Theme 79: Wonder

so prisms have reflecting refracting surfaces set at angles that separate white light into a spectrum of colors. these faceted glass teardrops bend light, make rainbows and scatter them about. they are multiplicity factories - one thing goes in and a beautiful complex array pours out. is it science? is it art? is it magic? any way you slice it, it's wonderful and I think it can help us think about how to transform a no into a yes or perhaps many yeses. thinking like a prism can split a first emotional reaction into a complex balanced response

From the 15,000 pieces of plastic— they get it down to 8,610. It just goes to show that we can do something about it.

As designers and creatives, we all have a responsibility for the work that we put out there.

Until we acknowledge the influence of stereotypes, change isn't going to come quick enough.

Follow curiosity

If you're not fearful at all — you're too arrogant with your own idea.

You don't have to look like you have it all together any of the time.

Invest in people, and they'll invest in you right back.

Tradition makes you not know, it keeps you silent. But once you know you then need to pass that on, and you need to goddamn do something.

Tradition is just peer pressure from the dead — and I am so done with it.

I'm just a human, who — right now — is struggling and trying to navigate a very unstable world.

Be kind on yourself, you only do better when you know better.

If you're comfortable about asking yourself the things you should be changing, you're not asking enough of yourself.

If you want to make change, you're going to have to start having uncomfortable conversations.

"Imitation is the highest form of flattery." Bullshit. Inspiration is the highest form of flattery.

The truth is if Ripple is still here in five years, something has gone drastically wrong because it means that the message has not spread enough.

The only thing that I aspired to do, was to be something I couldn't see that world really needed.

Endings have terrific opportunity for growth, expansion and personal development.

There are more 'Daves' in CEO than women in the UK.

Tradition for me is the obstacle to progression. It's actually the only obstacle to progression.

There are two options; I believe that you look and you watch the illness deteriorate, or you advocate for the recovery.

The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size. -Albert Einstein

Identify those things that take you away from being present. Make an active effort to put that away, to reduce it. It is really hard!

If you want to find your future, it's in the Yellow Pages.

Wonder is a mix of curiosity, doubt, and play.

[about design] everything is by design. Everything you see is man [human] made.

[about programming] That's to say all these things are humanist activities. We're just taking different ideas and putting them into different hardware.

It's all about respecting and having wonder for what it is, and what it was--bringing out what it truly meant.

Actually, they just needed to be celebrated, and they just needed a way for people to access them and talk to them.

Wonder doesn't often have a safety net, nor will people always approve.

So this is where wonder gets all wrapped up with fear, because there was all this anxiety coming from me... Should I be doing this? Can I legitimately be charging money? I'm literally flying by the seat of my pants!

It's only a cultural wasteland if you are not paying attention.

The suit is not a uniform, it's actually an expression of your own identity.

People really just got by on their ingenuity, and resourcefulness, and intelligence.

There's something very subtle about Hong Kong culture. It is not, generally speaking, in your face. But if you take the time to really wonder and be curious, it has so much to offer.

But then all these things actually came together, and it was amazing to see that people could actually recognize the material because what I learned was, though ubiquitous, everybody has some kind of contact with a taxi. Everybody has a story with it.

In this particular moment, I don't know why... I think I was just spurred on by the sense of wonder... I saw these guys on a Saturday afternoon playing Mahjong, and I decided to disturb them and asked if I could perhaps buy the scrap material that they had lying around.

He told me to come over and do this program about upcycling, and this is how my life became entwined with taxis.

Without me knowing, I had actually begun wandering off into this direction, this very windy, unpredictable little side route.

I said, 'you know, it's the best when art does useful stuff like that.' And he was really patient with me and he said, 'well, you know, when art does useful stuff, as you say... that's actually Design.'

I was interested in people's stories and this would become a theme for me. I was just interested in, not so much what they looked like, but what they do, and what's going on behind that facade.

This is probably the first and last time that we'll see anything like this--all four of Bendigo's major Dragons together. These three Dragons came out to meet this new Dragon to show him his new home . . . It was such a moving experience, and all of this was from stepping into a shady van. You've got to follow your wonder, right?

I had been told all my life that a) either Hong Kong had no real culture, or b) even if it did, it couldn't be translated elsewhere. But this entire city is living proof that it can. The love for it was just transporting.

