Category: Thinking

When I was working on foundation’s logo as well as a color scheme that will associate well with our mission & core of our existence. I tried several color palettes and finally settled on what I thought was pleasing yet elegant. The next step was to make sure how the meaning of this color associates with what we do. Of course, in the back of my mind it always had a cultural significance for me. Orange is a sacred color in some cultures. Its also the color of vibrance and birth. But I wanted more data before I decided. It took me almost a month to collect information and finalize. Here is the zest of “Meaning Of Orange Color”!

I was asked by a few of my friends when they saw our newsletters. Why does Orexian Foundation use Orange color so abundantly? And if there is a specific reason behind it. I smiled!

Orange, the blend of red and yellow, is a mixture of the energy associated with red and the happiness associated with yellow.

Orange is associated with meanings of joy, warmth, heat, sunshine, enthusiasm, creativity, success, encouragement, change, determination, health, stimulation, happiness, fun, enjoyment, balance, sexuality, freedom, expression, and fascination.

Orange is the color of joy and creativity. Orange promotes a sense of general wellness and emotional energy that should be shared, such as compassion, passion, and warmth. Orange will help a person recover from disappointments, a wounded heart, or a blow to one’s pride.

The meaning of the color orange is stimulating, vibrant, and flamboyant. While made up of red and yellow, it carries less aggression and fierceness than the color red due to its combination with the calming color yellow.

Studies show that the orange color can create physical effects such as increased hunger, heightened sense of activity, increased socialization, boost in aspiration, stimulated mental activity, increased oxygen supply to the brain, increased contentment, and enhanced assurance.

Orange also helps aid decision making, and enhances happiness, confidence, and understanding.

The color orange is a very hot color and often provides the sensation of heat. While orange is a common color associated with summer and the hot sun, often associated with being a main color of harvest and autumn due to the changing color of the leaves and pumpkins.

While orange does stimulate the appetite, it is a common color found in citrus fruit and is often associated with Vitamin C and a healthy diet. Orange is a popular color in restaurants to encourage the feeling of hunger and contentment.

The color orange has very high visibility and is often used to gain attention. It still gets your message noticed without the bold, in-your-face presence that the color red has.

Too much orange causes self-centered and self-serving qualities, including pride, arrogance, and lack of care for others. Too little orange causes loss of motivation, lower self-esteem, and loneliness.

“So we need to make sure, the orange doesn’t overpower our mission & what we stand for!”

Different shades, tints, and hues of orange have different meanings. For example, dark orange may represent deceit and distrust, while red-orange relates to passion, pleasure, desire, aggression, domination, and action, and a golden orange often stands for prestige, wisdom, illumination, wealth, and quality. A light orange or peach color tend to be more friendly and soothing.

Other meanings associated with the color orange:
• Orange is often associated with autumn leaves, pumpkins, and when used alongside the color black, Halloween. With the change in color of the autumn leaves, orange often represents the changing seasons. Because of it’s association with change, orange is often used as a transitional color or to represent a transition or change of some kind.
• Orange and blue work well together because they are complimentary colors. The orange and blue color palettes are commonly used for representations of play and summer fun, depicting both the hot, summer sun and the cool, refreshing water.
• Orange when combined with yellow conjures up feelings of heat and fire, as well as fresh fruit. When combined with the color green, the colors elicit feelings of adventure and tropical destinations.

Colors are the way we see & perceive the world! So to get the message across clearly & accurately its important we use right colors!

Source: Internet, Books, Websites! https://www.bourncreative.com
Hindu Culture & Teachings

Anyone who knows an answer to this question should have a great deal of everything … fame, money, respect, or whatever. Such a person might be able to write such articles & we all may pay for it! It would be gorgeous life for him or her!

Let me tell you, I am not “that” person. Else I wouldn’t be spending my time to write this article. Instead I would be working on my “novel” ideas. Well the first part is certainly true but the later is only partially true. I do generate novel ideas; probably a lot more than I can follow up on. But that would be a subject for another article.

