Always Being On

Jan Chipchase had a session at CHI 2009 in which he presented some of his work gathered from all over the world. The work is definitely interesting and inspiring.

At one point in his presentation, he said something that got my attention. I think he was asked by a member of the audience about the boundaries between work and life – to which Jan answered, “I’m always on.”

Makes me think about Matt Damon’s character in “The Bourne Identity,” the scene where he walks into a diner and tells the girl how he’s aware of everything – details, like what the waitress is wearing, what it says on the license plate number of one of the cars outside. Takes me back to my teen years when I studied martial arts. After one of our tournaments, while everyone was at a restaurant, someone asked my sensei what the difference is between being disciplined in martial arts and not being disciplined. I remember him saying that after practicing martial arts, he walks into a restaurant or a bar and quickly scans the place to see who is there. He checks to see if he could take out each individual (in case of being attacked) before sitting at a table. I believe the CIA also trains this way – when entering a room, first consider multiple ways of escape and observe/calculate who is in there.

I wonder if this this is the subtle difference between environment and surrounding. I believe it is. If one’s actions are always relevant (coherence in all of life’s activities) – that is, if one is always “on” – this individual may just have a deeper understanding of life than others. Can an individual always be in an environment as opposed to once in a while being in an environment? There must be some underlying purpose to his/her life to be in such an environment.

This is one of the questions of philosophy. How can we have unity despite all of life’s diverse fragments?