William Oldacre Photography

Tag: goals

  • Laying Groundwork

    Laying Groundwork

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, green, blue, muted, streaks, patterns
    Green Brown Snakes Beneath Azure Waters, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    Occasionally during a moment of calm I’ll get this overwhelming sense of impending boredom. Its a weird kind of feeling I think has something do with extreme compartmentalization – something I’ve never been too good at, yet somehow I’ve managed to achieve. It’s as though I have a complete and detached overview of all the campaigns and projects of my life. I see that nearly all the spare space that would normally accommodate random possibility in my life has been squeezed out of existence by these projects.

    Its at once demoralizing and uplifting. I feel pride at the efficiency but boredom with the mundane grind. My life became a chaotic mess after our son was born and from that froth of random non-direction I’ve managed to set my life on a course. I’ve much to accomplish and nowhere near enough time to do it in. But… is this the right way to live? I don’t know. I have a tendency to swing from one extreme to the other it seems.

    While I think its important to have goals and direction I also think its important to embrace the process of living. I’m wondering if proceeding on such a rigid set of goals precludes embracing the process of living or if the process of living need be random. Random in the sense of not planned out beforehand – blown where the wind takes me.

    Am I just pining for the old days when I had spare time and went out with friends? Perhaps. But when I do suddenly have spare time I’m at a loss for what to do with myself. It feels like I’ve fallen off a cliff – I’m in free fall. I do think on the list of tasks or projects but then I think… nah. Its a rare moment of free time – time for myself. Take it as such – don’t squander it on the stuff you already have to do the rest of the time.

    When all is said and done I’m sticking with my projects and campaigns. They’re laying the groundwork for greater things – building a framework from which to hang future goals. I’ve worked hard to choose, define and refine them. Now I have to defend them – but not at all costs. Again it comes down to balance. It’s alright to be goal driven as long as you remain present – experiencing the process of reaching the goals – enjoying the fruits of your labours. That’s life.

  • Absolutes

    Absolutes

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, yellow, red, blue, muted, streaks, patterns
    Lines On Brown Red Green Yellow, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    Lately I’ve been thinking about my life in absolute terms. There was a time when I simply glided through life without much thought about where I was going or what I was doing. I took the easy route. Then about 20 years ago I took stock, realized I didn’t like where I was heading and made some drastic changes to my life. I worked out some specific goals – which I confess at the time I naively envisioned would unfurl more quickly and differently than they have. For most of this time I’ve been deeply engrossed in and focused on these goals/dreams pretty much to the exclusion of all else – okay, an exaggeration – much other important stuff has happened along the way to shift my focus – not all of it voluntary.

    Lately, I’m taking stock from a different perspective. Perhaps I’m thinking this because my age is weighing heavily on me – a mental weight only not a physical one… at the moment (knock on wood). I’m realizing, when you get right down to the essence of our lives all we really have is our selves, our associations and our actions. By our selves I mean our internal state and physical health, by associations I mean family and friends and by actions I mean things that we do or make and the legacies we leave behind.

    Everything else – literally everything can be classified as dross or detritus. All the hyper-activity of our lives, all the lust for goods and much of the anguish is simply excess filling the gaps. When I take stock like this, at first I feel an elated calm as I see how simple and uncomplicated my life truly is – that I can “let go”of much of my concern and upset. But then I feel immensely sad. No sad isn’t quite right – I feel a great aching emptiness within me – an angst – a dejected sorrow that feels way too close to the inescapable black hole of depression – and that scares the shit out of me. Once sucked into that downward spiral there’s no way out. I think / I hope, I feel this aching absence only because I feel directionless without the goals that have driven my life for so long now.

    For too long I’ve been filling the gaps with useless trash and other people’s hype. I’ve glossed over the emptiness inside me – tried to patch it with other goals and other activities. I’ve over-done it in my fervor and eroded the true essence of my life. I’m torn in too many directions – I’m stressing out. I’ve ignored myself, my friends, my family and my legacy. I need to turn my gaze back to the absolute pillars of my life and disregard the nattering gap fillers. I need to clear the clutter.

