Finding the Sublime

A few weeks ago, I saw this article on Zite, which was titled the same as this blog post. It was a photography post, and this particular quote inspired me to find sublimeness in my own world: Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless...

So here are a few things that are deliciously wonderful and filled with enough mundane to not be "beautiful":

Knowing all the words to a song you just heard

Perfect humidity for a good hair day

Speeding past a cop

A great night's sleep (or sleeping while its raining)

Our cat putting on a "performance" for us

Screened in porch in a yard of mosquitoes

Eating a delicious pizza after talking it up for half an hour

Having friends over

Getting away with talking in half-sentences/pheromones with someone

Big fuzzy socks after a hot shower

Grateful for Not Working

Ok, so who wouldn't want more money? I don't have a Shetland pony or even have a Porshe, maybe because I don't work 100 hour work weeks for that kind of lifestyle.

My work is relatively boring, and a recent podcast from Adam Carolla indicated that being in the middle of the popularity scale (i.e. not too good but not bad enough for everyone to have an opinion) was a good thing. Even though my job title is "engineer," I basically go to meetings most of the day. Meetings fall somewhere between watching paint dry and executing the boss's orders, like in Independence Day, so the ratio of intense mental engagement to eye glaze is always changing. While the result of my attendance might not be anything great, "it ain't bad." Never am I unwelcome or worse... invisible to the people in my field.

Anyway, I'm glad that my writing doesn't bring home the bacon, as I've seen some real winners lately. Sure, I love writing and taking pictures... of stuff that matters to me. Stuff that matters to other people has been increasingly less important, and I feel like the quality of my work would reduce exponentially to the number of "assignments" required per week. Maybe the folks who are really good can consistently produce. That would explain why Bob Ross could keep up "happy little clouds" for 403 episodes of The Joy of Painting. It's what separates us mere mortals from the Rowlings, Speilburgs, and Madonnas, who worked very hard to earn the title, "Great."

Realizing you're just average instead of great is a tough pill to swallow, but actually, being great isn't all that great anyway. I'm glad I don't have to make people care about what is important to me. My time and energy can be spent on those things instead of what's important for money. Great work most likely doesn't include cats in sunspots, for example.

Engagement BS

So there will probably be more on this, but weddings and their respective BS was a bigger part of this three-day weekend (or four-day work week, whichever you prefer) than planned. I figured I could get engagement pictures AND invitations done this weekend without too much drama. 

First, while the pictures came out wonderfully, it was a serious time sink of approximately seven hours. I didn't have to eat at TWO sit-down establishments, but steaks are warranted after starving in the 40 degree weather. I felt like a model, who maybe smiled more and not as many changes of clothes. Based on the last 15 times I've had my picture snapshot taken, I calculated professional picture-taking to only last about five minutes. I would have still earned some steaks and returned to looking at and judging others' photography online.

I mentioned I ate at two restaurants. The first was a delicious sushi-steak place with background euro-trance music. Those kinds of places are the best to eat during the day when there's no one to fight for the waiter's short attention span. You'd think a short attention span would be fantastic in the food industry, but I think I'm confusing attention and apathy.

Anyway, I'll continue with the invitations tomorrow.

-L

"Are you a hypnotist?"