Almost twenty years ago, I was walking through a flea market with some friends when I noticed a display screen with animated art of a moving waterfall. It had no Internet connection and showed only the one image on a big, heavy screen, in the blocky graphics of the time. Still, I thought it would be great to have something like that to hang on my wall; and I decided to buy one after a few years when the technology got better.

Time went by, and I moved to a new house without having found anything similar. I had a spot picked out for it on a wall of my dining room, which is on the north side of the house and always seemed too dark and quiet. Even with a small holiday tree in the corner, it was hard to brighten up that room in December. So I was very happily surprised when my husband’s Christmas gift for me this year was a flat-screen art display connected to an online gallery, which he put on the wall right where I wanted it.
 

For this photo, I set it to display brightly colored abstract art. It can easily be changed to other images, either static or animated, with a phone app. This is a new product by Electric Objects that was rushed into production for the Christmas season and doesn’t yet have a large searchable gallery. Users can upload images, though, so it’s just a matter of finding good ones.

I look at it as a symbol, on this New Year’s Eve, of moving forward in a world where the images and stories we keep in mind become our reality. They may take a while to show up in our everyday lives, they probably won’t look exactly the same as what we first imagined, and they’ll change even more as time goes on—but however it happens, they do find their way into real life. So, it’s up to us to choose our thoughts wisely.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.