Susceptibly Forgetful

Often times we find ourselves bogged down by tasks and details, making it quite difficult to take a moment to relax, walk outside, and breathe the fresh air. Pressure seems, at times, to define the lives of people in the 21st-century. We harp on ourselves for falling short, missing deadlines, or not arriving on time to various places. Each year we aim to try harder or reach higher, but somehow those resolutions never seem to be fulfilled. Why is that? Humans perform best when given clear incentives, not vague ideals. These cliche abstractions of trying harder and reaching higher are pounded into us from such a young age that they quickly lose all meaning. The solution? Clarify your incentives. Successful athletes don't reach the echelon of grandeur by aiming to run faster, get stronger, or jump higher. The only way to meet ones goals is to construct a concrete game plan that is well within ones abilities. If you want to get back into the habit of flossing, the worst way to go about doing that is to attempt to floss all 28 teeth right from the get-go. You will surely crash and burn in no time with that approach. The only way to reform that habit is to tell yourself: I am going to floss one tooth on a daily basis. Once you have plowed that canal in your brain, thus forming a habit of flossing one tooth every day, then - and only then - can you start flossing two teeth daily. You are much more likely to reach your goals with this approach. So remember: take the sniper approach, not the shotgun approach. Pick off each project in life with minuscule but consistent efforts and you will find greater satisfaction.

The Death of Creativity

Societies all around the hemisphere of the globe are in a continuous battle against time. You are trying to meet deadlines every day, be it for work or for your personal agenda. Walk into any bookstore today and you'll notice a genre that is relatively new: time management. Often it seems there just 'isn't enough time.' The true reason many people feel this way is because we've become wealthier in the past couple centuries. When the standard of living increases, our time-preference rate also increases. The opportunity cost of doing anything has sky-rocketed. The reason you'll have a difficult time finding that bookstore I mentioned earlier also has to do with this increased time-preference rate. People don't see value in consuming such magnanimous doses of literature like their forefathers would. Instead, the modern man prefers to listen to an audiobook while commuting or exercising at the gym. Some call it productivity, others label it ADD. What effect does this have on art and those who create it? Overall, the quality of art that is produced in this high-speed world stoops to an all-time low. Most people can no longer enjoy a leisurely walk to the art museum on Sunday afternoon and nonchalantly imbibe each piece of work. Instead, people walk briskly past the museum as they check their Instagram feed.

Sweet Disillusionment

“If anyone is going to start finding his way in the world, he has to admit that he doesn’t know where the hell he is.” -Stellan Skarsgard, playing Dr. Erik Selvig in the film Thor.

     When a person looks at life through the lens of complacency, with the self-appointed crown of penultimate understanding and knowledge, he is blindfolding himself. If one desires to begin scraping at the surface of the permafrost called life, he cannot successfully break through ice without first opening his eyes. If man is to learn, he must realize his place in the whole scheme of history and of eternity. If humans are to grow, they must start asking the right questions. Humans are pupils, apprentices of Time. As Einstein once said, “Time is the greatest teacher, but unfortunately it kills all of its students.” Cultivate a garden of apprenticeship in your mind; learn to be a life-long learner.

Inspired by Francesca Woodman, master of the art of self-portraiture. 

The Anchor of Time

     Just as a sailor must bear the mighty power of the seas amidst a treacherous storm, at times we also must buckle down and endure the storms that life brings. Time is like the raging seas on a dark, dreary night; a sailor trapped in the eye of the storm fights with all his strength to stay above the encroaching waters. At some point or another, we are that sailor, surrounded by a world which is being enveloped by busyness. Sailors have anchors with which they can provide their boat a pillar of security.

     Anyone but photographers never comes into contact with an often overlooked tool which acts as an anchor of time. This apparatus is called a tripod. The tripod acts as an anchor of time because when a camera is mounted atop it, time continues to flow on (Just as waves never cease splashing on an anchored sailboat) around the camera, while time becomes glaciated into an image captured by the tripod-mounted camera. Theoretically speaking, there is no limit to how long the shutter in the camera can be open. I often cope with the busy storms of life by indulging into photography. For me, photography is a meditative activity, calming, yet at times thrilling.


   

Carpe Diem

     "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.' ... 'I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." -Thoreau, Walden.

     If you're a student like me, you probably feel that there just isn't enough time in each day. I think most people feel that way often times, especially with the prominence that technology -TV, video-games, the internet, etc. - plays in our lives today. The truth is that there are pockets of time, hidden underneath the busy schedules which we all juggle each and every day. If you really search for those time-consuming intervals in your life, you will find them.

San Francisco, CA

    To be honest, I'm not the most productive being out there, but the fact is that I am moving towards that ideal lifestyle which resonates the phrase Carpe diem with each passing hour. Some ways which I have "reduced life to its lowest terms" include not watching TV or playing video-games (In fact, we don't even have a TV in our house, which I'm grateful for), and deleting all the apps from my iPhone that tended to waste my time. That said, I still am a strong advocate for balance. As A. Huxley said, "Too much enjoyment blunts the fine point of seldom pleasure. Unrestrained indulgence kills not merely passion, but, in the end, even amusement. Too much liberty is as life destroying as too much restraint." This past weekend for me was perfectly balanced; in my mind, its more benign to have a weekend with some work and some leisure, than solely one of the aforementioned.



     I'd like to give a shout-out to Steve Jobs, who truly had such an impact on our world and its future; he will be greatly missed. Somewhat recently, I have found ways to incorporate my iPhone into the battle for productivity. Right before I jump in the shower, I start the timer and try to be out before 5 mins. The night before a quiz, as I'm reading the content aloud, I record myself so that I can listen to it the next morning as I drive my scooter to school. Earlier this year, I started taking photos of the homework for some of my classes, since it can take so long to write it all down. Now most of my class follows suit. Trendsetter? I think yes.