..Whatever we hold at the level of thought, emotion, and spirit translates directly into experiences of either happiness and peace or chaos and dissatisfaction.
..Eiman Al Zaabi
level of thought
Tag: Thoughts
full moon.
That’s probably the longest hiatus that I might have taken after starting writing here. Mostly due to medical reasons, I was lacking the frame of mind that I need to be in this garden of thoughts. At the end of the road, there’s a bundle of joy around : ) Enjoying every bit of it, we are grateful to Almighty for helping us discover the purpose of why every little event happens the way it’s happening. We named him by name that means full moon in arabic.
“That what secretly flows between us today,
will gleam tomorrow, the way full moon does.”
― Rafy Rohaan
Memory Museums
This piece of art is inspired by a theme that I’ve always pondered on. The museum of our “minds”. Albeit it sounds poetic, each of us are museums of memories. The richness of thoughts in those museums doesn’t need dusting. Jan Mark puts it into paper quite brilliantly.
“Memory is your museum, your cabinet of curiosities, your ‘Wunderkammer.’ It will never be full; there is always room for something new and strange and marvelous. It will never need dusting. It will last as long as you do. You can’t let the public in to walk around it, but you can take out the exhibits and share them, share what you know. You will never be able to stop collecting.”
― Jan Mark, The Museum Book: A Guide to Strange and Wonderful Collections
place in your head
“Writing is a job, a talent, but it’s also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with, in the afternoon.”
Ann Patchett, Truth and Beauty
Preparing for joy
Often, all sort of sorrows, anxieties, hardships, and turmoil is to prepare us and to put a pathway for joy. As a famous Persian poet puts it, sorrow violently sweeps everything out of your house so that there’s space for new joy to enter. There’s beauty and gems of wisdom in going through hardships. It matures our souls and puts an appreciative spirit and a sense of profound gratitude in the blessings we count. Cultivating gratitude is key to several delights.
Influencing choices
Quotes from this book resonate well. I have thought about this previously and it’s good to see somebody articulate it well. Often the best ideas albeit not making any rational sense are found to be catering to our psychological realms and aspects of the “experience” delivered by a product or service. The art of influencing people’s choices by bypassing reason is postulated. Very interesting!
…In many crucial areas of our lives, reason plays a vanishingly small part. Instead, we are driven by unconscious desires, which is why placebos are so powerful. We are drawn to the beautiful, the extravagant, and the absurd – from lavish wedding invitations to tiny bottles of the latest fragrance. So if you want to influence people’s choices you have to bypass reason. The best ideas don’t make rational sense: they make you feel more than they make you think
From Rory Sutherland’s “Alchemy”
glances with intention
..“The really magical things are the ones that happen right in front of you. A lot of the time you keep looking for beauty, but it is already there. And if you look with a bit more intention, you see it.”
― Vik Muniz
In fact, unraveling this same magic is what keeps our Ponder Series up and running. It’s my humble effort to explore beauty and purpose through awareness and intention. Photography and liberal arts are marvelous brushes to paint these themes.
thoughts like footsteps
This piece of illustrative art is inpired from a recent beach trail. Thoughts have always been perceived as an imprint. More so, thoughts transformed into a plan of action would have heavier footprints and would leave trails of fruits of labor.
..“The mist after rain, uninterrupted rainfall on rooftops, pitter-patter intellect. The thoughts I leave behind like footsteps.”
― Chris Campanioni, In Conversation
Original fine art from The Border Of a Mind Studio
Explore more fine art : )
lacuna
Lacuna refers to an unfilled gap. I’m extending it to the scenario now wherein I’m back here in this space from a considerably long hiatus. I was actually moving my home to a different place and was rebooting myself as well. For me, I need that calmness and serenity to write/work on art-related stuff. The obvious chaos ensued from a house shift had to settle itself down. Netta and myself had been pondering a lot on moving to a new space. The earlier space that we’ve been living is an area that I’ve been in for around a decade or so. The new place is also in the periphery of the same area, but there’s a different vibe out here. Loving every aspect of it so far. This blog as it has been ever so still continues to be a book or a toolbox of intuition and spontaneity. This has been in chase of the mind wandering soul that I’m.
organic eminence
Like me, you should also be remembering instances and encounters from your life where you were blown away by the quality or passion with which you’d find a person would work regardless of the field they’re into. It can be a CEO, a laundry guy, an engineer, a programmer, a person running a grocery, the person delivers food to you, a farmer, anyone! I’ve read somewhere that monetary income is a deceptive way of seeing a man’s true worth. I’m trying to share some of my short memories from over the years that’s pouring into my mind right now as I think about it. The one thing that I can tell you with certainty, at least on what I have seen is that when a person is truly passionate and enthusiastic about what he does or the service he delivers, he or she wouldn’t be overly money minded. Of course, everybody would require money for their needs. But you get what I mean, it’s that their prime intention is to deliver excellence in what they do or giving the best service and the monetary aspect is secondary. There’s a tremendous difference if the primary intention is monetary benefits as opposed to “being best”, “delivering excellence’ etc.
I very distinctively remember an online cab driver who came to drop me and Netta at the bus station on our journey from Chennai to Pondichery. He was a very old man, and when we spoke to him, we learned that he has retired from his primary work and is working as a cab driver. We fondly remember his politeness and the way he served us during that short ride. When we were about to reach the bus station, for our convenience, we asked him whether he could do a Uturn and drop on the other side of the road. His response with a cheerful grin was ” Of course, This is your car ” That left a smile on my face. See how he made us happy with his service.
The guy from the laundry service that I rely on during our stay in Sharjah is a very smart young man Uttam from Nepal. He is very good at what he does, is very well mannered and leaves us happy.
Similarly, since I’ve been living in the same town in Sharjah for almost a decade now, I have been almost visiting the same salon for many years now. My favorite one among the barbers there is a guy named Sulayman, who absolutely loves what he does. Unlike some other barbers who’re in a hurry with no focus or attention on what they do, Sulayman does it slowly ensuring perfection on the cuts and I always leave the place with a smile.
To the point that I’ve been speaking of, all of us can make our best efforts to do what the best in whatever we engage in. It uplifts us and would fill us with fulfillment. Not everyone in this world is blessed to be in a job that they’re in love with. But even then, with a positive frame of mind, we can align it as an opportunity of learning and excelling in what we do. The quality of what we do, even if we don’t try to show it off or advertise it, would be perceived. The reason I quoted some examples from my life is that I find it almost very universal that it’ll be a pleasure to be around with people ingrained with such a frame of mind. As we might have read, when we try to chase the world, it goes away, and if we despise it, the world would be behind us. From what I’ve read, it would take a lifetime of experiences to convince us of this truth and it’s tough to remember it when we are going through tough times.
As Oprah Winfrey famously said, “Let excellence be your brand… When you are excellent, you become unforgettable. Doing the right thing, even when nobody knows you’re doing the right thing will always bring the right thing to you.”
appendage
Some of my previous essays that I’d like to put in here:
Quality | indelible objectivity
Small Business – Lines of thought