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Why The Trees Change Color in Fall

So I just published my book on Amazon titled “Why the Trees Change Color in Fall“, I have been working on this story since the US President Election of 2016, I was so depressed in seeing all the ugliness of our world, all the divisions and the hate among each other, I just couldn’t understand how as a society we were moving backwards, after all the wars and ugly history of our planet.

I wanted create a story that could be read and shared by anyone, a story that had hope, diversity, acceptance, inclusion and an inspiration to stay true to yourself and never change but be yourself always wherever life takes you. I took inspirational from His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama from an Aspiration Prayer –

June 7, 2017 3 comments

Featured Life Moments

looking inside our hearts

The photo above was taken by my father at the Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City. Art pieces here rotate monthly, featuring new works and different artists for people to discover.

The sculpture I’m standing beneath is by Nari Ward. It features a large upside down heart, made up scraps of rusty copper, hanging from a tall, red metal frame. Inside this copper heart is a bell you can ring. The noise it produces is nothing short of something magical and fantasy-like, soft jingles echoing from the depths of the inside of the heart and flowing outside. Like a heartbeat. When I shook the bell, I didn’t grab on to the string and shake it. I didn’t wildly swing the thread upwards. I didn’t shove the bell harshly. Instead, I gave it a very gentle tap. But that small gesture caused ripples of sound, and it let me know that something was inside the heart. I think that the whole structure of this artwork is an accurate model of how all of our hearts function. Whether it be a small smile, a pat on the shoulder, or a gentle tap, you will never completely know what the effect of your action is until it happens. The most tiniest of gestures can cause an entire earthquake in us.

June 7, 2017 3 comments

Travel

why we need to get lost more often

lost
/lôst,läst/
1. past and past participle of lose.
adjective
adjective: lost

1. unable to find one’s way; not knowing one’s whereabouts.

2. denoting something that has been taken away or cannot be recovered

3. (of a game or contest) in which a defeat has been sustained.

The word “lost” means a lot of things and can be interpreted in a lot of ways. The word “lost” has a fear aspect to it, a negative connotation, like it’s a really, really bad thing to be “lost.” But, it isn’t. Being “lost” can lead you to the most exhilarating places, places for wanderers, places that you can’t simply find by following a map or a set of directions. So when I suggest that we should get “lost” more often, I don’t mean that we should start to lose our house keys or purposely not win a game. What I mean is that we shouldn’t be constantly stressing over our “whereabouts.” We, as people in a society, are so obsessed with “where we are” in our lives. Are we at our high point? A low point? A dive down?

Who cares?

Unfortunately, we lose our lives in this quest to prove to others that we are at an all-time high point. And we do this by buying things we don’t need, doing the things we don’t want to do, adopting the idea that if it’s not uploaded online, it might as well have never happened. We live with this constant pressure to prove ourselves, and it just leaves us unfathomably sad.

Let me give you an example. Say you decide to go to the arcade with your gang of friends. It’s supposed to be fun, go figure. But when you begin to have a strict plan for everything, micromanage every single tiny detail because it needs to be “perfect” and then take dozens of photos to show others how “perfect” it was, all anyone remembers is how they couldn’t play a single game of air hockey “because there wasn’t enough time” and how you forced everyone to take dozens of photos to get that “just right” lighting. We end up losing the importance and purpose of that event so much, it eventually just becomes a photo-shoot. It’s not fun anymore. The solution to this, though, is laughably simple. Just let yourself get lost in the beautiful chaos of everything. You don’t need to let everyone know where you are. You can just experience it for yourself.

The photo above is one of me knee-deep in seawater at a beach in Shelter Island. I didn’t plan on being there. The purpose leaving my house wasn’t so that I could take artsy photos. I didn’t write down on a to-do list to visit the ice cream shop or to bring my cousin along. I didn’t know I’d be riding a ferry until I was on it. The end result though, was gorgeous. Just let things play out in their own funny way for once, and tell me what happens.

June 7, 2017 3 comments

Featured Life

what it means to live

There are thousands of ways to define death, and every single version is valid and plausible. My personal definition of death is simple- it’s when you’re no longer alive. Which begs the question, what does it mean to be alive?

When you’re truly alive, you’re a wild child with thousands of different emotions whizzing around your head like you just broke a beehive. You show off your scraped knees like they’re fancy cars, you sing too loudly, you stare right into the sun. You do things because you feel like doing them, because you want to, simply because they can be done.

I should say that I’m not encouraging you to adopt unhealthy habits or engage in illicit behavior, please, for both my sake and yours- don’t. But I am saying that we all should start slashing down our fears. Our fears of being stung, going bankrupt and getting heartbroken typically end up doing far more harm than actually getting stung, going bankrupt and enduring heartbreak. It’s these fears that tell us not to go camping and experience the beauty of nature, because, well, we might get stung! These fears are the reasons why we work long hours (to evade bankruptcy) and become naturally untrusting to those who show us affection (fear makes you think: I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t have a heart!) As a result, our fears turn us into the worst versions of ourselves- unloving slaves to work that never go out. And, are we really alive when it gets to that point? Our fears do more then harm. They’ll kill us if we let them.

