May 28, 2016

At one time photography held a higher ideal of life's values.  Images were seen representing a real scene perceived through the eyes of a talented image creator.

Now photography is a disappointment, a homogeneous replica of a fragmented society with nothing better to do than live our lives in snap shots and sound bites without depth of thought, feeling and insight. What we take pictures of now are banal expressions of an objectifying existence.  An all seeing inner eye watching us from the outside.  This outer eye reveals the shallow objects of peoples lives and the longing for immersion in their truth but they can't seem to break free from the monolith structure of materialism and greed.

We have been turned into copies of each other, trained to look outside ourselves for answers.  The answers exist but only in our capability to recognize our truth in ourselves away from the mass incarceration of our minds by frivolous needs. 

Snap shots have replaced the immersion of yourself in your life and in nature.  When we see anything now we tend to bring up the barrier between the subject and your vision, the camera phone.

This is a safety blanket that is used for distraction and conquering the scene before you by placing it in a frame and once captured and published on social media, the potential that was present was never realized because of this urge to move past not with your time. Images have become a skin deep means for you to ignore the scene present in your inner landscape.  Just conquer the external world with a click and your illusion of unessential reality is preserved.

We are becoming passive sponges of infinite details and pictures that mean nothing.  What is real and what is make believe are now interchangeable.

These devices we hold in our hands are overpowering our need for intimacy and privacy.

We look at the screen and the eye candy window opens up and it is powerful and stimulating and new, with excitement more real than breathing and being present in your life.  We are swept up in a fantasy world of stunted words and triviality and it seems we have found a home in the collective hoarders home.  As more and more windows open we fall into the rabbit hole and land in a world of distortions and distractions.  

We are exposed to an overpowering mass propaganda machine on steroids, 24/7 a continuous bombardment of foolish and useless information. The illusion is strong and we seem to think we are connecting with someone beyond us but really we are connecting with ourselves innocently exposed to the world.

Picture taking, takes the present from your view and keeps you in memory mode.  By taking pictures instead of experiencing a moment you are blindly removing yourself from the experience and later reminding yourself of what happened by looking at a snapshot of that experience.

It is a struggle to live in the now and not be pulled back into the past by an overstimulated need to take pictures of, instead of enjoying the moments unfolding.  You need a willful purpose to become yourself in the present deterioration of our human thought communities.

When you make photographs you are in the present focusing your mind's vision on your potential subject.  You are aware and excited as you structure your design of the scene in unity with your internal sight and the intensity of connecting with your subject.  

When we go places to experience first hand the wonders of this world we feel jaded because the actual real subject doesn't look as good as the travel ads you saw. The good thing is you acted and listened to your inner calling and made an effort to travel.  The bad thing is your expectations were already firmly seeded in your mind of what you wanted to see by an external presence, someone else's view of your travel destination.  Instead of traveling to this place with an open mind and to discover for yourself your own internal, image visions. 

The photograph takes from us our feeling of being present, the first hand experience.  It seems to take away the anticipation of a scene especially if we have seen our subject through countless images manipulated in photoshop to enhance the second hand viewing experience. We seem to like the second hand experience more than the real deal.

Why can't we sit still in our lives just be and soak up the moments presented to us.  Not with fear and anxiety but with a truthful respect and a deep connection to our special place and time in this world. We seem to always push ourselves beyond the present moment. As if there is something more important just coming down the road.  Just one more curve, around the bend and all will be OK.  The problem is we take ourselves to this new place without changing our inner baggage and expectations.

We have replaced our quality time (our true moments of discovery) with what we do to survive.  This makes it harder once you get off work to focus on your true calling. What happened to your dreams?

And as your true path of discover begins to fade from view and you see those dreams you had dissolve into what ifs, you begin to look for distractions, a compensation for that loss of purpose so you put blinders on by turning from meaningful experiences to limited perceptions of fantasy and amusements.  These  remove us from our hectic pace of life's ever changing power to divert us from our real nature. Corporate media exploits the herd instinct of cautious behavior.  Fight or Fight.

By continually making life look violent and the continuous sounds of more wars, the propaganda machine wants to scare us into complacency and quiet desperation.  And this scheme they have used through out our history is a big money making scam. They can easily sell things to the cattle if they are pinned in with others of like minded fears, imposed on them by corporate ad men selling protection and pleasure.

We have a growing impersonal technological automated system of feeding the populace new commodities of cheap, over saturated accessible products.  We are no longer producing anything of substance that really matters to our whole being.  We take and take hoping for those little moments of self awareness that at least for a few seconds make us feel alive and in tune with ourselves.

Here in social media land you don't have to think or be responsible.  All you need to do is click your mouse and away you go down the distorted hole of unreality and lost purpose.  Keep moving forward through fenced corrals toward a better future that never materializes.  Don't stop now the media exclaims! The game is yours if you can take it from our iron fists.  These are the carrots put in front of your greedy eyes.  What you clamor for is their illusion of success.  Real success is creating your will to explore your inner world reflected in nature.  If you don't live your moments then you are being duped to live someone elses.

Think how easy it is for corporate media to isolate you from the things you want to do.  You must be strong and active in understanding that you control media, you can easily influence what information is presented to you through your media device.  To allow the media to choose the information you receive is like preferring static to music.