noun: an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects; dualism
I for one am subject to the turmoils of duality, living in a constant state of tug of war between the logic/rational (left brain) versus creative/imaginative (right brain). I am, typically and historically, a man that lives in constant extremes. All or nothing, pushing boundaries in either direction until something starts pushing back. While I excel in both arenas, creativity has always given me a greater sense of fulfillment than my logical pursuits. Thus the reason why I am doing this. I have spent copious amounts of time living in both these worlds and I have currently been stuck in a state of logical rationalized pursuits, while this has been very rewarding and quite beneficial for myself, I am no longer getting the same return on investment. My left brain came in handy in a time in which I had very much needed the stability, responsibility, accountability and structure of logic. However, each day that goes by that I am stuck in logic becomes less and less fulfilling. Which brings me to this musing, I am pursuing more creative endeavors, exploring new avenues of creativity to make a life legacy that is worthy of my time. The target goal is a more fulfilling life, a target everyone should have, a life where when I look back upon it I don’t say “there was so much that I didn’t get to do”. I am in pursuit of looking back and saying “hey there little johnny (my, as of now, fictional grandson) grab a pen, paper and your seat; have I got a story for you!” I want my life to be full of purpose, meaning, and full of moments (more on this later) not things and large savings that I’ll never get to enjoy.
The spark to this fire is two fold which both of them I can date back to a few months ago when I went through a breakup and at the same time I read “The Intern’s Handbook” by Shane Kuhn (check it out here). Now these two events don’t have any cause and effect correlation other than I was trying to fill a void, in a healthy manner, that was previously filled by having a significant other. I will start with the book because that is where I started to refocus on my battles with duality, in the book the main character frequently references dualism or duality in relation to his job, personality, and life. While I am not a hired assassin infiltrating corporations as an intern to murder executives (it seriously is a great book) I do, however, relate to the main characters struggle with identifying who he is in the midst of living a life of massive extremes. The breakup pushed me into the void where the book brought me focus and stability. The focus and stability was essential to what has been 3 months of reevaluating and reassessing who I am and what I want out of life. I have jumped, as usual, head first into as much knowledge and information as I possibly could to improve my current standing and figure out what I wanted. While still looking at this problem from a logical point of view I accidentally stumbled upon the door to identifying what fulfills me the most, creative endeavors. The logic stated that I needed to get back out into the world, explore, meet new people, and put myself into unfamiliar and many times uncomfortable situations to develop as a human being but where do I go? I don’t drink, I hate bars, and my area of the world lacks expansive culture or activities outside of partying so I did what was the most natural I grabbed my camera and went to the nearest city and took some photos. It was one of the most fulfilling nights I had had in a quite some time. There was oxygen to the spark, now I had a flame.
Photography was a creative passion that I took up in the previous year in search of something to share with my ex. Now on the surface, it gave me a reason to invest in some moderately expensive camera, equipment and our relationship, but at the heart of the matter I have always loved photography and photographs. The simple effect of taking a moment in time and capturing it is breathtaking. Photography is literally time travel in many respects, you may not be able to go to the future per se but in a single photograph, painting, drawing, sketch, mural, sculpture or painted hand print you can go back in time and visit a moment that, in the present time line, no longer exists. This to me is the most beautiful aspect of art but not only that it also massages my love of science and logic. Moments in time and moments of purity are the things I want to experience and photography gives me the ability to relive those moments. But like many of my “passions” they explode with excitement, ambition, and exuberance but soon fizzle when I get bored or lazy. But now I’ve got a flame.
The flame (photography) was the catalyst to this new found focus and will remain the primary creative endeavour. Now you may say “If I am a man of extremes, all or nothing, something has to give and be sacrificed. You can’t have everything.” While in many cases I would simply have to agree but there are certainly unorthodox ways of obtaining it all by which I am pushing in that direction. The means in which I will obtain these are a bit beyond the scope of this posting so for now I will leave that for a later posting. The biggest difficulty for anyone who struggles with duality is how to live not in one or the other extreme but in balance and harmony. To this date, I view my life to consist of 3 parts broken down in specific age brackets. The 1st part of my life consists of my formative years, ages 0-22, these were the years of creativity, dreaming, and careless excess. The 2nd part of my life was my developing adult years, ages 22-26, these were the years of logic, rationale, safety, and responsibility. These were the years that I got my train back on track after having a severe derailment. Both these stages I lived where life in extremes but completely polar opposites. The 3rd stage of my life is the present, this is the time I get to shine, develop into who I am, and build my legacy. These will be the years of balancing the extremes. I have learned a great deal, some very good and some very bad, from living the extremes that I will use the skills, knowledge, and experiences to benefit a life of balance. I do not believe we can ever live a life directly in the middle, completely balanced, it’s not feasible nor would I truly want a 100% balanced lifestyle. The extremes come with high risk but high reward, true balance comes with very little risk and very little reward so we need to be flexible, adaptable, and skew in one direction or the other when we need to to get out of life what we really want. This is my task, to take my experiences and live a more balanced, focused lifestyle with the prime objective to get out of life what I want for myself not what others want for me. I will no longer be a sleepwalker or a cog in a machine, it’s just not me. Nor will I be a careless vagabond always on the verge of complete and utter collapse. Now we got some gasoline for the flame.
You may have asked where is all this going? Wait no longer. The reason… the reason why I will be writing these musings and presenting my photography, it’s my way of keeping in check a passion that I don’t want to fizzle out, it’s my accountability. It is also a means to explore creativity in all forms and further refine who I am. By putting my thoughts, feelings, insights, and visual representations of my moments in time, all out on front street for the world to see, will keep me going in the directions that I want my life to take me. At the same time as fulfilling my own dreams and aspirations to be a creative, I hope to give inspiration to my fellow aspiring creatives. I know, for a fact, that I am not the only one who feels this way. I know I am not terminally unique, there are people out there that struggle with the same things that I do and my hope is that people who visit my site will find hope, inspiration, courage, and purpose from the things that I do to make their own lives more fulfilling. I understand that this post is all over the place and has a definite lack of structure to it but thats because, in all honesty, I have no idea what the fuck I am doing. I’m winging it. There is a phrase that I have, and probably always will, live my life by “Fake it ‘til you make it.” The “figure things out as you go” state is my most comfortable state of being. Beautiful, structured, chaos; just like the Universe. This is a journey best ventured with friends and good company so I welcome you, dear reader, to join me in faking it in life until you yourself find what fulfills your every desire.