If my biography has to be written, it would be about half a page in length with monotonous words like water in a clogged sink. A list of my own Q&A can do it better because my life is basically a monologue.
Q: Who are you?
A: A considerable part of me is shown in this website.
Q: Is it properly the purpose?
A: Not really. I don’t try to show off myself. Simply something that has been done with heart and mind should be expressed and shared no matter how many people it can approach and how many of them spend time to view and appreciate it. Quality is my first priority.
Q: Who helps you to make it?
A: I run from B to Y – I mean I bought a template like an empty house (A) to customise as I want and decorate with things I make but I don’t try to promote (Z). Why not Z? I don’t use it for commercial purposes, I don’t invest a high budget, I don’t trust many services or agencies in this country and importantly, I can do it as well as it’s my hobby.
Q: Why not A?
A: Oh, I would do it if I could. To build a stable house we need to have a good foundation and structure, so specific knowledge has to be applied. I’m not interested in code writing, so I can’t make it.
Q: Do you ask for their support after that?
A: Generally I’m not used to asking others for support, especially in this case, I just ask them when an unknown error occurs, for the rest I personalise my real “fortune” all by myself.
Q: But how can you muddle through it?
A: I learn from articles, forums and tutorial videos in English (so it isn’t a surprising thing that I don’t understand the same topic written in my mother tongue). One day I discovered that Chrome has a feature to inspect every single element in a website and I started to use it to find out what should be changed to obtain the effects I want. Luckily I like the simplicity. If you see complicated things of mine, they must be combined by simple ones.
Q: Do you have any social profile?
A: Yeah I do. Some kinds that help me to connect with family, friends and explore myself.
Q: Do they truly have strength to do that? Which one is your favourite?
A: Pinterest, from which I receive awesome lessons and inspirations. The wonderful images shared by many people help me to open my mind, enrich my knowledge as well as supply me various materials to construct my imagination. For example, if my eyes get impressed by something while scrolling down tens of images, I stop my finger, asking myself why it occurs: Composition of colours? Compatibility of elements? Emerging features? Mysterious factors? Hidden messages? Techniques?…, giving some answers or hypotheses, pinning the image and creating my own library.
Q: How many hours do you spend a day for your social profiles?
A: About half an hour for all. Think about the difference of this modern life, when material and ego boom like the quantity of sands in the desert while years ago there were simply genuine sands, but timeless artworks were still created and anyone in any era has exactly 24 hours a day. We have billions of choices now, the matter is which we choose and how we exchange our choices. What does a page look like if the owners alternate between the most beautiful pictures of them and vulgar comments, their lovers and fatal disease, their family and foul news, their friends and murder, their meal and their shit…? It seems to be a freedom but it’s actually an incurable dependence, it seems humane but it’s actually a mental disturbance, it seems social but it’s actually a fear of loneliness, it seems to be a wide knowledge but it’s actually a superficial mind, it seems to be a good interpersonal relation but it’s actually a lack of personality.
Q: Why do you use such strong words?
A: I’m just exposing my real thoughts. Frankly I don’t want to burst the quills like a porcupine in danger, but with that chronic allergy, at first I ran away silently like a butterfly, I changed colour like a lizard… and in the end I roared like a lion. I don’t change myself but my expression and that kind of comparison is still quite gentle. I’m totally hopeless and I surrendered after I told the same thing ten times in ten ways, but not as a loser because I don’t play sentimental games.
Q: Just take it easy: ignore it. Can you?
A: No, I couldn’t, in certain cases: my heart didn’t let my mind do that or vice versa. But recently, I feel they begin to fall in love with each other: the heart beats for the mind, the mind protects the heart. I heard them whisper “We’d better give our spiritual fruits to random people who appreciate than to special ones who don’t care”.
Q: How to conquer your heart?
A: Oops… I have no idea. It’s a restive horse.
Q: Your mind?
A: It’s easier to know. My mind isn’t embarrassed to feel or to express my respect, admiration and appreciation towards someone who deserves.
Q: If you view people negatively like this, you don’t have many friends, do you?
A: No, I don’t. To have many friends in life is marvellous but few true friends are more than enough. Life is short and it’s just an example, in fact I also have other types of allergy: those who are loud and talkative, meddle, groaning, rapacious; those who gossip, hoot the horn, never say “sorry”, “thanks” or simply make a big noise when closing the door… However harmonious people aren’t so rare and I still have good friends: A who shows his love towards the family, friends and work or presents lifestyle videos with sweet words and optimistic attitude, B who shares articles about this society with witty comments but never posts any picture of him, his family, friends, C who only posts her smiling images… In brief, they have their own style, like a good cook that knows well what to put in a pot to have a delicious dish, not a mixture of gradients that don’t match each other.