    I’ve got some serious housekeeping to do.

     

    PS: Having written this I’m feeling a calm clarity of purpose I haven’t felt in a long time. I was really afraid I was sinking into a depression but now I don’t think so. Good news.

  • Don’t Take No For An Answer

    I was just emailing my nephew David about his interest in photography and art and any recommendations I might have and it occurred to me that even though I typically only think of myself in terms of the here and now – the sum of all my experiences – over the course of the extremely convoluted path I’ve followed to get here now it turns out I’ve very often had the conviction to stand up for what I wanted, even when I was told NO repeatedly by those in control.

    I hadn’t thought about it in those terms but there were pivotal moments in my life where I identified something – some course, workshop, idea or job that I wanted to learn, to know more about or work at – where I refused to accept a – no you can’t do that, you aren’t qualified, you haven’t got the prerequisites for this, there are no positions available – answer from the gate-keepers. In what I’m coming to see as my typical pattern – perhaps it has something to do with my stubborn nature (ya think?) – I’ve side stepped around the road blocks and repeatedly pursued that which mattered to me.

    So much so that I can safely say I’ve achieved pretty much everything that is important to me in my life via this method of relentless pursuit. Most of the time – well actually all of the time, its been completely unconscious on my part but now that I see this emerging pattern I’m inclined to think I’m going to have to make this a conscious habit from now on.

    I encourage you to do exactly the same – DO NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER. When you’ve taken the time and thought to identify what matters to you, to identify the thing that is important or pivotal to your growth and future – go for it – relentlessly – until you get it. And most important of all do not accept NO from the gate keepers. The gate keepers are the people in charge, the ones whose permission you seek, the people you THINK you need approval from or need to get past to reach the next step in your progress.  Find a way to bypass them altogether, go over their heads, find another avenue, ignore or deny their answer, sweet talk them, convince them, pursue them and perhaps even trick or deceive them until they say YES, but whatever your method do not give up and do not complacently accept their negative answer. Be like water and gravity and always find a path to your goal.

    YOU CAN DO IT, I know you can. Take it from someone who’s done it… repeatedly.

  • Goals and Limits

    I’ve been mulling over the goals in my life – trying to get to the bottom of them – the motivations behind them. I’ve noticed all of them result from limits in my life. Some limits are self-imposed, others are assumed and others are taught. But ultimately all my goals – both long and short term result directly from perceived limits.

    Is that the way we all operate?
    Is that the way we go about living our lives?
    Is that how we define our happiness?

    Okay, lets imagine for a moment. Your life is not nearly what it is right now. Imagine it has some really drastic limitation imposed on it. Something that you really love or are really happy about or something that you just plain can’t do without is missing. Its simply not there – it never was there. How would you be? What would be doing differently?

    For me, lets imagine I had no sight. I couldn’t be a photographer I couldn’t be interested in all things visual. I simply wouldn’t have a frame of reference for it. I’m not saying imagine I lost my sight – like I had sight and then it was removed from me. I mean imagine if I was born blind. I wouldn’t miss it because I wouldn’t have ever known it. But it would be a limitation on my capacity and would most certainly change my goals in life. I would likely still be happy and functioning just fine.

    Lets be clear here, I’m not using the word limitation in a derogatory sense – I simply mean limitation as in an absolute boundary.

    I think – for myself at least – if I am able to imagine myself without limitations then what would my goals be?
    How would my goals change?
    What would I do differently?
    What would my priorities be?

    Its kind of like imagining how your life would be different – hopefully better – if you had changed something important in your past – only we’re talking about changing something now to affect your future.

    I’ll have to give this more specific thought. See if I can come up with some ways to modify my now so that my future has different, larger limits.