Cool Announcement : Amazement of the Ordinary by Alan Summers

My Dear Friends:

NeverEnding Story contributor, Alan Summers, gave a 6-minute thoughtful and motivational Ted Talk about "amazement of the ordinary:" life through a haiku lens.

Inspiring Quotes 

We see things not as they are, but as we are.

-- the Talmud

(FYI: The quote that is normally attributed to the writer ANAÏS NIN, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are” is also a Talmudic idea about dream analysis: People can only dream about things they have encountered or thought about, and so their dreams consist not of reality — whatever that is — but is instead a version filtered through the lens of the dreamer’s experiences... Deb Amlen, "We Do Not See Things as They Are," The New York Times, August 4, 2017)

A writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this or that thing -- a sunset or an old shoe -- in absolute and simple amazement.

-- Raymond Carver

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement...

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

-- Mary Oliver

Selected Haiku by Alan Summers

traffic jam

a driver fingers the breeze

through the sunroof

an attic window sill

a wasp curls

into its own dust

sunlight breaks

on a bird

and its portion of the roof

train whistle

a blackbird hops

along its notes

this small ache

and all the rain too

robin song

Happy Viewing/Reading

Chen-ou