The Ones That Stuck | Haylee Ryan | TEDxUTA
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5-npw16Hxw Video ID: X5-npw16Hxw ============================================================ ugh wow guys i'm here to tell you that life is throwing noodles at us also i have my mask on life's throwing noodles at us all the time sometimes they stick sometimes they don't and you know i'm here to talk to you about why some noodles stick and why some don't actually i'm not here to talk to you about noodles at all it's just a metaphor because i like pasta anyone else like pasta everyone likes pasta actually my talk is about that life is throwing moments at us all day every day right now and that some of them stick and some of them don't and what is the difference between the ones that stick and the ones that just bounce off and really i mean the only difference between a moment and a memory is that it sticks now why they stick i believe is that you have some sort of emotional encounter with beauty now i don't mean beauty in the traditional sense of the term like you had an emotional encounter with a greek goddess which seems very memorable to me actually but i don't think beauty like that can be fit into a box because it's different for everyone but i do know that you'll know what beauty is to you because it is what you remember if you look back on something it's it's the moments that stick the most crystal clear in your mind they're the ones that impact you i would actually even dare to say that beauty is in the memory of the beholder and it doesn't have to be these big giant moments of our lives it can be the little tiny everyday moments and you don't even know why they stick they take you off guard i remember this day i was walking actually i think it was last summer i was walking on a beach in portugal pre-covered and i was walking with my best friend and it wasn't really even a big part of our trip or anything but we were walking along this beach that we had found and it was like i'd walked next to this person maybe i don't know 100 million times in my life and all of a sudden the sun catches her face the wind like catches her hair in this wonderful way her scarf matches the background of the beautiful turquoise water and she looks over at me and she has this little grin that i know and love so well and i swear to you it was like the world stood still and it was throwing a sticky noodle at me and you know i kind of think that if if we would be more fully present and i'm talking to myself too that the world really is trying to throw sticky noodles at us all the time we just think that they come in these big giant fancy packages but they don't and i also believe that just how our minds they can't hold every single moment every single memory that we have we also we can't hold every detail of every memory and this is where it starts to get interesting because it can only hold on to the parts that are the most dear to your heart the most impactful ones or i dare say the most beautiful so my work as an artist i i like to show this process of abstraction in our minds through my process so you can see that the background of this painting is totally blocked out just the color was the background beautiful yes in comparison to the way i felt through my best friend's expression towards me it was blocked out blurred so i've abstracted the background i also do remember she was wearing a really nice scarf so it's probably mine i let her borrow it and she was wearing some sort of ochre skirt but i don't remember all the details actually it looks like i've painted her shirt white but it's empty space so there's also parts of our minds that we just completely let go of because they weren't important at all let me tell you how important her shirt was to me in this memory zepola so it's empty i also if you don't know anything about paint that's totally fine i'll give you a little lesson painting 101 acrylic paint is a water-based paint it kind of sits back it doesn't have so much sheen and it does show really really beautiful colors and texture but when it's next to oil paint there's nothing like the depth of color and the vibrance of color that's in oil paint so i reserve the most detailed parts of my paintings the parts that stuck in my memory the most clear because they are the ones that are the most beautiful and impactful to me i use oil paint and detail only on those parts so you can see that her face and the freckles along her lips and the her hair and her skin and the center in her hair that is the most detailed part so they come forward they stand out just like in our memories we hold on to the most important parts my this friend amanda we also have a podcast together and it's called the haley and amanda podcast and we it's about joy and inspiration and we've recently interviewed children kids because we thought they're closer to the source they're going to be wise they're going to have some wise stuff to teach us so we ask them what is the happiest you've ever felt in your entire life of all the years you've been alive and we're thinking oh my god what are they going to say what are they going to say it's going to be so impactful and they're like ah jumping on the trampoline with my friends i'm like wait what that's the happiest you've ever felt they're like yeah another kid's like i love riding my bike because i like the wind on my face we're like that's the happiest you've ever felt they're like yeah what's up what's wrong with that and i just think that we have something to learn from them because they allow themselves to feel happiness all the way full to the top in the everyday tiny little moments and here these parents are trying to you know throw the best birthday party of the century and they all they need to do is like go for a walk so you know maybe it's not all the big giant moments that make a huge huge difference in our journeys maybe it's just a woman eating ice cream i've blocked out the where she is because i i don't remember