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It is in vain that we can predict and control the course of events in the future, unless we know how to live in the present. —Alan Watts It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.... Continue Reading →
A new year starts today. Happy New Year! As I have in past years, I think it’s also worth noting that another year will start tomorrow, too. One also started yesterday. In fact, countless new years have started just now, during the seconds it took you to read this sentence. May they all be beautiful,... Continue Reading →
It seems to me that the most damaging restrictions on an artist’s liberty are self-imposed. So often, what may have begun as fresh thinking and discovery is turned into a routine and reduced to mere habit. Habits in thinking or technique are always stultifying in the long run. They are also contagious, and when a... Continue Reading →
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. —Walt Whitman Previous installments in this series: Remembering the Future — Part I: Introduction Remembering the Future — Part II:... Continue Reading →
Whether art and beauty can really make man better and stronger is an open question; but one thing is certain: that like the starry firmament they remind us of light, of order and harmony, and of “meaning” amid chaos. —Hermann Hesse Previous installments in this series: Remembering the Future — Part I: Introduction Remembering the... Continue Reading →
To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future. —Bertrand Russell This continues Remembering the Future —... Continue Reading →
I live in a time of fear and the fear is not of war or weather or death or poverty or terror. The fear is of life itself. The fear is of tomorrow, a time when things do not get better but become worse. This is the belief of my time. I do not share... Continue Reading →
Today, I share with you more thoughts on the topic of "aboutness," which I discuss in a couple of my books. As always, I offer these essays free of the annoyances of advertising and paywalls. Still, if it is within your means to contribute as little as a couple of dollars to support this blog—the... Continue Reading →
Camera, camera, what do you do—and I damn your eye, damn your wink, damn your memory—for with all of that you still can’t think. —W. Eugene Smith In 1937, Albert Camus, then just 24 years old, published his fist book under his own name—L’Envers et l’Endroit (variously translated into English as The Wrong Side and... Continue Reading →
I’ll play it and tell you what it is later. —Miles Davis This is a re-edited version of an article originally published in the online magazine On Landscape. If you are not already a subscriber, I recommend it highly. (Note, this is an unsolicited, unpaid personal recommendation, not an advertisement.) ~~~ Ansel Adams spent much... Continue Reading →