Just recollected one of my old write up from 2013. Professionally, I’m a mechanical design engineer working on the design of engineering products used in offshore and infrastructure applications. There are some subtle marvels in this world that sometimes humble ourselves and leave us spellbound in a sense of awe. This is one of them. Take a read.
Author: Ajmal
done in love.
“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
―
enigmatic | fine art
“The frame through which I viewed the world changed too, over time. Greater than scene, I came to see, is situation. Greater than situation is implication. Greater than all of these is a single, entire human being, who will never be confined in any frame.”
― Eudora Welty, On Writing
ethereal quality | Petals
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that the earth laughs in flowers.
“The breath of wind that moved them was still chilly on this day in May; the flowers gently resisted, curling up with a kind of trembling grace and turning their pale stamens towards the ground. The sun shone through them, revealing a pattern of interlacing, delicate blue veins, visible through the opaque petals; this added something alive to the flower’s fragility, to its ethereal quality, something almost human, in the way that human can mean frailty and endurance both at the same time. The wind could ruffle these ravishing creations but it couldn’t destroy them, or even crush them; they swayed there, dreamily; they seemed ready to fall but held fast to their slim strong branches-…”
― Irène Némirovsky
Notice the beautiful reddish pigment and the loft petals spread from it. Notice the aesthetically aligned petal stems decored with sub stems with yellow mini studs on them. Gazing at these details and pondering about them Photographs below are taken from a remote garden in Havelock Islands.
“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”
―
“Just as a flower as itself displays an embroidery full of art and with the tongue of its being recites the Creator’s names, so the garden of the globe resembles a flower and performs an extremely orderly, universal duty of glorification”
― Said Nursi, “The Twenty-Ninth Word”, Treatise of Light.
aqua caper
Today let’s add a chapter to our moving images archive. Hope you’ve read Story de’ aquatics, where we talked about, amateurish aquascaping. In the signature style of the Border of a Mind, we’re gazing at those beautiful little moments of aqua fauna embellishing the tank with their grace.
“A layout that is crafted with overly great finesse is tiring to look at, and it is also difficult to maintain over a long period of time…It is important to provide an unpretentious, casual atmosphere of water and greenery. The very atmosphere creates harmony between the surrounding space and the aquarium.“
– Takashi Amano
tranquil | fine art
“The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.” (As once said by James Allen)
[Original illustration by The Border Of a Mind Studios]
Success.
Happened to see this insightful message on Success. Couldn’t find the original author of this text, but have a glance. It’s thought-provoking and perspective-changing.
For 1 year old
Success is
Can walk without support
For 4 years old
Success is
Do not urinate in your pants
For 8 years old
Success is
To know the way back home
For 12 years old
Success is
To have friends
For 18 years old
Success is
To get a driving license
For 23 years old
Success is
To graduate from a university
For 25 years old
Success is
To get an earning
For 30 years old
Success is
To be a Family Man
For 35 years old
Success is
To make money
For 45 years old
Success is
To maintain the appearance of a young man
For 50 years old
Success is
To provide good education for your children.
For 55 years old
Success is
To still be able to perform your duties well
For 60 years old
Success is
To still be able to keep driving license
For 65 years old
Success is
To live without disease
For 70 years old
Success is
Not to be a burden on anyone
For 75 years old
Success is
To have old friends
For 81 years old
Success is
To know the way back home
For 86 years old
Success is
Not to urinate in your pants again
For 90 years old
Success is
That you can walk without support again
One of the best messages I have ever read.
Life is a cycle.!
Don’t expect too much from it.
Be simple, cool and happy always.
Six months to live | Notes
Almost two weeks went in a blink. I couldn’t pen anything for the past two weeks. My mind was overly occupied with other professional and personal stuff that didn’t yield the notes of composure and poise that I specifically need when I write at this place. It’s like a small personally curated garden of thoughts at the border of my mind. I put my heart and soul into every little word, graphic and theme that you find inscribed here.
While looking at some of the old files on the network, I stumbled across this old book I read at school. This came out somewhere in 2001. So we are talking about a book that I read circa 18 years old!
The publisher Plough summarizes the theme of the book as below:
“I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone else’s. If I could choose not to have cancer, and continue my life as it was, I wouldn’t do it.” – Matt Gauger.
You’re twenty-two, in love, and just starting a career. The last thing you’re worried about is the purpose of life (whatever that means) and when you’re going to die. If you think about such things, you certainly don’t talk about them.
With his sociable personality and love of music and basketball, Matt had plenty of friends but didn’t really stand out from the crowd. Then, a month before his wedding, he was diagnosed with cancer. Six months later he was dead. But Six Months to Live isn’t really about dying. It’s the story of how Matt and his family and friends struggled to accept his suffering, and how it changed each of them. It’s about facing (rather than avoiding) life’s most important questions, and – instead of going through the motions – living life to the full.”
Among the books of similar themes, I’ve come across, what rapted me is how positively death was faced by the young man and the pragmatic and inspiring support system of his family and community he had embraced. The 13-year-old me who read it 18 years ago still remembers this takeaway. True stories like this truly inspire me. If we think about it, this sort of support system is what makes our lives truly memorable. That’s some real wealth and fortune if we are blessed with it.
Parallel worlds | fine art
I’m really fond of layering multiple exposures in digital artworks. In my opinion, It’s a convenient way of blending stories and multiple scenes in a cohesive rendering. I’m titling this work “Parallel Worlds” in relation to the buzz of thoughts and schemes which come in everyone’s minds and the illustration connotes the perplexing moment in time to decide to go with a particular resolve, thereby channeling a unique pathway in our destinies.
“These stories were very old, as old as people, and they had survived because they were very powerful indeed. They were the tales that echoed in the head long after the books that contained them were cast aside. They were both an escape from reality and an alternative reality themselves. They were so old, and so strange, that they had found a kind of existence independent of the pages they occupied. The world of the old tales existed parallel to ours, but sometimes the walls separating the two became so thin and brittle that the two worlds started to blend into each other. That was when the trouble started. That was when the bad things came. That was when the Crooked Man began to appear to David.”
— John Connolly (The Book of Lost Things)
“Man’s striving for order, of which art is but one manifestation, derives from a similar universal tendency throughout the organic world; it is also paralleled by, and perhaps derived from, the striving towards the state of the simplest structure in physical systems.”
— Rudolf Arnheim
Explore original fine art from The Border of a Mind.
book of beautiful moments.
” You look in the mirror and
sometimes may see a
mess of a human being.
But you don’t see the lives
you’ve touched, or the
people you’ve saved.
You don’t see all the love
you’ve given freely,
or the extraordinary
memories you’ve made.
You are a book of beautiful
moments and feelings.
You are not weak because you cry.
You are not a simple being.
You make plants come back to life,
and you turn cold rain showers
into warm downpours.
You are a piece of art that
makes people feel things.
You don’t bring people to
their knees, you give them
a solid footing
And that is beautiful.”
[ source ] Khalil Gibran