Opinions

Photo Credit: Doree Weller

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

-Marcus Aurelius

I recently witnessed an argument in my writer’s group between two people I respect tremendously.  They got into an argument because the critiquer was absolutely sure that they were right about their opinion on what they were critiquing.  The critiquee got understandably upset and insulted.  Unkind words were exchanged.

It’s important to keep perspective on things and remember that your truth is not everyone’s truth.  And while you’re entitled to your opinion, it’s best not to jam it down someone else’s throat.  Strong opinions make the world a more interesting and diverse place.  Being sure that your version of the truth is the “right” version does not add to the world; it subtracts.

Go forth and be kind this week.

“Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.”
-Robert Brault

Spring?

Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix AZ
Photo credit: Doree Weller

While the rest of the world welcomes spring (and in parts of the US, they still have some snow), here in Arizona, we’re already baking.  Temperatures have hit 100 and the flowers are already dying.  Spring, if you can call it that, happens so fast here that I barely have time to notice it.

In Pennsylvania, we had a spring whose length of time varied.  Sometimes it lasted a long time, and the crocuses were often up by Easter.  Sometimes the spring was shorter, but always there.  I never realized how much I’d miss having 4 distinct seasons until I moved somewhere that didn’t have them.  That’s the way of it, though.  When you’re living through something, it’s easy to take for granted, because it’s always been that way.

When I first moved here, the brown seemed soothing, and the sameness seemed clean and relaxing.  It still seems that way, but I miss the quirky personality of the jumble created by all the differences back East.  Some houses are new, some are old, but they don’t match one another.  There are greens and browns and purples and blues and reds.  It’s like an abstract painting rather than a landscape sometimes.

I throw open my windows and enjoy the fleeting spring for as long as I can out here.  For in the rest of the world, it may still be spring, but in Arizona, we’ve moved on to summer.

Up Close and Personal

Things that look one way from a distance can look totally different when close up.  Most of us look at things from a distance, if at all, and never wonder about the secrets they hold.

Two different photographers took ordinary things, and used macrophotography to see these things in new ways.  Check out these websites.  The pictures are gorgeous… you won’t be sorry.

Soap bubbles and snowflakes… who would have thought?