Brief Reflections on What I've Been Thinking About

TL/DR types Skip to the text between the line of ='s.

Once upon a time, I had an email signature that read in part:
"Philosopher, Photographer, Preacher, Pirate, Poet"

 

seems as if I've been doing very little of the above except for maybe the Philosopher bit, and a few haikus that turn up in strange places. My years of "Piracy" have prepared me for a life as a protector now, and that's primarily what I do. I've always been less of a  "Shiver me timbers" type pirate, and more of a "TCB baby, all day, in any way" kind of pirate. Preaching still happens from time to time, I use words when necessary. It seems that people are far more interested in Radio than Religion when it comes to this bit of meandering I call a blog, but then again, most people have no idea what religion really is. The philosopher in me has been disturbed recently at how everyone talks about "Getting rid of the religion in their lives", "It's all about a relationship!", and they treat religion as if it is a word that has taken on a fresh meaning of negativity. They believe that The Church as an institution has lost it's fresh grip on reality.
Fools, the lot of them. They are utterly bereft of the benefit of perspective. They can't see the nothing new under the sun they have discovered. Or maybe they are feigning ignorance for the sake of the uninformed. Perhaps I will give "Them" the benefit of a doubt!
perhaps...

This could rapidly devolve into a rant against the dispermanence that has infiltrated our subconscious. (creed: I believe humans are accepting that they are dispermanent apparitions content to exist for a short while as replicating glyphs of coalesced energy. Some of them are right, I, however, plan to be around for a long time) I didn't set out to outline the disparity between action and thought, and the hypocrisy of recording the most precious of our intimations within a medium as malleable and dispermanent as something we have ironically termed "The Cloud" (are you kidding me? Clouds disappear when it gets hot, or after a rain! watch a storm progress, as powerful as it may get, they don't take long to peter out into nothing. when a cloud is gone, there is nothing left.) What I do intend is to display how dispermanence has affected the ability of humanity to record events in a static medium that adequately captures the essence of the moment.

The short version:

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The worse thing to happen to the art/science of photography is the digital camera.
The best thing to happen to the art/science of photography is the digital camera.

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The greatest strength that digital photography gives to the user is that it makes the recording of events very cheap. Being able to record events as they happen use to cost a lot of money. I spent over $200 just on film and processing to develop the pictures I took when I was in Jordan in 2000, and that doesn't include making specialty prints, or making double copies (often I got these for free at Wolf Camera), just the film, and the processing of that film. With a digital camera, you immediately have the final product, and in a media that makes it instantly shareable with anyone who has an internet connection. Regardless of location, from shot to view is as quick as it's taken.
That's incredibly empowering.
Nothing can be hidden.

At the same time, in some ways, it's become a lot easier to create a false reality. Now that the moment has been condensed into math, it's fairly simple to change variables, and therefore inject your subjective take on the situation. Many times this is done benevolently, with the intention being to improve aesthetics or to highlight a particular aspect of a subject for education and illumination. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does make  possibile malevolent subject manipulation, even to the point of completely altering the point in history to reinforce a false narrative.

We all know you can't believe what you see on tv or the internet.
For some reason though, we have no problem trusting the internet to keep our data safe.
This problem and hypocracy needs further exploration and thought.

I want to focus for a brief second on what making something cheap and common does to the psyche of the person using it. What makes a photographer a photographer now that everyone is a photographer? What makes a story teller a story teller now that everyone tells the story?
Here is some truth:

• If everyone can tell a story, to control the story, one must make sure only one story is told, whether it is the truth or not. Sell the big lie once, to the right voice, and you immediately capture the echochamber, and perpetuate the falsehood to serve your agenda.
• If the truth escapes, you can generate many other stories, so that the truth is lost in a competing stream of lies.
• Cynicism becomes the primary lens through which we trust the information we review.

Trust has become a very important commodity, and trust is necessary before something is to be believed.

That's as brief as I can be right now.
Remember the fallen on Memorial Day.

