Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, from the reading room, perception, photography, psychology on October 27, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Look at the colour of this water. It’s an amazing colour isn’t it?
Why is it that colour? It’s the effect of all the leaves on the trees of the forest through which the stream is flowing. On another day, in another season, this very water (well, actually, this very stream, not this very water!), looks [...]
Posted in from the dark room, perception, personal growth, photography on October 21, 2009 | 6 Comments »
I took a walk at the weekend. Up through the Birks of Aberfeldy. Robert Burns wrote a poem about this place. Here he is -
He wrote well before me, in an earlier time and an earlier season.
I went to the Birks to find leaves. I love the colours of autumn. Come and have a look [...]
Posted in creativity, from the living room, life, narrative, perception on October 14, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Human beings are sense-making creatures. We continuously process all the information we can gather from our environments – internal and external – and try to put the information together somehow. I think we use two particular sets of skills to do this, and they’re related.
The first skill is pattern spotting.
What do we think when we [...]
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, from the reading room, life, music, perception, photography on August 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Whether its due to synchronicity or something about focus, attention and awareness, I find that I often have the experience that something I’ve been reading about crops up in all kinds of places. At the moment it’s pattern-spotting. In fact, this pattern-spotting theme is a fundamental one for me. I think it’s an important part [...]
Posted in from the reading room, health, life, perception, psychology on July 27, 2009 | 1 Comment »
That famous line from Burns’ “To a Louse”…….Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us – lovely sentiment, but just not possible! I was reminded of it as I read two related articles by Emily Pronin recently (published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,Vol. 28 No. 3, March [...]
Posted in from the reading room, life, perception, science on July 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
You’ll be familiar with the idea the “canary down the mine” where a canary in a cage was carried down into the mine by the miners to give them early warning that the air conditions were deteriorating. Well, I just read an interesting variation on that tale in a French magazine called “Nouvelles cles”. The [...]
Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, perception, photography, tagged japan on May 21, 2009 | 2 Comments »
It strikes me that in Japanese culture there is a great and sensitive understanding of the life, or the spirit, of stone. I was struck by that as I wandered through a couple of Japanese gardens recently. You just don’t see rocks like these in UK gardens, and there’s something about them which makes you [...]
Posted in from the dark room, perception, photography, tagged nature, plants on April 23, 2009 | 2 Comments »
This tiny little plant is only about the size of my little finger. It’s so small, it would’ve been easy to miss it, but I’m glad I didn’t.
It inspires me for so many reasons.
I love the fact that what catches the attention is the spaces. They’re the first thing you notice. Almost as if when [...]
Posted in from the dark room, perception, photography on April 21, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Posted in life, perception, personal growth on August 31, 2008 | 3 Comments »
This is rule number three in Daniel Pink’s “Johnny Bunko” book which I mentioned a wee while back. There are two reasons why both the Johnny Bunko rules and this particular rule came to my mind this week.
Firstly, I’ve just been finding that in recent times this little phrase has often popped into my mind. [...]
