Broken trees and reminders

 Photography, Spirituality  3 Responses »
May 132011
 

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Reminders
Humans are a species mired in symbology. It’s part of our collective unconsciousness, I think. I can always count on my brain to have an adventure off into the land of symbols when I’m walking and all is quiet.

To most, this is a fallen tree. To my mind, at least this morning, and yesterday morning, this is a metaphor for life. Taoism says that that which is supple, is living. That which is rigid, is dead. The tree that sways in the breeze, or the storm, is the one that survives. The one that stands strong and refuses to bend, soon is uprooted or broken and dies. Architects build buildings and bridges that sway in the breeze for this very reason.

We, as a country, put a lot of faith and effort into being strong. Just look at this country. The only remaining “super power”. We have our hands in everything. We want our economy to be number one. We want our money to be number one. We want our education to be number one. We put lots and lots of effort into being number one, out front, rarely, if ever, yielding. Yet, with all of this effort, force, and rigidity, we are bound to break. As a citizen of this country, sometimes I adopt that attitude personally.

Lately, I’ve been getting a massage on a monthly basis. Last week, my masseuse said: Wow! Your back muscles are really tight. What’s going on with you? I told her that I had some personal issues that I’d been ‘dealing’ with. She rubbed the knots out and said that I needed to come back in a week and take at least a 90 minute session so that she could spend about an hour on my back alone! It really was tight.

A few days prior, I had been having ‘discussions’ and things were not going my way. I kept forcing the issue, trying to get things to go my way, which made sense to me; Eventually, rather than fighting the wind, I just hoisted my sail and went with the wind and let it carry me where it would. I felt a lot better, even though things didn’t go my way. The pain that had been in my back subsided, but I guess that the muscles remained tense.

Had she seen my on the previous Wednesday, she might have been really alarmed. I was in knots everywhere. She would have probably said that I needed a 3 hour massage! :)

So, this tree was a reminder of a lesson that I keep learning over and over. Bend. Yield. Be supple and pliant. Live. I hear it Tai Chi all the time. Flow. Redirect force, don’t oppose it. Yield.

At least the intervals of the lessons are further apart now because, sometimes, I really do get it. LOL Yet, sometimes, I have to be reminded, yet again, by a tree that didn’t bend in the wind, but stayed strong and broke.

 Posted by Paul at 12:51 pm  Tagged with:

Conflict resolved

 Photography  20 Responses »
Mar 152010
 

“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised. ~~Chinua Achebe”

Finally, I am able to share some things that I had not been able to share earlier, or didn’t feel comfortable doing while employed with a defense contractor.

From 1986 until 1992, I worked for Raytheon, a defense contractor. At the time, they were known as E-Systems, Garland Division. When I left there I swore to myself never to return to defense contract work, especially in any capacity that required a secret clearance or above. There were no noble reasons behind it, I just didn’t like the hassle of the clearance and all that it entailed. The invasion of privacy, big brother and all that.
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Flash forward to July 2008, 16 years outside of defense. I took another job as an employee of a government contractor. Never say never. I didn’t give it too much of a thought. I needed a job, so I went back in. It was the closest thing that I could get to home. Problem solved … at least for the first 10 months, or so. As part of the job, we had to pay a visit to an Air Force base in Jacksonville, Florida around the June timeframe, I think. Let’s call it June 2009. The four of us were looking forward to going and getting to see the aircraft where our software would be installed.

The first day was a travel day, nothing doing until the next morning. The next morning, we got up, met in the lobby, and ate breakfast together. A couple of our sponsors were there, so we ate with them. As we ate, somehow the conversation turned to work and the ‘hopes’ for the system. Talk turned to kill ratios, and effective kill zones, and the efficiency of killing. Talk continued about bad guys and how they deserved to be killed and that the system that we were working on would allow the Navy to have a lower cost per kill. Truthfully, I was speechless, almost tearful. I was embarrassed. I sat mute.

The rest of the stay was pretty gray for me. I was in the dumps, but didn’t share my opinions with anyone else. Everyone else, it seemed, was into it and proud of the system. I, on the other hand was seriously conflicted. I thought: I spend all of this time, after work, marveling at the wonder that life is and appreciating all living things, but by day, I lend my abilities to death and destruction. I am a willing participant.

