Harmony can be associated to many, many different things. People, most obviously, with people is the first assumption when associating harmony to anything. However, harmony exists between animals and people, animals and animals, people and nature, earth and the sun and everything that exists within our known universe. So why is it so hard to maintain and why does it take manipulation to make it possible between people and people made things?

I took this photograph while I was driving. It was a beautiful day in San Francisco, the sun was shining and the sky was bright blue. No, we do not always have fog in San Francisco. So the TransAmerica building was just illuminating. I wanted the photograph but it was quite boring by itself even with a deep blue sky and the details of the building. That is when the neighboring building came into play and created contrast. This contrast created the photograph because suddenly there was not a simple, lonely building but harmony between buildings within a photograph. But this harmony took manipulation on my part to get it just right. On the other hand, was the harmony already there?

It took about five photographs to get this one “right.” I crouched low and I stood on my toes. I went closer and I went farther. I held the camera perfectly straight and I tilted it left and right. Eventually I found the harmony of the buildings within my photograph. However, let’s be honest, it was already there I just needed to work to find it. When nature is left alone, it is always harmonious. When people enter the mix, we really have to work to achieve it especially when it comes to achieving harmony with other people and accepting that nature is better with out us.

Wouldn’t it be nice though if people could find the harmony in relationships in five attempts or even just immediately like nature has mastered it? It is somewhat sad when I think about it. We could have so much more if we accepted each other’s idiosyncrasies. Not even just idiosyncrasies but also acceptance of different gender, race, creed, hair, clothes and everything else we deem unacceptable. 

Yep, if you haven’t figured it out, this is somewhat about me. Well, I am the catalyst of the story, it just happens to fit all of us. If you have been reading these essays, please tell me you have, then you know a few months ago I wrote about falling in love. Well, that is still the case, the love is there, but the harmony is gone. Like the buildings in the photograph, we were very different. It took work to find the good angles and right places to get the harmony of “us” but in the end, there was no perfect picture. Why is this? My favorite band, Depeche Mode, has a song with a line that says, “People are people, so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully?” I mean really, why do people get along so awfully? NOT that we got along so awfully! Now I am just expanding the analogy to the rest of the world.

The two buildings in this photograph were built in different eras and possibly (with a lot of research I could attain the truth) different centuries. Nevertheless, they sit side by side in peaceful harmony. Man built them with the same purpose and good intent and they thrive in the universe. Are humans not here with “purpose and good intent”? How does love turn to hate? How does good become bad? How is one thing greater and another lesser? Who gave humans the right to decide what happens to everything else on this planet when we can’t even keep harmony within our own species? How can we achieve harmony with each other, with nature and with every species on this planet?

Hmm, a billion dollars to see if water existed on Mars or a billion dollars to achieve harmonious peace on Earth?