I saw all the people; and really it was the people, which transported me--like I could not believe that somebody else had seen the wonder in Hong Kong's culture . . . people from all over the place, but they're so serious about it, they know everything about it, they're deeply, deeply committed.

Twelve members of their family . . . spent the entire year making all of these scales from scratch--so that is the real art . . . This is the dragon as it was as it was just being made, and I thought it was so wondrous that this amazing transcendent thing was being made in such humble premises.

And what makes an Imperial Dragon is each of these individual scales, and they're made like this... by a guy like this... In a tiny 300 square-foot shop in Shau Kei Wan, a 125 meter dragon sprang forth... Each [scale] takes about an hour to make. And there are 7,000 of them.

All these masters fled to our tiny island city, and they started to flourish because they were all together, they were all learning from each other ... so the art elevated to this new level; and even today there is no place like Hong Kong in terms of making dragons and lions.

If you would just . . . engage it, there's no telling what it will lead to , where you will end up, you might end up in an Australian country town where everybody loves being Chinese or taking part in Chinese culture!

There is no telling what will happen when you follow your wonder, when you are curious about things--and you engage with that thing that you were always curious about on the edge of your experience or the edge of your knowledge.

I would encourage you: When your metaphorical shady, unmarked van arrives--you should get in!

You'd be surprised at the wonders on the other side of pain. I hope today you are all reminded of how wonderful you already are.

I hope my artwork helps you all see how wonderful and how beautiful Baltimore is, and reminds you that we don't have to settle for the reality that we've been given. We can create our own.

Your path to a more wonderful life starts with the work that you do on yourself.

All of the positive changes in my life started with the change within me.

I see so much of our youth discounting their dreams and imagination simply because of their surroundings.

I started off only doing self portraits. Then I was able to start illustrating the power that I see in others. Because I know how magical I am, I am able to see and exhibit how magical we all are. And same thing goes for my environment. I am able to take Baltimore and see beyond the hardship and struggle, and things that need to be fixed, to create new realities filled with magic and wonder.

Because I am empower myself, I am able to empower others.

I became a protector of my energy.

I transformed my feeling of loneliness into an opportunity to focus on myself, and foster my love for myself.

I learned that what you say becomes what you see.

The same way I nurture her magic, I had to nurture my own. I had to tell my self over and over again: I am powerful, I am beautiful, I am magical, I am gifted, I am wonderful. I do that process day by day. My sense of possibility expanded. I was able to imagine and dream far and wide.

What she is says about herself is ultimately way more powerful than anything anyone else can say about her.

At that time all the music I was listening to, the food I was eating, the social media content I was digesting--all of these things that I was feeding myself left me feeling sick, alone, lost, and out of love with myself. I was depressed.

Before I could create the artwork that you see, I had to do some serious inner work. I had to tune into my own power, into my own magic, into my own beauty. And that truthfully wasn't easy. It was a process of being in the dark and having no other choice but to look toward the light.

I think that the people that truly enjoy and connect with my artwork do so because they see the magic and beauty in it; and there was already magic and beauty inside them. And that is what they mean when they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Or in this case, wonder is in the heart of the wonderful.

Wonder is an inside job.

So my first tip for you all is to write down what you want. Write down the vision that you have for yourself.

Every time I get the opportunity to speak, I am reminded of a note that I wrote to myself back in 2014. And in that note I wrote I want to be at the podium of life. Only those who have something to say get to stand at the podium. Only those who have accomplished something get to stand at the podium.

If you get into the visual language of gifs, you are now expanding vocabulary because these things are saying things that never could be said before.

Giphy really was this search engine around the dictionary.

All of wonder is another euphemism for the act of creation.

Why don't smoke detectors have pause buttons?

If you exchange things without money they're way more valuable.

Humans are just verbs.

People don't really know Jiu Jitsu was made by Buddhists. So, it's called the 'gentle art'.

O que a gente mais quer é controlar as coisas, e isso tira da gente a questão da maravilha - se você souber exatamente tudo o que vai acontecer, não vai ter graça.

Subam suas montanhas!

ninguém pode tirar os nossos sonhos da gente

apesar de estarmos vivendo tempos difíceis para sonhadores, é preciso parar pra sonhar

a vida é feita de vários sonhos

o que fica depois de realizar um grande sonho?

parar pra pensar que fora da nossa rotina a gente tem um sonho que motiva a gente, é muito surpreendente, maravilhoso

não dá pra controlar o incontrolável

What if we could turn our worry into wonder?