Time

Press play, read blog:

So I've been trying to make a point to blog and read every day, and sometimes, I start, and never finish an article, sometimes it takes more research, and I work on something for months before releasing, just because I'm doing this in my free time, but free time isn't something I really have, every minute is spent doing something, and it's only a matter of priorities. What's more important, maintaining my body, or maintaining the connection between my spirit and body, I mean, I see the trap of dualism so easily, but when I regard things from a strictly Biblical perspective, I can't acknowledge that there is a split. There is flesh, there is spirit, and they feed each other, one side just happens to like little debbies more than ideas.

I try to make my flesh submit, but I've had this idea that self-control is a focused "No" when in reality, my spirit has known that self-control is more a focused "Do". Now, in Morse code, the difference between D and N is one dit, so I'm not surprised something got lost in translation. The Stream will not allow for a QSM, it's dislinear and valve-like in relevance and manifestation.

my watch is broken, how can I run intervals if my watch is broken?
Just saying

Ambrosia Part 2

Stroke and hook and stroke and hook, the rhythm of water moving from one man. Pounding his heart and mind and arms concern themselves with but the movement of the canoe, the furrow in the water that tore his heart with every beat.
you can see the fishes if you know where to look.
the lover says to his beloved. The heart breaker looks to him for warmth
A lover loves best when he can love what he's loved first, and his first love was water, he saw the water when he was two, holding a rough hand with a callous on a palm. Another man was the who's greatest gift was Time, and time was spelled F-I-S-H, and F-I-S-H spelled love even now is the rain and heart and soul of the lover.

Can the beloved accept the love he would give her. he begins to love her.
The fish are easy to see in the spring
he's calm, love makes you calm. Love makes you bright and sharp, as a knife he tells her
The fish here are in the knees of the cypress stumps.
Ahead of them rise the Trees.
they are gone, now they spread fragrant bush branches where once a cypress giant towers and glowers over a water wasteland of mud fish and mosquitoes buzzing their drum as if to say melt into the waters and feed us.
The beloved peers into the water black as night, but then, there's an orange spot, the closer to the trees.
The bottom is sandy here.
The lover tells her
The fishes make their nests in the sand, and the sand hides eggs.
He's calm
love makes you calm when you've loved long enough.
He love the water first, and for a long time. He loves her now, almost long enough to be calm, but now his love is a pit of hard gravel on knees without a bicycle.
Soon his love will make him calm.

Ambrosia, Part 1

Fifthly rambuncion!
Fifthly rambuncion pearly man say on the day of the staying homeness.
Off to the west!
Cna I feel a persimmon gimmin to the teeth?
she asks
I find it to be cartoon on the chin to win the grin from within!
respons the lad.
repose and switch scene.
Grasped, said Lady makes way to boat, held tight as a lover by her lover in the boat, she stutters a recollection of breezes, and doesn't want to take five for an answer
This is about the west is it not?
Her lover is in fear, so he asks questions on his mind and heart
This is about us
a sigh and pushes off the bank down the land of glass and earth. up stream the paddling, too far left and it is over the edge, too far right and it nowhere.
Can you see the fishes here?
Eyes ask more about seeing than her lips.

Totally Random

The key to success is to succeed! I miss all my friends. keeping the chin up and out and getting my block knocked off on a regular basis so that I can understand pain, and persistence are not necessarily related or necessary, but they can create a totally new outlook on why connection is important, and why relationships have to be nurtured and created anew each day so that each day when I wake up and find my bride there, I smile at the good, the bad and the ugly we do to each other every day because in the keeness of my relationship with my wife I understand that the relationships I share with others will pale over time and until I forget all but Christ, I will hold her in my heart so dear so loved so willing to listen to me, and able to understand the simplest things about me are often the most complex and the most complex can be summed in a few words, usually beginning and ending with love and grace, and where grace begins, love ends, and where love begins, grace ends, and together, with grace and love we have peace, but peace is hard because love and grace are hard.

Love and Grace are hard.

that is all.

Facebook is de Debil...

people,
i have abandoned all hope of social networking on a social networking site because nothing can compare to the joys of being solo on a social networking site for if it really did involve being social, the profiles would be viewable, and yet the people i know are my friends, the fiends i've known all along, hypervigillante, and no spam from them, just like in real life. they live there online and in far away places, but not near me, so to be social, you can't be social. let's face it, i either don't get it or i've failed to be social.

can you tell i've been reading too much faulkner.