Hals & Hounds is a family. A family that spans the globe, across continents and oceans. This is a home for many. A crucible of creativity for vastly different personalities. This is a place of freedom.
Here we have one rule. Cause no pain or suffering. Everything else is a consequence of this rule. Mutual respect, kindness, humility, generosity, these are all by-products of this one rule.
Being human means that we all have faults. Germs of corruption and impulses rooted in egotism and arrogance. But here we practice live and let live. Here we practice mutual respect. Here we cut away rage and hatred and all the other bitter motes of our personalities. But we leave our freedoms and individuality intact.
Don’t let expectations and disappointments weigh you down. Life is a journey not a competition. Everyone has their own weaknesses and strengths. Everyone is capable of honing their skills and creating perfection within themselves. But absolute perfection is a myth. The pursuit of perfection and happiness is a never ending journey. In this journey you must first learn to stop running after it, you must learn to walk beside it. You must learn to enjoy its company.
This work you do, I want you to do it out of passion, not out of a need to prove your worth to someone else. Learn from the work of others. Copy it. Replicate it. Make it better. No one is born with all the knowledge in the universe. Hals & Hounds is all about self improvement. This home will give you the tools for improvement. So learn by teaching others what you know. Be the guiding light that makes your work and the work of everyone around you better.
Criticize, but do it constructively. Remember, criticism is easy, but words can be extremely destructive. So do it respectfully and with humility. Remember everyone makes mistakes. Everyone is subject to the human condition. But everyone has the capacity to grow, and sometimes, the best way to grow is to look within your own self. Criticizing someone else is easy. Finding faults in someone else is easy. But finding the weaker fragments of yourself. That’s hard.
Here at Hals & Hounds, we embrace the human condition with all its weaknesses, all its faults, all its greatnesses and all its uniquenesses. But we do not let those weaknesses control us. As long as you can tame the shortcomings within yourself, as long as you can become the master of your own self, you will find a home here.
Hals & Hounds is a home where you can water your dreams and foster them until they become trees that bear fruits that feed the generations that descend you. Let this home be the reminder that you are the architect of your own dreams. That you are the single arbiter that stands between what the world wants you to become and what you want to become. Let it remind you that you can either let the world choose for you or become the choice the world makes.
Take care of this home and this home will take care of you. One day you will take this home and mold it to your own will. Even if I’m not around to witness it, no matter how extreme it’s transformations, I hope this home will always have these principles at its core. In a world that changes with every passing day, I hope that every day this beacon will burn brighter than the day before it.
