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Category: Manny Kagan
Fridays with Manny
What is Mastery?
One of the books which I read from time to time, which was assembled by Joann Evelyn Ames titled, “Mastery. Interviews with 30 Remarkable People”, has 30 masters express their views on their lives, work and what led them be recognized as masters. When asked “Has there been an important point in your life?”, one of the masters, Architect James Ingo Freed, who among other buildings designed the San Francisco Public Library and the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, gave a very interesting answer. “I always wondered what I would do if I knew I only had so many years left to live. I’m sure I’d be doing the same thing. You don’t change fields if you are serious about what you do.
Not being serious is a real problem. At the same time, you also have to be able to laugh at what you do.” The last sentence resonated for me about my work and my life. Never take yourself seriously. Laugh and share your laughter with others. My photo-book “42 Encounters with Laughter” might help.
One day in the future, I am going to be recognized as a photo-master. This always starts with the first attempts as you can see in the baby stork whom I encountered in Golden Gate Park.
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Fridays with Manny
Would You Like to Live Longer
and Look Better?
I found the secret to longevity in the article titled, “Neuroscience Says Doing This 1 Thing Makes You Just as Happy as Eating 2000 Chocolate Bars”, written by Melanie Curtin, which first appeared in Inc. Magazine in September 2017, and has since been reprinted by many online venues. Turns out that based on the study in the UK, researchers who tested how “mood-boosting values” responded to different stimuli, realized that “one thing trumped all else. It emerged as giving participants the equivalent level of brains stimulation as up to 2,000 chocolate bars. It was just as stimulating as receiving up to $25,000. What was this magic stimulus? A smile.”
According to the article, smiling makes you feel good even if you’re not feeling good in the moment. And smiling is also a predictor of longevity. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I expect to live until I am at least one hundred and twenty. To ensure that this is going to happen, I constantly tell jokes for others to smile as well. After all, I would like to have the company of my friends in the years to come. Besides, when we smile, we look better to others. Perhaps this is why most of us like children. They smile as many as 400 times a day; while, according to the study, 14% of adults smile less than 5 times a day and 30% smile over 20 times a day.
To help you to smile and to laugh more, I published “42 Encounters with Laughter”. If you want to live longer, please laugh more and share it with others. I hope that the two playing children will bring a smile to your face.
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Fridays with Manny
Where to Find Love
On my way to taking Max to his dog sitter a few weeks ago, I drove through Golden Gate Park. While driving, I noticed a man photographing a small tree covered with white flowers. After dropping off Max, I decided to return to photograph the same tree.
The grey sky created the perfect light for taking photos. I took a short walk close to the Japanese Garden and faced not one, but quite a few trees covered with spring blooms. While trying to find the right angle I moved closer, and I lost my sense of time. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with emotions and my eyes became watery. In my heart I felt love.A love for the trees, flowers, nature and the beauty it brings to my life.
Flowers will not last for long, but we are always surrounded by nature. Just go out and fall in love. In the meantime, take a look at the flowers I photographed for you.
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Fridays with Manny
What is a Moveable Feast?
While doing some research online, I found out that the Easter holiday belongs to the “moveable feast”. It got this name since Good Friday and Palm Sunday are celebrated on different dates each year, as the date is connected with the celebration of Jewish holiday, Passover.
In one of the articles I read titled, “The Ancient Math That Sets the Date of Easter and Passover”, published in the Atlantic, Robinson Meyer shared a lot of interesting facts. Turns out that in AD 325, during the First Council of Nicaea, the Church leaders decided to set the date of Easter on the first Sunday following the first full Moon of Spring. Thus, instead of following the Gregorian calendar, the holiday follows a lunisolar calendar, similar to the Jewish calendar.
There are many traditions connected with Easter, such as the Easter Bunny. I found three of them in my neighbor’s yard.
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Fridays with Manny
How to Get Out From a Narrow Place
At sundown tomorrow, Saturday, March 27, Jews in all parts of the world are going to celebrate the first night of Passover; which, according to Orthodox Judaism, took place in 1312 BCE. In the spring of that year, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, after living there for 215 years (just for comparison, the United States is celebrating its 245th birthday this year).
In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim, which literally means narrow place. The place where thousands of Israelites were trapped to serve their Egyptian masters as slaves. Though thousands of years passed, the slave mentality is still with us. It is very difficult to get out from the narrow place in our minds because of perception, memories, habits, and even political influences.
The Story of Exodus, which is repeated year after year during the Passover Seder (which means order), serves as a reminder that to feel free is not easy, even when God is trying to help us. Sometimes when you are in a narrow space, just read one of the jokes in “42 Encounters with Laughter” or look at the beautiful flowers.
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