If you do not want what I want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.
Or if my beliefs are different than yours, at least pause before you set out to correct them.
Or if my emotions seem less or more intense than yours, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel other than I do.
Or if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, please let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up trying to change me into a copy of you.
If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself to the possibility that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear as right-for me. To put up with me is the first step to understand me.
Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or dissapointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And one day, perhaps, in trying to understand me, you might come to prize my differences, and, far from seeking to change me, might preserve and even cherish those differences.
I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, your colleague. But whatever our relation, this I know: You and I are fundamentally different and both of us have to march to our own drummer.
-David Keirsey, “Please Understand Me II”
I am not usually a reader of poems. My brain does not follow some of the more complicated nuances that give poetry is edge. I can enjoy a work read to me (by the author..preferably in person), because I think performace is the key to meaning for me. But this one stuck while I was reading The Element, by Sir Ken Robinson. This book is one of the best and most helpful discussions on finding and moving towards living in your passion. And since I’m not a book reviewer and can’t do it justice at this time, I’m just going to recommend it and move on for now…
A Poem, by Loris Malaguzzi
The child is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and at Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
I am no longer a child, but I want some of my ninety nine back. I’m working on it.
Well, I have become one of those…
“Bloggers” who start something with hopes and dreams and then just let it fade. I don’t know why I haven’t posted anything…
I have several sets of photos that I am desperate to work on and post, but every time I feel compelled to look at them, I never finish. I am trying to knock out some bigger projects before I work on these “boutique” photos. I’m being strangely linear with this.
Last year, I shot a wedding and a Christmas party at Bright Futures and I would be much looser if I could knock out these sets (album for the wedding, slideshow for the party). Neither was a paid gig, so I have no deadline, but they are clogging my creative pipes right now.
The wedding was a couple kids from immigrant families who didn’t have anything close to an official photographer so I may be the best they have. And the party is something we have been doing for years. Last year, I finished the 2008 slideshow a week before the 2009 party. If I can finish the 2009 set this summer, I’ll be way ahead of the game. Wish me luck.
I still have those plant photo’s to post, a great set of B&W portraits
from a karaoke night and some bamboo forest HDR’s that you’ll love. I just started working with Lightroom 3, which runs seems to run much faster on my semi-old computer. Maybe that will be my creative plunger? Stay tuned…
This has been a wonderful weekend for us gardeners. The weather is unseasonably warm and the sun was shining bright. The fun thing is how far ahead I am in preping my flower beds. I usually spend memorial day as a work day, but most of that stuff is done. I’ve got bedding plants popping flowers all over, and the perenials are looking great.
I even have some mystery plants that are rolling out, but I just don’t know what they are. I know I planted them and I’m looking forward to the big reveal.
So what did I do?
First off, Virginia Tech plant sale. I overspent, but I got some pretty cool stuff. I tend to avoid the mass produced items, but the plants grown and propagated by the horticulture students are top notch. I’ll try to do photos and species info in a later post, but I’m sitting on a neat papyrus, a giant hosta, a butterfly bush, a blue salvia with huge flowers (for a salvia), and an assortment of coleus.
The papyrus has inspired me to start a container water garden. I’m digging around looking for some other cool aquatic or marginal plants.
And I finally built my rain barrel and got it placed. I still need to jigger around with the downspout, but it looks good.
I will post photos soon! Sombody please keep me honest.
Location:Bertha St,Pulaski,United States
In honor of this week’s potential frost, I give you a shot from this past winter’s horror show, snow-zilla.
Ok,
Let’s try this one more time.
I’m not real fond of the iPhone wordpress app, so I’m trying another.
My non-profound realization was that the second post is probably harder than the first. But, I think the first rule of “just do it” should be: Don’t try to be profound. Just post something. And keep posting until it becomes a habit or ritual. I have to get used to mind dumping way more often than I currently do. I have to give the creativity the opportunity to flow, but the pipes need a thorough cleaning before the good stuff can come out.
That’s where my voice will come from.
And now, some pictures.
Location:Bertha St,Pulaski,United States
Obligatory first post here..
I’m many things. Professionally, I’m a lab technologist (fancy word for technician) working in material science. I used to be a biologist, which, if nothing else, gave me a deep love of nature. I am a photographer, desperate to live a life of creativity. I am a geek, nerd, dork (which ever one pays the most… Is it still 1998?…sigh). I TRY to be a loving husband, and despite my best efforts, my wife still loves me. I garden, or at least I let plants grow.
And I do other things too. It’s complicated.
I am an internal extrovert. In my head, I’m the life of the party, the man other men want to be and women want to be with. In reality, I usually sit quietly, staring, focused. I probably have a touch of Asperger’s (or maybe a whole dollop or two). That bothered me at first, but now I see the potential advantages, if only I can find a way to exploit them.
Everybody says the best way to start a creative endeavor is to just do it. Who hasn’t had a great idea that languished because of procrastination and excuses? Well here’s me just doing it!
I don’t know if this is going to be just a photoblog, (I have thousands of images to share… well, maybe hundreds worth sharing. I’m getting better, I promise.), an online diary, my rant box (not the plan), or something interesting. I’m just as curious as you are, imagined reader. All I want to do is find my voice, learn to express myself, maybe change the world (snort…that sounded lame to me too. Maybe I can keep the hyperbole to a minimum?)
Let’s do this thing.
