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| Robert Flatt’s book, Healing Art — Don’t Let Anything Ruin Your Day |
It is never too late to start a new hobby, or to take up a silent passion you’ve had for a long time, and one person who is a living example of this, is Robert Flatt, 71, an engineer, photographer, philosopher and author. Flatt is also fighting Parkinson’s disease.
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| Robert Flatt |
“Eventually you will have bodies like mine that do not work very well (from the disease of aging). Eventually you’ll no longer be able to do your current job, and this will give you a marvelous gift — the gift of time. You can squander this gift by sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, or you can try to find something interesting to do, with whatever physical ability you have left. Once thing, you will certainly have time for is to be happy, which is often called smelling the roses — though you may not be able to physically smell or even see or touch a real rose,” Flatt said
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| After being an engineer in the oil service industry for 31 years, and after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Robert Flatt retired in 2004. It was not long until he immersed himself in his hidden passion of photography. |
Flatt and his wife met when they were 15, attended college together at Rice University and have been married for 50 years. The couple loves to travel, and when they were hiking in Olympic National Park, Flatt noticed that his backpack kept tilting. He thought he needed new equipment, but is was Parkinson’s.
So, after being an engineer in the oil service industry for 31 years, and after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he retired in 2004. It was not long until he immersed himself in his hidden passion of photography, taking every class there was to take at Rice.
After photography classes, Flatt and his wife spent many years traveling the world, mainly for the purpose of allowing him opportunities to capture exquisite images of the wonders of nature.
Flatt is now an acclaimed photographer, and his photos are featured in a permanent exhibit at Baylor University Department of Neurology and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Rice University also awarded him with the Gold Medal for Meritorious Service. He has authored a photographic journal filled with breathtaking images, and his life lessons and perspectives on life and photography.
“I have written and published a book about my 15-year battle with Parkinson’s disease, Healing Art — Don’t Let Anything Ruin Your Day. The subtitle refers to how we have a chance to defeat debilitating diseases like Parkinson’s. We can’t change the fact that we have the disease, but we can, by God, not let it ruin our day today — maybe tomorrow, but not today,” Flatt said.
On one of the pages from his book, with a hummingbird featured, he writes, “I believe that to get one of those really great photographs, you’ve got to somehow shut down the rational, sobering brain and listen only to your heart.
“An opportunity for a really great photograph, or any photograph, only exists for a brief moment in time. If you miss it, you don’t just miss it for today, but you miss it for all eternity. To rephrase Sir Francis Bacon: ‘Take the picture now. You will not get another chance. There is no rewind button.’”
One of the things Flatt hopes people will take away from his book, which can be purchased from most bookstores and online, is that he believes life is good, that beauty is all around us, though we have to look for it.
And that we need to live as much as possible in the present and know that time is precious. After all, there is no rewind button.
Today, Flatt and his wife are residents at Brazos Towers at Bayou Manor, enjoying the community, giving talks on his book, and he is still taking photos.
“Parkinson’s disease gave me the gift of time to learn to take photographs that hopefully will give you some peace, joy, love and laughter. So, the book is full of the best pictures I have taken over the last 10 years combined with text about the ways that I have tried to cope with my disease,” Flatt said.
https://www.chron.com/news/article/See-the-world-through-Robert-Flatt-s-lens-14335429.php#photo-18103276
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