I’m gonna finish off with something lighter. You know that saying that “life is a box of chocolates”? I know you’re rolling your eyes, but just bear with me for a minute. There’s a lot of truth to that. Life is gonna be the longest thing we’ll ever do, and even so, so much stuff can be left undiscovered. I think that yes, life is a box of chocolates, and they’re all there for your sampling. You might come across some trashy flavors, but it’s not likely you’ll have to eat them again. You don’t know what to expect, but there is a 50/50 chance that the chocolate you’re eating is good or bad. You shouldn’t agonize over which chocolate is the tastiest or which one has the most calories. You should just try to eat as many chocolates as you can before you get full.

June 7, 2017 3 comments

Life Moments Stories Travel

Writing A New Life Chapter

Change, for the most part, is always good. It refreshes our eyes, it revitalizes our tastebuds, it wakes up our noses. It is incredibly important to avoid a monotonous, gray routine that doesn’t make you truly happy. This is because if you live a life of misordered priorities and you worry about the irrelevant things, you’ll become, to simply put it, sad. There’s a reason why ice cream comes in more than two flavors and why the sky likes to change colors. It’s because, without variation, life quickly becomes boring. We as humans need something to differentiate today from yesterday. Every day, I try to do something new, something different. This can be as simple as switching up my breakfast, or as drastic as completely re-organizing my wardrobe. If you’re out of ideas or choices to alter, create something new. Picking up an instrument or a new book cannot only change your life but you as well.

Continue Reading

June 7, 2017 3 comments

Life Stories Travel

Dear Toronto

This post will be about Toronto, one of my most favorite places to have traveled. Toronto was similar to New York in some ways, but had its own characteristics. I could see why it’s been consistently on the list of the world’s most livable places. Toronto, much like New York has an incredibly busy and bustling Chinatown, which is the place me and my family traveled to first. I was especially fascinated by the amounts of cables that hung from the pole to pole, which are used to string on-ground cable cars along. Another we did in Toronto was visit the Spiceland market, a place we saw on Eddie Huang’s TV show, “Huang’s World. Spiceland is basically a medium-sized Sri Lankan market, with a large assortment of goods not found in many other stores. We also visited Toronto’s K-town, which was larger than the one in New York. It was late out at night at this point, but we still got to go inside some stores and observe some pretty cool street art. I can’t wait to visit Toronto again.

June 7, 2017 3 comments

Featured Life Travel

My Life Underground

I live in New York. For roughly two years, I’ve always taken the 7 train to my school, a roughly thirty-minute commute. I’ve never put much thought into my mind how intricate and complex something so minor in my life, such as a train ride can be. The New York Subway System has twenty-three different train routes and more than six hundred fifty-five mainline track miles. Without switching trains, the A train travels thirty-one miles to one of the stops along the route. What makes the New York Subway System especially unique though, is how many people have to work in order to keep functional. There’s first the people who conduct the trains, of course, then those who power all the machines, including the trains, those who supervise the safety of subways and tunnels, and then the engineers who keep the trains in proper shape. That’s only at surface level though. The MTA Staff ranges from an elevator manager to a cabinet maker. I’m sure there are hundreds of things that I didn’t even touch on, but it’s amazing what you can find when you look into the most smallest of things a little more deeper.

June 7, 2017 3 comments

Featured Life Moments

My Wonderful Mom

There is a relationship with your mother that resembles no other. A lot of people think it’s because your mother gave birth to you, but that’s only one part of it. Even though the message is finally catching on, I still feel like mothers are still underappreciated. We don’t recognize all the amazing things that they do for us. From day one, our mothers protect us with their life. After a while, we forget that feeling. We don’t realize how much strength it takes for someone to protect something with all their heart, for years and years to come. A mother will wake up from her five-hour sleep and one of the first things that will pop up in her morning thoughts is you. And those morning thoughts linger for years. A mother will relate anything and everything to you. She’ll find something and it will instantly remind you of her. A mother will give you a part of her head reserved for only thoughts of you, and all her heart for your loving, and will spread her arms open wide when you come running to her. All the mothers in the world are incredibly extraordinary and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Thank you, mom.

Love, Nodi.

June 7, 2017 3 comments

Life Moments Stories

My Crazy Dad

My dad and I are very close. The biggest thing we have in common though, is our tendency to find other solutions to a problem. For example, my dad temporary sofa covers using duct tape and fabric he bought online and I built a makeshift shelf support using books. Recently, our caulking gun broke, so we used various tricks in order push the silicone out. Regardless, every time we use our DIY talent and instinct, the outcome is something that solves the problem in a cost-effective, functional, efficient way. And that’s all the matters right?

My dad has taught me a lot of lessons. Like to always work with what you have, or how to retain composure when a situation is stressful. My work ethic, grades, and this blog that I’m writing in at this very moment are all thanks to my dad. Thank you, Dad.

Love, Nodi.

June 7, 2017 3 comments

Featured Moments Stories Travel

A Day in Chicago

The photo above makes me especially smile. This was taken at night at Chicago’s famous Magnificent Mile. The Magnificent Mile is a popular commercial district that features many luxe and upscale shops, trendy restaurants and posh hotels. I bought a sweatshirt, some pants, a dress and a bath bomb. The bath bomb proved to be a very relaxing experience while the clothing items are some of my most favorite garments in my wardrobe. Treating yourself to something once in a while isn’t something you should feel guilty about. Taking time to take care of yourself is something you’ll thank yourself in the future for.

June 7, 2017 3 comments