Sunday Platter | Getting past being stuck, Times Sq 01.01.25, and what love can do

exploration exercise, creative experiment, quotes, photographs, anecdotes of hope, courage, and love, the F! things, poems & prose

Aviv Yaffa

Jan 05, 2025

A relaxing Sunday to you! Aside from that, it’s another opportunity to reimagine your next 7 days with:

1| Exploration Exercise- The Lion King versus Hakuna Matata

2| Creative Experiment - Getting past being stuck

3| Quotes that struck me over the week - On holding back and what love can do

4| Photographs - Times Square on 01.01.25, The Seamstress and Women Reading

5| Anecdotes of Hope, Courage, and Love - That in all things, it all works out…

6| The F! Things (Fun/ny and Favorites) - My alter ego, street photography, and my niece’s vocabulary

7| Poems & Prose - Diamonds

+ A curious question

Exploration Exercise

A challenge, a crisis, or suffering inevitably changes us or, as they say, reveals who we really are.

But after the storm has passed and the humbling experience, to what extent does the Lion King have to live the ‘hakuna matata’ and set aside his being a lion— a potential to reclaim his place as the King of The Pride Rock?

Creative Experiment

Moments of being stuck are caused by two different things. One is that there are just too many things you want to do, which also means that you don’t know what you want. The second is that you are faced with conflicting values. It’s not that one is bad and the other is good; both are valuable, and that’s why you are stuck.

Considering the two, lay out all your cards on the table and ask, “What is the thing that unites them?”

You don’t know what to cook for dinner, though you have a lot of ingredients in the fridge and pantry? What could be the thing that unites them? The color? How about texture? Or taste perhaps?

You don’t know which project to take on this year? You can draw, play the guitar, write, and do filmmaking, yet you can’t distill them into a solid idea. What could be the thing that unites them that pulled you into the art form in the first place? Is it self-expression? To serve others? Just an appreciation of the medium itself?

Quotes that Struck Me Over The Week

— on what can be compromised when holding back, and another path to take aside from aiming at winning

Henry: You’re both shutting down your emotions. What’s wrong with you two? You have your entire lives ahead of you, and yet you’re wasting time being so careful. That you can’t even see what’s in front of your face. And if that’s the way you are going to dance my piece, then I’d rather throw in the towel now!
Emma: We’ll give it our best tomorrow to take home a win for your school…
Henry: Oh my dear, don’t you understand? I don’t care about winning. I want to inspire people to feel something— hope, promise, love.
Leo: Then, tell us what we can do.
Henry: Start believing in yourselves! Believe in each other. You want to know what I care about? Create something that is so beautiful that’s impossible to forget.

Lifted from the Netflix movie, ‘A Paris Christmas Waltz’

— on what love can do

Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere.
We have to take love where we find it, even if it means hours, days, weeks of disappointment, and sadness. The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us.

Paulo Coelho, author, lifted from his blog post.

Photographs

Woman Reading, 1890 by Jacques-Emile Blanche

Anecdotes of Hope, Courage, and Love

While my mother and I were walking toward Times Square, I shared with her a realization I had before I went to sleep after the New Year’s countdown— that it’s going to work out; in the grand scheme of things, it always works out in the end.

I told her that while I was watching the video I took of us, it occurred to me that, most likely, we wished for the same thing last year and the years before that— a year of good health and abundance in all areas of our lives. We closed 2024, and we had them…we got the things we wished for. Though not exactly how we wanted it, the essence was there, and we are satisfied with how the year turned out.

Following this insight, she agreed to it. Then she continued to say that in her latest thyroid ultrasound, everything was clear, and there were no traces of her cancer since she went for surgery in 2013. She revealed to me that for 11 years, she has been living in anxiety and fear that one day it will come back. But now, she said that she can rest her shoulders and sit back after a long number of years.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. —Romans 8:28

The F! Things (Fun/ny and Favorites)

❤️ Favorites this week —

My Alter Ego

Two of my favorite subjects in class when I was in college were Philosophy and Psychology. Last night, I felt like I was Philo or Psych teacher to a friend whom I was helping as she was going through midlife transitions. It reminded me of sitting in my Philo classes and writing papers answering existential questions.

Doing Street Photography

I decided to bring my DSLR camera on New Year’s Day and had a brush-up lesson again on street photography. Some of the photos are shown above, taken by yours truly.