I was reading a Persian tradition, and it speaks about a beautiful way of improving perspectives and regulating outlook both during suffering and joy. It says that in any event of suffering or rejoice, try the level best to think about the far times and the far results. In any suffering, the end result of it could be thought of. This way of thinking reduces that suffering. In the same token, after tasting any joy or pleasure, try to think about its end result. This reduces its sweetness and prevents being carried away and drowned by it. “Then What?” is the question to be asked.
Every single bit of art you see here, there’s a reflection in my mind, a theme that I contemplate when I work on it with my heart. If you didn’t know, I’m always enraptured about flower petals and the beautiful art they effuse. Remember ornate blossoms and ethereal quality? These marvelous pieces of art that we see all around us yearn for reflection from the beholder. If we open a vault or and old box from a courtyard and discover a painting of a tree or a beautiful flower, we wonder about the painter and hail his mastery in the art. Not in the tiniest speck of possibility can we convince ourselves that the beautiful painting that we saw in the vault came about when somebody threw a paint can into the air and it eventually came about into this masterpiece painting through rain and wind flowing on the paint over years. There’s conscious design, symmetry, and intent in the painter working patiently on the painting and completing it. The work of art definitely leads to its painter. Appreciating the art in its wholeness leads to its artist, his mind, and his signature. In the same token, when we see these beautiful flowers around us, is there a blind curtain on our minds which hesitates us from thinking and wondering how these came about around you and takes your attention. They have a story to tell you. Shouldn’t we be seeking the artist? Awareness is the key to reflection. I’m recollecting what I wrote recently in ornate blossoms on the same theme.
“They are not randomness around us. Neither are they desultory existences around us. They have a purpose in making us ponder about them. They have a story to tell you. They’ve something to show you. They’re locks of thoughts waiting to be unlocked by you. They’re not looking for a monk. They’re looking for me and you.”
“If therefore you shall be remembered for what you did with what you had more than what you had, use what you have to do something distinctive now and leave a notable footprint before you go”
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, Ghanaian writer and a teacher,
Today’s theme is something on the premise of doing one thingreally really well. I’m not sure if this is popping on my head as I’m getting older, but I’ve always felt that it’s inspiring to see people do specific specialties on a different level. It may not be necessarily in their regular jobs. It can be a hobby or a craft in which they’re ardently passionately into. As I get older, I am having a realization that too much multitasking actually kills us from the inside. Hopping between several things at the same time takes away the soul from any activity. I was lately reading a Zen book on minimalist philosophies and one of the aspects that the author touched upon was on being present in what we do. While eating, for example, it’s a different experience when we enjoy every morsel and munch it relishing every bit of it. We won’t get this feeling when we scroll our phones while eating, for instance.
Doing one thing gives you extreme focus. This focus can be channeled towards tasks that lead to mastery instead of trying to dabble in lots of unrelated passions. Focus is how you reach states of flow and achieve results that look impossible.
Doing one thing causes you to focus and practice more. Through this process, you can see your failures, areas of improvement, and areas that you’re good at. This form of reflection gives you real-time feedback that can further compound your results.
Similar resonating thoughts were read from Carl Newport in his book Deep Work
“Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate. Deep work is necessary to wring every last drop of value out of your current intellectual capacity. We now know from decades of research in both psychology and neuroscience that the state of mental strain that accompanies deep work is also necessary to improve your abilities.”
… “Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tends to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate. In an age of network tools, in other words, knowledge workers increasingly replace deep work with the shallow alternative — constantly sending and receiving e-mail messages like human network routers, with frequent breaks for quick hits of distraction.”
– Cal Newport , Deep Work
To complement this, I’d highly encourage you to skim through a recent write up where we talked about Maker’s time.
“The sand in the hourglass runs from one compartment to the other, marking the passage of moments with something constant and tangible. If you watch the flowing sand, you might see time itself riding the granules. Contrary to popular opinion, time is not an old white-haired man, but a laughing child. And time sings.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
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The theme behind this poster graphics is a reflection to have our own vibes to find our tribes. Be it photography, art, writing, engineering, philosophy, sociology, you name it, the tribes of your liking would find you if you really do with lots of love what chimes well with your passion. These need not be always troves of social media following rallying behind you. It can be a small group of good friends in your realm or space who loves what you do and shares the same sense of aesthetics that you effuse or in the mental space, you are in. I’ve always felt that the size of the audience does not matter in any art. Quantification or monetary value has never been and never would be a measure of self-worth and fulfillment. Although not always possible for all of us, to the best, let’s try doing what we love. Rest apprised, we live in a world where even the next minute or next hour or the next day is not guaranteed for us. We only have this moment.
There are many intricacies that often stay in the realm of thoughts that is yearning our awe. Think of the trees with their branches spreading through the air and producing fruits. With the ease of them growing and diverging into the air, their roots also spread and diverge through hard rock and earth beneath. Seeds and grains bear huge trees within them. Thinking casually about them takes into a realm of an unexceptional everyday sight. At the same time, pondering deeply lifts this curtain of blindness from our eyes and opens the windows of realization that these are indeed spectacular miracles. There’s kind of a solace on realizing that everything, be it a new leaf forming, an old leaf tumbling down the branches, things happening to us beyond our plans are under a divine command. Realizing bounties is key to a state of remembrance, gratitude, and reflection, the key themes that I’ve thought of today. The illustration you see in inspired from an image in my mind around a cottage garden in Ooty, South India.
I have read somewhere that mind is akin to a magnet in a certain sense. It’s concomitant of the thoughts espoused within. If we put our thoughts about blessings, the mind tends to attract and discover blessings and their deeper meanings. In the same manner, channeling thoughts of problems would bewitch and attract problems and restlessness. Nurturing and cultivating good thoughts would help in assuming a positive and optimistic frame of mind. That’s a lifetime of learning. Remember the humble life illustration?
Being calm about everything allows your mind to find solutions. Calmness is also a state of trust. Instead of overthinking and overreacting, you just surrender for that moment and allow yourself to receive guidance for what doesn’t make sense – Idil
I’ve personally felt that the strength of calmness is often derived from a trust in the divine timing of events happening and not harboring or apprehending any internal dissent or distress in the way certain things are in the way they’re supposed to be and in accepting certain aspects on the way they are. I believe that’s a quality that’s to be built up with time and experiences and everyone would have different journeys. God bless.
“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
A 2017 photograph from the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia.
Well, there’s all probability that you’ve stumbled across a cliche dandelion shot like this. This one is that I took from a journey through some farms in Yerevan, Armenia. I’ve read of thematic contexts wherein Dandelions are often read with transcience and impermanence.
“Dare to imagine. Dare to be.
Books are the seeds. Dreams are the soil.
The fruit of the harvest, a world reborn.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher
I happened to recollect an adorable visual sometime from 2015 wherein a dad shows his baby buzz dandelions for the first time and he got excited. Let me tell you, no matter how messed up your day was, this can truly give you some shine and melt your soul!
