© Google (via YouTube)
Each object has its own communication method, like puffs of air or ambient sounds. Additionally, their simple movements and controls bring them to life and respond to changing surroundings and needs.
Usually I’m not interested in smart home devices –I’m more in line with the sentiment of Internet of Shit, but this Google experiment called Little Signals shows some wonderful fresh and humane solutions for some rather common notification needs.
And the best thing of it all: There are free instructions available to rebuild the technological side of those unusual objects yourself with widely available, affordable parts.
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.
Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.
I’m continuing to work hard, not without periods of discouragement, but my strength comes back again.
When I work I forget all the rest.
© School Of Life (via YouTube)
Wabi-sabi refers to the beauty of the impermanent, the imperfect, the rustic and the melancholy. It derives not from the love of invincibility, youth and flawnessness, but from a respect for what is passing, fragile, slightly broken and modest.
I keep coming back to this essential principle of Japanese philosophy.
My wife’s the reason anything gets done. She nudges me towards promise by degrees. She is a perfect symphony of one, our son is her most beautiful reprise. We chase the melodies that seem to find us until they’re finished songs and start to play. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised, not one day. This show is proof that history remembers. We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger. We rise and fall and light from dying embers. Remembrances that hope and love live longer. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love and cannot be killed or swept aside.
© Yuki Kawae (via Vimeo)
In traditional Chinese culture, the moon is a carrier of human emotions. The full moon symbolizes family reunion. Due to the Covid restrictions between China and the United States, my trip to see my family in Beijing, which was scheduled in early 2020, is on an indefinite hold. While waiting to go back for the past two years, I decided to create a video series with the general intention of bringing the moon down to me on the earth, inspired by a Chinese legend of the Han dynasty entitled, “The lake reflecting the divine moon.”
Every winter since 2020, I’ve filmed myself alone tracing moon patterns by dragging a suitcase on the snow-covered ground in the parking lot adjacent to my apartment building in Chicago, as if to create circular mantras suspended in a time of waiting. I also made two summer counterparts of the same ritual on a sandy beach by Lake Michigan. As long as I’m unable to go back to China, I will continue to film this same ritual in the summer and winter.
This installation by Yuge Zhou called Moon drawings reminds me a lot of the beautiful patterns Yuki Kawae draws in his zen garden —but in an entirely different dimension. Gorgeous, even more so when you know the background behind the piece.
The idea is to find yourself a posse of misfits who have the courage to not only question authority but the whole dominant reality, and create magic together.
© NOW (via YouTube)
Tell them you have a new project. It will never be finished.
— from the poem The Art of Disappearing by Naomi Shihab
When you create a difference in someone’s life, you not only impact their life, you impact everyone influenced by them throughout their entire lifetime.
No act is ever too small.
One by one,
this is how to make an ocean rise.
But one of the next most powerful things he created for himself is the view that Everything is a Practice.
Man, what a ridiculously valuable way to frame our lives!
Every difficulty that comes up is simply something to practice with.
Every frustration with another person is a practice ground, and the other person becomes your teacher. Bow to them with gratitude!
This idea goes hand in hand with the concept of the so-called “Don’t Know Mind” from Korean Zen, as well as the previously mentioned Japanese philosophical ideas and concepts I admire so much.
On that note:
Currently, I’m learning about simple Zen habits by reading the wonderful book The Practice of Not Thinking by former monk Ryunosuke Koike, a little book well worth reading (and thinking about).
Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.