“Let excellence be your brand. When you’re 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” – Oprah Winfrey.
Tag: Wisdom
articulative eloquence.
A photograph of an early morning stroll at Kala Pathar Beach, Havelock Islands captured by Netta. Today, the theme is about words and articulation. “10% of conflict is due to difference in opinion and 90% is due to delivery & tone of voice”, says a famous quote. I’ve felt this to be true through several experiences. Articulation and tone is something that we learn through a lifetime during stages wherein we get matured. I’ve always felt that articulative eloquence is an art. I’ve been fortunate to come across several personalities who are at epitomy of this art and I’m grateful to draw inspiration from them. There’s never a benchmark and there’re heaps to learn to grow.
Reading from 2015 Toasmaster’s public speaking champion’s winning speech,
“Words, when said and articulated in the right way, can change someone’s mind. They can alter someone’s belief. You have the power to bring someone from the slums of life and make a successful person out of them, or destroy someone’s happiness using only your words.. Words have power, words are power, words could be your power. You can change a life, inspire your nation and make up this world a beautiful place. Isn’t that what we all want it? Isn’t that why we are all in this hall? Your mouth can spit venom or it can mend a broken soul.”
ornate blossoms
Petals are something I’m sort of eccentrically inquisitive about. In some of our earlier writings, we’ve wondered about their ethereal quality and have read on how beautifully they edify a lesson of transience. Here’re some photographs that I look from University of Sharjah gardens last week during an evening stroll. These are jewels we fail to appreciate when we are in the hustle and bustle. I’m not sure about you, but I’m totally to the hilt, blown away by the spectacular art and magnificence in their intricate subtleties. Look at the brilliant layering and the patterns that are a treat for those with eyes to relish them. Before we relegate them to the quotidian normal realm, we can relate on a very small allegory that came to my mind. If we see a painting of a tree or a flower prepared by someone, we definitely know that it is done with intent and meticulous planning. If we are told that somebody threw a bottle of watercolors and brushes randomly into the air and that when it came down, it turned into a perfect painting, that’s totally preposterous and defies sense. Or if someone came along and say that some paint boxes were overturned by wind and storm and they mixed with some rain and in a long period of time changed into a perfect painting, that is so illogical to conceive. Now, if we look at these petals, we see a plan and an order, a conscious design, organized patterns and a beautiful harmony of colors. They bide their time for us to think about them. 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.
This write up is a part of Ponder Series of The Border of a Mind Visual Studios that we have been building exhaustively over the past several months. When we think about the world around us and also when we look within, it might seem usual and ordinary. But ponder series, as you might have already guessed, is all about thinking deeply and delving into the details by going beyond the ordinary perceptions. It’s a very humble endeavor towards unlocking extraordinary in the ordinary by opening our eyes of wisdom and insight. Hope you enjoy reading them. God bless friends 🙂
Some of the chapters from the Ponder Series include :
> Visual Narrative – Ponder Series
> Reflecting on Shadows
> Stumble over Pebbles
> Ethereal Quality | Petals
> Golden Ratio
> Vision – Pondering on the intricacies
> Ruminating on Bird Nests
> Living Embellishments
> Pondering on Birds
> Perceptions
the details.
I’m sort of a detail-obsessed guy and some photographs like this are only for enjoying the randomness and the little details in them. If we look at a leaf branching out, there’re these nuances of art and perfection in them. We see the function designed into them here. It’s not random or accidental, but we see purpose and intention in them. As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously put it, “Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.”
(The photo is captured from a cafe in Istanbul, circa 2014)
a slow tea.
“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
certain tracks
I stumbled across this gem recently. There’re certain tracks that set you on that apt calm temperamental disposition to create and work passionately on what you love. This is one of those. And that’s one step more to the corpus of the garden of thoughts.
“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
― Family Happiness
the flicker of leaves
My vehement fascination with petals and the art in their arrangements transcends to tree trunks and stems as well and this is what we have pulled off : )
This is a mobile photograph taken from Al Ain Oasis. Down the memory lane, my 2019 year started on top of a mountain in the UAE. Instead of chasing fireworks, we pursued mountain trails in 2019. In place of the rabble and gaggle of a fireworks crowd, we tried to embrace the assuasive and soothing equanimity in the mountains.
