watering the fish, 28x28” oil on portrait linen, as she looked following this morning’s tweaks
11:28 AM: this morning i made further tweaks to watering the fish. this is the most i’ve worked on a painting in this current series, and, although i think i said this yesterday, i think it’s resolved now. a brief back and forth with my dear friend wendy in nyc was instrumental in making the tweaks this morning, and i’m very grateful to her!
HOPE:
A landmark longitudinal study of 25,000 Australians over 14 years has found that hope may be one of the most powerful predictors of human flourishing — more so than income, education or intelligence. It’s the first ever large-scale study of its kind, tracking how varying levels of hope correlate with people’s health, earnings, education, social connection and resilience over time.
The results were striking: individuals who scored higher on measures of hope were consistently more likely to be employed, healthier, less lonely and better able to recover from major life shocks such as job loss, illness or divorce. Hope also appeared to strengthen people’s “internal locus of control” — their belief that they can shape their own future — and this persistence helped drive positive outcomes year after year.
The researchers found that, unlike cognitive skills, which stabilise by early adulthood, hope remains malleable throughout life. In other words, it’s something that can be learned. That makes it a rare lever for long-term wellbeing, one that families, educators and regulators can cultivate through mentoring, purposeful schooling, community rituals and clinical practice.