Last week I was talking about a couple of articles I had read on the "disease of being busy."
In one article, the author had referred to the Muslim practice of asking "Kayf haal-ik? Haal-e shomaa chetoreh?" ... which translates to: How is your haal? .. with haal meaning the transient state of one's heart. In other words, when people ask how you are doing... they are really wanting to know.. how are you feeling. Are you feeling fulfilled? joyous? happy? aching? in misery?
The distinction being... not so much what you are doing... ie: running errands. But how are you feeling as a fellow human being?

It is a thing to ponder. So many times we (I) get so caught up in the things that need to be done, that I fail to experience the day. We are so busy doing.... we forget to do the things that make us happy and cause us to feel fulfilled.

Sort of like the old adage to "take time to smell the roses."
One of the reasons why I love photography so very much, is that it makes me slow down. It makes me take in the details. Appreciate what it is I am photographing. To think about what it is about my subject that I want to convey to whomever sees the photo. Do I want to convey it's softness? it's starkness? the heat? the damp? ... and how do I take that photograph to make this quality more noticeable?

It is also true for me in the studio. If I have too much "clutter" .. or projects at hand, it is far too easy to get wrapped up in the doing... and not the end result. And so... one of the things I am hoping to concentrate on these next couple of weeks, is to sort out some of the things in the studio space to sell either online or locally. Cleaning out is good.

See you all tomorrow.