the amount of confusion and lack of direction that young adults present. I was recently discussion about the fates of various people with an old classmate of mine at a local bar and this lack of coherent direction was one that was obvious, especially this the so-called mid-crowd. What I mean by this is that the ones who more or less dropped out of the "pre-academic" scene after junior high school are now already trying to manage a family. On the other hand, there are the people who aimed academically higher and possibly also have an academic career to show for. These are the two extreme opposites, but both are able to demonstrate tangible movement, albeit they have fundamentally very different values (as determined by the very different weights, i.e. w(a), w(b), ...).
Now, the third class are the people who fall between the two. The people who may have previously shown academic promise, but discarded that path in favor of other alternatives. What is typical in these people again is very often the situation that they have also discarded the career-building option that the people who began that phase right after junior high. Very often they are also ones who demonstrate long-term relationships that lack tangible progress as well. It is very difficult to see very rapid movement of any sorts for these people, as they seem to just idle away. But interestingly enough it may just be, that traditionally the easiest ways of interpreting this framework do not apply here. These are not the people who work their arses off at manual labor, making sure that the wheels keep turning. Neither are these the people who contribute the most intellect or the most effort into building the systems and constructs that the world is based on. These are the people that go home at 5 PM. But in fact, this might be precisely the group that is fundamental to the backbone of the society. I have to admit that very often I may poke fun at them and ridicule them for the lack of obvious movement, mistaking them for dead. But it is this more or less silent and unnoticeable group, the very middle, which may in fact be the one that is the crucial glue between the other two ends of the system. The connecting factors without which the wheels don't touch each other and things fall apart.
As a fairly analytical person, I analyze my doings very much through the framework of movement, as described above. If I don't see myself moving, then I try to figure out what has happened and try to solve it. But these traditional metrics of movement may not, in fact, be applicable to all. They may work for me, but maybe that's because I'm a lost cause in the first place. And maybe it implies that we are in fact using the wrong metrics at large and that even though I still argue that people like me are important, it may be that in fact even I might need to take a longer look at the mediocre people at the class reunions and actually see the slow but steady movement that they are demonstrating. Maybe that type of movement is more sustainable than the movement that may be more apparent in strongly competitive fields.
This trail of thought is useful on a personal level as well, as it gives us a very simple framework for analyzing the relative movement and the associated speed that we are able to achieve in our personal lives. Very often, especially in western economies, the metric of distance is synonymous to wealth. This means that the faster we gain more wealth, the better. But the framework itself need not be this simplistic, as wealth is a difficult metric and spawns many different feelings from a wide range of people. Wealth may be a good metric in some cases and a very bad metric in others. But if we replace wealth with a function x(a, b, ...), which takes into account different aspects of ones life, and where each given attribute is given a weight of w(a), w(b), ..., this may become a very interesting exercise indeed. Thus, as per our definition, speed is measured by the delta of x(a, b, ...), when we also give the function a temporal dimension and judge the change in the value of x.
What I'm aiming at with this analogy is that people might be well off if the every once in a while evaluate what they've actually achieved (x(a, b, ...)) and reflect that against their on values (w(a), w(b), ...). If no movement is perceived, then something must be fundamentally wrong as the individual is stagnating. This might imply that the individual is already at a local or global maximum, i.e. the person is already as satisfied in life as he or she can be and thus does not benefit from any additional movements. But as this is rarely this case, we might as will just work towards optimizing our movement in general.
Class reunions are brilliant position of time to stop and see what your x() function looks like and compare it to that of others. Sometimes you get motivated by seeing how others are progressing with life, and at other times you get disheartened by the amount of confusion and lack of direction that young adults present. I was recently discussion about the fates of various people with an old classmate of mine at a local bar and this lack of coherent direction was one that was obvious, especially this the so-called mid-crowd. What I mean by this is that the ones who more or less dropped out of the "pre-academic" scene after junior high school are now already trying to manage a family. On the other hand, there are the people who aimed academically higher and possibly also have an academic career to show for. These are the two extreme opposites, but both are able to demonstrate tangible movement, albeit they have fundamentally very different values (as determined by the very different weights, i.e. w(a), w(b), ...).
