Just a few years back. I've gotten into the habit of buying fresh flowers once a week. B. likes it and it makes the house seem more.... inviting. Shot with an older 50mm f1.4 Canon FD lens...
I just listened to a lecture about...happiness. Not from a spiritual point of view but from a neurological/pyschological point of view. Seems I was right all along. Adding friction to the modern, first world lifestyle adds more happiness. But it's more complicated than that. The premise is that life has always been hard. In the past, for millenia, the basic struggles for survival provided most (all?) of the friction of daily life. Finding enough food. Staying warm and uneaten by predators. Surviving all manner of disease. Avoiding participation in wars, etc.
Since the middle of the last century life remained a struggle but for profoundly different reasons. At a certain point in first world countries most people didn't and still don't struggle to get enough food, or shelter and, at least in the USA and other prosperous countries, wars have been distant and not existentially dire on an individual level. So why is life still hard? In a word? Boredom. Most of our day to day lives, once we've attained adulthood, are...boring. Which is depressing. And since the human brain craves stasis it will push you to do what it can to counteract depression. Which, for current people, means distracting ourselves with entertainment. Virtual anti-boredom. Which mostly translates to scrolling through websites on our phones and computers, going through our daily routines and scrolling some more. While we might not be ecstatic while we're scrolling we are okay but the minute we stop the realization of our boredom pushes us back to depression and the cycle continues.
What's the antidote? Likely it's not to "find" meaning in life as much as it is to "create" a sense of meaning in life by choosing interesting things to do. It's likely why people attempt to climb Mt. Everest, sail across oceans, run marathons and, yes....even go out and take photographs. We're mostly attempting to do things that we can infuse with value or "meaning" that we enjoy. And most of those undertakings are successful because, unlike endlessly watching sports on TV or the web, these activities attract us because doing them entails working against friction. Embracing friction. Working alongside friction.
If a task is easy and mundane it's something we dislike. But even if a task is tough, hard, requires increasing skill sets and also comes with a chance of failure it also comes with something to push against and to win against. And mostly that's the friction entailed in the process.
Think of the happiest people you personally know. How many of them sit on a couch and browse the latest offerings from television and the web? If you really look you'll probably find that the happiest people in your lives are the ones who are busy doing work they value or which adds value to them and the people around them. Or they are the artists who are wholly committed to the near endless pursuit of their art. Or they are out challenging themselves. Pushing their hobbies from time frittered away to time spent challenging themselves to get to a higher level of achievement and proficiency. Adding friction.
For some people work delivers the challenge and the friction people use to moderate the ups and downs of pleasure stimulation and post pleasure pain or emptiness. The stories are legend of the powerful men who are pushed into retirement, dolefully play golf and subsequently die 18 months later. The friction of the business challenge provided the mental physics to hold everything together. Remove the friction and you remove the sense of meaning that keeps people on track. The work and the challenges of work keep one from just modulating between the pleasure and pain cycles all day long and helps satisfy your brain's desire for homeostasis. Without constantly cycling between the momentary "happiness" of empty entertainment and the resulting sadness brought on by stopping the entertainment the brain can more easily maintain a healthier mid-line of emotional energy. There's something to be said for the even keel.
I'm probably going into the weeds here but the basic idea I believe is that re-introducing friction into the lives of the bored population would go a long way toward bringing back authentic joy into people's lives.
One of the reasons people are drawn to photography in general and street photography specifically is that the whole practice is fraught with ample opportunities to fail interspersed with sparse opportunities to succeed. But it's that very friction of the attempt that makes it personally worthwhile. And the value really is in the ongoing process and not the random trophies printed and hung on a wall.
To my mind depression and momentary relief from depression is mostly about the cycles of dopamine delivery and dopamine withdrawal. Little pleasures derived from scrolling the web, or being engaged in other entertainment episodes provides a bit of uplifting dopamine but as soon as the entertainment is withdrawn the dopamine drops away. What most of us need but few of us are educated to know is that the pursuits that challenge us consistently tend to smooth out the oscillating peaks and troughs, the amplitude between the ups and downs, and offer a way of living with more satisfaction. And that satisfaction creates a virtual cycle in your own pursuit of meaning and your sense of fulfillment. The more passive your approach to life the less you are able to embrace the feeling that things make sense. The more consistently motivated you are to work on challenging undertakings the greater your long term satisfaction. Imagine how good it feels to write a book. All the way to the end. Or to make a wonderful quilt. Or to produce a movie. Or to create and run a successful company. These things may just hold the secrets of our own happiness.
