The Beauty Blind

I’m a guy who has a skill, the skill of seeing everything new as a quite normal thing. I’m the kind of guy who even if you take him to planet Mars he would just say, “Yup, that’s good.”

It’s been 8 months since I moved out to live in Istanbul, which is obviously one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but every time my parents or my friends ask me about how Istanbul is, I say, “Yeah, it’s good”. Once my friend told me, “It’s been two years I’m living in Istanbul, and you are the first person I met who described Istanbul with that cold, frosty and short words.”

I always thought this is a good skill I have, the skill of seeing everything new as quite normal. And that was the case until I saw a Snap of Lubna Alkhamis.

Lubna is the kind of a person that can take you to a peaceful and pleasant state of mind with a single picture or by spelling some few words with her magical voice.
So that day, Lubna posted a Snap where she wrote, “I wish I will never lose the gift of being amazed.’’
And at that moment, I understood that the skill I thought I have, is actually a gift I miserably lost. I lost the skill of seeing the beauty, and the gift of being amazed by the beauty I see.

I started wondering since when I became a beauty blind, and when was the exact moment I lost the feeling of amazement. 
Of course, I searched in my weak memory for a single event where I said the word ‘wow’ after watching something new, and of course, I couldn’t find it. Then I surfed on all the pictures and videos I took in my previous trips, and by miracle I found one video I took in September 2017 in Koh Tao, Thailand, when I saw the Turtle Island and I literally said, “Wow, what a beauty.”

When I watched that video of 20 seconds, the feeling of amazement was reborn inside me again, and I witnessed how beautiful that was, and I decided to never ever loose that gift anymore.

And to do that, I followed the steps of my guru Lubna… Every day she takes pictures of New York, and she shares them with us. And by doing the same thing, I was able take more time to admire the amazing view I see, and then, capture that admiration with the best photo I can, to share it on my Instagram Stories.

I started doing that 15 days ago, and that took me from describing Istanbul as just Good, to Magical. Magical in the sense that in every corner of the town, you can discover something that will leave your mouth big open and your neck in pain since you’re looking around, up and down all the time.

So, wherever you are, just look around, you will see a ton of beautiful things there. It can be a flower, a pet, the sky, a color you like, even a sharp stone on the ground. There is beauty everywhere waiting for you to see it, and you will be amazed how that can change your day once you capture it.

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Note: I’ll be posting the new photos or videos I take on my Instagram Zo_Captures.

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What if the Lockdown Creates the Next Big Five?

More than 4.5 billion people were confined in the last months, making it the biggest lockdown the humankind never known in his history; and we should be proud of being part of it, because now, we have some great – and sad – stories to tell to our children and grandchildren as our parents and grandparents did.

Staying at home all day allowed us to discover a lot of things…
There are some couples who discovered that their characters doesn’t match after 30 years of marriage.
There are some parents who discovered that their baby-sitter isn’t payed way enough.
And there are some people who discovered that 24 hours is a little bit too long for a day, and they experienced the boredom at its finest after dropping out their daily life routine…

• Boredom is proven scientifically that it can enable creativity and problem-solving by allowing the mind to wonder and daydream.
• Free Time allows us to learn new things and shape new skills. And that’s what some people chose to do during the lockdown.
And the mix of skills and creativity is the perfect formula to create something new, revolutionary and big.

Honestly, I will not be surprised if I hear in the next years Google and Facebook are purchasing new startups every 15 days. And it’s neither impossible to see one of the startups becomes a giant and -maybe- replaces one of the actual GAFAM.

After every major catastrophic event, humanity prospers larger than it was before, and new giant companies see the light, Inka Mero said, “Many of today’s unicorns have been founded or built during recessions or downturns – resource scarcity can be a source of creativity and pivoting” – 
But what differs today’s pandemic from the previous major events, and makes it even more promising, is the fact that today we have a limitless access to an endless knowledge, at any time and any place in the world. Add to that, the lockdown that gave us a plenty of time to learn and a dose of boredom to think.