Q: And you, what do you usually follow and share?
A: Once I worked as a market researcher and I had a habit of surfing the internet to look for information about customer insight, liking, trend… and one day I asked myself “What the hell are you doing? Go out to see the incessant life with your own eyes and answer the questions. Trust yourself first!” and I started to reduce my time for this activity; another day, after some Facebook friends shared a horrible image in a shocking case, I decided to revise my friend list then unfriended or unfollowed many of them. Recently I haven’t shared anything special because I prefer direct communication.
Q: What do you want to do for the moment?
A: Paint. I like painting since I was a child, some years ago while working as a freelancer I went around to see what was going on and recognised that no matter what I do and how it will be, if it comes from my heart, it naturally makes sense.
Q: How about design?
A: I prefer making art and craft with my hands to leaning on a computer but the disappointment with some designers pushed me to do it myself, with free tutorials, books and deeper observations. However up to now I have mostly designed for work, only a few times for fun. When I have free time, I try to leave the devices behind as much possible or just use them for writing and music.
Q: What are your favourite music genres and singers?
A: I like many things, styles, fields,… and so do I regarding music genres and singers. WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY HOW are all important for a creative person but HOW is the crucial criterion for the role of entertainer.
Q: Do you sing?
A: One of my favorite activities. I sing when I’m alone.
Q: Why?
A: I’m totally myself when I’m alone. I need moments for myself everyday.
Q: What songs do you usually sing?
A: Many, as long as there’s a part of me inside and I can sing, for example pop songs like Halo (Beyonce), The power of goodbye (Madonna), Yesterday (The Beatles), Lascia ch’io pianga (Handel), Quelque chose dans mon coeur (Elsa), Laeudanla téïtéïa (Jane Birkin), Regresa a mi (Il Divo)… or even rock ballad like Patience (Guns ‘n Roses), Iris (Goo goo dolls) and so on. Sometimes I reach the point at which I prefer singing those songs to listening to them.
Q: You also sing French and Spanish songs?
A: My French and Spanish level is just about A1 or A2, and my reason to learn these two languages is purely to feel and sing their songs because they’re so lovely and charming that I can’t resist.
Q: Why do you tend to use English instead of your mother tongue?
A: Once I worked for an Italian company with several foreign partners and writing communication in English was compulsory. I could talk with my Italian colleagues in Italian but timeline, reports, meeting minutes, email… was always in English and naturally, it became a routine. I repeated it when I moved to a Vietnamese agency (for a short period) and several times I had to translate the plans I had written in English back into Vietnamese. Anyway, l can’t quit my habit to write posts or quotes in English because it drives me to think more widely: just imagine the difference of what appear in your mind when “house” is spoken in your mother tongue and in other languages; and very importantly, I have learned and entertained with many things in English.
Q: What are your quotes about?
A: Some super short stories, emotions… around my life that maybe coincident to one thought at one moment of one person in his life.
Q: What kind of images do you use for them?
A: Every time I want to say something, I choose the most coherent with my thoughts to write on, like a short emotional meeting between two unknown people that can last for long (at least on my mind), like to express my perception on an expression that will be perceived again. My responsibility is to respect it: if I can’t make it more meaningful I mustn’t use it.
Q: Do you feel guilty for using images of other people without permission?
A: No, I really don’t. They are posted to the public without any legal notice and all I can do is to thank these unknown authors and models sincerely in silence.
Q: Do you dream?
A: Yeah, I do. I have many dreams indeed: dreams from the unconscious, dreams as “plan”, dreams as “desire”, dreams as “fantasy” that can only exist in my imagination even if I become the richest person in the world. Every dream has its own beauty.
Q: It seems like you have more strong than weak points, doesn’t it?
A: I don’t divide my characters into strong and weak ones because they have different values from different points of view. For example, it seems that my left and right hemispheres work equally, my six senses are at a same level of perception so it’s a little bit hard for me to concentrate to a unique thing (such as a long speaking from other people) or I prefer having a small, simple, tidy meal with soft music to a big one in wedding party with five hundred people who are in thick makeup, best dresses and talk in chorus while the singers try to do their job well and don’t care if they are heard…
Q: Why don’t you want to be a specialist instead of an all-rounder, painter or songwriter, for example?
A: Good question. Keep updated, I’ll be back!