Expanding

Curiosity might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions. In childhood we ask, “why is there good and evil?”, “how does nature work?”, “why am I me?” If circumstances and temperament allow, we then build on these questions during adulthood, our curiosity encompassing more and more of the world until at some point we may reach that elusive stage where we are bored by nothing. The blunt large questions become connected to smaller, apparently esoteric ones. We end up wondering about flies on the sides of mountains or about a particular fresco on the wall of a sixteenth-century plate. We start to care about a foreign policy of a long-dead Iberian monarch or about the role of peat in the Thirty Years’ War.

Alain de Botton “The art of travel”, 2002

Time for a passionate talk…

Hear Isabel Allende’s thoughts on motherhood, feminism, courage and love presented at TED in March 2007.

She is one of my fave writers at the moment! I love her strong, witty, humorous writing! Such an inspiration to all of us: as a writer and as a woman :)

More about her, here.

The Ideal Life

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Mark Twain

I couldn’t agree more…

The world is a playground – Oana Manea

Here‘s a bunch of candid shots taken by Oana Manea, a contemporary Romanian photographer.

They remind me of summer… but the REAL summer! the long one in between school years, with the lazy sunsets, the wasted-time and endless reading. No worries or thoughts about shoulds or woulds. When nothing’s, yet, permanently written or decided. When we still have time, the languor of youth is in bloom and the freedom to decide each day is fully ours.

Vincent Van Gogh “First steps”, 1890

Fairest

Frank Cadogan Cowper “Vanity”, 1907

We have time – Octavian Paler

We have time for everything
Sleep, run back and forth,
regret we made an error and err again
judge others and absolve ourselves,
we have time to read and write,
edit what we wrote, regret what we wrote,
we have time to make projects and never follow through
we have time to dwell in illusions and stir through
their ashes much later.

We have time for ambitions and diseases,
to blame destiny and details,
we have time to look at the clouds, at the ads, or some random accident, we have time
to chase away our questions, postpone our answers, we have time
to crush a dream and reinvent it, we have time to make friends,
to lose them, we have time to take lessons and forget them
soon after, we have time to receive gifts and not understand them. We have time for everything.

No time, though, for a little tenderness.
When we’re about to do that, too, we die.

Octavian Paler “We have time”

Source for the translation found here. Very good job, Cristina, and thanks for all your translations :)

Abundance

Non fate guerra al Maggio. (War not with the May)

E. M. Forster “Room with a view”.

Tureni village, Cluj county, Romania. May 4th, 2009

Buddhist’s remembrance trick

Remember, she told herself. Remember the solution to this test!

Remembrance was a Buddhist’s philosopher trick. Rather than asking her mind to search for a solution to a potentially impossible challenge, Vittoria asked her mind simply to remember it. The presupposition that one once knew the answer created the mindset that the answer must exist, thus eliminating the crippling conception of hopelessness.

Tools. There are always tools. Reevaluate your environment. (…) Let your mind be free. What makes this situation positive? What are my assets?

Dan Brown “Angels and Demons”, 2000

The Lady and the Unicorn – Stefan Caltia

Stefan Caltia, “The wood’s unicorn”, 2005

Stefan Caltia is a contemporary Romanian painter, born in Brasov in 1942. At first, I’ve found his paintings strange and unfamiliar but there was something intriguing, something that made me want to rest my eyes on them a little longer. And doing so, I’ve discovered hidden,  little wonders, the fantastic creatures found only in the depths of my/our childhood memories, long-lost and forgotten, mingled with realistic, harsh, elements. Most of all, his paintings have a certain peaceful ingenuity that I find so calming and reassuring in these “modern”, hectic times.

Other favorites of mine:

Stefan Caltia, “Flowers in a glass vase”, 2005

Stefan Caltia, “Winter in Transylvania”, 2005

Stefan Caltia, “The Stone Unicorn’s journey”, 2005

If you want to check out more of his paintings, you can do it here, and more about his life and exhibitions, in English, here.

Laugh, Believe, Thank

Re-programe yourself every minute of each day with thoughts that make you grow. When you’re feeling irritated or confused, try to laugh at yourself (…) Laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation (…) Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you’ll gradually get used to it, because we all know everything: it’s merely a question of believing.

Concentrate. If you can find nothing on which to focus your mind, concentrate on your breathing. (…) Listen to your heart beating, follow the thoughts you can’t control, control your desire to get up at once and to do something “useful”. Sit for a few moments each day, doing nothing, getting as much as you can out of that time.

When you’re washing up, pray. Be thankful that there are plates to be washed; that means there was food, that you fed someone, that you’ve lavished care on one or more people, that you cooked and laid the table. Imagine the millions of people at this moment who have absolutely nothing to wash up and no one for whom to lay the table.

You are what you believe yourself to be.

Paulo Coelho “The witch of Portobello”, 2007.