sansara : my illusory me : workplace

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how I work / what I can do

(published on 20.12.2010)

What do I do?

Everything I find interesting. Everything that comes to my mind. The base of my income is the money I get from renting out my apartment and it lets me not only to live without need to do anything (that would be boring) or travel all the time (that's exhausting and also boring after a while) but also do only what I really want to do. My task list contains short stories, guidebook, online game, concepts of items to produce, articles, pictures, translations, I want to make my own clothes and jewelery one day, I've got ideas for many travel routes to make. Right now taking photos, processing them and updating the website takes up most time. One or two times per year I organize group of tourists. Sometimes I do designs and websites for money. I announce my future trips in my blog and those people who've been dreaming to travel whole year while reading it can join me to actually travel. Every year I want to stop organizing those groups because it's extremely tiring, especially for such a loner as I am but then people start asking and I just cannot say no. The reason why I cannot reject them is that I do it not for the money but rather to help people open up their own space. When it comes to websites and designs I also try to work only with those who know me personally, or at least these are people who find me themselves. All the rules exist because if I take any offer just for money then I would get depressed very soon and would start feeling like wasting my life. Sometimes these negative feelings are so strong that I even cannot finish the task. But usually I know myself very well and don't agree to what I won't be able to complete.

I consider money to be like water or energy. It's something totally useless by itself, it becomes valuable only in combination with the goal you want to reach. From this point of view money is only tool to realize the potential. Doing what is in harmony with your nature and its character is the most important. Should you need money for that it would appear. From the other side if you constantly would keep on saving up and thinking how to get enough only to live and eat then the flow of money would start exhausting and in the end you would have enough only to live and eat, nothing extra. Inner state of poverty leads to actual poverty. Inner richness results in outer richness. Spend more, let yourself do more, dream more, bring more joy to the world, be generous in all means — and there never will be any financial problems in your life.

My main project is this site and my main job is to update it all the time with new photos, travel stories and information about Buddhism (in Russian). Some of you who's been around quite long may also recognize works of graphic designer Roxanna in art. Believe it or not but once I was quite known in Russia.

How does my workplace look like and what does it consist of?

I try to live in beautiful places so that I could see something beautiful the very moment when I lift my eyes from the screen. The best working position is laying down with a pillow under my head and laptop on my belly or breast. Sometimes I sit at a table on my bed crossing legs similarly to meditation posture. I do not use mouse, touchpad is perfectly enough for me. If I need to draw something, I take out my Wacom tablet. Before it used to be Intuos 2 A5 but I've recently changed it to smaller and lighter Bamboo. I make use of it only two or three times per year but at these times it's so handy that I don't mind carrying it on my back the rest of year. Samsung Q35 13.3'' with Windows XP has been my laptop for three years. I still consider its size perfect for traveling and working at same time but now I have switched to Sony Vaio 14'' with Win7. It's bigger, heavier but then it's got amazing 1600x900 screen. Since I've got Nokia E71 to be online I don't need to carry my laptop around so much. The main is to bring it to the room so 14'' seemed rather nice compromise between portability and comfort.

I chose Nokia E71 as the most reliable mobile phone. I really liked the crush test where it was overrun by a car and it still continued to work. Perfect for travels! I've been dropping it down many times at different surfaces and it's still fine. I like things you don't need to worry about. By the way, it's the first phone that survived more than year with me. But I dislike its small screen otherwise I would buy the same model again.

My first attempts to photograph were still with film and I've never really understood the idea of cropped matrix. When I've found out how much full frame costs... I've just sighed and put Nikon D700 into my list of tasks. I've put there good lenses too but before that would be fulfilled I got myself very old 28mm at Mumbai photo flea market. Firstly it was very strange to use fully manual mode without automatic focus and without zoom but I got gradually used to it and now prefer manual fix lenses to everything else. They make me think more about each photo. I have to stop, concentrate, look for better perspective where I would otherwise just zoom, click and go. Moreover zoom lenses are complicated and noisy and I like simple things. Simple but yet of high quality. Once I've had Hasselblad and it has been too difficult to use for me. It was especially difficult to manage their viewfinder because of my short-sightedness and confusion between left and right. I could not focus at all! But then those few pictures I still managed to take made me fall in love with Carl Zeiss quality. Two of my fix lenses - 18mm and 35mm - are new Zeiss. I still haven't made final choice of the third one and keep switching between various lenses.

Taking pictures with fix lenses is not so convenient but quality of the image compensates for everything. Maybe most of my photos never are going to be printed in big size but I personally receive lots of pleasure looking at them and processing them. Moreover it's simply very pleasant to use good technics, you receive lots of tactile pleasure from the material, from softly moving focusing wheel, from the weight in your hand... when I miss yet another picture because I cannot focus in time or because there is no time to change the lens I say to myself that really worthy pictures are rarely done in fractions of a second. Unless you're a war journalist you would always have few moments more to configure everything. And if you didn't then it's not so important: there are many photos already, more are uploaded every day and the world is not going to grieve if I deprive it of my yet another masterpiece.

