Month: April 2014

MeetUP Event Next Thursday (5/8)! Our Guest speaker is Mary Jung, Director of Government & Community Relations at San Francisco Association of REALTORS. Click through the flyer for more details!

MeetUP: Ellis Act

 

 

Someone asked if Cubans are happy—the answer is “Yes.” Many of my photographs reveal them smiling for no particular reason. Are they content? The answer is “No”.

Meager government salaries and very low pensions do not allow Cubans to have many possessions. When some Cubans could leave Cuba for the United States in the 80’s, those who chose to stay pelted them with eggs. Now those who stayed are very happy to receive any help from their “rich” relatives. When the Cuban government gave the Cuban people the opportunity to have their own small enterprises, they opened stores, and even restaurants (sometimes in doorways, many started having prepared food in their kitchens).  

For tourists, there are many well-decorated establishments with good food; many restaurants and hotels are joint ventures between the Cuban government and foreign companies. Despite the exodus, Havana’s population is between 2.5 and 3.1 million; the streets are full not only with tourists, but also, with locals who stand in line to buy ice cream or a pizza from these tiny doorway enterprises. And it seems, everyone is happy.

When I photographed people in Cuba, and they noticed me, they would both pose and smile, or I would just smile at them with a thumbs up. Their response was always “Muchas gracías”.  I showed them the image I took on my camera’s display screen, and they seemed even happier. Some asked for money, so I either did not photograph them or I gave them my camera to photograph me and asked them for the dollar. This trick made instant friends and afterwards they posed for me with pleasure. To make them more relaxed, I sometimes stick out my tongue or make faces to get back a lot of laughter.

There is a chapter in the great book, “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, titled “Happiness Does Not Lie in the Future, But in The Present”.

            “When one problem is solved, another appears to take its place. Life is a series of problems. If you are to be happy at all, you must be happy – period! Not happy ‘because of’.”

Who cares if I am happy or not? Well according to Dr. Maltz, “Happiness is good medicine.” He writes, “We think better, perform better, feel better, and are healthier when we are happy. Even our physical sense organs work better.”

Choose to be happy.

 

On our way to Los Angeles to celebrate Passover with our daughter Tamar, we listened to the book by Alexander McCall Smith called “The Unbearable Lightness of Scones”, which we had borrowed from the San Francisco Public Library. This is the last one in his series about different people living in Edinburg, Scotland. Over the years, we’ve listened to many of his books, including a series of novels titled, “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency”. Regardless of the plot, the characters, or the geographic location, all of his books share the concept of how to be charitable to other people. Most of us associate the word charity with the giving of money. McCall Smith is talking about the sharing of the goodness of your heart.

I was thinking about the word “charitable” as we were driving through Los Angeles. Heavy traffic and congestion make people tense and nervous. Some cross in front of each other, while others change lanes without signaling. I was not surprised to hear Tamar’s verbal reaction, which was not very charitable. I did not like it, but I realized that I often did the same (both in driving and expressing myself toward other drivers).

 

On the Eve of April 14^th, Jews all over the world are going to celebrate Passover. It is one of the most popular of Jewish holidays, which essentially commemorates freedom. Year after year, families and friends gather together around the festive table and read the Haggadah —the story of the exodus of the Israelite slaves from ancient Egypt, which supposedly took place over 3,400 years ago and is mentioned a number of times in the Bible:

Jesus said: “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15).

The Torah describes those events in great details. At that time, Egypt was the largest country in the world. 210 years earlier, 70 Brei Israel—the children of Israel, whose name was given by an angel to the Israelite nomad called Jacob–who had twelve sons, and came to Egypt to avoid starvation after one of his sons Joseph was about to save Egypt from the devastating seven year drought.

In Egypt, Brei Israel grew and multiplied. After Joseph’s death and the arrival of a new Pharaoh, the Israelites were forced into slavery and backbreaking labor to build the pyramids in Egypt. Years later, an Israelite by the name of Moses, who was saved by the Pharaoh’s daughter and had to run away from Egypt after killing a slave master, is called back by God at the age of 80 for a mission to take the Israelite slaves out.

 

The phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” describes how beauty is subjective. The phrase derived in the 3^rd Century B.C. in Greece, and is supposed to indicate that we perceive beauty with our eyes. But what about this expression from the 2001 movie, “A Beautiful Mind”:

          Nash: “Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift to discover a beautiful heart.”

How can one see a beautiful mind or a beautiful heart?

I decided to write about this subject after visiting a photo show where Kate Fomina displayed her work. During the day, she is a very good real estate agent with Princeton Real Estate. But in her free time, she makes women (and now men as well) look beautiful, with her photography.

The concept of beauty changes with time. We often follow the trends set by fashion and Hollywood. But what is real beauty and how do we see it?

Kate told me about a client, a woman who after a mastectomy was in a bad state of mind. After the stylist and make-up artist worked with her, Kate took her photo. Suddenly, the woman saw herself as beautiful. But it was not just her new view of herself as others saw it, as if it was evidenced by the responses she received from social media. What changed?