Mindful Matter
A wonder-full life.
I have some exciting news to share. In a few short weeks, I will be embarking on a very new type of Adventure as I become a father for the first time. My wife Jess and I are expecting a baby boy in early July and I am feeling all the feels — joy, nervousness, gratitude, excitement, curiosity, and so much more. Fortunately, as it has been for most of my life, my older brother Mike and sister Ramesh are a couple steps ahead of me so I have been able to learn from them both. Mike’s daughter Mala is now two years old. On a recent video call, they were outside doing one of Mala’s favorite activities — watering the plants. It’s incredible how much joy Mala experiences going from one plant to the next and carefully adding water to each one. She has turned this seemingly simple, even mundane activity into a beautiful ritual. Watching Mala reminded me of something I read in William Martin’s book, The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents: “Do not ask your childrento strive for extraordinary lives.Such striving may seem admirable,but it is the way of foolishness.Help them instead to find the wonderand the marvel of an ordinary life.Show them the joy of tastingtomatoes, apples and pears.Show them how to crywhen pets and people die.Show them the infinite pleasurein the touch of a hand.And make the ordinary come alive for them.The extraordinary will take care of itself.” In my day-to-day, I usually view watering the plants as a chore, something to quickly check off my list so I can return to “more important” things. Mala’s love of watering plants is a welcome reminder to find wonder, beauty, and joy in life’s everyday, ordinary activities — knowing that “the extraordinary will take care of itself”. To building a wonder-full life, Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. Here is a photo of Mala doing what she love's most:
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The pandemic of racism.
The coronavirus has caused pain and suffering beyond belief. But recent events have brought to light another sickness that has impacted far more people in America than the coronavirus. It has lasted centuries, killed millions and continues to affect people today — most recently through the senseless murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Jamar Clark, Philando Castile, Dreasjon Reed, Botham Jean, Ezell Ford, Michelle Shirley, Stephon Clark, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, and far too many others. These aren’t just names, these are lives — Black lives, and they matter. And even when deaths aren’t involved, this sickness causes pain and suffering in the lives of millions every single day. The metaphorical sickness we are referring to, of course, is racism. Unlike most afflictions, the ones who are infected are not the ones who are most affected. The symptoms — income inequality, mass incarceration, police brutality, residential racial steering and displacement, exclusion from opportunities, voter suppression, segregation in education, unequal access to healthcare, the list continues... — disproportionately impact Black communities in America. Similar to the effects of racism, the coronavirus has caused suffering around the world. But unlike racism, the coronavirus is not limited by your race. It can infect anyone, including those with privilege and power. Maybe that’s why action was immediately taken to combat the coronavirus, with nationwide quarantines, trillion-dollar economic stimulus packages, radical changes to the way we work and how our schools run, major shifts in how we interact with each other, and personal behavior changes. In a matter of months, the virus set in motion a rapid shift in how the world works. This shift wasn’t easy, but it was necessary to ensure that fewer people would suffer from the coronavirus’ effects. If we are serious about addressing racism in America, we need to address it like the pandemic that it is. The path to peace, justice, and progress comes through the difficult but important work of digging up the roots of racism within this country, and within each of us. Only by understanding the pain this pandemic causes can we start making the radical changes needed for us to heal and grow together. Not sure where to begin? We found this curated Anti-racism Resource Guide helpful in our own journeys to learn more and take action. To doing the work, Mike and Dave RadparvarCo-Founders, Holstee
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Q&A with Daniel Neuman
This month’s art is by Nebraskan designer, Daniel Neuman. Daniel has a passion for creating hand lettering and illustration that tells a story. His inspiration behind this piece was "to create a scene inside a polaroid picture. Technology today is amazing and we have the ability to capture everything we do in unique ways. Nothing compares to the human experience though. Adventure is meant to be lived in the moment.” For a little more about Daniel, here's a short Q&A! Where is home for you? Physically home for me is in Lincoln, Nebraska. I feel the most at home though when I am traveling and exploring somewhere completely new. What is your definition of a successful life? Success for me is loving others. It’s the moments in life that can’t be bought with any amount of money. It’s living life to the fullest no matter what the circumstances are. Describe your perfect day. A perfect day for me would simply be adventuring somewhere new without any plans or obligations. Getting lost in the moment without being distracted by technology or the daily stresses of life. How did you get into design? I started drawing trees when I was about 5 years old and won an award for one I drew when I was 8. I have always loved drawing trees and outdoor scenes since I was a kid. When I got into high school I started to create posters and merch designs for a band I was in as well as other local bands. This sparked an interest in pursuing design as a career. Digital art class was offered during my senior year in high school and I stuck with design ever since. I went to college for graphic design and slowly started picking up freelance jobs here and there. My first job out of college was working as a designer at a screen printing shop. Currently, I work full time as the art director at a design agency called 877. I freelance on the side which has turned into another full-time job as well. I’ve been blessed to work with clients from all over the world and can’t wait to see where this career takes me. Where do you find inspiration? Inspiration is everywhere if you just open your eyes. I’ve been trying to be intentional