The Convergence Factor

When you are near-constantly dealing with something like depression, if you are not careful you can just lapse into a sort of life-eating daze in which you may lose weeks at a time. Eventually (hopefully), something snaps you out of it. I’ve had that experience yet again this week and today I’m in a good state of mind, am getting things done, and feel unusually focused.

Part of it has to do, I think, with the introduction of some new ideas. I’m reading a book right now called The Da Vinci Method, which has some problems (mostly related to poor editing), but still manages to have some good ideas in it. On page 109 I found this:

Because the neurotic Da Vinci type, refuses to give his energy completely to his tasks, he becomes inwardly dissociative splitting off islands of this left over psychic energy. These islands of unused psychic energy - stolen from their proper expression - serve as a secret life reserve for that dark hour - the moment of death - in the delusional subconscious plan that one could hoard life and extend it this way. So instead of being fully alive and engaged in their present life the neurotic Da Vinci type will indulge in oversleeping, overeating and over-relaxing (in its various forms, which include sex, alcohol, drugs and procrastination) in order to stave off the fear of death for awhile, by believing he is making deposits into a life extending reserve, but this reserve does not exist.

Punctuation issues aside, this really came through quite clearly as I lain reading it in bed, putting off doing other things (you see where this is going?). It was followed up closely a few pages later on with, “…incompletion in the face of death is a waste of life.”

As cliché as it unfortunately usually comes across as sounding, being reminded of one’s mortality really is a good motivator. That said, it’s not the whole picture. If we only keep our morality in mind and nothing else, about the best we can hope for is a somewhat interesting life that was ultimately lived in some degree of desperation, always fearing the hand coming out of the darkness to pull us away from the light of living. Living in fear is bad. Seriously. Bad bad bad.

Martin Heidegger is quoted as having written, “If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.”

Realizing our mortality is only the first step. Facing it fully and coming to terms with it must follow after the realization if we are to cast off the limitations placed on our lives by living in fear of our eventual and necessary end. It isn’t easy to do so, but from what I hear it’s worth the effort. If I eventually manage it, I’ll let the world know about the details.

A closely related matter is essentially a fear of life. This often seems to be the practical realization of the death-fear that handicaps most of us to some degree. We all have our insecurities, things we fear in everyday life. When our self-esteem is low and our self-worth with it, these insecurities can bloom on us like bacteria in overly-fertile waters, making the world around us and the act of living in it seem toxic. They overwhelm us and the whole thing snowballs.

Still, we have to resist the fear, work to neutralize and remove it from our lives. I don’t want to live my life in fear, afraid to open up and let my life happen at full throttle. The greatest of things in life cannot and will not come to us if we perpetually cower in the shadows. I reasonably know that even if I work at this immensely, there will probably always be some fear that remains around the edges, but even so I can’t let that stop me. As humans with a finite existence, we cannot let the fear stop us. We are wasting our time if we do.

When we try our hardest and things just don’t work out no matter what we do, it is easy to let it get to us at a very deep level. When we work our asses off and the money doesn’t come in when it should, feeling depressed and demoralized is understandable.

All the same, it is important that, at times like this, we remind ourselves that no matter what society says, we are not our money.

I am not my bank account. I am not my job. I am not my credit score. My difficulties in life do not make me a bad person.

Even if we really believe in these things, though, sometimes it is nigh on impossible to take comfort in them.

Today sucks.

First and foremost, I know that the appearance of this page is temporarily different from the rest of the site, glitch-ridden, etc. I’m working on it. Or, at least, I’m going to work on it this weekend when I have time. Short version of the story is this: I tried to fix one thing, ended up messing up about 9 others. Further proof that I need to brush up on my xhtml and css…

For the last two weeks plus, I have been swamped with work. For most people that would probably be a negative statement. Such is not the case for me. Assisting work was sparse at best in April and May, but June is the opposite situation entirely. I’m working so much I have very little time to get anything done here at home. I’m catching up now, having had today off, but I work the next two days and am shooting stuff all weekend, so plenty of things on my to-do list are going to have to wait.

All the same, this has me pretty psyched. I like being busy when it’s the good kind of busy. Having too much idle time on your hands because the work isn’t coming in is a very unpleasant feeling. Not having enough time to do the things you want to do for you is also an unpleasant feeling. The best thing is to be able to find a balance between getting enough work/doing enough entrepreneurial things to be financially secure and having enough time still to do the things that enrich your life off the job.

