Tag: humans

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human rights Photography street photography

State of the World~

Where are we headed ?

Our world today is hurting, women are crying, children are dying and the killing of innocents is just another daily story on the news…

How did we become so desensitised to the pain of others? I see myself going about my day, doing my daily tasks, stopping for a moment to hear the latest news, wincing with pain at the images I see and the stories I hear and then something in me tells me to keep going, life needs to be lived, work has to be done, emotions need to be kept at bay.

I send a silent prayer and a wish for the world to be better place, where humans are not possessed by hate and stripped of empathy.

We seem to be crossing dangerous lines in our definition of what being human really means and what parameters define having a humanity. How can like and dislike, taking sides, hating one side or the other be acceptable enough to disregard the loss of lives and the terrorising of innocent people? How much hunger for power, greed and lust can a leader have to excuse their playing God on the expense of human lives that do not belong to them in the first place.

My strong belief is that when something this low is taking our planet hostage, then there must be the very high trying to save it on the other side. If we stop for a moment and shut the noise off, and remember that we are human, born on this faraway planet, spinning in space, subject to so many unknown forces that can cause a change at any moment, then there, in that space between time and no time, I feel the hope that wouldn’t let me give up on the human race…

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contemplations inspiration Paris Photography street

time to zoom out

Planetary life
Planetary life

Every once in a while I get this great longing to “zoom out”. It is a process I go through when things threaten to get heavy or dull. When I feel that life seems ordinary, loud alarm bells ring inside my mind, because in fact, nothing in this world is ordinary. Life is awesome and full of awe inspiring miracles, from the moment we arrive to this planet with an erased memory and a vague sense of mission, to the nuclear spurts of growth we go through from embryos to adults, to the very simple yet unbelievable fact that we live on a ball that is spinning in a great unknown space and hurling through it at an impossible speed. So nothing is ordinary and it is sinful to treat it as such. How can anyone be bored knowing this??!!

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life Photography street Tuscany

Day9~ September 9th~ Tuscany

keeping the peace

We live in a world where some of us need to be trained to protect the rest from each other. They are armed with weapons that could take away life or seriously injure any of us who decides to cause harm, take away another’s belongings, or threaten the peace by seriously misbehaving. It is almost like guardians in a playground for grown ups who cannot be trusted to remain civil. At what point did humans lose trust and became a danger to themselves and to each other?

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Photography

Day One Hundred Thirty Four, June 5, 2011

These are a home for hard-working hands

We humans are very quick to judge whether a person we see is a success or a failure, we are also very harsh in passing judgement even on ourselves. But the truth is no one is qualified to call another a failure. We are the only ones who can truly judge ourselves and we are mostly even wrong there. Because what is success really? Isn’t success a housewife who has decided to be just that, or the worker, the artist, the cobbler who does their best at every moment of every day? And isn’t it also the person who gives to the poor and shows kindness to others just because they want to. There is great peace in allowing ourselves the luxury of acknowledging and celebrating our own successes no matter how small.

They have done their time

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Photography

Day One Hundred Twenty Eight, May 30, 2011

a tribute

In America, this day was dedicated to remembering and honoring all that have sacrificed their lives and died in the war serving their country. Lives have been lost on this planet ever since the very first battle, the first conquest, the first struggle for control. And what a pity. How amazing it would be if humans could live together, work together, struggle together all for the search of what is better, what is higher, what is good..

This image is a tribute to all blood lost that could have been otherwise spared.

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Photography

Day Ninety Nine, May 1, 2011

Old man on tricycle

Do you know who you neighbor is?

I have been seeing this man around our neighborhood in Shanghai for almost 5 years. He is always on on his tricycle, always smoking, always collecting bits and pieces and riding away.

How many people are inside the frames of our lives that we know absolutely nothing about?

Or is this life in a big city? I remember living on Jones Street in New York City and not knowing anyone who lived in my little building personally…

We seem to create a bubble for ourselves our families and our few friends that we move inside of as spectators of life around us. This certainly was not the case in villages and in tribal communities.

How I wish things were different…