A-Ha! Lens

What is better then the moment when you realize: A-Ha, that's it! Something connects, the stars align, whatever and suddenly things become clear. It can be kind of magical. An epiphany can manifest itself in both big ideas and small moments of recognition. I appreciate these moments.

So you may be wondering what inspired this post (what led to my a-ha!). It was actually due to this essay I'm writing for my Humanities class. As part of the essay I have to discuss the 5 stages of creativity as they pertain to the creation of a ballet piece titled Homecoming. The fourth creative stage is called A-Ha!, the moment when the concept or idea you've been studying out finally comes together. So as I thought about it, I realized I have these sort of experiences all the time, though not in spectacular ways.

Moment of realization number 1: Chinese class
I've been looking for a practice partner for several weeks now but didn't want to ask anyone because I'm incredibly shy at school (I know that's hard to believe) and didn't want to hastily ask someone that would turn out to be a bad practice partner (that comment was not meant to be rude). So anyways, today I suddenly realized that this girl who I generally sit by in class is a great practice partner. She's good at telling me when I've messed up and is good at accepting critiques I give her as well. This whole time I've been observing everyone in the class, trying to judge who would be the most beneficial to me when the best partner I could get was sitting right next to me.

Moment of realization number 2: Making pretzels
I've been wanting to make pretzels for a long time because they are tasty and not terribly hard to make. Or so I thought. Try as I might I could not get the dough to do what I wanted it to. They were probably some of the ugliest pretzels ever. I was so ashamed I wouldn't even take a picture. So as I tentatively took a bite of one I realized that they weren't so bad. I shouldn't have judged the book by its cover. As this basically translates to anything, we shouldn't always judge things based on first impressions because we are human and don't know everything.

I would put a third realization but that's all I've got right now. But you know what, it's ok because from those two moments alone I learned a lot. And that is good enough for me. 

So look for your A-Ha! moments constantly. They're beautiful. :)

-M