In most of my adult life, I have had a hard time doing this. It can be a tricky thing to figure out, and it’s not something that has come naturally to me. Unfortunately, nobody can really teach you how to make this aspect of your life work, as it’s different for each and every one of us. It’s up to the individual to figure it out.

Of course, we never fully figure out a lot of these things, but if nothing else figure it out enough to be functional. The biggest source of trouble seems to be when we think we have it figured out, because then we stop paying attention and eventually the truth of our *not* fully understanding it comes and knocks us on our ass. If we realize that there is always something more to learn, and keep that in mind in our daily lives, we are better off.

I really don’t know where I’m going with this. I’m trying to tire my brain out so I can go to sleep, as I have a 7:30 AM call time tomorrow in Frisco. Maybe I’ll go for a run or ride. Despite a general lack of sleep and long days assisting, my brain is wired right now and I need to find a way to slow things down before I’m going to be able to sleep.

Oh, how I long for a normal circadian rhythm…

Tonight’s food adventure. Lemongrass coconut curry with bean threads, mung bean sprouts, steamed mussels, green onions, and garnish. This is my second revision of my coconut curry recipe, and it keeps getting better. First time around the seafood bit was shrimp. The mussels are definitely different, but at least as good.

EDIT: Note that images seem to be getting squeezed a bit side to side, so that bowl and the chopsticks are going to look a little oddly-proportioned until I fix it.

Sometimes progress comes at weird hours. I got home from hanging out with friends earlier tonight, feeling totally drained. My plain was to watch a little anime, because yes I’m a big fat geek like that, and go to bed. I did the first part, and I’m still pretty tired, but I can’t go to bed now. Despite the pull I can feel my bed exerting on my body, my brain has latched onto the weekend’s so-far general lack of productivity, and I honestly don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until I get some things done.

Yes, that’s right, it’s 2:20 AM and I’m brewing tea and NOT going to bed. Not yet, at least.

ADD and depression* are problematic enough on their own, even more so when they travel together (as they often do). The last couple of weeks have been particularly difficult for me, and that has a lot to do with why I’m not going to bed yet. One way or another, I’ve managed to break out of a bad state of mind in the last hour and am now being positive and productive. This is good for obvious practical reasons, and also because dammit, right now I feel good. Sometimes that feeling is hard to come by. Anyone who has ever dealt with depression first hand knows this, and probably also knows that when that good feeling surfaces, you hold onto it and you do something with it.

You do something with it, even when it comes knocking on the verge of sleep. It doesn’t have to be much, but if you don’t do anything with it, you’ve wasted something precious.

Recognizing the opportunity in something like this can be hard. Sometimes you feel so down you don’t want to recognize the opportunity because it means you have to actually do something. It’s really, really easy to just keep on going like you have been and ignore that little ray of light. It’s easy, but it’s also stupid.

With that, I’m going to throw some laundry in the wash, have some tea, and do some dishes. It probably sounds insane that I’m excited to do these things in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, but life gets weird like that sometimes. I’m fine with weird if it also means something better.

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*I know I’ve alluded to it in the past, but at this time I see no point in not speaking about it candidly. ADD and depression are both parts of my life, take that as you will.

I am finally over my illness and holy crap do I feel better than I did. I was pretty out of it for the most part for a couple of weeks, and now I’m faced with the task of getting organized again, getting my mental state focused, and work on making some progress. When all you can do is just lie around and sleep, maybe reading a few pages of a novel here and there, everything just sort of falls apart around you.

It occurs to me that an effective way of neutralizing the government of an enemy nation without bloodshed would be to give all of them the flu…

Among other, more professionally-driven activities, I will be working on resuming making new images. I have about 25 rolls of Tri-X that I need to develop now, and a couple rolls of 35mm HP5+ that still need to be scanned.

I’ve been itching to do a lot of portraiture recently. Of course, I get this urge just after the semester ends and Denton becomes a ghost town, but I can just look at that as part of the challenge. Whenever I do serious portraiture, it usually goes well and I wonder why I don’t do more of it. Also, when I think about the things most lacking in my work, the biggest thing is PEOPLE. It makes sense, I suppose, if you consider that I have always essentially been an introvert, but that doesn’t mean I should just be content to only photograph inanimate objects and scenes. Hardly.