about slowing down to recognize the inspiration I have in front of me every day. It could be a sign I see on a building or the colors on a tree. There are opportunities in every minute of the day if you allow yourself to see them. What's your dream design project? I’d love to design a mural for Patagonia or an outdoor/adventure brand like that. Which designers or thinkers influence/inspire you? I love being inspired by the designers and photographers I follow on Instagram. A few that come to mind are Noel Shiveley, Taylor Penton, David Rollyn Powell, Christian Watson, Abe Kislevitz, Kyle Fredrickson, Stefan Kunz, Dan Lee, Matt Carlson, Eric Nyffeler, Nick Frederickson, Eva Winters, Joshua Minnich, Michael Moodie, Maggie Ward, Andrew Lennon, Josefine Svärd. I could honestly go on and on, I love all of these designers and photographers so much! What was the inspiration behind this design? Adventure is about exploring something new from a different perspective. The idea was to create a scene inside a polaroid picture. I wanted the design to break the frame in a way that made it feel as if the moment was coming to life. So often now we don’t live in the moment and soak up the experiences we are in. We are too busy snapping photos and adding Instagram filters that we forget to be present where we are. You can’t go to a single national park without seeing hundreds of people with cameras taking pictures around every corner. Technology today is amazing and we have the ability to capture everything we do in unique ways. Nothing compares to the human experience though. Adventure is meant to be lived in the moment. At the moment, what is your favorite… Color: Brick Red Food: Indian Song: “I Don’t Wanna Go” by Chris Renzema Quote: “Good design is obvious, great design is invisible.” -Joe Sparano (one of my favorite teachers in college)
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Always invert.
Carl Gustav Jacobi was a German mathematician in the early 1800s, famous for his study of elliptical integrals. As a professor, Jacobi was known to tell his students, “Man muss immer umkehren.” Roughly translated: "One must always invert.” (Finally, my college German class put to use!) Jacobi was guiding his students toward the idea that it’s easier to understand complex equations when you work backwards from a clear result. Inverting isn’t just practical in math, but also in life. With this month’s theme of Simplicity, I have been thinking of ways to simplify my life — my commitments, my material possessions, even the digital content I consume. I’m having a difficult time cutting things back. I just don’t know what to get rid of. Taking Jacobi's advice, I decided to invert the question. Instead of asking myself what I need to get rid of, I imagined what a more simplified life would look like. What was I doing? What was I wearing? What was I reading? How was I spending my time? The question went from, “What do I need to get rid of?” to, “What do I want to keep?” Start with the end in mind, Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. Speaking of starting with the end in mind, in our Digital Welcome Guide we challenge you to write your own eulogy and to imagine how you might be remembered in order to help ground you in the values you choose to live today. It’s a powerful exercise that I often return to. In case you are curious, here is my eulogy which I wrote and shared a couple years ago.
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What do you need?
In this bold art for May’s theme of Simplicity, artist Iancu Barbărasă challenges us to reflect on what we actually need versus what we simply want. As the creative type in the print suggests, our needs are often overshadowed by our wants — so much so that it can be hard to see what our needs actually are. But where do we begin to understand what it is that we actually need? In 1943, a 35-year-old psychologist named Abraham Maslow condensed his research into a now-famous diagram: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Image via The School of Life One of the reasons this diagram is so compelling is that it provides a simple and tangible answer for some of life’s biggest questions: What are we pursuing? And what do we need to achieve it? Over years of revisiting this diagram in relation to my life, I have come to appreciate that my place on the pyramid is constantly in flux as circumstance and priorities change. With our world at a meaningful turning point, it is a unique moment to revisit and distinguish what it is that we need right now. Reflecting on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — what do you need right now? Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. We are such fans of Abraham Maslow that we created a tool and named it in his honor. Two years ago, we launched Maslow — a text-based chatbot for Holstee Members to easily access all member content, like the monthly Art, Guides, Discussion Questions, Quotes and more quickly and more easily from any phone. Give it a try!
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Making space for growth.
I was sitting on my balcony one recent morning, enjoying a cup of tea, when I looked over at our jasmine plant and realized that it hadn't yet flowered this season. The leaves had been reddish brown since the winter, but they hadn't fallen. I don’t have much of a green thumb, but something felt off. So last week I decided to prune the plant, carefully removing all the non-green leaves. The next day I came outside and there were already a dozen new sprouting leaves. The day after that, I glimpsed a handful of teeny-tiny flower buds. This whole time I was waiting for the jasmine plant to flower, I was wondering what more it needed — more fertilizer, more water, or perhaps more sun. Turns out, the only thing holding it back from growing was its past self. It made me wonder — how much of our growth relies on first trimming what no longer serves us? What do we need to release so that we can flourish in the next season? What if we were to prune all the preconceived notions of who we are? All the regrets of the past and the anxieties about the future. All the outside influences telling us who we should be. The pride, the ego, the baggage — snipping and letting these things fall away. What new season of life can we step into after we make space for our own growth? Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee P.S. Making space is something we explore every May with our members, diving into the art and science of Simplicity through our monthly kit, digital guide, curated resources, and now also with our online gatherings!
