RIP Alexander McQueen

RESPECT

British fashion icon Alexander McQueen commits suicide days after death of his beloved mother

Read more @ DAILYMAIL UK (click)

 JK Rowling is more than just Harry Potter

“The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,”

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.


Her speech moved me. It's like watching a movie, what she said is like she's saying that to your face. I've been struggling about my goals in my life, people ask me to stop thinking about it and go with the flow. I'm lucky enough to have a flow for me to follow, a model to "success" is clearly placed in front of me. However, I do not see myself in love with "success". "Success" in my family dictionary linked to reality and money, to be able to support oneself and the next generation is success. The question is: are we living just to stay alive?


I'm picking some of the phrases and add a personal touch to it. The post are all words, read as you may.


"There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you."
About responsibility, people at my age, living with parents, still sort of relying on them and blame them. They love you and allow you to blame them in order to make yourself feel better. But then, when's the time that one really takes responsibility to his/her own actions? I would admit myself not taking enough responsibility, and I still do not have that sense of responsibility yet. Fussing around, wondering how I can take it up, the date has expired and I'm still in a comfortable cocoon. 


Parents, unconsciously protect their children, sometimes too much. I remember when I was young, I asked them to let me trip. I tripped, I was no longer innocent, I fell, then my instincts turned my head to my parents for help. They are shelters, always ready, but when will I be ready for myself? They will be gone one day, the ultimate person I can turn to is myself. Not that I do not trust anyone else, but it's the truth. 




"Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. "
Do you accept the failure model that set by others? Losing a job, not getting a job, not graduating from a degree seemed to be the current model of failure. Accusing the post 80s HK people with "failure" and blaming on the previous generation. Social consequences, maybe, but stereotyping, no. At least not in my dictionary. 




"I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged."
"You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned."
"Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes."
People once told me I can never truly understand how difficult life can be. I won't suffer from hunger, don't need to chase after money, however, that doesn't mean I do not know the difficulties in life. Mine may not be the same as yours. I tend to forget about failure, as it is painful, I do not wish to recall, it is human instincts. I do not wish to reveal, I wish to forget. That experience is out of my control, I can only make a decision of the consequences by my action, which is usually tends to be selfish. 


"And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do."

I guess no one will object me if I say HK government do not exercise imaginations. They tend to stay in their comfort zones. It's almost a culture. That's why the society is deteriorating, rotting and rusting. I'm not qualify to make judgements since I'm not a lot better than they do. But anyhow, I'm not serving the millions of citizens, and they should have higher aspirations than I do. 

"Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing."

"We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better."

That is what I've constantly heard from my lessons in design schools. We do not need another hero, but how much can imagination tie to reality? Proposals after proposals in the academia, lacking practical sensibility. To be innovative, you have to think 10+ years ahead, which current people won't be able to visualize the "success" and see its benefits, so the proposal is abandoned. 

"so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters."

I have fear of suffering from pain and poverty, so I may choose the path to success. But I have this chance of not worrying about food and being able to chase after dream, where is my dream? Year by year, I'm diluting my dream with "success" and it became so opaque that it's hard for me to visualize anymore. The older I get, the less courage I have to chase after my dream since the more responsibility I'm having. I wish... and I will do...

Big and bold speeches are beautiful and touching, but they are speeches: experienced by others and somehow fantasized by listeners. It is truly inspiring, but how much can you do about life? 

Aiyayayee Photos I Love

I'm picking up stuff from everywhere I found interesting with similar mood.

Flower dance:

"Fuller combined her choreography with silk costumes illuminated by multi-coloured lighting of her own design."

Dance by Loie Fuller called 

DANSE serpentine

but it makes me think of flower. What does it make you think of?

Then, it leads me to the following photos:

from Playing Fashion Magazine

from Madeleine Vionnet Puriste de la mode exhibition... Dying to see this exhibition... in Musée des Arts Decoratifs  PARIS!!!! But I'm nowhere near Paris and it's ending today... sob

Talking about fashion, I really love the dresses shown on Lily Cole from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. 

I guess I start to like Lily Cole 

from Gary Bigeni's ss09/10 collection

This weird image is attractive haha

from Style Bubble

Sonia Rykiel for H&M bra, Emma Cook satin ruffle shoes

from Little Bird

from The Year in Pictures

This photo is called "The Wave" but it's actually clouds

"this picture, taken in January 2009 at Las Olas Beach in Maldonado, Uruguay, shows a rare roll cloud. These clouds form when a downdraft from an advancing storm front causes moist warm air to rise and then cool below its dew point. When this happens uniformly along an extended front, a roll cloud may sometimes form."

Can't wait to travel...