I want to do a lot of photography of people. Portraiture, figure work, documentary, editorial-type series, and so on. It seems wholly necessary to my continued evolution as a photographer to push my work in this direction. I have to admit that I am a bit intimidated by some of the projects I would like to do, but that’s a good thing. If we do not challenge ourselves, we are treading water. There is little point in only doing work that does not demand that we stretch ourselves and grow as we progress.

For over a week, I managed to not get what my girlfriend was sick with. As of today, though, I officially have it and it officially sucks. It’s like someone took a heavy duty balloon, hooked it to a bicycle pump, jammed it up into my sinuses, and pumped it up to about 160 psi.

I am trying to get something good out of my self-assigned bed rest. It’s hard when all you want to do is sleep but the headache won’t let you, but I’ve managed to get a decent amount of reading done, most notably in finishing the book Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers. It is, as the title probably suggests, essays by notable Japanese photographers. It was a treat for me, as it contains essays by some of my favorite photographers, such as Shomei Tomatsu, Daido Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki, and Eikoh Hosoe. These photographers also represent a group of people whose work has had a distinct influence on me. Reading these essays added greater dimension to my understanding of these photographers and to their work as well. Better understanding things like these in turn means coming to a greater understanding of my own work.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like I’ve achieved any improved understanding of my own work, so this comes as a bit of relief, and it has opened my eyes to other things that I hadn’t considered, that are in turn yielding even greater perspective. It’s something that has to happen eventually if one is to avoid stagnation. Sometimes we get stuck, and that’s fine. It’s to be expected. We need to get unstuck, though, if we ever want to go forward.

What all of this reminds me of is something that I have long believed in, but over the last few years may have lost sight of to an extent. That is, if we are to move forward with our art, we need to stimulate the mind. No artist is autonomous, and while some may be able to get by with minimal brain food from the outside world, I believe that most of us (not just artists, either) benefit immensely from feeding our minds. Look at art you like, immerse yourself in it. Look at art you don’t like, and try to figure out why. Listen to music. Go to shows. Listen to lectures. Read fiction. Read philosophy. If something stimulates you and makes you crave more, run with it.

An unstimulated mind is a wasted mind. Most of us are capable of genius, but not without working for it, and not without giving our minds raw material. To that end, I’m going to go drink some tea and read some Nabokov. The wind is blowing like crazy, and that has put me in the mood.

Changing directions in one’s life is something we all do, whether on purpose or otherwise. I presently find myself willfully turning the wheel, steering away from prior career intentions toward new ideas. For several years now I have struggled with the conflict between having invested a lot of time and money (and having gotten a degree) in commercial photography and the ever-growing feeling that maybe it’s not the best path for me.

Before I go any farther, I should clarify. In general, advertising photography and the like no longer interest me. My desire to make images has never been stronger, but I’m finally figuring out how I need to go about it to achieve my own ends. Editorial, portrait, documentary - all of these are still things I intend to continue with, but I no longer have any desire to use my skills to do things like sell products I don’t believe in and feel are unnecessary.

That is, I feel I need to do my photography in my way, and if that means giving up on advertising photography, so be it. That’s only part of the course-correction, however. Obviously if I’m dropping one thing I’m likely picking up another. The new direction is industrial design. Maybe a surprise for those who don’t personally know me, but industrial design is a perfect fit, as informally I’ve already been doing it for years. I have piles and piles of sketches of various ideas, a handful of which have found their way into physical form. The toe strap doublers featured in my last post are one example of this. The camera strap I’m working on is another (still under wraps for the most part, but expect news later this year).

I’ve always thought of myself as a photographer, despite the fact that I’ve been designing things for as long as I can remember. It’s only been very recently that I’ve begun to allow myself to think of myself as a designer. Since then, the steady stream of ideas has become a torrent, and it’s quickly becoming apparent that my drawing skills need some work. However, my drawing is something I’ll actually really enjoy working on, and initial progress should come quickly. I’ve been quite good at it in the past - I just haven’t done it in a while.

I am genuinely excited about the possibilities of this new direction. There are professional possibilities, academic possibilities, and personal/expressive possibilities. In short, potential out the wazoo. This also gives me justification to continue drooling over commercial-grade sewing machines…

But I digress. The point remains that I am finally putting to rest something that has bothered me too long, and am also finally going after something that’s been on the back burner for too long. For my photography, for my happiness, for my career, for my ideas - on all fronts this is going to be a very, very good thing.

Doubler instructions are back! Link at the top right of the page.