Life is beautiful ✨

A still from the 1978 film <n>Fedora</n>.

We are a landscape of all we have seen. —Isamu Noguchi

A still from <n>Hiroshi Teshigahara</n>'s 1966 film, <n>The Face of Another</n>.

Cover art for the journal <n>Bioengineering</n>'s special issue on trauma and injury biomechanics.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light, and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.’

“I want everything quiet and simple. For me: walking barefoot, sitting still, reading, listening to stories, and now and then telling some myself. Eating fruit, drinking milk, longing to create, but with patience and many insights.”


— Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Lou Salomé witten c. March 1904

Every human either adds to or subtracts from the happiness of those with whom he or she comes in contact.

In solitude, we learn to allow things to grow slowly and gently. To feel cradled in the quiet; to feel whole as you are. Marilynne Robinson once said, “I grew up with the confidence that the greatest privilege was to be alone and have all the time you wanted. That is the cream of existence.”