Now, the third class are the people who fall between the two. The people who may have previously shown academic promise, but discarded that path in favor of other alternatives. What is typical in these people again is very often the situation that they have also discarded the career-building option that the people who began that phase right after junior high. Very often they are also ones who demonstrate long-term relationships that lack tangible progress as well. It is very difficult to see very rapid movement of any sorts for these people, as they seem to just idle away. But interestingly enough it may just be, that traditionally the easiest ways of interpreting this framework do not apply here. These are not the people who work their arses off at manual labor, making sure that the wheels keep turning. Neither are these the people who contribute the most intellect or the most effort into building the systems and constructs that the world is based on. These are the people that go home at 5 PM. But in fact, this might be precisely the group that is fundamental to the backbone of the society. I have to admit that very often I may poke fun at them and ridicule them for the lack of obvious movement, mistaking them for dead. But it is this more or less silent and unnoticeable group, the very middle, which may in fact be the one that is the crucial glue between the other two ends of the system. The connecting factors without which the wheels don't touch each other and things fall apart.
As a fairly analytical person, I analyze my doings very much through the framework of movement, as described above. If I don't see myself moving, then I try to figure out what has happened and try to solve it. But these traditional metrics of movement may not, in fact, be applicable to all. They may work for me, but maybe that's because I'm a lost cause in the first place. And maybe it implies that we are in fact using the wrong metrics at large and that even though I still argue that people like me are important, it may be that in fact even I might need to take a longer look at the mediocre people at the class reunions and actually see the slow but steady movement that they are demonstrating. Maybe that type of movement is more sustainable than the movement that may be more apparent in strongly competitive fields.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Who are you? - Demographics of a blog
1984 was (and still is) a very remarkable piece of fiction, which is increasingly transforming into a factual piece of text. Big brother, as a concept, has been spread wide and far. It has even gotten its namesake in the contemporary TV schedule at prime time, albeit the show itself seems quite horrid, based on the 15 minutes that I've spent watching it. The internet is also starting to exhibit some Orwellian aspects and whereas theoretically anonymity is still possible, most of the time a governmental entity will be able to order individual ISPs, websites, etc. to give out enough data that the anonymity is questionable, at best.
Individual website owners have also had a longstanding hobby of creating statistics about the visitors of their websites. A few years back Google brought out its own offering called Google Analytics, which allows just about anyone to add a small snippet of text into their own websites and begin to collect information on their visitors. At this point I should note, however, that this information is technical in nature and does not really violate privacy; if I am able to say that someone in the past week has looked at my blog and has had a screen resolution of 1024x786, that doesn't really invade your privacy.
Anyway, I thought that I might share some things that Google has gathered on this blog. And maybe that can tell something about what sort of people are reading this blog (i.e. you)...
Since February 25th, there have been 1620 individual visits to this blog, consisting of 2108 page views. So you are not a person who spends very much time digging deep into the blog. But that's not such a surprise, considering the nature of blogs and how the typical use case consists of a person quickly checking the main page of the blog for new entries. No need to dig deeper. This is also supported by the fact, that out of the 2108 page views, 1482 were of the main page of the site. The second most popular page was my entry on convertible cuffs in shirts with 71 page views. Also, over 86% (1400) of the visits consisted of only a single page view, offering even more support for this interpretation.
But even if the attention span of a reader of this blog only allows 1.3 page views per visit, you are still a very persistent bunch. Out of the 1620 individual visits, 1075 visits were from returning visitors. This is comforting, as it seems that you find the ramblings that I write engaging enough so that you actually bother coming back.