“You are most beautiful in your purest form. You are a manifestation of God himself. Open your eyes and let the light flow right through to your core. All it takes is for you to notice a flicker of leaves, a momentary glance from a loved one, or for a wave to hit your toes and freeze you in that timeless place where you know with every cell in your body that God, indeed is real.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, The Rise of Shams
stumble over pebbles.
These are some pebbles that I randomly glanced at Corbin’s Cove beach in Port Blair during a visit with Netta in 2018. It’s a beautiful palm-fringed beach with pleasant blue sea water and lush green coconut palms. They’re enriched with colorful corals and artful rockfaces at the peripheries. I have some vague recollections of an old post that I read on medium portal which spoke about the art of seeing beauty in the everyday. Pebbles purvey such thoughts on appreciating such beauties around us. The detailing and subtleties of these pebbles graciously nudge of themes in a philosophical context. As Emilie Cady puts it, ” Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains“.
“A rock, a large piece of rock weathers off a cliff and dives deep into a pool of gushing water. Back washed, It journeys roughly and knocks of other rocks, smashing through the waves as it loses itself in scattered pieces except for its core. That core travels far and wide, it coarsely gets ground by gravel pieces smaller than itself and bullied by boulders all of which it bears up as it withstands the pressure of a distant journey off the shore. At some point, it gets dry and it encounters mud, it gets smeared dirty but the mud doesn’t stick, the rain washes of the mud and it rolls off into the sand. It dances in the sand and dives into the bottom of the waves.
Rising like a phoenix through the ashes, it emerges polished, looking more beautiful than it did when it got edged of the cliff. It rises a pebble, smooth and sleek. Coveted by rocks starting their dive.
To be a pebble you have to run the turbulent tidal race.”
― Victor Manan Nyambala
transience.
We have spoken about fragility in the same thematic context before. I happened to read about the concept of Mono no aware frequently referred to in Japanese culture.
“Mono no aware, literally “the pathos of things”, and also translated as “an empathy toward things”, or “a sensitivity to ephemera”, is a Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence, or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life. “Mono-no aware: the ephemeral nature of beauty – the quietly elated, bittersweet feeling of having been witness to the dazzling circus of life – knowing that none of it can last. It’s basically about being both saddened and appreciative of transience – and also about the relationship between life and death.”
Often this concept is referred with an allegory of Japanese Cherry Blossom season in Japan which is known for its perhaps more “visible” transience. The below petals are from my office garden. The same plant in different stems conveys the unavoidable transience of life. While one of the petals is on a bloom, the other one slowly withers away.
Taylor Bond, in her wonderful article, puts it very elegantly:
“What comes most easily to mind is the beauty of the cherry blossom; the flower blooms intensely, yet only for a short period of time each year. As the flowers die and the petals fall, cherry blossoms line the streets like a layer of soft, pink snow, and are most beautiful when captured between the precipice of life and death. That is precisely the unique appeal of the cherry blossoms; their aesthetic focuses on the unavoidable transience of the material world that exists. According to this view, the fragility and inherent brevity of an instance of awe, such as the blooming of the cherry blossoms, only aids in heightening the event’s stunning, albeit melancholic nature. Because it only lasts for such a short period, it is undoubtedly appreciated more. Understanding and accepting that innate uncertainty of life helps us evade the overwhelming feeling of morbidity associated with impermanence, instead highlighting our ability to enjoy life by appreciating its fleeting moments. The unavoidable nature of finite existence is contrasted with the never-ending stream of change, as life continues to occur despite the continuous passing of objects and experience. The realization of impermanence is therefore bittersweet, tinged with mourning, and yet also capable of recognizing the beauty of change in itself.’
Similar thematic allegories are also narrated in scriptures.
“And cite for them the parable of the present life: it is like water that We send down from the sky; the plants of the earth absorb it; but then it becomes debris, scattered by the wind. God has absolute power over everything.” (Q’ 18:45)
Kintsugi.
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.”