…a blog in 2024? why even do this?

Nov 29

Welcome to Last, First, & Third

My own dedicated space to my ideas, photography, and philosophy. A space where I share photos I’ve taken, mostly candid photography, and delve into my own philosophical explorations of life, the universe, and the nature of reality and existence (heavy I know). Here, my art and thoughts come together.

This is my limitless social media. No profiles, just fully me. A return to the old ways of the internet, simple content, like it used to be.

Curated Thinking is the heart of my blog, where I try to sound profound. Where I explore ideas as well as introduce new ones of my own. My place to challenge, question, or expand on long held concepts and beliefs. There’s no noise here, only ideas, ponderings and musings about the why of it all. This is where I question reality itself, where life is not something unexamined, it’s scrutinized.

Many of us these days are on or claim to be on a search, quest, or journey of some sort of deeper meaning or understanding in our lives. Writing is simply how I choose to share some of what I’ve found along my way. There may not be anything new about what I’ve come across. I’m not out to change the world or improve lives, only perhaps shift, alter, or introduce a perspective.

Why Writing - Why even do this?

Why 26 letters plus punctuation, maybe a number or 2… or3?

First, I don’t have it in me to start vlogging or making video content, I just don’t. Second, I’m too lazy to do something like edit video. It’s not the task, it’s the time. I could write this stuff as a script or wing it, or just write it.

There’s something different about writing, something more involved, it’s the reading. Reading is a different kind of experience. It’s a different kind of manipulation of a person’s attention. It’s not unlike a mental kidnapping. Attention is captured and taken to another place. There’s something ethereal about reading and I want to get in on it. It is that thing Philosophy is always going on about; the active participation in the present moment.

What’s ethereal about reading is the openness shared between the reader and writer. The writer, if successful, creates a moment and a place that can be shared, enjoyed, and explored over and over again. It is creating a mental-space you can invite someone into. A space created by the writer which exists nowhere but is still perceived to the point it can be experience and expanded on by the reader.

Reading is openning up our ourselves to unknown concepts, ideas, and experiences. It’s being open to these things but also receptive. This kidnapping requires the victim’s permission but also their willful participation, they have a want and a willingness to explore. This kidnapping is really a form of guided meditation, and when a person meditates, among some of the benefits they look to is knowledge and wisdom.

What better way to communicate an idea; A person in their head, their own voice, hears another person’s words. Hearing another person’s thoughts and ideas as ones own, in their way. Using symbols on a page to create an entire realm of existence or arranges those symbols in a way that shifts a perspective and maybe the trajectory of someone’s life.

Unlike other forms of communication such as audio or video, reading and writing must be experienced by engaging the greatest part of ourselves. We cannot simply be there for the experience or turn our brain off and still get something out of it. We must be engaged, the more our mind is turned on by what we’re taking in, the more we get taken in by it. Both reading and writing demands the greatest engagement of us, to shape craft and shape a reality and to immerse ourselves in. It demands a lot of a writer to create a something which can only be perceived in someone’s mind. It takes just as much for the reader to perceive that world and bring it into their reality.

Photography

My writing is about and expresses my fascination with creative or existential concepts. I use my creativity to write about existential concepts and ideas. Photography is no different. It’s an expressive, and at times, expensive hobby of mine. My images don’t inform my writing, they only serve to enhance where possible. My photography is a reflection of my way of being. Not just the photos I take but the genre of photography I’m interested in the most. A lot of photographers say they create images, and this is true of me too, to an extent. With my preferred genre of photography; Candid Portraiture and Street Photography, the images tend make themselves. The meaning behind a photo often comes after it was already taken and that meaning may change over time.

*2013 Lady Liberty On His Break*
(2013, what’s the meaning of this picture now)

It’s good execution I’m after when taking photos, not meaning. I try to take photos that have the potential for meaning later. Shooting for anything in the moment may only last in the moment… or until I delete it.

What I enjoy most is I don’t have to plan or think about the photo too much. Not until the final edit. It’s a balance to my writing that photography demands far less of me. I’m not crafting or shaping every element in the frame, I’m mostly there to capture it. Photography for me is about executing a process not unraveling one. Using knowledge, imagination and timing to capture in a moment, an expression or gesture that tells a story.

Photography is the opposite of my writing as I allow things to come together on their own. There’s no direction to give, model to find, and few logistics to work out. It’s not point-and-shoot, but it’s not so academic-like either. It is the sensation to my writing; a part for the senses.