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Q&A with Iancu Barbărasă
This month’s art is by Romanian illustrator, Iancu Barbărasă. Now based full-time in London, Iancu creates art with an ideas-led approach. His work aims to inform, delight, and inspire people. He hopes his illustration serves a reminder that "We'll be much happier and our planet will be much better off when we want less and share some of what we have with those who really need it.” For a little more about Iancu, here's a short Q&A! Where is home for you? London, UK has been home for almost ten years now. I find its diversity very inspiring, even in spite of the recent political issues. I was born in Transylvania, Romania though, and it will always remain a special place for me. What is your definition of a successful life? Having a helpful, positive impact on people’s lives, starting with family, friends, colleagues and hopefully others as well. Describe your perfect day. Wake up, have breakfast, go out cycling for an hour or two, get back, shower, draw for two-three hours, quick lunch, draw or read for another couple of hours, cook dinner and enjoy the evening with my partner. How did you get into design? I’ve always liked drawing, but I'm a rational type, so I was considering architecture and design during high school. I chose design because of the wider range of projects – my university had a mixed curriculum, so I studied both product and graphic design, and some interior design as well. After graduating, I started working in advertising but I soon switched to branding, being much more interested in work that would last longer. I've been doing this for over fifteen years now. Recently I've started expanding into illustration and hand-lettering, thanks to a few of my personal projects that have drawn attention online. Where do you find inspiration? Reading a lot and being interested in a wide range of subjects. During a project, it comes first from answering the “why – what – who – how” questions: why are we doing this, what is the product or what are we trying to say, who is it for, and how should it feel. Besides that, I always try to “steal” ideas from seemingly unrelated fields, or from old masters. All work that seems original just has less obvious sources of inspiration. And of course, I follow favourite artists and designers online, but I do my best to keep their influence in check. What's your dream design project? Any project can be exciting if you’re working with great people. I'd love to work more with clients who care deeply about their impact on everyone and the environment. For example, Patagonia or the Certified B Corporation companies. Cycling or outdoors related would be just a bonus. Which designers or thinkers influence/inspire you? I greatly admire Christoph Niemann for his intelligence, kindness and versatility; Yvon Chouinard for proving that it is possible to have both a profitable and responsible business; Milton Glaser for explaining the importance of being able to create form, not just to find it; my grandad for teaching me to look at everything with a bit of imagination and a lot of goodwill. Plus I'm always learning from so many other amazing people, like Paula Scher, Michael Bierut, Katsuji Wakisaka, James Victore, Geoff McFetridge, Jean Jullien, Matt Blease, Austin Kleon, Jason Kottke, Alan Fletcher, Saul Steinberg, Herman Hesse, Tenzin Gyatso, and so on. What was the inspiration behind this design? I was searching for an impactful way to express the huge difference between what we want and what we actually need. Type size was a logical solution, but I also wanted to give it a sense of urgency and global scale. For some reason, the cover for Muse's Origin of Symmetry album came to my mind. So I tried to capture a similar uneasy atmosphere in my own design, but pushing everything to the extreme (tilted horizon, roughly hand-drawn type, long shadows etc.). At the moment, what is your favorite… Color: Red & Yellow (both better together than on their own). Food: Chestnut honey (it always reminds me of my grandparents). Song: OO by Robert Fonseca (love his latest album Yesun). Quote: “The great thing about drawing is that it forces you to pay attention, and attentiveness, in the Buddhist sense, is the one way we have to understand what is real.” —Milton Glaser
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If we are gonna heal, let it be glorious.
This week we are continuing to lean into uncertainty, as new questions arise and new inspiration finds us. We were most moved by author and activist Sonya Renee Taylor’s powerful call to dream and prepare for a new, more glorious world to come: “We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature. What we have been forced to leave behind we needed to leave behind. What is getting us through is what we will need to take forward, all the rest is up to us. DREAM. While [you] have so much time. DREAM of the life you want. DREAM of the world you desire to exist in. Look for the places in your new dreams that have parts of the old world and remove them. What is the dream then? From there we can add to the collective weaving of whatever it is that is next. If we are gonna heal, let it be glorious.” Take a moment to write down your dream — of the life you want and the world you want to exist in. What does your life in this new world look like? In what ways does this new world look different from the old world? Journal your response, privately and for free, at Reflection.app. To our collective, glorious healing, Dave RadparvarCo-Founder, Holstee
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