the signs i don't know what they look like but i do remember that it seemed like she was enjoying that ice cream and the sun looked really nice on her skin maybe it's just the way that texture is left from a chair on a woman's back maybe this doesn't impact you as beautiful maybe you think i'm a creep but it does to me and those are the memories the tiny little moments of life that i want to keep alive here you can see that there actually is nothing except for the figure your mind tries to trick you and fill in that it is there but you'd it's not there at all i i used to live in europe and i don't know what it is about old people gathering in parks and sitting on benches but boy do they love to do it and they go there and they just sit and i always used to just love their slouchy like expressions the journey that that people carry in their bodies i find really fascinating and i think my gosh do they come here every day did these people go to kindergarten together what do they even talk about do they talk do they share peanuts i don't know and i love the pattern of what these women are wearing it's stuck in my memory but if you look it's also again painted with acrylic paint there's no there's no detail to it there's no shading it's just a flat pattern but their skin and their expressions and their just their demeanors and how they're carrying themselves that was beauty to me and it stuck with me and you know i find that my life is just full of all these tiny memories what if our lives were just full of three big giant memories i got married i had a baby and um well that's about it um it's actually full chocked full of these sticky sticky noodles and this is one of my best friends alba in the blue and you know i've seen such beautiful things with her i've seen architecture and buildings and beaches and oceans and i haven't painted them once but you know what i have painted a lot her looking at me it's like really because those are the things that stick for me is human interaction when people are being themselves when they're being candid and they let someone see them when someone really looks at you and it turns out that our lives are just full of all these tiny little moments and they make our lives joyful they make our lives beautiful and they are worth remembering even if it's just your mom having late night jammy chats you know i i do think that there's a power and there's a chain reaction that happens when we decide to keep memories alive because you take something that happened in the past you drag it into your present you have a conversation a moment with someone where you're sharing it even if it's just with yourself reliving it it changes how you feel and then you proceed into your future differently i was recently asked to paint the late ruth bader ginsburg it was such a huge honor because obviously of all the things that she's accomplished for our country our world and it was really powerful painting her not only just because i was impacted that you know she had passed just right i mean this was only a few weeks after and i was kind of keeping her memory alive not just me i'm not the only person who's painted or captured her but the fact that her memory was continuing and then what really surprised me was all the little all the people that would walk by and they would have these conversations with me telling me how she impacted them telling me it looks like she's looking back at them helping wanting them to keep this conversation going keep pushing the ball forward and so i ended up naming this piece a work in progress because although this painting is finished the work and the conversation is not and that's what happens when we use our power to keep memories alive we keep the conversation going and we potentially change our futures this is just another series of mine called the ladies of lake worth and i brought it up because it evokes so much nostalgia and these are just memories that a friend of mine found in a box and a thrift store and then i thought that this everyday memory that they were making together brought so much joy and playfulness that i wanted to bring it back to life nostalgia is beauty mixed i'm sorry nostalgia is memory mixed with feeling it's usually you think of a memory and the feeling comes back or it's like a you're longing for that feeling again maya angelou has this quote a lot of you probably heard it that says people will forget what you said people will even forget the way or what you did but people will never forget the way you made them feel and it's so true even those tiny little memories i was talking about they have a feeling attached to them something that moved me something that stuck and honestly that was going to be the end of my talk but maya angelou came along and she flips it all on its head for me and i realize here i am talking about what's beauty to me and what's you know what sticks in my memory and who has impacted me and you know what sticks for me and the truth is that on the flip side i am and we are the ones that are inhabiting everyone else's memories we are the ones that are sticking in people's minds that they look back on fondly or not and it's not because of some traditional sense of beauty it's because probably because of the way we made them feel and so i'm filled with this sense of like beautiful power but also what a responsibility that we have the power responsibility and opportunity to make beautiful memories for everyone we encounter we have the power to make beautiful memories for everyone we encounter through the big giant things that happen to us but also through the little tiny everyday sticky sticky noodles so with that i would like to end by saying that every moment presents a chance a chance for us to be aware and encounter beauty but also a chance for us to be aware and impart beauty and may we be the ones that stuck just since i have a moment i would like to say that i want to say thank you to all of the sticky sticky noodles in my life thank you you