You’ll notice a substantial lack of color in my galleries which is typical for this genre and style of photography. In a lot of ways, color is a distraction. When it’s removed it changes a photo from what it is, to what it’s about; and there’s quite a difference when a thing is something and when a thing is about something.

The lack of color causes us to look for deeper meaning. It’s a removal of energy in a photograph (colors are wavelengths, waves = energy). When removed we put back what’s missing, in our own way. Colors evoke emotion whether we know it or not. The emotional quality that was present, now removed, is replaced by an emotional quality brought on by the observer. A quality only understood by the observer. Removing what a photo is, forces the viewer to see what it’s about.

In the realms of expression, photography is one which I can either find or give meaning to later. It is an unchanging visual medium, but with a meaning that changes over time as perception and attitudes changes. That’s yet another balance with writing which is and has meaning but changes over time in-step with understanding, wisdom, or ignorance. Perception is a fickle thing.

People are my subject matter. I dabble in other types of photography but people and portraiture are my stay. What draws me to the people I photograph is something in the moment or in their expression or both. A mix-match of the moment and their expression in and of it.

What I think makes me different from others in the genre is that it’s not about the photos. Too many get caught up in the sake of the photo and forget why they picked up a camera in the first place; why they take pictures. There is no bigger picture discussion with their art. Not one they’re having anyway. Talk about their art is all about aesthetics, which is not what art is about.

Discussions about composition, or “to monochrome or not to monochrome.” Guiding the eye, leading the eye, leading lines, or rules about 3rds are old, boring, and don’t speak to anyone. They’re aspects of the art that the artists needs to know. Knowing or understanding these things does not help the viewer find what’s there to be perceived.

Art regardless of the medium, is about ideas; it is an expression of an idea. Beauty in art is a byproduct of good execution of that idea via the craftsmanship of the artist. Beauty is a well crafted idea but we do not craft beautifully for the sake of the craft. The reason we do is much deeper than that. Art is more than just making things, pretty things. It is about making sense, giving meaning an alter to shine from; a place for meaning to be found. Art is the medium for the senses to discover meaning.

The alter doesn’t have to be beautiful or perfect to have a perfectly beautiful meaning. Imperfect is a quality of its own.

lost focus, not opportunity

…What, What To Write About?

The things I explore, even under the guise of current events or novelty are things that I think transcend. There’s that tired but true saying, that people never stop learning. This is true of every moment of existence, every moment is a teachable one. Something as silly as a water droplet could explain the nature of existence.

I think the fact I exist is enough to talk about it, not me, existence. I may not have a Ph.D. or formal training on the matter but I also didn’t need one to get here. I’m still alive, and there’s no Ph.D. for years of living either. If you fail, it’s over, but we also know we will fail. We keep going knowing there’s going to be a crash in our life market one day. With such a huge unknown, what is life about? Is it about the things we do or what we learn? Anyone can doo anything, has to be more than that, it can’t only be that. What is it that reflects a person’s growth or evolution? Is it the thoughts they have, the ideas they form and leave behind. What does it take to grow into a person who can have ideas that survive? We don’t know until their ideas are given the chance to survive after they’ve been left behind.

But survival isn’t just our thoughts or ideas being around on paper or cyberspace. It’s being explored, acted upon, expanded on. It is their continual evolution and their trajectory from idea, to concept, to change.

What is it too, about what a person does? The act of doing. There seems to be two polarities to learning. We can learn by doing or learn to do. In the opinion of this blogger it’s a mixture of both.

I know nothing about blogging, less after researching it (don’t do that, just write) but thought I’d do it anyway. I’ll write what I think is real or true and see what happens. Life seems to be about learning by doing, to learn to do; learning to live by living to learn.

But why do we learn? What purpose does it serve us in the end if there is an end, and what is the nature of that end? Can a person find the answers in life? Answers to questions in life about about after life; about a realm outside of life? A realm greater than life itself, the greatest part of our existence. The place we come from, where we’re on our way to going. I have to believe the answers are within life itself. There can’t be a question which cannot be answered here, questions about life in the reality its time exists; where it begins and ends. Is it possible to grow or learn more than those who came before?

What is there to learn about this cyclical thing? This Life Cycle which only creates more of itself to question itself. What is it constantly trying to learn? Life is refining Consciousness to a point, but what’s the point?

Gallery: Lifecycle of an Idea. The Life ideas dream about