Tag: quotes

Kintsugi.

Posted on by Ajmal

I had written on this page about Kintsugi. It’s a very interesting Japanese concept. It’s widely used in art and pottery but what’s even more enthralling is its philosophic extension that’s often found to cognate with healing and history. In this concept, broken and repaired things are often regarded as much more beautiful. It’s often read in the context of Wabi-Sabi, which is basically “to explore the beauty in broken things or old things.” I have read a little book explaining this concept and I felt it was wide implications.

” Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair”), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. “

Barbara Bloom puts it this way: “When the Japanese mend broken objects they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold because they believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful“.

Omid Safi writes in his piece “Illuminating the Beauty in Our Broken Places“,

” We value success, wholeness. Unlike this Japanese art form, we don’t yet have a way of looking for what was once broken and has been healed and illuminated. How lovely would it be to find that a cracked and illuminated cup can be even more beautiful than a whole cup. How wise to realize that the broken hearts, illuminated and made whole, can be even lovelier.”

anamnesis.

Posted on by Ajmal

/ˌanəmˈniːsɪs/. The title of this post is from the late 16th-century Greek word anamnēsis related to ‘remembrance’.

Clouds and sunset light playing a symphony of art in a winter evening at Sharjah, UAE. November 2019.

“A lot can happen in a year. People die. You outgrow old friends and get tired of mundane jobs. New careers come. New friends find your soul. But no matter what, you grow, you lose your mind a bit and most importantly you get a little wiser. Your circle gets smaller because you get stricter with your energy and time, If you are really lucky, you’ll find love inside yourself, inside of friends and family, and just maybe the universe will bless you with a lover that laughs at your really lame jokes.” .S. Mcnutt

Netta shared this recently and it resonates well. Regardless of where we belong and what we do, it’s worth to have a reminiscence of what changed in one year. Need not be always the specific things mentioned in the above quote. It can be anything and could be even related to how you respond to situations, your thought process, the way you plan things, the priorities you weight in on, people you engage and rely on, the general attitude towards events, etc. For me, personally, I believe it has been by and large about stepping back and striving to be more thoughtful in my responses, not to be too impulsive in general terms, making time for building this site by putting in more content and sharing writings, trying to be more positive, being diplomatic and to have a cohesive spirit of togetherness in responses, setting compassionate boundaries, and an earnest attempt to be more professional and objective in my professional assignments. This may be, also one of the years where some personalities whom I admire for their creative pursuit and passion had the biggest influence in me in terms of the time I spent and also the actions they actuate in all that I do. It was also the year when Genie’s cove was set up with Netta by my side, slowly building our little space and being truly grateful for the we-time. Let’s see what next year turns out to be, God willing.

the golden lamp.

Posted on by Ajmal

Roman Payne famously told that sunrise is the most precious gold to be found on earth. It’s a luxury that every one of us can peek at regardless of where we are or who we are. Sunrise lighting is a miraculous golden lamp that can be used to paint anything to ecstasy. If we place mountains also in this frame, what you get is pure visual bliss. We had this short stop on the way to Wadi Al Helo from the Sharjah mainland in the UAE. Travelling and riding just before sunrise through the mountain footways would uncloak some of the best visual memories and awesomeness you’ve ever had.

“Life. This morning the sun made me adore it. It had, behind the dripping pine trees, the oriental brightness, orange and crimson, of a living being, a rose and an apple, in the physical and ideal fusion of a true and daily paradise.”
― Juan Ramón Jiménez, Time and Space: A Poetic Autobiography

“HEARTWORK
” Each day is born with a sunrise
and ends in a sunset, the same way we
open our eyes to see the light,
and close them to hear the dark.
You have no control over
how your story begins or ends.
But by now, you should know that
all things have an ending.
Every spark returns to darkness.
Every sound returns to silence.
And every flower returns to sleep
with the earth.
The journey of the sun
and the moon is predictable.
But yours,
is your ultimate
ART.”
― Suzy Kassem

“With a bound, the sun of a molten fiery red cam above the horizon, and immediately thousands of little birds sang out for joy, and a soft chorus of mysterious, glad murmurs came forth from the earth; the low whispering wind left its hiding-place among the clefts and hollows of the hills, and wandered among the rustling herbs and trees, waking the flower-buds to the life of another day.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth

Invisible Strings!

Posted on by Ajmal

“ Joy is like pure clear water; wherever it flows, wondrous blossoms grow. Sorrow is like a black flood; wherever it flows it wilts the blossoms. The universe is a complete unique entity. Everything and everyone is bound together with some invisible strings. Do not break anyone’s heart; do not look down on weaker than you. One’s sorrow at the other side of the world can make the entire world suffer; one’s happiness can make the entire world smile. Wherever you go, east, west, north or south, think of it as a journey into yourself! The one who travels into itself travels the world.” ― Shams Tabrizi

Beauty

Posted on by Ajmal

 ❝ Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination. ❞

~W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon, and Sixpence, 1919
(Chapter XIX, spoken by the character Dirk Stroeve)


Containing Multitudes

Posted on by Ajmal

This post is inspired by a quote I heard in some interview on Youtube. I’m not able to clearly recollect the video or else I could link it here. It’s a very interesting thing to ruminate over. It’s about multitudes in ourselves.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself;
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

“Song of Myself – Leaves of Grass” (1892-92) | The Walt Whitman

If we think about it, that’s a truly profound talk. We are different versions of ourselves in different arenas of our lives. There’s a version of yourself that talks to a better half and there’s a version of yourself interacting with a colleague and it’s the same you who can chat with a 5-year-old and it’s again the same you who can play with a pet dog.  In fact all of the people whom we meet in our lives, be it anywhere has a different version of “you”. A person may be outgoing and talkative at home whereas he may be reserved and and introvert at school or work.  Likewise, we have different point of views which may not necessarily mesh or intertwine together.  Every human is a universe unto themselves. The same goes true with a book or a piece of art. It’s basically about being embracive about the innate nature of being self-contradictory instead of being embarrassed by it.

Quoting from a very interesting article on the same,

And yet, in the privacy of our interior lives, the reality of the self seems inescapable — sometimes maddeningly so. For each of us, the entire enormity of life unfolds within the tiny locus of consciousness we experience as our very own self. So where is the line between the inevitability of the self as a focal point of experience and its mutation into an imprisoning ego-shell which, in the words of the great Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki, “is the hardest thing to outgrow”?

By large, containing multitudes and having these contradictions within ourselves would be perhaps the most moving part of the human experience and existence. Have a beautiful day.

Richer

Posted on by Ajmal

” If you’ve a family that loves you, a few good friends, food on your table and a roof over your head, you’re richer than you think”
– Unknown author

Original photograph by Mervin Harif.