Maybe slightly unsurprising is the fact, that 960 visits originated from Finland. In general Europe was very well represented with 1227 visits in total, followed by the Americas with 342 visits. The other continents were all minute compared to these two. The image of the world map is slightly misleading, as the clustering around North America is due to the large number of one-off visitors, who jumped on the site from search engines and the like. On a national level, two thirds of the visits from Finland (604 out of 960) come out of the greater Helsinki area.
On a more tech-y note, it appears that the readers of this blog, you, are a very educated crowd as nearly three quarters (1198) of visits to this site are made using Firefox. This is in sharp contrast with the historical data which gives Internet Explorer a very solid foothold. IE is, however, in second place and the other browsers make up a thin long tail. So kudos to all you enlightened people.
There are also some other statistics which Google provides, but I don't really think that they are that interesting. So of course it would be very interesting to know who exactly reads this blog, but I guess that's something that I'll never truly get to know. However, that said, I do know individual people who read this blog. It becomes quite apparent when I start discussing some topic with another person or within a group, and I automatically get an answer not so dissimilar to: "Yes, we know, you already blogged about that."
Individual website owners have also had a longstanding hobby of creating statistics about the visitors of their websites. A few years back Google brought out its own offering called Google Analytics, which allows just about anyone to add a small snippet of text into their own websites and begin to collect information on their visitors. At this point I should note, however, that this information is technical in nature and does not really violate privacy; if I am able to say that someone in the past week has looked at my blog and has had a screen resolution of 1024x786, that doesn't really invade your privacy.
Anyway, I thought that I might share some things that Google has gathered on this blog. And maybe that can tell something about what sort of people are reading this blog (i.e. you)...
Since February 25th, there have been 1620 individual visits to this blog, consisting of 2108 page views. So you are not a person who spends very much time digging deep into the blog. But that's not such a surprise, considering the nature of blogs and how the typical use case consists of a person quickly checking the main page of the blog for new entries. No need to dig deeper. This is also supported by the fact, that out of the 2108 page views, 1482 were of the main page of the site. The second most popular page was my entry on convertible cuffs in shirts with 71 page views. Also, over 86% (1400) of the visits consisted of only a single page view, offering even more support for this interpretation.
But even if the attention span of a reader of this blog only allows 1.3 page views per visit, you are still a very persistent bunch. Out of the 1620 individual visits, 1075 visits were from returning visitors. This is comforting, as it seems that you find the ramblings that I write engaging enough so that you actually bother coming back.
Maybe slightly unsurprising is the fact, that 960 visits originated from Finland. In general Europe was very well represented with 1227 visits in total, followed by the Americas with 342 visits. The other continents were all minute compared to these two. The image of the world map is slightly misleading, as the clustering around North America is due to the large number of one-off visitors, who jumped on the site from search engines and the like. On a national level, two thirds of the visits from Finland (604 out of 960) come out of the greater Helsinki area.
On a more tech-y note, it appears that the readers of this blog, you, are a very educated crowd as nearly three quarters (1198) of visits to this site are made using Firefox. This is in sharp contrast with the historical data which gives Internet Explorer a very solid foothold. IE is, however, in second place and the other browsers make up a thin long tail. So kudos to all you enlightened people.
There are also some other statistics which Google provides, but I don't really think that they are that interesting. So of course it would be very interesting to know who exactly reads this blog, but I guess that's something that I'll never truly get to know. However, that said, I do know individual people who read this blog. It becomes quite apparent when I start discussing some topic with another person or within a group, and I automatically get an answer not so dissimilar to: "Yes, we know, you already blogged about that."
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Objectivity
Prior to running the half-marathon last spring, I received plenty of advice from more experienced runners regarding how to survive and maybe even get a good time out of the run. The guidance was very good in general, and in retrospect the key issues were where I stumbled horribly (I guess that's why in certain fields academic literature has defined the concept of critical success factor--things that are, well, critical to the success...). I took all the advice, pondered a bit, thought I understood it, and then failed. Knowing is something, applying the knowing to practice is another beast altogether. Next spring when I run the half-marathon again, I'm very confident that based on my previous experience, the results will be better. Heck, they can't be any worse after this spring's run...
