“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” - John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

I wrote down this quote when I was a student while attending one of the (compulsory) courses on quality. I didn’t like the course that much, yet this quote struck a chord. I carried it around, changed courses and did nothing with it.

Until now, 10 years later. I found the quote again while cleaning up stuff at home. I read it again, and it struck a chord again. But this time I knew why. I got a pen and replaced “Quality” with “Success” to get:

“Success is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”

I know, it’s just one word, but how powerful is this! And quality and success are not that far apart anyway. There’s so much value in this quote and I’m going by every part of it separately. Click to continue »

“There are flowers everywhere, for those who bother to look.”
- Henri Matisse

Inspiration can be found in all the (un)usual places. I like the quote by Henri Matisse very much, there really are flowers to be found in all kinds of everyday places. We tend to filter them out, because there’s no use for flowers in our present mindset at that moment. This week I’m getting up at 5am and on Tuesday I took the time to really experience sunrise with Matisse in the back of my mind.

Sunrise
The air is fresh, but the night still rules the sky and keeps it covered in its dark cloak. Somewhere in a tree a bird starts singing, anticipating sunrise. Slowly the night sky starts fading from black into darker shades of gray, the outline of the world becomes visibly as a placeholder to be colored by the sun. It’s still hard to see colors, there’s not enough light yet to really see colors. Remarkably I think I can see colors, but I suspect I’m being tricked by my mind filling in the usual colors.

Over the next couple of minutes the clouds become visible as pinkish spots on the fading night sky. Looking up I realize I’m looking at the bottom of a satellite picture that will be shown on the breakfast news in an hour or so. Thinking about the satellite I decide to travel up there in my mind, and along the way I look at earth waking up. Scattered around movement is visible when animals and people alike start the day.

Once up there, I look down from the satellite. There’s only a small piece of earth experiencing this magical moment of sunrise. I look around and gaze at the stars in awe, I always find the vast infinity of the universe overwhelming. The light I’m looking at is millions of years old, maybe that star is not there anymore at present. Quite the paradox: I’m an important part of my universe, but so insignificant in the total universe.

More birds start to sing, and I return to earth. A rabbit hops on the green field in front of our house, nibbling on grass that’s wet with dew. I remember Matisse and look around, there really are flowers everywhere…

It’s been over five years since I first read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Three weeks ago on holiday, I re-read it for the fifth time, and I plan to re-read it every year for a long time to come. This little book about a shepherd traveling to Egypt to find his treasure is so full of wisdom that I learn something every time.

If you read my bio you know that I have been idling along in life for a long time. I didn’t know what I wanted with my life, I didn’t know what to do for education or work, and I didn’t even know who I really was. But these questions were on my mind, and by thinking them over you position yourself to be ready for answers. An old Chinese proverb says “When the student is ready, a teacher will appear.” The Alchemist, or Paulo Coelho if you will, has been a teacher for me.

Here are seven lessons, illustrated with quotes from The Alchemist, that have the power to change your life for the better. Click to continue »

Jesh de Rox is an artist. He makes art with photography, more specific: experiential photography. Not experimental photography (that’s what I read at first) but experiential. And the term is exactly right for the works he makes.

Jesh has a gift to capture emotions and feelings in a very subtle and delicate way in his photographs. The photographs in themselves are best experienced, not merely viewed. Add to this a beautiful website that is customized to how you feel, and music that underlines the atmosphere of it all.

On his about page he has a section that has me thinking. I would love to talk to him sometime to learn how he came to formulating this part:

He has come to believe that the most important and precious parts of life are found in small truths, easily missed - that the world within is the root of the one without - and that the search for meaning is more about the search than the meaning.

I’m not going to show his pictures here, as they would be taken out of context. Go visit Jesh de Rox’ website and tell me what it made you feel…

I get to travel by plane about two to three times a year. I always look forward to making the trip, and unlike most people one of the things I enjoy most is the time I spend on the airport. The airport?! Yep I know, I’m a total lunatic, but I love the atmosphere and like to take the time to just be there; be there and watch. Airports are so full of life, they’re filled with so many interesting people. And everything that’s on their minds is such a good metaphor for life as well. Let’s address some of them:

Different timezones

Although it’s not instantly visible, people that walk around in the airport are all in different timezones. While they are in the same place in the same timezone geographically, mentally they are all in another state of time. Some walk around in early morning and crave a coffee, some feel like late evening with a cold beer on their mind and some are even in the middle of the night trying not to think about a bed. If you observe them you can actually see what’s on their minds, it shows in so many ways.

For life this is the same. People walk around with different mindsets, different belief systems. We’re all in the same place, yet we’re all there in a different state of mind. This state of mind determines for a great deal what they want, what they crave for. If you observe them you can find out what’s on their minds, it shows.

Different origins

Not only are people experiencing the same moment in different ways because of their experience of time, but they also experience it from different origins. People from all over the world with all kinds of different cultures are in the same place. They do their best to understand what to do next and overcome cultural differences to get what they want.

This is great to observe, communication with handicaps, people trying to communicate and overcoming verbal and non-verbal language barriers and cultural barriers. You can learn a lot from just observing, are people really trying to understand the other? If there is a mutual effort to reach an objective then people are successful. If it lacks that effort

It’s not too hard to translate this to ordinary life. People are from different origins and have different backgrounds. In the airport the gaps are huge and very visible, but even inside a city there can be tremendous differences in origins and backgrounds, that don’t show that easily. These origins act like a filter through which we view the world.

Different destinations

One of the few things that people at an airport have in common, is that they have a destination and that they haven’t reached it yet. Of course there is a lot of diversity in destinations and a big spread in how far people are from reaching it. Some people are nearly there, some are just beginning on their journey and then some are just on a stop-over to continue onwards.

People have the same things on their mind, yet are heading in totally different directions. Their purpose is the same, and they share the fact that they’re travelers on a path to their respective destinations.

Different expectations

Travelers travel for a variety of reasons. Associated with those reasons are expectations, and as such they have different expectations. You’ll see businessmen travel on airports, heading to close a big deal, or heading to meet a supplier that’s giving trouble. You’ll see young backpackers heading off to explore the world and experience travel as an activity. You’ll also see people heading home, back to their families. You’ll see people on a one-way trip, on their way to start a new life somewhere else.

They clearly have different expectations of the activity of travel and different expectations of what they’ll do or experience at their destination. Trying to find out what people’s expectations are, without talking to them, is very hard in my experience. Only the backpackers show it very clearly

That’s why I like airports…

Get the drift? I like being there and watching the people, trying to get a hint of what’s on people’s mind. Are they just leaving or almost at their destinations? Are they excited or do they look up to traveling? What timezone is that guy in? What is the purpose of her journey? And I just love to experience the dynamic atmosphere that airports have, they have a certain vibe. It’s different in different countries, but there is a certain common element that fascinates me.

Try it sometime!

I know there are a lot of you that thoroughly dislike being on airports. I know because a lot of people around me hate being there. Sometimes I feel that complaining about airports is a popular pass-time on parties. But it’s so negative, you don’t gain a lot from it in my opinion. Don’t like airports? I dare you to try to take the view I described above!