I sat with these feelings for months and months and finally decided to have a discussion with my wife. She told me that if that was how I felt, and she understood, then I should just quit immediately and find a job back home. I started looking, but none were available. Obviously, I kept the job, but the wind had gone out of my sails. The project, though a demo, was a success and lauded by a great many. Certainly, had I not be there to do it, they would have gotten someone else to do it and it might well have been a success.

Eventually, I moved onto another project that was basically administrative in nature. It gathered data, but deep down, it gathered data for the purposes of staging attacks, etc. Sigh. When the the word came down that I had been let go, it was a disappointment in that my ego felt a bit bruised, after all, I had been doing a good job. Later, after a few days, I felt rather elated and didn’t know why. One morning, while meditating, the answer popped up. You are no longer in conflict about your job.

Looking back, I wish that I had had the ability to pull out right as the conflict hit, but as I’m learning, sometimes you just have to sit with things and they will resolve themselves for the betterment of everyone.

 Posted by Paul at 1:38 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

Constantly seeking newness

 Photography  7 Responses »
Mar 102010
 

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Shadows for a while – Ilford HP5+ Rodinal – 1:50 – Leica M6

The other day I posted a question on Paul Maxim’s blog: Why must someone surprise you? Today, he posted a response to that question with this post. It was a very well thought out post, worth the read. I have already posted a response to his post and I will do my best to NOT repeat it here, but instead to go into a different direction.

Monte, here’s another one of those random, pool ball shots that my brain takes. :-) This post has been on my mind for some time. If you’ve read for any time, you know of my affinity for Tao, Zen, and now meditation. These things, together, naturally form a different way of looking at things that is, in my own words, very un-Western. I like quiet. I like sitting. I like solitude. I like exploring things again and again, digging deeper and deeper, trying to get a feeling for “it”. At this time, I don’t feel the smallest need to try new things, photographically. I’m not against it, but I just don’t feel compelled the way that I used to.
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I’ve been reading John Daido Loori’s book, The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating your Artistic Life. There is much in the book but it needs to be read slowly, deliberately. But, I shall not delve into “art”, but just the concept of authenticity and what it means to me. However, the one thing that I notice is that his work is not ground breaking, new, or shocking. It is, in a word, simple and, more important to me, authentic.

I don’t mind hopping from subject to subject, trees, sky, water, sand, people, back to sand, whatever. All that I’m doing is exploring. From time to time, when I have a group of photos up, without really looking, I’ll see some themes and wonder about them for a time. I, for example, wondered why, oh why, do I have so many images of small people under big skies? I finally figured it out last week, I think. It’s rather personal, so I’ll keep that one to myself, but the one thing that I can see is that my photographs are authentic. They are truthful. They are mine. When I go out, I usually don’t have anything in mind, other than to shoot.

Lately, the fascination has been shadows and I think that I might know what that’s about, but perhaps not.

Authenticity, I think, is what I’m shooting for, if there is any goal whatsoever. To be truthful, not impressive, nor original. In my travels through the software world over the past 25 years, there’s always some new technology, or at first blush, it appears to be new, but in reality, it is the same old thing with a different coat of paint. It appears to be a different way to solve the same problems. Ultimately, all of software, it seems comes down to CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete), there are just different ways of doing it. Nothing original, but many different, authentic ways to provide a solution.

This is certainly NOT a post damning new things. It is a post that is in favor of being willing to go against the grain of ‘newness’ in favor of exploration of what may already be known … partially. To not play to the crowd. Though, in truth, I am affected by the crowd at times by the pictures that I select to go with the post, but I’m working on that. ;-)

So, what about challenging yourself, as the mantra goes? Challenging yourself doesn’t necessarily mean moving on to something different, new, unfamiliar. It could mean getting to know, even better, that which is already known. It could mean having the courage to explore deeper.

 Posted by Paul at 12:00 am  Tagged with: ,

Yank: Part 1

 Photography  15 Responses »
Mar 042010
 

This post was started on Wednesday, February 24, 2010.

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?

