On the Road to Taiwan

POSTED 04/28/2009 UNDER Encounters • Personal

After months of suspending my blogging activity for a year-long project, I'm somewhat at a loss at what to do next. I can think of plenty of things to do, mind you---getting back to work on the various productivity forms updates, for example---but I want to make sure that I'm doing the right things that will point me in a satisfying work-life direction. And so, I find myself at a crossroads. I could continue to pursue interesting interactive design work based on the last gig. I could also define a new type of design boutique based around storytelling, a theme that I've been pursuing for the past several years but haven't yet defined in a market-friendly manner. I also want to figure out how to work as a writer, traveling around and meeting interesting people as a kind of wandering design minstrel, regaling a select audience of people with ballads about people overcoming obstacles through the pursuit of their secret dreams.

As I write this, I realize that it's largely a matter of just starting somewhere and putting together some website material that explains what I'm doing in a cogent manner, taking care to highlight obvious points where I can add to the endeavors of future colleagues. But before that can happen, I will be visiting Taiwan to attend my grandmother's memorial service. I have mixed feelings about this trip because Taiwan has been a place where I have never felt comfortable because of language and cultural barriers. However, I'm optimistic that this trip will provide insight into family and purpose while allowing me to re-engage some of those old ghosts. This trip also gives me an opportunity to test my mobile office configuration, currently consisting of my MacBook Pro, Skype, some Lamy fountain pens, a Cachet 9x12" spiral bound notebook, and plenty of camera gear.

Right now I'm at Gate 123 of the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX, waiting to board a 14 hour flight to Taipei, where we'll be met by one of my uncles to take the high speed rail to Taichung, where Dad will meet my sister and I. It's been 9 years since I've been back to Taiwan, and I'm at that age (40+) where I'm expected to have made something of myself either by career achievement OR by having successfully reproduced. Measuring myself on that scale, my de-facto age is probably more like 28 :-)

Comments

1. William of Urbana said on 04/29/2009 07:29AM...

Very sorry to hear about your grandmother, Dave.

Dude, you need a Wandering Design Minstrel business card. I’m not sure I would make a bilingual one, though. ;-)

2. Lynn O'Connor said on 04/30/2009 03:03AM...

Sometimes you are the blogging poet for my own wandering mind, or should I say our own wandering minds. Have a good trip, perhaps write to us about it, as it happens. It sounds interesting already, the cultural dis-ease, the earnest hoping it might be different “this time.” Do a travel log, a running letter to your followers, something will happen. It is sometimes best to do whatever is right in front of you, with little planning, or with the assumption that the planning has happened and is happening implicitly. For sure add your pictures, and tell the story to us.

As always, know how much we appreciate your fantastic honesty.