fantastical

fantastical ~  adjective – – US    /fænˈtæs.tɪ.kəl/ UK 

Strange and wonderful, like something out of a story:

Fantastical Buddhisttemples and medievalcastlescling to Bhutan’s mistyvalleys.

So strange or extreme that it does not seem to be true or reasonable:

Nobody knew what to make of the fantastical claims she had made to police.

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”
― Dr. Seuss

Every place I go is more interesting than the last. Every place I leave makes me long to just go back.  So many people, places, cultures.  It’s all so fantastical.  Never in my wildest, childest dreams could I have imagined my life as it is today.  Here I am and here I go.  Oh the wonderful places.  All of the wonderful places.  With so many more in front of me.

Every day presents to me a new and delightful surprise.

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

fantastical worlds:

Fantastical; Chasing Hope; Metamorphosis; The Permeable Journy; Fantasy Focus: Historical Fantasy; Fantastical Friday; sparrows and their shadows; Photography blog; In The Woods; Internal journies;  Whispers of Snow in Spring

vantage

van·tage  [ˈvan(t)ij]    NOUN

vantage point (noun)

a place or position affording a good view of something:

“from my vantage point I could see into the front yard” · 

synonyms:

point of view · viewpoint · standpoint · stance · stand · view · opinion · position · way of thinking · frame of mind · outlook · perspective · angle · slant

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
― Douglas Adams

View from my hotel room.  Only thing changed was zoom, time of day, and angle. I was mesmerized by the view.  Simply said, a different vantage point completely changed my perspective of what I was looking at.

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

I had to change my room but they only moved me one floor down and same side of the building but over about 5 rooms.  Again, same view but slightly different view point.

“One person’s craziness is another person’s reality.”
― Tim Burton

A tiny movement of your body can show you things you never saw or hide things you want to ignore.  The same rationale should be used when looking at people.  And in my opinion it is how we should look at life in general.

“We’re so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody’s going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven’t learned how to care for one another. We’re gonna save the fuckin’ planet? . . . And, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked! Compared with the people, the planet is doin’ great. It’s been here over four billion years . . . The planet isn’t goin’ anywhere, folks. We are! We’re goin’ away. Pack your shit, we’re goin’ away. And we won’t leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we’ll be gone. Another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake.”
― George Carlin

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“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

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It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
― Carl Sagan

Perspectives and viewpoints:

From an Interesting Angle; Loose change, or: Nothing changes; Freezing torrents, or: Hope’s bud; Musings; All About Perspective; Fungi perspective; Road Trippin’ USA; Gaining Perspective;  work-life balance; Change;  Live Today!; Viewpoint; The best ideas come as jokes…; Silence; Burning Fall; Stance; Change on Change; RDP Thursday – Distorted Wide Angle Style;  An old writer’s day: angles and reflections;

dream·scape

/ˈdrēmskāp/

 

noun

 

1. a landscape or scene with the strangeness or mystery characteristic of dreams.

   “surrealism’s popular manifestations were the dreamscapes of Salvador Dali”

    

   

   “Red light flickered behind her closed eyelids, and when she opened them, she discovered that they were surrounded by flames.
   Let it burn….
   His sleek brow wrinkled, and he shook his head. Poor man looked conflicted, which was an interesting expression on a nightmare. “Your city is on fire.”
   She smiled languidly. “Ain’t it grand?”
   ― Erin Kellison

    

   “As the dreamscape around me grows clearer, I slip further away from it. The mind is a magical thing, I’m discovering. A dreamscape is made of thought and is wider than the sky, able to grow large enough to fit not just our own world, but every possibility and impossibility beyond it. Once I quit thinking of it as being forced into the laws of physics, it’s easy to manipulate the dreamscape into anything I want. I don’t know how I know all this, no more than I understand how I know things when I dream. I just do.
   I throw up my hand, and a wall rises between the orange grove and me. Behind the wall, I start creating the world I need in Representative Belles’s mind.”
   ― Beth Revis, The Body Electric

    

   DS: 

   Jerusalem, or: Haifa; PetPics; CBWC;  East Yorkshire – Skipsea Walks; WEaVinG DReAMS MaKinG LoVE ReaL; At the Very Least; Quote Of The Day;  MWM; grasshopper;  Wisps whirl, or: Rumbles growl;  A Full Moon Tale for the Blueberry Moon; The Laburnum arch, Whidbey Island, Washington, USA

    

    

    

    

    

decipherment

decipherment – The analysis of documents written in ancient languages, where the language is unknown, or knowledge of the language has been lost.

Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.  ~Paulo Coelho

One thing I love about my job is having the opportunity to travel to and live in different countries long enough to really grow in my understanding of that country, its culture and history to how it has changed throughout history to form its present state of being.

