Google Keep and MUJI: The Universality of Emptiness
The first MUJI store I ever visited was on a trip to New York. One of the people I was there with popped in to buy some of their famous pens, leaving me to browse as they made a beeline for the stationery aisle.

I wandered around the store, and soon came upon a section of wall near the cashier that laid out MUJI’s product philosophy: “Simplicity and emptiness yield the ultimate universality, embracing the feelings and thoughts of all people.” Excited, I opened up my phone, went to the ‘Quotes #2’ note in Google Keep (because ‘Quotes #1 is bursting at the seams), and jotted it down.
The reason for my excitement had to do with the very product I used to record its source. I had already been infatuated with Google Keep as a product long before then, talking to anyone who could stand it about all of its features and virtues and how it makes my life better, but I could never put it as succinctly and beautifully as that wall at MUJI.
