(Part 5)
Something else going on (inside of me) ?
I suspect that maybe something else is going on inside of me... but I am not sure. I might have developed a sort of... avoidance of going out taking photos (with tripod and everything else). But even just taking a camera, and go out - is nowadays for me a rather rare occurrence...
I am talking about the classic "out and about" type of photography. Something that should be normal - but i seem to have developed a resistance to do that ? Instead I have fallen back into mainly doing home work / indoor photography... (which at times makes me feel "cornered". Like creativity, which goes in circles and becomes "boring").
Yesterday morning - as I spontaneously prepared myself to head out at 05.30 in the morning, with a big tripod, a backpack with 3x Pentax 67 lenses, Vertex adapter and the Fujifilm GFX camera.... i noticed a sense of... refusal / resistance / avoidance. As if a power tried to prevent me from heading out. A power that spoils good ideas and spontaneity.
This time - it didn't win. (But most of the earlier times, it did)
Yesterday, I really, really wanted to go out - do doubt !! The first thought was to go into the wood - but while walking out of the house, i felt - no, i want to do something about Stockholm. Casual. Empty. Something that "just is". Albeit once i was in the old town of Stockholm... the gray, dull weather... uh... wasn't particularly inspiring.
Or maybe i was rusty... ?!
During the latter years
I've rarely been out and about. I am not talking about photography on my way from work, walking home. Here I am pretty active almost always. No; what I mean is, to head out - just for doing photography !
Suspecting that there are other powers at work... preventing the special connection that appears when you take a stroll and take in your surroundings... when you walk out and about, in the city, in the woods or elsewhere. Sometimes a certain kind of magic connection occurs. But it can only occur, when I get your thumb out of your ass, and head out. That playful curiosity - which gets spoiled from thoughts of resistance/avoidance, where the mind tries to come up with something - any argument, just to prevent ones from going out.
So, what the heck is "preventing" me from doing that ?!
(It's probably complicated, i sense / suspect).
The World is Different Today
Now in my world of today, things are very different. I am older - sure. And I have no audience or anyone I can share anything with in terms of photography. So, all this, is a at times stupid one-man show. People are different today, and the world of photography - the way we value or devalue images, is very different compared to how people were 30 years ago, often appreciating it a bit more, than today.
Today, i often feel images are being taking for granted. Sometimes it feels like Photography - the attention to photography as a medium - has turned into more of McDonald's food consumption. Filling the stomach.
But nothing more.
Oh, the ambivalence...
So, I have highly ambivalent feelings about it all. My inner magic often works in "mysterious ways". One of the strong components is a connections with other people, and they to me. But that is almost entirely missing.
And it affects how i relate myself to photography, and the effort (or lack of effort) i put into. I just feel, that when you are connected to (some) people, there is a magic source being tapped into - almost like an etheric fuel - which enriches all, by creating more energy out of thin air. There is something fundamentally vital.
But this only can take place, among people who are oriented in a way, inclined to "Serve To Others (STO)" - instead of "Serving to Self (STS). The latter consumes energy from other people, where no extra energy is being created "out of thin air" like with STO (Serve to Others)
a One-man show
without any feedback (by free will; the joy of sharing), is or feels highly detrimental over time. Almost always I have to push myself against a layer of "not really wanting or believing in people anymore".
Sounds harsh, sounds strange, I know. And I don't mean to blame others. That is not why i write it like this. Instead i mean that the connection between people, is far far more important - beyond what the naked eye sees. And we are moving towards a world, where these connections are being severed. It sometimes feels like being severed from the source of all things... a sort of good, fueling energy, which stimulates the human soul, mind and body...
But I feel more often today, that we are heading into the wrong way.
Or so it seems.
The feeling that passes through you
I feel this. And it affects me. I have to gather a lot of energy, in order to puncture though that feeling of despair, lost faith and belief; behind (mutual) communication, appreciation, feedback, stimulation.
I often observe people that pass by. My job is being a metro driver, so I do see a lot of people. But while i am observing them, hundreds of them... i am not disabled in my soul and senses. At the same time, i often get very sad - about the lack and emptiness and "zombiness" in and about people.
It is so confusing, so strange...
Like a narcissistic normopathy**, in which the dear essentials are more and more missing in/about people. This has increased hugely - in particularly in the past 4-5 years
The world ain't the same like it was before 2020/2021.
I feel that intensely - and reflect upon it daily ! Like a switch that I can't turn off. I mean that's how things work in me, when i see/meet,/talk/observe other people - it comes to me whether I like it or not. There is always something form their spirit/being/entity coming and passing though.
Narcissistic normopathy**
German Dr Hans-Joachim Maaz - fantastic human being - writes a lot about this. Also several interviews have been done with him, at Nuoviso / Nuoflix in Germany.
All videos in German language
https://nuoflix.de/dr-hans-joachim-maaz-ueber-den-zustand-unserer-gesellschaft (• 2024)
Based on the psychodynamics of individual personality disorders and collective social pathology ( normopathy), the current social crisis is critically analysed, which is understood as a multiple collective delusion related to corona, climate and war.
The narcissistic interplay between the power elite ('big self') and various population groups in the 'small size' and the behaviour of the individual to be differentiated is examined and presented. The analysis culminates in the questions of whether there is a tendency towards self-destruction and whether a rescue from the crisis is possible? Are we still capable of peace or do we need war?
• The normopathic society (• 2025)
Normopathy is a human personality disorder that expresses itself in an obsessive form of adaptation to supposedly prevailing and standardised behaviour and rules within social relationships and living spaces. A driving factor here is the excessive striving for conformity while giving up one's own individuality, which ultimately leads to various complaints and symptoms and can develop into a pathological process, i.e. undesirable social developments are no longer questioned or even recognised as such.
The unconditional over-adaptation to socio-cultural norms thus becomes an illness. Since, in principle, the desire for normality is not considered pathological, but rather a healthy attitude, the pathology of what is happening, with its often somatoform symptoms, is often not recognised as such.
• The fear society (part 1 of 2) (2022)
A frozen society that seems paralysed by anxiety. This is how many people feel about our lives today. Corona policy has drawn people into a fear complex in which the fear of bad events is omnipresent. The fear. It influences the way we interact with each other. It determines our decisions. It dominates our lives. Dr Hans-Joachim Maaz analyses these structures of fear-mongering, which have always been used as instruments of control to dominate the masses. He analyses what underlies real fears and how they shape our behaviour. And he points the way to a free, self-determined and fear-free life and coexistence.
• How narcissistic is our society ? (2021)
How and why are free citizens turned into fearful people? What fears are surfacing on both sides of this divided society? How fear-obsessed are our politicians, journalists and scientists? What does this have to do with our early childhood education? Is the real crisis and the financial, ecological and social collapse still to come?
Dr Hans-Joachim Maaz is a psychoanalyst, psychotherapist and author from Halle (Saale). He has been a sought-after expert in numerous discussion forums since his investigations into the GDR's subordinate mentality, which he predicted as an 'emotional congestion'. He is now addressing the topic of coronavirus anxiety in a collective panic demic.
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