Elegance and Harmony

It is all Brasil, these days. The World Cup matches decide the tempo of my days, and I am happy with that.

Warm and humid Sunday, with no matches I was interested in seeing. Instead, to stay within the Brasilian mood, decided to re-read “Eleven Minutes” by Paulo Cuelho.  I had read “The Alchemist” and then a friend gave me a copy of “Eleven Minutes”. In a funny way, many of the World Cup teams have alchemist players who transform ordinary moments into pure joy and pride. And the overtime play minutes seem to decide the dreams of many a team and player. So, the mood was right for this Brasilian writer to keep me away from the smoldering day near the Atlantic Ocean.

More than a decade has passed since I read “Eleven Minutes” and I delightfully rediscovered most of its uniquely abrasive themes. But, as one sometimes finds in books tucked away, I also found that I had written two quotes on the cover page, one from Cuelho, and one from Coco Chanel! I do not recall when or why I wrote these, but I recognized Coco Chanel’s famous statement that “Fashion fades, only style remains the same.”

The one from Cuelho was more intriguing, as it was about elegance. Given the era (early 1990’s), it did not surprise me that I had kept this quote. This was the decade when I lectured and wrote about elegance in research and methodology. A far cry from the artistic turnery about the definition of elegance, but I think equally needed: science should be as elegant in its inquiry modes as it is convincing in its guidance.

Anyhow, the quote was: “Elegance is usually confused with superficiality, fashion, lack of depth. This is a serious mistake: human beings need to have elegance in their actions and in their posture because this word is synonymous with good taste, amiability, equilibrium and harmony.

The equilibrium and harmony themes have always been central to my outlook. To a student of biology and medicine, a healthy system is simply defined as a system in equilibrium. And harmony is the hope of everyone who understands the laws of physics, hence the universe and its order. Eventually, we bring this understanding inward, and introspectively try to understand who we are and why conflict defines us humans within the context of universal harmony and equilibrium.

Perhaps Bob Marley said it best “Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.”

After all, my blog is about Zen and Harmony. Maybe it is not too pretentious to say that from biology to research methods, from the laws of physics and people’s conflict with order, I have searched for the elegance in celebrating and suffering.

That may not lead to the truth, but has lead to an inner harmony in company of people “worth suffering for”.

June 29, 2014

© Vahé Kazandjian, 2014