A Story About the "Beautiful Things" in Everyday Life

Hello. This is Sakata from Beats.

Sei Shonagon's "The Pillow Book" is famous for its opening line, "In spring, the dawn," but
I personally love the section on "Beautiful Things."

In it, Sei Shonagon meticulously records
the "beautiful things"—meaning cute or lovely things—
that can be seen in daily life.

I would like to introduce one of my favorite passages.

A child around two or three years old
finds a tiny speck of dust while crawling along in a hurry,
picks it up with their cute fingers,
and goes around showing it to every adult.
—It means that this is very adorable.

Reading this passage
reminds me of when my relatives gathered for New Year's.

That moment when a baby relative
proudly showed me their cute fingers (and the dust)
in just the same way.

My heart just melted.
(And the memory of them shoving their finger into my mouth as if to say "Eat this!"
and my subsequent struggle to resist with moderate force
comes back along with it.)

Beautiful writing
transcends over a thousand years of time,
evoking the memories and emotions of the reader.
It acts just like a time machine.

So, following in the footsteps of Sei Shonagon,

I would like to try writing down, in my own way,
the "beautiful things" that overflow within the Beats office.

・Colorful mini-figures lined up on a desk

・A Myaku-Myaku plushie sitting enthroned in front of a desk calendar

・A honeycomb structure cushion that has slipped onto the floor, despite being told "This makes your lower back feel so much better when you use it!"

・S-san wandering the hallway for a while, having forgotten which meeting room they booked

・Y-san, who ended up slightly hurting their back after stretching with a big "Ugh!" after finishing a task

・M-san, who accidentally shut down their PC when they meant to put it to sleep

・A corner of the office where cheers of "Oh!" are rising after a big pitch was won

And so on.

If you look closely,
there were more "beautiful things" in the office
than I had imagined.

There are still more, but
since it's getting close to clock-out time, I'll leave it here for now.

Just like Sei Shonagon,
while letting my heart be moved by the small things in daily life,
I want to continue facing my work.