It’s all light
Apparently, I may be giving out the wrong idea with my posts, specially the ones about happiness. I feel that I should redress this. The best way to do that would probably be to stop posting but here I am and here I go again.
I write about happiness mostly because I see it as a concept that I have for the most part, misunderstood. I have chased it, yearned for it, coveted it for most of my life but only ever managing to grasp at a mere flicker of light in the shadows, something seen in the corner of my eye only to disappear as soon as I turn towards it. Happiness is missed as soon as I look for it.
Talking with some people recently made me aware that I may have unintentionally suggested that happiness is a goal, something to have and hold on to till the day we die and that I have somehow achieved this through photography. If that is the case than I apologise for this is not at all what I wish to convey. The joy which photography brings to me has in reality, nothing to do with photography itself but rather with a lesson brought on by the act of making photographs. The joy comes simply from seeing whatever I’m looking at for what it is. Without labels, without biases, without judgement. The point to life, if there is one, may simply be to live every moment fully even if those moments involve pain or sorrow or mourning. Photography may have brought me this understanding but I do not need photography to live its lesson. For that I just need to do what I do, what ever that may be in the moment, be it fun or boring, joyful or painful, safe or scary. The full gamut of human emotions is up for grabs. I don’t want to run away from any of them or run towards any of them but I do find it worthwhile to be aware of them, to live them fully because it is within them that the richness of life exists. After all, it is my emotions that colour my life.
Having said this I also want to add that I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with seeking happiness. If that is what you do then just do what you do. I am only saying that it is no longer what I do. It is not my goal to be happy, it is not my goal to be aware, it is not my goal to have or not have goals. For me it is all simply life living itself. Seeing things as I do will not suit everyone or perhaps even anyone. It is certainly not as exciting as it can get for some but I am suggesting that there is something to be said in finding balance which is effectively all I’m saying. Find the right balance between aperture and shutter speed and you’ll get a sweet shot of life. Regardless of the subject matter.
If what I write makes no sense please understand that I have no real idea who I am, or what I’m doing here, or what anything means but neither does my camera and it doesn’t seem upset by that. So I take a lesson from my camera which just does what it does and in turn, as I’ve already mentioned, I just do what I do.
I cannot tell you that everything in life will be all right, but photography has taught me that where life is concerned, it is always… all light.
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About this useless blog
This blog is, for want of a better word, a journal. It’s a place to dump thoughts that pop-up uninvited. It’s a map of a journey to nowhere. A diary about nothing… or everything… same thing. It’s about life but nothing specific. It’s about photography but for no particular reason. It’s about answering a question that keeps nagging. It’s about seeing rather than looking.
It’s quite a useless site really and you don’t need to be here but if you decide to stick around then welcome.
~∞~
All images by Cedric Canard
(unless credit otherwise given)
I think we have evolved to mainly see and feel contrasts, deviations from the norm. That’s what made us survive as a species, but it permeates our whole existence.
We can be in a situation of more than reasonable safety (like in the “western world”), but we can still feel fear. Fear of cancer, fear of war, fear of migrants, fear of losing a job, …
It does not matter whether this fear is grounded in facts or not, it does not matter what science and math say. It’s also in our nature, that we are more agitated by negatives than by positives. It is useful for our survival.
Happiness is the absence of fear. Happiness is being one with your existence. It is not possible to achieve a state of permanent happiness, simply because it is against our nature, against our genetic heritage. But then, that’s also what makes it so sweet. Happiness is the transcendence of human nature, a short and blissful experience of what it would mean to be a god.
For some definition of god :)
Sometimes it feels like “the pursue of happiness” is the biggest source of unhappiness in the world. People forget to be in the moment, instead comparing their situation to others (envy) or some future golden moment (greed).
What is surprising is that many books which are built on the message “be in the moment” contain long passages where the motive of the writer seems to be either envy or greed. To take an example, this spoiled, at least for me, the books Tao of Pooh and Te of Piglet.
“If what I write makes no sense please understand that I have no real idea who I am, or what I’m doing here, or what anything means but neither does my camera and it doesn’t seem upset by that.”
If there is a better way of looking at life, I haven’t seen or heard it yet. We should all paste that in our viewfinders!
Some people have commented that, on my blog, I should be more personal. More confessional. That, while they ‘come to your blog to learn stuff’ (as one reader recently put it) they sometimes want more insight into me.
Your statement at the end of this post, where you talk about your feeling of not knowing anything, is exactly why I don’t talk about me so much. Because I oftimes feel like I don’t really know anything about me, or, indeed, know anything about photography, for that matter.
In the realm of photography, I feel as if I am beginning to make headway; I perceive things in terms of image quality in the negatives that I certainly didn’t two years ago; my development process is more predictable than it was, and when I’m out shooting, I average more pleasing images per roll (to my eye, anyway) than I might have in the past. To me, these indices indicate progress.
In my personal life, things feel just as they did 30 years ago; uncertain, joyful, fearful, peaceful, chaotic, beautiful and ugly all mixed up in a soup whose taste changes day to day.
So, speaking about those topics, as you do so eloquently and with such clarity, requires a bravery I cannot yet muster.
As I see it, I’m happy to feel happy the few times I actually am happy. The good feel lasts a bit longer than the source of my happiness. Eco living, with a twist, it can’t be a bad thing (although it feels that way, sometimes). But, what do I know? Flooding my veins with happiness might give me a rush I wouldn’t want to live without.
No, I have a hunch we have it all in us, inherited. Some are happier than others, and it’s hard to become someone else.