Studio Ric

If a man's home is his castle, then his work cubicle is certainly a medieval fortification which continues the metaphor, on a slightly smaller scale. Perhaps a motte-and-bailey, or a tower or a small keep. One feels at home in one's space and this harmony of function is thrown into complete disarray by visitors.

The word visitors starts with the letter "V" to remind us they are closely related to vermin. They enter our abodes and change things. In cubicles they unplug power supplies, remove ethernet cables, adjust seats and lighting. Their activity completely makes the environment unworkable until valuable time and effort are spent restoring the cubicle to a functional state.

Why can't they just leave well enough alone? The rat bastards.... [pun intended]...

The painting The Son of Man is a study in contrasts. It reveals as much as it hides, conceals as much as it shows;  

"At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present." - René Magritte

What's the take away lesson? - Things are not what they seem. Things that appear on the surface logical, ordered and stable, are in fact chaotic, random, fluid.

Thus it has been for the last few weeks. Up is down, left is right, right is wrong. The plan has failed to survive contact with the enemy... in the economy, in the work environment, in daily life. What is hiding around the corner in plain site?

Only life will tell.  

 

Sometimes the act of being employed can draw, as if by osmosis, the very will from one's soul.

Long tedious hours married with frequent nocturnal visits to a data centre floor where the blinking lights of technology incarnate mock you - It can seriously be a downer.

This week has been a marathon of work. Uptown, downtown, late nights, early mornings. Cables to the right of me, routers and switches to the left... onward into the valley of data rode the network engineers...

Fortunately Arthur Guinness found a cure for this and he and his progeny have been at it since 1759, saving the sanity of the overworked masses for nearly 250 years.

Shouldn't there be a Nobel Prize or something?  You'll have to excuse me while I indulge. Cheers!