My current position still has me traveling to different countries, but the time frame of staying is likely to be from a few weeks to a few months tops.  This puts a significant amount of pressure on my nature to find ways of gaining the 2-3 years of knowledge and experiences about a country into a shorter time-frame.  This will require me to find more spontaneous and eclectic ways to gain deeper insights.  Though decipherment refers more specifically to the written language, I like to think of it as an all encompassing visual, written, oral, and textile experience in a country.

Country 1 – Doha, Qatar

Lucky for me I am currently working with a group of girls that are as incentivized as I am to see as much of a country, as quickly as possible, from every angle and time period that we have here.

First idea – (not mine) take the metro.  Find your way from point A to point B with minimal knowledge of where we were going or what we would end up doing.  Brilliant that led to so many questions that we had to pick apart to fully understand.  A super insightful way to begin to understand how a country operates.  Destination – National Museum.

So you think you can understand something if you just look at the pictures.  Also, all directions were in both Arabic and English.  Easy peasy .. right?  First off, the yellow picture above was mistaken for an alien .. possibly part of a police force.  Apparently that just means train.  Uh.. duh..  I knew that.. … …

We bought general day pass tickets to use the train.  We get to the metro loading dock and have an option to go into the “standard”, “gold” or “family” doors.  Hmmm.. well.. we are friends but not family.  The gold door was obviously not what we paid for so it seemed “standard” fit the bill.  Except.  Only men stood at this door.  Nope. Not standard.  We followed a group of women into the “family” train.  Phew.. we made it.  Super clean and very quiet.

Then we arrive at the National Museum stop.  I could have spent half a day just walking around the outside of the building.  Just like many buildings in Doha, incredible architecture.  Multi-layered.  Reminded me of a Dr. Seuss book but in an incredibly subtle and balanced way.

The Importance of Architecture
At its roots, architecture exists to create the physical environment in which people live, but architecture is more than just the built environment, it’s also a part of our culture. It stands as a representation of how we see ourselves, as well as how we see the world.

All of this.. before we even enter the museum.  Due to a significant amount of construction going on around the city and at the museum, we were told that a fairly large part of the museum was closed.  We debated going in but then thought that as long as we were there we might as well see what we could see.  I am so glad we did.  From the moment we entered the museum, the mood was set. Music, lighting, audio and visual effects, that set the stage for an emotional journey.  Surprising as this was not my heritage or my country.  The setting was alive and vibrant in every area we entered.  Starting with this stark video image (mixed with many others) on the first wall.

“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye.” – Charlotte Bronte

“Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.” – Samuel Richardson

“The eyes shout what the lips fear to say.” – William Henry

“When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.” – Victor Hugo

Anyways – So many quotes about eyes.  But there was so much more to see.  There was a movie playing in one area that I wanted to just sit and watch. Only music, no words, but the size of the screen and the images presented so clearly told a story that words were unnecessary.  At the end of the museum as we were about to leave, we were invited to visit the “special” room that consisted of glass beads and sculptures hanging from the ceiling that changed colors based on the music being played.

There were so many other installations within the gallery that included a children’s section that we took over and completely enjoyed, old cars, old phones, clothing and jewels from different eras, and interviews from the people associated with creating and building Doha.  Absolutely amazing and enlightening.  A must stop and see if you ever make it to Doha, Qatar.  So many more pictures but really, I’m going to let you discover this when you take the plunge and travel here.

In every country and region, there are practices and ways of living and culture that have been handed down from ancestors. Naturally, I feel that these should be respected. Shinzo Abe

Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures. Cesar Chavez

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future. Albert Camus

Diverse cultures: Understanding Culture; Disdain for Culture and the road to Fascism;The Value of Acceptance: Saying ‘Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything’; Around the world in 182 days: Namibia; Is it hard to make friends in a new country?; Lessons from Taoism: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times; Five Life-Changing Gifts of Travel; Tote Bag and Other Thoughts;  Give Peace a Chance;The Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts; Acceptance;  A Guide to Belgium’s Customs & Culture

Gadabout

Gadabout (noun) Origin: English | gad·about A person who travels often or to many different places for pleasure (and for me for work)!! 

For now it’s a gad-about for work.. but in the future, I hope to live through some of the same opportunities but only for pleasure!!!

A common gadabout who freely wanders over the landscape with wanton disregard. His days are spent picking up all the stray free words he can handle and squirreling them away for later use.
Subsequently, (days, months or years later) working by candlelight and hidden away in his dank, musty secluded lair, the rogue simply rearranges the collected words on yellowed bond with a sharpened quill ink pen fashioned from the tail feather of a bald-headed vulture.
Once finished, the dastardly cur audaciously attempts to sell those assembled pages for fleeting fame and profit.”

― Leopold Throckmorton