R.I.P. dad…. يا آااااخي
I love you….
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(A) life….. 2023. TW
Realism | Quote
“…do not hope without despair, or despair without hope.”
Seneca
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Old town. Damascus. 2010. TW
Mother (1936 - 2022)
R.I.P. mom…
I love you!
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Nature! On the road, Dec 2022, days after her passing. TW
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Fallen leaves. Damascus, 2021. TW
Sobering meditations - by my father
Below is a photo of notes that my dad wrote. They include condensed reflections on a few of the darker aspects of life and the human condition. From ailing health, failing vision (with resultant inability to read, or clearly see the faces of loved ones), to societal ailments. "To not be alive nor dead", is the toughest test a human can face, he wrote.
The notes were written in a poem-type format, where the style was a major enhancement to an already powerful substance.
I didn't translate the text, to preserve its character and stylistic strength.
P.S. I hope he remembers, even if sporadically, how much he means to the countless people whose lives and minds he touched. And that to us, his family, he means the world!
TW
Notes by SW (my father). (The handwriting is uncharacteristically less than elegant, a function of visual decline).
My father. Damascus, Dec 6th, 2022. TW
Truth | Quote
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
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Light in the park. New York City, 2012. TW
Flying | Quote
“In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”
Gibran Khalil Gibran
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Flying. Rhode Island, 2016. TW
Black and white | Quote
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) “.
Walt Whitman
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Desert cloud. Monument valley, 2017. TW
Simplicity - minimalism | Quote
“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”
Frederic Chopin
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Sunset tree #2. South Dakota, 2018. TW
Winter | Quote
“The snow is melting into music.”
John Muir
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After the storm. Utah, 2016. TW
Life | Quote
“He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”
Philip James Bailey
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Flower closeup. Maine, 2014. TW
Shut off, vs open. | Quote
“The worst thing about stubbornness of mind, about prejudices, is that they arrest development; they shut off the mind from new stimuli. Open-mindedness means retention of the childlike attitude; closed-mindedness means premature intellectual old age.”
John Dewey
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Boy, sitting at front door. Bundi, 2007. TW
Imagination | Quote
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination.”
Immanuel Kant
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Snow flakes. Maine, 2013. TW
Darkness. | Quote
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Sunset tree #2. South Dakota, 2018. TW
Daily routine | Quote
“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Red. Maine, 2016. TW
Art | Quote
“You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul.”
George Bernard Shaw
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Revelation. Utah, 2016. TW
Simplicity. | Quote
“I have written for all, with a profound love for my own country, but without being engrossed by France more than by any other nation. In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.”
Victor Hugo
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Desert view. Monument valley, 2019. TW
Truth | Quote
“Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife.”
Johannes Kepler
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Night sky and clouds, in the desert. Monument valley, 2019. TW
The artist. The gloomy and the profound. | Quote
“Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life. It is not only pleasant and agreeable images that he experiences with such universal understanding: the serious, the gloomy, the sad and the profound…”
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Sunset tree. South Dakota, 2018. TW
Subtlety - deeper beauty | Quote
“Hidden beauty is sweetest.”
Petrarch
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Behind the veil. Maine, 2014. TW
Independence | Quote
“He alone is great and happy who fills his own station of independence, and has neither to command nor to obey.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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White. Massachusetts, 2017. TW