We're surrounded...

We walk through our lives our heads in the clouds, our heads in our hands, concerned only with our own little world, not knowing that we're surrounded.

You can't see it when you're in it, and when you're in it, there is nothing else. We're surrounded by what we have, surrounded by what we have not, yet we often don't realize that we're also surrounded by something beautiful.

We see and feel and breathe and hear, but it's gray. It's a blur. It makes no sense. There's no rhyme nor reason.

The trick is to take that little wink of beauty that we never expected to see, and to hold it always close. To find that subtle glint of light and use it to make something good. Good for ourselves, good for someone else. And to know that it's not a bad thing to suddenly realize that we're surrounded...

An object in motion

Newton's First Law of Motion in part states that "...an object in motion tends to stay in motion...".

I recently spent several days in New York City on a working vacation visiting with editors, photo directors and a few friends. And as the 5th anniversary of 9/11 approached, it struck me quite profoundly while I was there that Newton's Law clearly applies to New York. Having suffered what could well have been a fatal blow to the spirit of perhaps any other city in the world, the city that never sleeps, its head held high, stays in motion.

It has been many years since I last had the pleasure to visit and while most of the sights and smells and flavors remain, there is now something else that was not there before. A steely, reserved resolve to carry on. A dignity. A difficult to quantify impression that left a mark on me. One that said with calm, quiet assurance, "You're going to have to do a lot better than that...".

The interminable spirit of New York City is an object in motion. And an object in motion tends to stay in motion....