Learning for me is a very iterative process. I would argue that it is for most, but recently some more intelligent people have struck the fear of god (or at least the fear of generalization) in me, so I shall not speculate with such broad strokes. You try, you fail, you pick yourself up and try again. And at some point you absorb knowledge and wisdom from other sources, and sometimes it is a really slow process. And when you stubbornly refuse to accept conventional wisdom and rely on your own intuition, you might occasionally be able to create new wisdom. At least for yourself.
There is a Finnish idiom of "Aika kultaa muistot", but unfortunately I can't recall the English counterpart right now. The idea, anyway, is that over time your memories will become distorted and should not be relied on for anything more serious than casual conversation. I'm sure there are plenty of papers explaining the process of taking what originally might have been a relatively objective interpretation and how it becomes very biased and subjective when sufficient amount of time is allowed to pass. This is again conventional wisdom, which I've been unfortunately forgetting. I've been delving on past issues a bit more than I should've during this year. The reasons are many, but none of them are especially good. Personally I experienced how a technically small thing escalated into one of the biggest bogeymen for me. I cannot entirely open the situation up, as I fear that grasping the entire situation is even beyond my capabilities, but sufficient to say that at the same time I loved and hated my experiences. I put them up on a pedestal but still feared them and was angered by them. And eventually they grew very much out of proportion. So what is the way to kill the bogeyman? Stand up, stay firm, and stare it in the eye. And as is often the case, even now the bogeyman didn't appear so terrible anymore once you actually confront it.
The irony here is that as objective as some people (e.g. me) think they are, it is very much an illusion. Actually it is an even bigger irony that I am a judgemental person, and still dare argue that I am capable of objectivity. But I guess that is not an entirely fair statement either. Another funny thing is related to the aforementioned bogeymen. Typically one hides them from general view, but in fact letting the light into the attic, where the bogeyman lives, might very well show that the bogeyman is in fact gone. Clean the dust, do some housekeeping, and the mind becomes lighter and healthier as well. And on that note, I've been playing around with the idea of hiring a housekeeper to come by a couple of times a month to take care of my flat...
Learning for me is a very iterative process. I would argue that it is for most, but recently some more intelligent people have struck the fear of god (or at least the fear of generalization) in me, so I shall not speculate with such broad strokes. You try, you fail, you pick yourself up and try again. And at some point you absorb knowledge and wisdom from other sources, and sometimes it is a really slow process. And when you stubbornly refuse to accept conventional wisdom and rely on your own intuition, you might occasionally be able to create new wisdom. At least for yourself.
There is a Finnish idiom of "Aika kultaa muistot", but unfortunately I can't recall the English counterpart right now. The idea, anyway, is that over time your memories will become distorted and should not be relied on for anything more serious than casual conversation. I'm sure there are plenty of papers explaining the process of taking what originally might have been a relatively objective interpretation and how it becomes very biased and subjective when sufficient amount of time is allowed to pass. This is again conventional wisdom, which I've been unfortunately forgetting. I've been delving on past issues a bit more than I should've during this year. The reasons are many, but none of them are especially good. Personally I experienced how a technically small thing escalated into one of the biggest bogeymen for me. I cannot entirely open the situation up, as I fear that grasping the entire situation is even beyond my capabilities, but sufficient to say that at the same time I loved and hated my experiences. I put them up on a pedestal but still feared them and was angered by them. And eventually they grew very much out of proportion. So what is the way to kill the bogeyman? Stand up, stay firm, and stare it in the eye. And as is often the case, even now the bogeyman didn't appear so terrible anymore once you actually confront it.