An excerpt from The Tao Te Ching, chapter 15

Friday, February 19th was a normal Friday. Nothing unusual. The weather was clear, the sun was shining, there was even a slight breeze blowing. Special in its particular uniqueness, but nothing ‘memorable’. I went to work, as usual, had packed my things for the weekend in Charlotte. The next day, Saturday, February 20th was my birthday, big number 4-8. We had plans to go to The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant.
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During the work day, we had our normal amount of raucous banter. After all, I’m in a room full of guys, no women. There are 7 of us in there and the jokes fly back and forth, movie quotes, talking about each other, lots of fun. Sometime around 10 or 11, I received an e-mail saying:

Please report to the conference room next to my office at the North Rhett building at 4:00 PM. This is a MANDATORY meeting.

Great, another mandatory meeting. So, I gave a shout out: Hey, guys, did you get an e-mail about a mandatory meeting? The answer was no all around. i was the only one who’d gotten it. Curious. Another employee who was across the hall happened to hear what I said. He went back to his desk, checked his e-mail. He had one, too. A third employee then came in and found that he had one as well. We wondered out loud about what this could be about.

The projects had been having some money issues and they were shuffling people around to different charge numbers, etc. Nothing to worry about. Well, although I had sense of foreboding, I was able to calm myself and enjoy the rest of my day.

We arrived at the North Rhett building, or HQ, about 15 minutes early, walked into the conference room. The room was sparsely furnished, containing a whiteboard, one long conference table, and chairs to accommodate 10 people, or so. We sat down, talked amongst each other and, of course, wondered aloud what this was all about. We came to no conclusion. We were about to find out, though.

At 4:00 PM, our boss Marla, followed by her boss, Doug, entered the conference room. It’s funny what you remember, but I remember that the sun was shining through the louvered blinds at the left end of the table and making interesting patterns as it shown through an oscillating fan. I remember thinking that I wish I had my camera with me. Always the photographer, I guess.

Everyone was seated at the table, Doug, the division head to my right at the head of the table, Marla, directly across from me. For the rest, I’ll use aliases. To my left sat Bob, at the end of the table, James, his back to the louvered blinds, the sun still shining, unaffected by what was about to unfold, and directly across from me, slightly to the left, to Marla’s right, sat Don.

Marla looked at each of us, a grim look on her face, and announced that there was no more funding left and they had worked with the customer to cut 4 people and that our names were the ones that had come up in their decisions. I looked across the table at Don. He stared back blankly, gave a barely perceptible nod, then looked down. I looked left to James. No reaction. The dust motes danced on the sunbeams, unaffected. Bob was turning a bit crimson, holding back his emotions. Looking within, I felt unaffected at the moment, but that was soon to change. Marla continued, saying that we had all done great jobs and this wasn’t because of anything that we did. I remember thinking, yeah, nothing personal, just business; Corporate America in action.

We were told that we could stay with the company for a few weeks and try to find a job within the company and that she would offer us all of the help that she could. They asked if we had any more questions. Silence. The last thing that I remember Doug saying was, have a great weekend. Sure.

Again, I was unaffected as I walked out the door to the car; however, those emotional waves began to roll and land on the shores of my mind. Crashing, one after the other, stirring up thoughts. Why? What did I do wrong? How could this have been prevented? I’m so tired of changes, movement. What should I learn from this? I was on the other side of the blinds now, the sun continued to shine, unimpeded. Birds sang. The wind blew. Nothing changed there.

I called my wife to let her know that I was on the way and to let her know the news. I struggled to keep the emotion out of my voice, but she could hear it. She asked: Are you alright? I could give nothing but a pregnant pause, a croak, and finally was able to offer a few strained words: No. Not really. Can we talk later? I was deeply disappointed and hurt. I got on the road and headed back towards Charlotte. I listened to music, looked at the glorious sunlight, took in the pine trees, drove. I started feeling better.

The weekend turned out pretty good. I took the time to update my resume, meditate, enjoy dinner with my family, and realize that everything will work out as it should, not necessarily as I want. I decided not to tell Pedro or Tony until everything was resolved, thus the delay of this post.

On Monday, I sent out my resume to a recruiter in the Charlotte area that I’ve worked with before. He called me back right away and said: “Finally! You’re coming back. I’ve got so many jobs that I need to fill.” We talked for about 15 minutes. I was doing most of the listening as he told me about all of the positions that he had open. I heard the names of managers that I had worked for before and would like to work with again. On and on it went.

Throughout the day, I fielded various phone calls requesting more information. I was now submitted for at least 5 jobs and possibly 2 more …

 Posted by Paul at 12:00 pm  Tagged with: , ,
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