“Since the school playground, we’ve known that we must not show our fragility. We’ve learnt to have ‘defences’. So there is always a fragile bit of us, but we keep it very hidden. But this rock crystal doesn’t appologise for being weak. It admits it’s delicate; it is confident enough to demand careful treatment; it make the world understand it could easily be damed. And with good reason.

It is not fragile because of a deficiency, or by mistake. It’s not as if its maker was trying to make it though and hardy and then -stupidly- ended up with something a child could snap, or that would be shattered by clumsy mishandling. It is fragile and easily harmed as the consequence of its search for transparency and refinement, its desire to welcome sunlight and candlelight into its depths (…).”

SICKNESS. You have to be very tough to survive. It’s a dog-eat-dog world.

Alain de Botton & John Armstrong (@ Rijks Museum — Art is Therapy)