Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso
Picasso painted because he couldn’t sing.
Maria Callas sang because she couldn’t write.
Hemingway wrote because he couldn’t paint.
Focus on the talent that you have and develop it to the fullest. Waste no time wishing for other talents.
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Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand. — Pablo Picasso
While others are making lists of New Year’s resolutions, I have only one: simplicity. I used to make lists of resolutions. It seemed comforting and the thing to do. But lists of resolutions have become nothing more than yet another to-do list in a world of too many things to do. What’s needed isn’t another list, but a principle that takes away the need to have a list. That principle is simplicity.
Simplicity means reducing the number of things you do in a day. It means focusing on the task at hand. Because we divide up our days in 24 hours and we need sleep, simplicity means limiting the number of tasks we do in any given day. How much time have we spent tweeting, sending text messages, updating our profile on the various online social networks we have joined? Was all that necessary?
I will be the first to admit that I have spent countless wasted hours reading blog posts, commenting on them, posting on Twitter, reading and retweeting tweets, updating my Facebook page, and then wondering why I don’t have time for anything else and why I feel so unsettled. I don’t want to spend 2010 in this way. To start the year, I have cut in half the number of blogs I subscribe to and am limiting my time on Twitter.
As for my offline life, I have been doing my daily meditation, spending time with friends, cooking, reading books that have been screaming for attention on my bookshelf, and writing. I feel peaceful and grounded.
I love Christmas carols, especially the traditional ones from 19th century England. But if you want to go farther back in time and listen to 17th century Christmas music, make sure you get these songs from the album “Angels and Shepherds” (in MP3 format) recorded by the Netherlands Bach Society (Nederlands Bachvereniging). Among the composers whose work they perform are Bach and Buxtehude. The Netherlands Bach Society’s choir and Capella Figuralis perform the vocals. Jos van Veldhoven, is the conductor. Hearing these heavenly voices and melodies brings me closer to the first Christmas.
You can buy the CD from Amazon.com: Angels & Shepherds 17th Century Christmas
From The Spirituality of Art:
Imagination draws its energy from a confrontation with desire. It feeds off desire, transmuting and magnifying reality through desire’s power. Fantasy does the opposite; it avoids desire by fleeing into a crude sort of wish-fulfillment that seems much safer. Fantasy might be teddy bears, lollipops, sexual delights, or superhero adventures; it also might be voices in one’s head urging acts of outrage and mayhem. Or it might be the confused world of separation and fear we routinely live in, a threatening yet seductive world that promises us the happiness we seek when our fantasies finally become real. Imagination confronts desire directly, in all its discomfort and intensity, deepening the world right where we are. Fantasy and reality are opposing forces, but imagination and reality are not in opposition: imagination goes toward reality, shapes and evokes it.
The quality of life in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, around the Embarcadero and South Beach, has improved dramatically since the closure of the Bay Bridge. Traffic is non-existent and for people who live near the bridge, hanging out on the balcony and opening windows means not having to listen to the constant buzz of traffic.
At first, the silence is eerie, then it becomes a sheer delight. Walking around SOMA is no longer such a frightful experience. There are no traffic jams, no hurried obnoxious drivers texting, talking on their phone and trying to get onto the bridge at the same time, in a big hurry. The streets are quiet and suddenly this part of San Francisco has become so much more livable.
Unfortunately the bridge may open even as soon as today. I am wishing it remains closed indefinitely. Perhaps they can close the bridge one day a week.
