People who like rocks see cool rocks everywhere. People who like birds see interesting birds everywhere. The tree on your yard could be an exceptional specimen. The world around you could be amazing and magical, but you aren’t enough of a nerd to see it.
I gave my mum Alexandra Horowitz’s On Looking: Eleven Walks Through Expert Eyes for her birthday this year, it’s a book that revolves around this idea: the author invites 11 specialists in different things to walk around a boring city block with her one after the other so they can point out to her the things they see, that she doesn’t notice. There’s an expert in typography talking about what the variety of fonts on urban signs can tell you about the city’s history, an entomologist pointing out all the urban insects no one pays attention to, a geologist, a sound engineer…
See this is what I mean by “there are more wonders in this world than you can ever dream of and all you need to do is listen to its stories and see it’s magic. ”
I don’t reblog much but this is so much part of my life. Our parents took us for walks and showed us the plants, the rocks, the birds, animals, lichens, mushrooms, anything we found, and they knew the names of most of them. They made it seem fun to learn more. Their families had taught them the same way. And they taught us about art, literature, music, and more so we were able to find delight in most of the world around us without needing to have a lot of money. It was the biggest gift they gave us: wonder.
Even in simplest thing, you can find the beauty