Rehearsal with small cameras. Hmmm.
We can feel good momentarily when watching tennis on TV --- if we like tennis. I don't really see the point. But if we play tennis we can feel the challenge and also enjoy accrued benefits such as greater physical fitness and a (hopefully) increasing skill set. And a bonding with our opponent. If we turn off the TV and our driver of momentary happiness comes solely from passively watching then we are doomed to be deflated, at least to a degree, the minute the program ends. There are no lasting benefits. No new skills learned. Nothing in our lives changed. When the drinking if over there's nothing left but the hangover....
Rome. 1995
Verona. 1986.
the more affluent people become the more they invite constant demands on their time and the more they get done. The happier they report being. People at lower income demographics have, interestingly enough, more "leisure" time. But less happiness. It's an odd finding but there it is.
Vatican City. 1986.
Barton Springs. Austin, Texas 2016
Paris. 1992.
Experiences create more lasting joy than objects or products.
We're planting more and more Lamb's Ear in the back yard garden.
Photographing is not just about photographing. It's a cultural survey of sorts.
It's exercise. It's a re-acquaintance with where you are and why you are there.
It's an exploration into human nature. It's a pleasant way to learn about the dynamic graphics of making images --- which most of us can only really learn by trial and error. Right?
It's a chance to roam free like the animals of the Serengeti. The roaming is
both a feature and a benefit....
Children have a sense of creativity that, in too many adults, has been crushed, defeated and killed off. Maybe we should believe in the resurrection of the creative spirit and bring it back into our own adulthood. Beats making fun of the liberal arts majors...
Design evolves faster than viruses....
Okay. Now I know where I am.
the Ancient Greeks were always at war with some other country.
Maybe that was the friction that created the next 2,000 years of civilization.
The friction of Jo's is that of finding any nearby parking...
Taken women statues everywhere. including in this lobby of a Montreal building.
I guess that's friction too.
Getting myself steeled up to do a bit of self brain surgery.
A few less I.Q. points will certainly add some much needed friction points...
this camera is much more difficult to use well that most current AF, auto everything cameras.
Maybe that's why I like the images I get from it so much better and it may be why many of the people who pooh-pooh this sort of camera in favor of ultra-auto cameras tend to give up the pursuit so quickly.
Same. Hard work feels better than drifting around with floaties.
Cameras at the ready!!! Charge!!!
I know you discourage anything that smacks of politics on your blog (and I greatly approve of that) but I will say, as neutrally as possible, that it has occurred to me that the winner of our last presidential election won because he's entertaining -- he creates instant friction -- and his opponent was exactly the opposite. End of that. I much like the photo of the guy with round glasses: here's a guy who *knows* he's cool.
ReplyDeleteKirk: . . . the pursuits that challenge us consistently tend to smooth out the oscillating peaks and troughs, the amplitude between the ups and downs, and offer a way of living with more satisfaction. And that satisfaction creates a virtual cycle in your own pursuit of meaning and your sense of fulfillment. The more passive your approach to life the less you are able to embrace the feeling that things make sense. The more consistently motivated you are to work on challenging undertakings the greater your long term satisfaction.
ReplyDeleteMy experience, as well. I think you're describing a phenomenon that affects many of those of us who are fortunate enough to reach a point in our lives where we can retire without worrying about money. Also those of use who are unfortunate enough to reach that stage: the need to work provides its own justification. Once it's gone, you have to find other activities that engage you—ideally to the same extent as working—while you run out the inevitable biological clock. Doesn't matter what they are. Which brings me to your photos du jour: the subjects don't matter: just the light, the tonal values, and (optionally) the colors. I also plan to keep shooting. The means justify the ends.