The irony here is that as objective as some people (e.g. me) think they are, it is very much an illusion. Actually it is an even bigger irony that I am a judgemental person, and still dare argue that I am capable of objectivity. But I guess that is not an entirely fair statement either. Another funny thing is related to the aforementioned bogeymen. Typically one hides them from general view, but in fact letting the light into the attic, where the bogeyman lives, might very well show that the bogeyman is in fact gone. Clean the dust, do some housekeeping, and the mind becomes lighter and healthier as well. And on that note, I've been playing around with the idea of hiring a housekeeper to come by a couple of times a month to take care of my flat...
Monday, December 01, 2008
Finland 0-7 England+Italy
One of the biggest differences between London and Helsinki was one which also separates Milan and Helsinki: dress. I don't know whether it has something to do with Helsinki residing in such a cold climate that we must emphasize functionality of clothes or if it's just because we Finns have grown in a forest, but it seems that the Italians and the Brits outdress us by, well, a lot.
There's an old saying which states that you are able to identify a Finnish business man at the airport by his shoes. And that's not a complement. This has been attributed to the horrid weather in Finland, which eats through all types of shoes in a matter of months. But it does not explain how it is possible that Finns cannot wear suits that fit well. The suit, to many Finnish men, is some horrid apparatus, which they feel has been devised only to restrict and constrain. The most typical Finnish suit is one which resembles a box. I do not wish to describe it in more detail, as I'm sure that you will already have an idea what wearing a box might look like. Tapering is entirely unheard of and the armholes are cut so large that movement is just horrid. So no wonder Finns fear suits.
Brits and Italians, on the other hand, have a long history with everything related to style. Brits through their class hierarchies and dress codes. Italians, on the other hand, need nothing more than sprezzatura and they're able to always come out on top and not even break a sweat. But for Finns, mastering even a single knot to tie the feared tie with seems to be beyond all hope.
Helsinki does, however, have some fashionable people. Or at least I would imagine so. But fashion is again something that I do not want to know anything about, which means that from my perspective the Finnish society consists of people who think that wearing a shell suit in town is acceptable and then people who think that it's cool to dress like a member of the opposite sex (to be slightly provocative, as I have no idea about the rationale or reasoning behind the fads of the fashion crowd). We are lacking the group of people who master the art of style. I'm not necessarily even referring to the dandies, but maybe a slightly towned down version of them. It shouldn't be so difficult, but apparently it is. Unfortunately.
There's an old saying which states that you are able to identify a Finnish business man at the airport by his shoes. And that's not a complement. This has been attributed to the horrid weather in Finland, which eats through all types of shoes in a matter of months. But it does not explain how it is possible that Finns cannot wear suits that fit well. The suit, to many Finnish men, is some horrid apparatus, which they feel has been devised only to restrict and constrain. The most typical Finnish suit is one which resembles a box. I do not wish to describe it in more detail, as I'm sure that you will already have an idea what wearing a box might look like. Tapering is entirely unheard of and the armholes are cut so large that movement is just horrid. So no wonder Finns fear suits.
Brits and Italians, on the other hand, have a long history with everything related to style. Brits through their class hierarchies and dress codes. Italians, on the other hand, need nothing more than sprezzatura and they're able to always come out on top and not even break a sweat. But for Finns, mastering even a single knot to tie the feared tie with seems to be beyond all hope.
Helsinki does, however, have some fashionable people. Or at least I would imagine so. But fashion is again something that I do not want to know anything about, which means that from my perspective the Finnish society consists of people who think that wearing a shell suit in town is acceptable and then people who think that it's cool to dress like a member of the opposite sex (to be slightly provocative, as I have no idea about the rationale or reasoning behind the fads of the fashion crowd). We are lacking the group of people who master the art of style. I'm not necessarily even referring to the dandies, but maybe a slightly towned down version of them. It shouldn't be so difficult, but apparently it is. Unfortunately.
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