William Oldacre Photography

Tag: philosophy

  • Neoteny – Childlike Attributes In Adulthood

    Just finished reading an interesting article on The New York Times site about innovation and the evolution of the Internet Protocol standard. At the end of the article the author finishes off explaining that Neoteny – his favorite word, means the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood such as idealism, experimentation and wonder and that these are exactly the attributes we need to have in this our new world – that we need to teach the next generation to retain these attributes also to help them be world-changing innovative adults in their time.

    My father has often said – in exasperation – that I am SUCH an idealist – which I had always thought of as a detrimental character flaw. I know myself to have a tremendous sense of wonder about my world and you can readily see from my images that experimenting is central to what I do.

    For much of my life I have felt displaced – like I didn’t belong in this time – that my idealistic nature was too radical or dreamy eyed and impractical for my time – at least this was so in my youth. Reading this last paragraph I feel vindicated, that perhaps I’m not in the wrong time after all. Perhaps I am well placed to help. Perhaps my constant stream of crazy, freely associated, ideas and dreams aren’t SOOO CRAZY after all. That its okay to dream big and aim high even if my dreams end up shifted or mutated in their final realization.

    I’m glad too because Nicky and I have always felt it was essential to encourage our son’s sense of wonder in the world and to enable him to be independently minded, even when that has produced time consuming and tiring arguments that are difficult to counter – its so much easier to say to your kid “do as I say not as I do”.

    In short I don’t feel so bad any more. This article has reaffirmed – for me at least – my position as a useful member of today’s society. It turns out I DO have something of value to offer after all.

    Now I hope I still have the strength of character to pull it off.

  • Endless Drudgery

    So here’s my problem: my life isn’t so fun right now and I think it should be. A lot of what I do, well lately almost all of what I do seems like endless drudgery. I only get a small amount of pleasure from it – the pleasure of a task completed or a job well done – but not the cerebral satisfaction of doing something I want to do or the ecstatic feeling of exploring new ideas.

    I want to be happy and right now I’m not happy or rather not happy enough. Some days I completely hate what I’m doing and if I was crazy enough I would burn it all down… I’m NOT crazy enough – damn!

    I’m the kind of person that doesn’t find it easy to solve this kind of problem or rather doesn’t find it easy to stick to what seems like the solution. I know people who are very cut and dried and can weigh the pros and cons, cut to the chase and solve this problem like that (snap). But me, I have to philosophize my way to a solution that is harmonious with my… well my philosophy(s).

    So here goes. I want to be happy. This working and thinking about money as the driving force in my life makes me UN-happy. Can I turn this around and reduce money to second fiddle and have my interests and explorations drive my life? Lets say yes. Then what? How do I pay bills? Since I am still a card carrying member of my local branch of society, I need a way to interface my life with it’s demands and expectations – a lot of which centre around money. Jeesh!

    That means I somehow need to assign monetary value to my output. I could be arbitrary or low ball the value of my efforts but then I couldn’t survive appropriately so that won’t work. I need a way to bridge the gap between money/income and pure creative intent and I can’t have monetary value stifle the creative intent by guiding, directing or informing it in some overriding way. Sounds simple enough, except I’m one person not of two minds. I’m unable to pretend or forget that I’ve had to assign numerical value to some work or effort I’m engaged in and thus those thoughts enter into and affect my state as I perform my task.

    It looks like I need a way to be carefree about the monetary aspects of my efforts – something I’m certainly NOT good at… except perhaps when it comes to spending money. An external manager – a separate person – would be ideal since they could keep the monetary information to themselves and never burden me with those details. Too bad that’s unrealistic for me. I have to find a solution – a balance – where I can function in both worlds/modes without hampering either.

    I think discipline might hold the key. A strict internal mental discipline to follow my creative emotional instincts irrespective of money but also to separate emotion from the business of selling. A kind of mental barrier that divides the creative and business elements of my life.

    I’m not sure if I’m up to that task. It seems a logical answer to my conundrum but I’m afraid I might be wrong – or perhaps I’m just afraid… to fail.

  • 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.

