Is resilience something we are born with, or can it be developed? The answer seems to be, a bit of both. We all have an innate level of resilience, but our attitude to life and the knocks we receive along the way can strengthen or decrease it. Perhaps surprisingly, many people who have faced the toughest challenges demonstrate the highest levels of resilience; they have needed to.
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When the Spanish invaded and conquered much of the American south west, one of their first acts was to build missions. They claimed they were saving the souls of the indigenous ‘heathens’ but they had a much more worldly agenda. Their motivation was to subdue, control and in due course employ the local population to exploit the resources of their newly acquired territory.
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Islamic art shuns the depiction of living figures, whether human or animal, partly to avoid any suggestion of idolatry and partly because it is believed that the creation of living forms is Allah’s prerogative. Instead the emphasis is on geometric forms as well as calligraphy and abstract floral motifs.
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Bodie is a former gold mining town, now a ghost town which, as the state park website says, has been ‘preserved in a state of arrested decay'. It looks largely as it did when the last residents left, its buildings still furnished and stocked with goods, offering a unique glimpse into the past.
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The choice between colour or monochrome for a photo is a very subjective one. Some people simply don’t like black and white photography, seeing it as old-fashioned, unnatural and unnecessary. Why remove the colour from a scene, they ask, when we see the world in colour. Why show things as less vibrant, less varied, less colourful than they really are?
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When I was (much) younger I used to marvel at older people saying how quickly time passed, but now I see that they were right! It’s hard to believe that another year is over, when it seems as if it’s barely begun!