Which programs do I use?

I am very retrograde person. Strange to hear it from someone constantly on the move, isn't it? But it's exactly people like me that web-developers curse while looking at statistics of visitor's browsers at their websites. I never update my software unless life makes me to. I never learn anything new unless there is no other choice. I always go to the same shops, eat at same cafes and come back as a client to the same companies.

I have been making my websites in Far Manager for last 6 years. Before I used Notepad but it's not so good with PHP so I switched to Far. I used to have plugin which would light up the code with different colors but then I lost it together with my system and never installed it again. Blue screen, white letters, year 2010. You may start crying now. Or laughing, up to you.

Some of my friends always try to make me hooked up onto newer things, show me new technologies. Once in 1998 an Indian web-designer tried to make me go from PaintBrush to Adobe Photoshop 3.0. No need! PaintBrush has got all I need! I denied as hard as I only could. Later I was very thankful to him, however. So I may be very thankful to someone else some day for showing me a program better than Far.

When it comes to OS I prefer what comes along with the laptop to enjoy advantages of fully legal license. I hate localized interfaces and switch to English anywhere it's possible. Also I hate those beautiful designs of the interface and always swith that all off to make desktop look most like Win2000. Also I hate Apple and everything connected with it because they make the user obey their rules. I would rather switch to Unix one day should a need arise. But not before!

I choose and pre-process images at Adobe Lightroom 3. Then I export all the pictures in web-size and fine-tune then in Photoshop CS. I've stopped at version 2 because it has all I need and yet it's faster than later versions. I use Adobe Illustrator for vector, whatever version is currently installed. Sometimes I also use Adobe Flash. File manager is FileZilla and sometimes Far (when I need to edit files on the go). Semagic, Punto Switcher to switch between Russian and English keyboards automatically, it's Dairy to log everything I type which has saved me many times from loosing my texts. Abby Lingvo as a dictionary. When it comes to browsers I usually install everything I can find and use them randomly.

I've been using web mail for many years already. I've installed Gmail for my website and very happy with it. When I was just shifting from mail client to web mail I didn't like that the information was available only when online. Now I've got internet in my phone and phone is always with me so there is no such problem anymore.

I use calendar only to know which day of week it is but I don't make any strict plans. Sometimes I think of a certain order of tasks: what comes before and what after. I may sometimes make myself finish job on specific date if it's required by the client or if it concerns publishing new content to my website but usually strict planning simply does not work with me. The more I plan for a sertain day, the higher is the possibility that I would just watch movies from morning till night or go shopping instead. I may do it just because I like my freedom so much. I make lists of tasks only for the joy to write them and cross out items when they are done. The latter makes me believe in illusion that one day I would finish everything and remain completely free. Of course, it will never happen. Those lists grow longer all the time, projects change positions. Sometimes I write down stages of a certain task in very detailed manner on purpose to have more fun crossing them out one by one. But generally I don't need to plan anything. Everything I want to do stays in my head, knocks from the inside and demands to be done. In case I forget something I just sigh happily - less work to do! But the most interesting things usually stay.

Actually I've got very good but yet very selective memory. I can't remember any dates, names either personal or common until I write them down. I may use wrong words, type or say one instead of another but then everything visual is memorized perfectly. When I was young I could remember subject during the exam by recalling how the page in my textbook looks like. And if I could zoom in there enough I could try to read all the formulas. Associative mind also works very well - I can easily remember if I've even seen anything similar at a different place. Because of this I sometimes notice similarities between people who are not similar to anyone else. Also that's how I remember if I ever took similar picture in other place.

I check mail almost constantly - as long as my phone is with me. And I try to answer instantly. I may get online while I am going somewhere by bus, train, by feet or simply bored at a company, I just take my phone and get away to the internet. But I do it on my own, no automatic programs. There is only GoogleTalk at laptop which notifies me of new mails.

I use GoogleTalk as a messenger too along with Skype but I talk mostly about work or something important, not much chatting. Sometimes I call people whom I know personally.

Do I ever use paper for my work?

Extremely rarely. Sometimes I might do very basic drafts of pictures or designs to be able to imagine better what I plan to do. But nobody can understand anything from those drafts but me.

What is my dream configuration?

I dream that all the devices I have would be of the same style and design which means they would be same minimalistic and monotonous. And so that everything would weight two, no, three times less. But it's not possible. Generally I don't dream of any gadgets. If I consider something necessary I just set it as my goal and reach it.

Probably I would like to be less conservative and more easy-going concerning new technologies but then it's the configuration of me, not of the hardware, isn't it?

hiring me

You can hire me if you need a website which is not standard and cannot easily be done with standard tools like wordpress. Also when you want your own simple system of managing site's content as I write everything myself using my own modules. I do not do big project, small company websites are what I do the best and the fastest.