     

  • Tired and Overextended

    I’ve been overwhelmed lately. Not just in the light party conversation – oh I feel overwhelmed – kind of way, but in the – holy shit I’m drowning, wake up in night sweets kind of way. It happens to me from time to time and all I can think as to why it happens – aside from the fact that I have an essential character flaw – is that I book every spare moment with something.

    Eventually that kind of behavior catches up with me and I suddenly find myself unable to meet my commitments – even the simple basic ones. I call it the trip and fall. You know the one where you’re juggling a lot of time critical or complicated things and somehow you fail to meet one deadline and wham – a pile up. You’re unable to keep juggling and recover the missed deadline. You end up with a pile of slag that takes forever to untangle. Usually, for me, it happens at a moment of complete fatigue so of course, I have no energy to even begin to deal with the aftermath.

    Why do I do this? In a word, boredom – I think. Or maybe, impatience. I get impatient for things in my life to move more quickly and so I queue things up when I have a spare moment knowing that they will take time to unfold and come to completion. Like working in parallel on many things at once knowing that each thing will take a small amount of time to attend to. Only it doesn’t always work. I have a tendency to overload and overestimate my capacity or underestimate time required to complete or miscalculate the alignments and everything comes at once.

    Am I remorseful? Ha! I don’t think so. Just tired… and ambitious, in my own way. I feel its a question of a feedback loop and iteratively working out the right balance so I can maintain the flow and volume of tasks. Well, who knows. On one hand I could be nuts, on the other hand I could be right. I think, or perhaps I hope, that if I can find a balance then I will be happy and not stressed.

    Intellectually or logically, I can see that there are limits to my energy and time, but emotionally, I impetuously WANT and DEMAND to get these things done. I have a split personality of sorts. I think in this case the impetuous child wins out and overrules logic. Although, I like to think that logic is capable of subverting the child and surreptitiously achieving a life balance. One that doesn’t kill me – both in the process of reaching the balance and moving forward once the balance is reached.

    Check back with me in 10 years and see if I’ve improved at all.
    See if I’ve learned my lesson and found a better balance in life.

  • Where To Next? Optimism or Pessimism?

    Where To Next? Optimism or Pessimism?

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, brown, muted, streaks, patterns
    Orange Red Streaks On Dark Green, 2011 – Light Signatures :: (Click to see more)

    I spend a great deal of time paying close attention to trends and new developments in a lot of different areas. I tend to oscillate between thinking everything is going to be alright – that we are heading toward an altruistic society that functions at a higher level and thinking large multinational corporations will continue to ascend and grow in power and reach, undermining all the advances and advantages garnered from these trends and new developments, ie I oscillate between optimism and pessimism.

    I’ve been alive long enough now to begin to see trends in all things human. Enough that I have hope half the time and doubt the other half. I think its too close to call either way. This doesn’t prevent me from continuing to fight the good fight and adding my small contributions to the hope side of the equation. Still, I am always looking for ways to tip the balance and eliminate the miasma of nonsense that always accompanies all that we do as a race.

    These are exciting times! There are going to be some very important shifts and changes in our future. For most of these changes, we haven’t yet fully grasped their importance or impact. The groundwork is getting laid now by those who do understand the benefits or who wish to subvert the process and tip the balance to favour themselves – corporations and government. Sadly it looks to me as though most of us are either unaware, consider these items a low priority in our overwhelming lives or simply don’t understand their importance and long term impact.

    I don’t have any new thoughts on how to raise awareness. If I ever do I’ll let you know. For now, I watch and I think and I devise ways to try and survive the impending storm.

  • Nothing To Fear

    Nothing To Fear

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, orange, green, muted, streaks, squares, trailling, waves, patterns, shapes
    Green Oscillating Line On Orange Green Streaks, 2011 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    Oh, if that were only true. It seems my life is governed by fear. In reflection yesterday on my general fear, I began to itemize the main issues I’m fearful of. Without airing my dirty laundry – too much: fear of money, fear of relationship, fear of age/death, fear of failure. Did I miss any of the big ones out? I know you think I’m crazy. Well, I guess I am.

    My body is so cramped up from my constant preoccupation with fear that I can hardly bend over. I’m like a hunched over stiff prematurely old man. This nonsense has to end in my life. Its taking up far too much of my precious time and effort.

