Around the world, row after row of wooden barrels holding distilled spirits slumber away until the day the distiller finally calls out their name. Meanwhile, while we patiently wait for this illustrious day, 2% simply evaporates from these oaken casks per year.
This is called the Angels’ Share.
This is truly a delightful notion: that this precious percent that drifts off by itself escapes both homo sapiens and the tax man. One may note that it is not uncommon for a cask that is fifteen years old to be half empty by the time it is bottled.
Hence, the longer the slumber, the more the angels get.
It would no doubt be possible to make a container the angels couldn’t get into, but we wouldn’t likely get the same result. And shouldn’t the angels get their just and pleasurable reward; this small amount that escapes all earthly claims, destined to benefit the unseen and unknown?
We are taught in our early years, that it is the angel’s job to look after us. In today’s perilous world, that must be hauntingly demanding work, work which should certainly merit a few perks.
Metaphorically, as much of life should be looked at metaphorically, the Angels’ Share reminds us of the small percentage of evaporation that may have disappeared from our lives and our home if we haven’t been paying attention. Is it lost forever? Can we regain some of it? Do we even want to? Has it evaporated from our thinking as a society, I wonder?
Can we retrieve the sublime to meet the divine?
Flowers do nothing, practically speaking, in daily life, yet they give you a moment or two of something most valuable and precious – that of a moment of beauty.
You can transform a space with flowers that cost so very little, yet add such a massive impact? THE 2%.
Five stems of violet delphiniums arranged in disparaging different vessels.
Climbing under fresh white, crisp sheets, pulling the down duvet up to your chin. An open window and the night breeze. Thinking about every possible thing. THE 2%.
This month, let’s grab a good book. I mean a real book. One you can heft up, to hear the sound of pages turning, to smell the paper, to underline words or passages.
It doesn’t have to be one that will impress everyone in the airport lounge. Sometimes, one just longs and needs or requires, a really good piece of escapism. It keeps the imagination and purports the fun of life. THE 2%.
Make a place for yourself to live and work to have a higher dimension. Put out statues, paintings, prints, quotations, mementos – anything for more joy and inspiration – THE 2%.
“He did each single thing, as if he did nothing else.” – Charles Dickens
We live in an age of distraction. Life isn’t 10 open screens, beeping texts, and one flickering attention span. Live life as if it were dessert — it’s too brief and too delectable to be distracted through. You don’t wolf it down.
Well, maybe some things.
The biggest design project anyone can have is their own life. Dance in your office, in your living room, down the street.
Above all, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde
Only the angels know…
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