Well hello again

It was a little disconcerting to find comments on my last blog after something of a comment dry spell. Hopefully I won't get any comments on this blog.

A while ago, as in 20+ years ago when I was in high school there was a bit of an argument in my psychology class about the nature vs nurture disagreement. The subject was Chales Manson and his contention that he is a product of society. Some people agree with him and others disagree and think he should get the chair, you've heard it all before I'm sure.

I guess my view on the matter is that humans have incomplete self-determination. It is philosophically and psychologically untidy. A bunch of shit happens when you're a kid and you're kind of fucked up. Or you have talents and good family and friends and have a great childhood. But anyway my childhood wasn't all that hot in some respects and I came out of it an emotional wreck. I'm still kind of one, stressful situations at work bring out my anger and I don't much care for the company of me at work. Last weekend I was out on one of my photographic expeditions and I went back over that thought that humans have incomplete self determination. It sort of stopped me in my tracks. Not like a brick wall but it gave me pause. I guess being human is kind of like being a sewage treatment plant, you try to distill some pure water out of raw shit. Shit happens but art is made, to borrow a phrase from Ken Rockwell. Shit happens to you but you at least have the opportunity to try keeping your head, and putting together something worthwhile. Life is an opportunity to create something where there is no pre-existing order.

I find that I don't like people any better, the more thoroughly I get to understand them.

A couple guys at work have bought houses recently. I heard one kind of sigh and say that he was going to be in debt for the rest of his life. I suppose that is the way of the oxen. If they are still standing at the end of the day the feel like maybe they ought to add some more weight to their burdens.

"the ox people" is a personal term i've used for many years to refer to most people besides myself. I guess i'll go back to high school again for a minute. I remember my chem study teacher saying he wanted to kill me because I got the highest or second highest grade on the final exam, when i had been getting Ds for grades that year. the other kids obviously had gotten better grades than me, but they hadn't retained the material to the point of being able to kick butt on the final. but that's not important, i think. what's important is that they had accepted the conditioning to stick their necks in and pull when the yoke was put before them, and that's what makes them a utilizable resource, workers, the ox people. and I couldn't make that adjustment.

i'm not sure what to believe that I could do, that would be worth doing, that would make a better life than the lot of the oxen. I'm an okay photographer. there are better ones out there. and doing weddings and shit like that is just making more of the brick and mortar of human averageness. I can throw pottery on the wheel, but I don't know how to get started in a business and I don't want to just throw the same mug ten thousand times, that is just being a potter-ox.

so that's just some raw sewage I have to try and distill something of value out of.

Your average woodland waterfall. Click on for bigger and prettier



Your average architectural abstraction