The really magical things are the ones that happen right in front of you. A lot of the time you keep looking for beauty, but it is already there. And if you look with a bit more intention, you see it.
Interpretation
True beauty often exists in plain sight and needs a mindful perspective to be appreciated.
In this quote, Vik Muniz emphasizes that the most remarkable and beautiful aspects of life often occur in our immediate surroundings, yet we frequently overlook them. By encouraging an intentional and attentive gaze, he suggests that we can discover the artistry and wonder that is already present in our daily experiences.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about appreciating the little things in life.
Drawing is not only a way to come up with pictures: drawing is a way to educate your eye to understand visual information, organizing it into a more hierarchical way, a more economical way. When you see something, if you draw often and frequently, you examine a room very differently.
To be of mixed blood is a great gift for a writer. I have one foot on tribal lands and one foot in middle-class life.
My method of getting a play across the footlights is like a revolver shooting: every line has a bullet in it and comes with an explosion.
Poems come from ordinary experiences and objects, I think. Out of memory - a dress I lent my daughter on her way back to college; a newspaper photograph of war; a breast self-exam; the tooth fairy; Calvinist parents who beat up their children; a gesture of love; seeing oneself naked over age 50 in a set of bright hotel bathroom mirrors.
The important thing is not to be too comfortable when you're writing. Noise in the street? That's good. The computer goes down? That's good. All these things are good. It has to be a little bit of a struggle.
Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use β do the work you want to see done.
The solitude of writing is a solitude without which writing could not be produced, or would crumble, drained bloodless by the search for something else to write.
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