Becoming Efficient

Rahat Ahmed. 21. New York City. I was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, traveled around the world by the age of eight and somehow ended up in Houston, Texas for the length of my adolescence. I'm always late to everything because I expect the world to be clockwork; my speciality is the 11th hour. I like to think I'm a risk you want to take.

I'm currently attending the Stern School of Business at New York University and will be graduating in a year with a double major in Marketing and Finance. Yes, I need a job. (I'm sure you do too, no?)

I like sensory things: music, food and film. Feel free to check out A Crash Course on Rahat for a quick glimpse into my interests. In a quick sum up: Indian/Japanese/Iranian cuisines, Murakami, Wong Kar-Wai, Fincher, New Order, Radiohead and S.E.S.

And I have a horrible habit of falling in love a thousand times a day. (Kind of like that guy from American Beauty, but not as creepy or cheesy.)

On Japanese Efficiency

The trick is simple: To achieve some sort of harmony with the ongoings of the world, one needs to simply excel in constriction and clockwork. Compact processes and on-time scheduling. Expectations are met and hopes and dreams are fulfilled. Oh so simple.

Of course, that's not how we work. Being human means delving into the emotional aspect of life. It's why pulling the trigger is harder in reality than in practise. The reaction to the action is inefficient, thus making the whole process inefficient.

To achieve such an efficiency, one needs a state of mind that burroughs through boundaries and clears its palate at every crossroad. How easy is it? Is it even possible? Live and learn.

Mathematics of Style

The texture on the header is actually a napkin from Taco Bell, meant to signify the fragile, human nature of the processes. The bend in the napkin is meant to show that sometimes we lose the innocence of an object in the process of becoming efficient. The pinstripes on the right create a machinist juxtaposition with the napkin, while the subtle orange and greens try to give vitality and life to the processes. Primary font of this issue: VAG Rounded.

Welcome to Edition Fourteen. It's been a while.