12.09.2023
12.08.2023
No reason to walk around except for the pleasure of walking around. And seeing new things. And old things with new light. And people out on a beautiful late Fall, late afternoon. And not bitching about being too busy to have fun.
The Crushing and Relentless Power of Entropy.
I never thought that the decline and ultimate failure of an inexpensive hard drive would stir up so many thoughts about how attached I am to physical things, outcomes of day-to-day events, the feeling of needing to be in control and, mostly my attachment to the idea that there is a comforting constancy to my life.
The reality, at least as I see it, is that everything we have, including our own lives, has a parabola of existence. In the example of lifeforms we are born, we grow, we learn, we thrive and then at some point we reach the top of our arc and begin to participate in the process of entropy. The downward slide from the peak of our potential.
Here's my favorite simple definition from the Oxford Dictionary: the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system. 2. a. : the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity. Entropy is the general trend of the universe toward death and disorder.
Our own slides toward dissolution can be relatively quick or agonizingly long. At least in context.
When I realized that I was unable to access the information on one of my hard drives I felt a sense of betrayal. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense but since so few of the hard drives I've used up till now have actually failed (as opposed to just getting "filled up.") I had the illogical presumption that life would go on in the same fashion from now until much later. This started me down the path, yesterday, of assuming that the life and death cycle of all the things I think I depend on might be accelerating. After all, it was just last week that our microwave oven gave up the ghost...
I'm not totally unused to things failing and becoming unusable. The plastic lenses on swim goggles eventually become fogged by chemicals, abrasion and UV light and they eventually become unusable. I have no issue with that. I understand the process and replacing them with new goggles is easy and inexpensive. Shoes are another thing that wears out. And most modern shoes aren't really made to be repaired. When the soles decay beyond a certain point it is time to replace them. Sometimes I feel a twinge of loss when I have to let go of a great pair of hiking shoes but, again, I understood from the beginning that those shoes would have finite useful "life span."
In the case of this hard drive though I felt a different kind of loss since it was a vessel for my work. Both personal and professional. Logically, I know that if the files are so very important that I can have them recovered and moved to a series of newer and newer hard drives but where does it all end? How does it all end? I was letting the loss of the HD become a metaphor for my life as an artist. The loss of files a symbol for the loss of control over small parts of my own, personal art universe. A harbinger of a coming, accelerating decay toward an end. Had I become that attached to my self generated perception of the value of the work? Had I become the victim of my own identification with what my job and my art represents back to me? It appears so.
As I left the house this morning to go to the swimming pool I said to myself, "Oh Hell, Entropy is going to end up being my word for the day." I was in a quiet and sour mood. I even allowed myself to conjecture that perhaps swimming had no real value beyond being a vainglorious attempt to slow down or control my own physical and mental entropy.
But then I got in the water. I could feel the flow of the swim. As I focused on having as technically perfect a "front catch" as I could my mind started off on its own, processing all the feelings I was having and had over the previous 24 hours. I realized in the moment that I had forgotten the most important concept I learned from studying the life of Buddha. ("Old Path White Clouds" by Thich Hat Hahn). That concept being the value of resisting or rejecting desire. Non-attachment to physical things or outcomes. I had made the files on the drive important even though, in the long, medium and short run, their loss was neither good nor bad. It just was. And all the energy I was putting into battling against their loss was just causing me to be sad. Frustrated. And ineffectual.
I don't believe in the idea that everything happens for a reason. I think most things are random and chaotic. And physics tells us that entropy is a reality for....everything. We'll all die. All (statistically) hard drives will eventually become dysfunctional. Batteries will run out of energy. Tires will wear out. Our brains will slow down and eventually become less stable. We might be able to slow the process but we joust with an "opponent" that holds all the high cards.
The best way to "fight" the loss of something is to let it go. But dammit! Why do I still want to show that hard drive who's boss? Mostly because life on the way up the parabola of my existence has been so easy and fun. Few things go wrong. But now? Will the journey into chaos accelerate? What's next?
Swim Zen tells me to stop fighting things that are out of my control. Concentrate (be mindful) on doing the right things day to day. Concentrate on having the right thoughts every day. And to let go of the need to hold onto stuff so tightly; as well as the almost compulsive need to try controlling the processes.
I should have learned by now that you have to loosen up the reins on life if you want to let in a bit of creativity, whimsy and happiness. This might just work out. One way or another I am almost certain that it will. As I've said before, "Happiness is self-inflicted." The same can be said for sadness.
