This is something I constantly think about. And wonder if the way that I live my life is enough? Is it OK to write my thoughts here, take some photos, work and pay my bills? Nothing more nothing less. Is that ok to have an underwhelming, mediocre life?
It starts with tracking your life and obligations. However, if you choose to track or write down your obligations the better. We want as least friction and distraction as possible. If someone says an event is happing on this date. You need a system to record that event and date it with ease. An just as easily retrieve that data and see it on a regular base. “If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection. You don’t need to map out every feature of a new habit. You just need to practice it.” – James Clear
If you say and talk enough, you will occasionally come up with some gems. But just because you said one or two plus things well over your lifetime, doesn’t mean people should religiously listen to you. Quality over quantity. Junk food will occasional have a satisfying bit, but if all we eat what they are serving, then we will surely be malnourished.
What is wrong with living a life of mundanity? Why always strive to make a difference, to create, to have a legacy? Why do we believe that we must be more than what we are? Why do we subconsciously strive to live past our own lifespan? Is it possible to accept our average life like an ant in a colony, a bee in a hive? We are just a tiny aspect. So why do we feel shame and guilt when we just live; and experience, void of productivity?
This is an attempt at writing down my thoughts as they come to me. The idea of subconscious writing alludes me. These words, where are they coming from? When have I heard them, or thought of them? Is it possible that just the act of writing brings them into existence? Which brings me to the question, why do we do the things we do? Where do thoughts and ideas come from? How am I and what makes me; me?
Consistency, repetition, limitations, or limited creative exploration creates genius. Hear me out on this one. Think about great artists and writers. Their limitations are the medium they use for expression. Their consistency is the genre or style in which they use their medium of choice. Then consistently; practising that particular medium. Getting better, while also pushing that medium and exploring it within their style. That is the fine line you have to walk to create masterpieces, and where true genius comes from.
I see too many photographers worry about their gear over capturing the image. As photographers we love gear, we love buying it, talking about it, reading about it and writing about it. Owning, researching and showcasing photography gear in itself is a hobby. I’ve met so many photographers with far better and newer gear than me. Amateurs normally have better gear than me. But I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not afraid to use it, and sacrifice my camera if I must for that perfect shot.
A lot of photographers are forgetting this one important aspect of a photographer. That photography, the person or subject should be more important than the photographer. We are not celebrities, we are not talent, we are not history. We are storytellers, archivers, and documenters.
Over the past year, I fell away from photography, I did it for a job daily. When it came to my personal work I completely stopped. I no longer cared about a camera on my person when I walked out the front door. I stopped reading books and stopped working out. I did my job and went home, and my personal drive for development and creativity dried up. It wasn’t until I started reading books again that something changed.
Our world is run on a clock, be it the time we get up too and go to work, to the dates of events like our birthday or celebration, to the sessions of our crops and weather conditions. I would say these events are just that events and only we put a measurement on them that is dictated by where we are rotating around the sun, and spinning on this rock. Nothing more than our attempt at controlling something that doesn’t exist in the first place. There is only entropy, that shows time passing. No causation no passing of time
