Finding the Hidden Gems

Mara here. When I was younger, there was a video game my brother played in which you'd go through the various levels and collect gems of different colors and shapes. The whole goal of the game was to collect as many gems as possible.

I can't remember the name of the game, but the concept of finding those precious gems has stuck with me all these years.

I was reminded of that game yesterday while I was going through a bunch of headshot I'd just taken. I'm a photographer; for those of you who aren't familiar with headshots, they're a portrait that performers use to market themselves. Actors (or dancers, etc.) take them to auditions, and they're essentially the first impression the casting directors get of you. So for actors, they're very important.

When you do a headshot session, you take a lot of photos. I take more than some photographers because I think the subtle variations in people's expressions can make a huge difference to the quality of the photo. So I take hundreds of shots. This means, however, that at the end of the shoot, there are hundreds of pictures that the actors, in consultation with their agent or manager, have to sift through to find the one or two pictures that really stand out.

They have to find the gems.

I also sort through them and pick one or two to post on my social media sites. It's one of my favorite things to do because I click through the pictures, letting them pass by until one catches my eye.

So yesterday, when I was wading through 446 pictures of a client, I took a moment to explore what it was that made any given picture stand out from the hundreds I was looking at. And there's no simple answer. Sometimes it's the curve of an eyebrow. Sometimes it's a slight curl of a lip. Sometimes it's the glint of joy that shines through the eyes.

And here's the amazing part—everyone thinks different photos are gems. This blows my mind—how you can give twenty people the option to pick whatever they want and they won't all pick the same thing!

I thought about this recently on a family weekend getaway. We were at a waterpark, so there were hundreds of people walking around, and I realized that they were all wearing different bathing suits. It was amazing to me that, given the choice of different colors, styles and patterns, most people pick something that nobody else picks.

And that, for me, is one of the truly wonderful things about life—that we don't all like the same things. What's a gem for me isn't necessarily a gem for someone else.

And, although at the time I thought that my brother's gem-collecting game was just a dumb game that was one of dozens he was obsessed with, I realize now it's an interesting metaphor for life. We go through life, bombarded by things all the time, but our job is to sift through all the information that comes at us and find our own gems. We have to find that one house in a thousand houses. We have to find that person in a world of billions of people, who we decide we want to share our lives with.

On a smaller scale, we go into stores and pick that one shirt that we love or find that one pair of pants that makes us feel attractive. Part of growing up is experiencing a wide range of things and identifying what makes our lives a little more enjoyable: a favorite food, a favorite book, or a favorite TV show. Just like the video game, we travel through our life adventure and collect our own personal gems.

Here are a few questions I asked my mom on this subject.


Is there a Buddhist lesson about finding our own unique life joys—or as I refer to them in this article—gems?

Hmm. That's a good question. I can't think of a Buddhist lesson about finding our own unique life joys, but I can think of a lot of Buddhist lessons about not becoming attached to them because everything changes all the time. Impermanence is a universal law, and so I'd say that we should expect that, although some gems may last a lifetime, others (even relationship gems) may not.

Don't get me wrong. Nothing in Buddhism says not to find joy in your unique way. I talk about joy a lot in my books. But it helps to recognize that it's often fleeting; then we won't be distraught when it disappears. Or when it breaks. I mention the word "breaks" because in my new blog for Psychology Today, which I'll be posting in a few days, I write about an impermanence practice where you think of things as already broken. It may sound strange in the context of this beautiful and thoughtful essay of yours, but I think readers of my new piece will find both essays helpful.

Similar to my experience with headshots, as an artist, you have to select things that stand out to you as special to paint or embroider. Can you identify what it is that often catches your eye? 

This is a great question. I used to work for someone who would often wear a tie that matched beautifully with his suit. When I'd point it out, he said it was his wife who'd picked it and that she liked to tell him that he lacked the "goes with" gene. He said he never knew what went with what.

Looking for what goes with what is what catches my eye when I'm doing art. Which colors look good with other colors or catch your eye in a pleasing way because they're not the obvious choice to go side by side? What textures look good next to other textures? What brush strokes make a good contrast with other brushstrokes, such as using a dry brush to indicate grain on wood and then contrast it by using a wet brush full of paint right next to it.

So, I tend not to look for individual things but for what looks good or moves me because of what it's next to.

Oh, and I don't remember the name of your brother's video game either!




Some of Mara's Headshots