Amaterasu
In Nagoya, my hometown, Atsuta Jingu is one of many Shinto shrines connected to Amaterasu.
At a glance
What it is: A reflective piece about slowing down, noticing patterns, and reassessing why we do creative work, not just how fast we do it.
Core idea: Modern creative output is driven more by fear and momentum than clarity of purpose. Pausing reveals truth, order, and self — the conditions needed for meaningful design.
Intent: To establish a worldview—a lens for seeing—that grounds the rest of the thinking in this lab.
Key takeaway: The cost of unchecked speed shows up as ambiguity, misalignment, and burnout—not simply because of aesthetics or execution.
Pause
After 15 years inside the creative industry, I had to stop and ask myself: how fast do we need to run, where are we going?
Everything has sped up. Ship more, share more, keep pushing. We got used to it. Over time, it even became addictive. We start craving the dopamine of motion. But why? Where is this drive really coming from? Is it vision—or is it fear? If it’s a clear yes, we already know what to do. Move. Build. Ship. Let’s go.
If it’s fear, what are we actually afraid of? We like to tell ourselves we’re chasing momentum, “living in the moment.” But sometimes I wonder if we’re running from something we don’t want to feel.
So what happens if we pause? What shows up then? How does it feel?
Perspectives
Through Amaterasu’s lens, I learned three things.
Light reveals truth.
Speed numbs. It masks doubt, emptiness, and loss of control. It offers the illusion of safety, progress, belonging, worth. Stillness, on the other hand, makes us uncomfortable. It forces us to sit with what we avoid. That’s where the shadow lives.
Nature reveals order.
Speed outpaces our natural rhythm. Constant output becomes the default, and we forget how to rest without guilt. Systems collapse when cycles are ignored, when flows fall out of sync. Nothing survives endless acceleration. If your body breaks, if your team breaks, what are we really building?
The mirror reveals self.
Speed keeps us from looking inward. It robs us of the time needed to take inventory of who we are. Of why we’re here. Of what our worth is without performance or justification. You can’t outrun yourself forever.
Speed blinds us to all three:
truth, order, and the self.
Consequence
In my work as a designer, the real cost of unconscious speed has manifested as patterns:
Decisions made too late—or too early
Direction shaped by urgency, not intent
Ambiguity pushed downstream
No clear ownership
Performative speed
Design used as a bandage
Constant rework
Hard pivots
Burned teams
Accountability without authority
We treat symptoms. Rarely touch the root cause. Energy and money keep leaking in the meantime, where things quietly break. More often than not, design absorbs the consequence. Unchecked momentum hides what’s underneath. We look outside for answers when, in reality, it’s a lack of clarity inside.
Creative work rarely fails because of execution alone. Most breakdowns occur before design begins and outside the design function—in how decisions are made, communicated, and maintained over time.
Focus
So what do we do about it? I’ve seen versions of what I’m saying everywhere online. It can feel good for a moment, but words alone don’t change much. The real work is creation.
This lab exists to build tools—frameworks, systems, prototypes—that help people see what’s invisible, make cleaner decisions, remove obstacles, and bring meaning back to work that carries weight.
For me, it comes down to four shifts I design for:
Awareness → Foresight
Seeing patterns before they surface.
Not reacting to what breaks, but noticing what’s bending.
Reflection → Insight
Space creates power.
Clarity compounds when you slow down.
Craft → Coherence
Building systems that hold and flex.
Principles over styles. Structure over ornament.
Resonance → Trust
When meaning lands, people feel it.
Signal over spectacle. Integrity over persuasion.
When that happens, we learn how to work with fear under pressure.
We can go hyperdrive, if we want to.
This is where I focus.
A lens
Amaterasu doesn’t give me answers.
She reminds me how to look.
Light reveals truth.
Nature reveals order.
Mirror reveals the self.
This isn’t just about what we make.
It’s about what we really want from this life, and why.
About remembering the first step we took. What droves us then. What still matters now.
And decide, again, where we want to go, and how we choose to get there.
Next : Shiki
Design before Design. How I build