Years of not realising, or possibly accepting, that I was most certainly no longer putting in the effort that I did during cherished times of photo-making is something I’ve been spending my recent times quite concerned with and the bliss that has ensued is wild, albeit totally expected. Whether I like it or not, and maybe photo-thinking has influenced my mind’s tending towards abstraction. In the early stages of taking my foot off the pedal I recall being troubled by purpose, which quickly lead to being troubled by the very nature of purpose. It was challenging to learn and eventually completely differentiate the idea of purpose and goals. Just because something serves a purpose doesn’t mean it has purpose.
Southport Seaway Tanks – my happy place for a number of years. Very few things have rivalled the joy of flipping the fear that was solidified from paddling on top of these shark (mellow ones for the most part) infested waters for half a decade. To go under the surface and hang with those very same sharks was a mind bender.
I’m not sure if it’s born out of desire or a result of my general, but the idea of purpose has been an increasing factor in decision making – but my truth is that just because something servers a purpose, doesn’t mean it has purpose. I don’t believe that a lack of purpose is a bad thing by any means, I think a lack of purpose enforces a move towards greater understanding of surround and self, macro causality and in-turn actual purpose; round and round.
I think what is important about purpose is ensuring I am breaking some action, idea or thing to get to it’s core elements, as with culture and one’s growth within it is so heavily shrouded in emotion and social bias, it’s hard to confidently reach an understanding of purpose. In today’s world its increasingly challenging, as we’re pumped with comparison, but I honestly believe that our cave-dwelling self’s suffered the same unnecessary emotional trauma – Ugbog is real good at breaking rocks. But in saying that, perhaps current culture and our entrenchment in the most persuasive mediums, ever possibly, may be thickening the veil and pushing us further away from real purpose by forcing us into the pursuit of fickle goals that are derived from comparison.
my last animal, not ever, just the most recent: Ron. His efficacy in murdering native animals has been something that has troubled me since he left us.
I feel like we humans are either fed, or perhaps more likely just enjoy feeding off of, the desire to add notions of purpose to an action, feeling or idea that doesn’t seem to have any real purpose. I guess one could think of this as optimism but I think that’s a shallow consideration of optimism, I believe optimism exists in even the most pessimistic thoughts. It’s not about looking on the bright side, it’s about accepting the polarized nature of the two and the fact that pessimism necessitates optimism.
On the other hand, I love the more functional idea of everything serving a purpose, in the sense of things on a boat, or spaceship for eg. One can’t laden these vehicles in superfluousness, and I love the idea of carrying that thinking into the every day. These are true cases of everything serving a purpose, regardless of one’s opinion of the necessity of landing on the moon. However, It’s probably very much worth my while to be wary of stripping back all of the unnecessary stuff that bring so much joy to my life, like lenses of the same focal length.
Queen of my Dreams