My swim was quite nice.
12.07.2023
Finally back in the pool. It's been too long! Toasted Hard Drive. New Rounds of Back-up Imminent. How droll.
The only thing I miss about photographing with film is that once you got film processed, and you devised a safe way to store it, you didn't need to worry about a favorite image, or folder full of favorite images vanishing overnight. The film I shot in 1978 is still in a folder, in archival sleeves, looking as good as the day I shot it. Not so with digital images on hard drives...
My ancient 4 TB, USB-2 Hard Drive, which I labeled "Bob" stopped cooperating with me this week. I've run Apple's "disk utility" on it a number of times. There's something wrong with the partition map. The disk spins and, after a time the disk icon will show up on the desk top but clicking on it to open it results in a finder crash and general system malaise.
I'm not too concerned since all the client data that was on that disk is backed up onto at least one other drive. And most of the client files are aging out of usefulness. Old head shots. Old projects. All stuff that would need to be updated anyway. There is one folder I missed backing up. It's on there somewhere. But if it goes away I'll take the blame for a spell of laziness eventually being punished by the resulting loss.
Still, the death of the drive spurred me to stay current with recent files of all kinds. I have two 10TB drives that back each other up. Amazon delivered me another 12TB hard drive so I can mirror the information on the existing (new as of October) 12 TB hard drives as well. Then there's the cloud back up. And the off site back up disks for critical client work and essential family pix.
If anything needs to get lost it will probably be some of the endless street photographs that seem to breed like warm germs in a petri dish full of agar. If I lost a bunch of those I doubt I'd cry too much.
I also have a filing cabinet drawer full of older hard disks that I pull out and fire up once a month. I feel like I am now partially in service to my own archive, knowing full well that most of it will end up being trashed and the drives recycled in the end.
The only silver lining I can think of in the moment is that hard drive storage really has gotten radically less expensive than it was in years (and decades) past. I guess I should just buy endless 18TB hard drives by the case and do a yearly "all hands" back-up with mirroring from all the previous generations of drives. Not quite willing to add tape back-up ... yet.
re: the dying disk. I know I can probably retrieved the files on the drive since it still spins, isn't making rude noises and still shows up on a desktop. It would just require buying one of the disk repair apps for about $100 and spending a couple of hours working the buttons. Either that or hire a service to do it.
But in the long run will it matter at all? Will I spend quality time with the files I recover? Are those 100 or so any more important than the other million plus I seem to have accrued? Probably not. But again, we never had this problem with film....unless we spilled coffee on it or were careless enough to store the film in a Texas attic space.
An interesting coda to surviving a week with a common cold.
And what's my real carbon footprint of having so much back-up data spread around?
But, on to more fun stuff. I last swam on Saturday and I've taken off since then, until this morning, both to wait until my cold symptoms abated but also to prevent spreading my cold germs to my fellow swimmers. And with good reason since practices have been packed with people lately. Five in my lane this morning. Makes circle swimming into more of an art than usual. You don't want to come out of your turns too far to the side you arrived on....
But it felt absolutely wonderful to be back in water. Of course, it was a "coach Jenn" workout so there was lots of stroke work beyond freestyle but the workout was still a reminder of how great it feels to feel great. And to move through the water. And to be back in the middle of a huge group of like-minded friends who also love to swim fast.
Today's diet discussion was all about steel cut oats. Our resident hardcore vegan approves... provided you don't douse them in a flood of whole milk. Or any cow milk for that matter. I was too intimidated to ask about covering the oatmeal with brown sugar....
The social discussion was all about the swim team holiday party coming up this Sunday. It's fun because we actually get to meet the other swimmers' spouses, and learn to identify each other when fully clothed.
Well, that's it for today. Be sure to use our links and.... oh wait! Nothing to buy here. Sorry.
12.06.2023
I have to apologize to a lens. I used the 90mm TTArtisan to make a portrait of an advertising exec. yesterday and it was just right.
12.04.2023
The cure for the common cold. Go out for a walk.
Dining room table clutter. B. is pretty tolerant about one camera at the end of the kitchen table. A bit unsettled when two cameras nest there for several days. And downright spitty about four or five camera vying for my attention as I decide which way to go from day to day. If you send along a 75mm APO you'll help a lot because I'll want to choose a Leica SL2 body for at least a full month. You know, to try out the lens properly. That means putting away all the other contenders.