So “How do you generate novel ideas?” I do not have a recipe or a guaranteed solution that I can share. But I do have an answer to “how can we try to generate novel ideas?” And “what could be considered as some of the ingredients needed to generate novel ideas?”

Let’s start with a story that I had read as a kid. I was always; always fascinated by great scientists, leaders & historic figures. And of course, even today, I still am.

I was reading a story about Einstein’s childhood. Not sure if it’s true but it goes like this. When Einstein was a small kid, his uncle or someone gave him a flash light or a torch. Einstein was very fascinated by it. He played with it all the time. He had fun pressing the button and see a beam of light coming out and shining on the wall. Sometimes in the night he would try to shine it to the sky and he would see a beam of light disappearing in the darkness and in the vast expanse of the universe. That’s when it occurred to him, the story said, that if he was sitting at the top of the beam, what would he see or where would he go? Such a seemingly simple question but gave him an idea to explore the light, time & space etc. Such a simple yet transformational question!

I was amazed by the story. I remember telling this story to everyone I could meet. Even after decades; I am still amazed by this story but in a different way. If the story is true then surely little Einstein had a lot of fun with the flash light alright. Hundreds of ideas & questions might have come to his mind. He might have generated a question or an idea each time he pressed the button or just at the plain sight of the flash light. But after a while his questions might have got deeper and deeper and more & more difficult to answer. And then might have come “THE” transformational question. He might have played with that question and who knows might have decided to save it for a rainy day. Well… I don’t know what really happened and the story didn’t elaborate on it either.

Why am I telling you this? Please hang on to this thought for a minute until you read the next story.

Recently I came across an article on listening. The author argued that in order for someone to start listening one needs to listen a whole lot. If you are expecting something substantial to come out of someone, you need to give that person a chance to express anything before you can actually hear something valuable.

It’s like finding a gem stone; tons of ugly coal needs to be unearthed. Well the ugly coal too is useful in some other ways as we all know.

Now coming back to my story on Einstein and why I shared that with you.

I strongly believe that in order to get “that” millennium idea (or question) he must have had to generate a tons of ideas. And as a matter of fact, in my personal experience it certainly works for me.

I generally get ideas when I am quietly having my early in the morning tea. I just let the ideas come out without being judgmental about them. But then sometimes, suddenly, a strange idea comes out and just sticks. I can’t move away from it and that’s when I realize that, that’s the idea I need to follow. And I normally do. When I realized this, I have made a habit to get up early and have a cup of tea quietly. I have been doing this for several years. Whether its a weekend of weekday, vacation or busy schedule, I still, to date, get up early and have a cup of tea quietly. Its fun to sit in the dark sipping hot tea and just let your mind wander. Try it sometime.

There is another technique I practice. I try to think of problems. It doesn’t matter if those problems are small or large, simple or complex, local or global, personal or social, technical or not. And sometimes one problem stands out and just grabs me until I have saved it in my memory box. Yes, I do have a list of such problems in my savings.

I think, creating a surrounding or atmosphere that let’s you wander your mind, is more important than a specific recipe I described above. Which comes down to a personal experience after all. Being curious, asking questions (to yourself rather than others) and trying to think of answers is the automatic next step.

Wandering thoughts to ideas and questions to more powerful ideas and then comes the idea of the day or idea of the life. Unless you let “the ugly coal” out of your mind, you wont be able to get “a gem of an idea”.

It’s a game and one needs to play it. I play it all the time and not that I get prize winning ideas or anything but sometimes a seemingly simple idea makes my day.

I feel an Einstein for that day. And to me that is THE reward!

If scientists are the modern day Gods, could this be a way of worshiping? Or is that why they say “God helps those who help themselves”.

So are you helping yourself and playing the game of idea generation?

Picture Credits: Original pictures from https://newvitruvian.com/