    I repeat my mantra – don’t be afraid – constantly lately, but I don’t feel a change. Could it be loosing its power with regular flippant repetition, or is it that the changes in me are so slight and ongoing that I am unable to see them. The latter I hope. Whatever the situation, fear has got to go or at the very least be put into perspective – rather than occupy an overarching position in my psyche.

    There have been times in my life when I was completely without these fears. I had much less responsibility. I was free to think and do. I’ve assumed some heavy burdensome responsibilities that I’m not coping with too well. I’ve woven a tangled web of interconnecting dependencies that make it difficult/impossible to easily extract any one of these things from my life. Perhaps that is best, since I find all of them an essential and necessary foundation for my future.

    I need a way to effectively cope with my burdens. I see my friends, family and associates are laden with similar burdens and struggling in their own ways. Coping mechanisms abound – all of them involve crutches of one form or another. I’ve seen no one with a solid reliable solution – not even in the wider world – other than be meditative, introspective and aware.

    Is this the only effective answer to the pain of life?
    Is this what it means to be mature?

    If so – I’m not impressed.

  • Insignificantly Beautiful

    Insignificantly Beautiful

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, yellow, vibrant, streaks, patterns
    Bright Yellow Streaks, 2011 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    I’m sitting here listening to I Live In A Suitcase by Thomas Dolby and reading Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd where he is describing the early stages of our universe and contrasting it with now –

    “Planets and suns cluster together to form solar systems. Our solar system clusters together with billions of others to form a galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way, in turn is only one of tens of galaxies in a cluster of galaxies – and our cluster of galaxies is only one cluster in a supercluster.”                                                          Programming the Universe, Seth Lloyd

    You get the idea. We and our actions are so infinitesimally insignificant in the larger picture that I often wonder what exactly I’m doing and why I bother. Conversely, I think, since it IS my job to learn and make things then I might as well do it with style and without fear, since what the hell I’m so cosmically insignificant anyway.

    I think if my life – my very existence – is that insignificant, then I should act accordingly and not bother getting all bent out of shape about things I’m afraid of and things that hurt. Okay, I suppose those things are useful in that they shape my perspective which in turn informs the things I make…  hmmm.

    Perhaps it would be better to adopt a slightly split attitude. One where I do care and so am still shaped by the elements of my life, but also one where I am ever so slightly disengaged – enough that I am not fearful.

    For me, Fear is my greatest foe. It prevents me from acting freely and intuitively, slows me down and wears me out. I have wanted to live without fear for a long time now, but – and here’s the irony… I am afraid to let go. HA! Talk about an infinite loop, I’m trapped. One of these days, I’ll find a way to break free. Either that or I’ll wear a hole in the process and gradually ooze out.

    Despite all this, I have resolved to make beautiful – yet insignificant … things. Hopefully in some way I am enriching the larger universe. If nothing else at least I’m doing my part to slow entropy.

  • Everything Will Be Alright Tomorrow

    Everything Will Be Alright Tomorrow

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, blue, muted, streaks, sweeping, patterns
    Calm Before The Storm, 2011 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    I’m listening to Kid For Today by Boards of Canada, one of my favourite bands, and it is very successfully calming me down. I’ve been feeling very tense lately, probably because of the intense schedule and list of important projects I’m juggling at the moment.

    In fact a couple of days ago I was feeling unbelievably paranoid. Like I was a complete fraud – a con-artist. That it was only a matter of time before things caught up with me and I was exposed. Kind of how I imagine you would feel if you were on the lamb and running from the law. Weird. Truly odd. But I attribute that emotion to some extreme fatigue. Although today, I am feeling particularly thick headed like my brain is stuffed full of cotton wool and that is definitely from a severe lack of sleep – something I hope to remedy over the next few nights.

    This whole paranoia and fatigue thing reminds me of a tune by Faithless – Everything Will Be Alright Tomorrow. This is a philosophy that I adhere to and remember my mother repeating to me when I was anxious as a kid. Its also something that I tell my son when he is upset about something. Basically I take it to mean you will have a new perspective once you get some rest. In other words, a good part of what you are apprehensive about now is because you are tired. Eliminate that and it will go away. Also, with rest comes a clear mind that is better able to tackle your problems and solve them

    Good advice, I think.