Photo: Cuba, Inbar Asif

My immediate association to today’s word prompt of “Elastic ” was about the dire need for more flexibility. How important it is we be able to curl our mind around the bend of preconception so we can appreciate beyond “our idea of beautiful” or “our opinion of correctness.” It’s become fashionable to be rigidly unyielding, to confront instead of listen, to seek conformity instead of be accommodating.

As if acceptability lives by a single yardstick and Photoshop.

We cover over imperfections. We discard or deny any marring exists. We seek the shiny new. People get judged more by their circumstance of birth than by how pliable their hearts are or how truly resilient they have proven to be in holding on to kindness even in the face of oh-so-much that wasn’t.

As I wrote this a notification appeared for Steve McCurry’s post about the “Art of Imperfection” and the power of Wabi-Sabi — the Japanese practice of finding harmony and beauty in what is simple, natural, and modest, where transience and imperfection are part of the aesthetic. How perfectly apt.

Here’s to beauty in the marred.

For The Daily Post