Comparison is the biggest thief of joy.

Having gratitude puts you into a place of positivity. When you send love and gratitude to something, it’s a game-changer.

Pitching is like dating: you want to put your best foot forward. You don’t want to be a total stalker, and you want to make it mutually beneficial.

Having a road map but tight deadlines allows you to not second-guess yourself.

A ‘why’ keeps you in the game.

Worry gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere!

Tem muita coisa acontecendo no mundo pra ser difícil de a gente se inspirar

"She grew up moving around with the camels and the goats. So, wherever the sun sets, that's where they sleep; wherever the clouds are, that's where they go."

My mother, who is a very strong, nomadic woman, who grew up herding goats and cows, walking several hundred miles - and this is sometime unbelievable - she has never known that she lived in country called Somalia until she was really 17 years old."

No one in this world chooses to be a refugee.

Just because one person tells you [that] you can’t do something, doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road or story.

I’ve always been obsessed with seeing images in my head and then trying to bring them to reality: that right there is wonder.

Trends will come and go; classics never fade.

Inspiration is all around you.

How are you going to be a blue caper?

We create our social realities through the way we make meaning together, through the way we engage in conversation, the questions we ask.

Wonder really pulls us outside of [the] rigid confines of the worldview that we’ve adopted.

Wonder is the key to the door beyond which lies awe. And ego is that door, and it’s either open or it’s closed.

Wonder is essentially the seed which starts everything for a creative. Any project that you've ever had has began with a question: I wonder what would happen if this-

Let's wonder together together. Let's not create solutions too quickly. Let's ask lots of questions.

I can easily get hooked by the news. I can easily get hooked into a conversation, but if we realize and pay attention on the fact that wherever we focus, that's where we are going to go.

We move in the direction of our conversations. So are we reinforcing what is or are we shifting those conversations?

Wonder is the thread that runs through my entire personal and professional life.

If you’re tuned into the right frequency, there’s little moments of wonder absolutely everywhere.

I think of this juxtaposition. On the left there’s weird. And on the right there’s wonder. And wonderful. And on the left, there’s also wrong . . . But what if it's not wrong? Is it our opportunity in the creative industry to show that something that seems weird, something that doesn’t fit in our normal purview of what we think is normal . . . But what if we have the opportunity to show that what’s different can actually be beautiful? And we can be in awe of that and it can be wonderful? And you can see that. You can see someone in that way. And you can feel seen in that moment.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s the creative community’s opportunity—maybe even responsibility—to create wonder in this world, that badly needs it right now. Maybe it’s the creative community’s responsibility to see, create and scale wonder.

We thought let’s turn growth on its head a little bit. It doesn’t have to mean mass sameness. Our values should be reflected in this growth.

To us, it was like, well if we’re going to start this company, we want to start something that’s going to make the world just a little bit better than when we found it. And those people who come into contact with us, we want them to leave with a little bit more than when they met us. Otherwise it’s not worth doing.

Do you have anyone in your life who’s like that, who kind of turns your wonder into action? I sometimes call it, “calling me on my bullshit.”

Does this resonate with my core? Does this hit my values? If it doesn’t, then I reject it. It doesn't align with me.

Don’t worry about the results.

Define things for yourself.

Question everything.

Wonder is all around us at all times – we just have to be present in it.

Wherever your desire is your mind will form it.

Play around until some words land. When the words land, you can start building the story.

Just play around until some words land.

It's only when I calm my mind and start strumming that music and words just happen.

What you want to do is be in the squiggle space all the time.

Creativity is inside of us all. It's that place of inner peace and stillness that's there, and it's accessible to us.

Allow yourself time to be nothing and do nothing.

Ideas are the roots holding up this song.

There's nothing worse for creativity than that voice [your inner critic].

If you've ever sat down to create something, you've heard this voice in your head that asks, 'How do I start?'

Look at your interests and the parts of you that you take for granted as if you’d never seen them before.

The friends I admire the most all look at life in a child-like manner.

I think women especially have to keep wonder alive to be able to be creative because life beats you up every single day.

Neverland is so much more interesting for creatives.

Do something today that increases your positivity and do something to be inspired.