INTIMACY
Ihave been slowly, very slowly working on another picture book called LEVELS OF INTIMACY.
The book is concerned with my relationship to other individuals,
to society and to the earth. In my life, as in all of our lives, each of these relationships are unique to themselves and they offer relationships to each other while creating within me, desires, goals, defences, wishes, hope and anger as well as loving and caring. Yes, each offers a cluster of confusion.
An honoured friend of mine, Alain Ruche, is a wonderfully complex thinker with much wisdom which he shares. In his essay, MY PATH, he wrote:
(There are) “several esoteric ways to expand our knowledge, like rituals, meditation and movement,(which) are designed to impact the quality of time. We have broken the great conversation between us and the earth, the oceans, the rivers and the forests, and of course, the animals. We are talking only to ourselves: it is a spiritual autism.”
Having read the above whilst working on LEVELS OF INTIMACY, it intellectually agitated and excited me as it provided another view of our relationship to the world which I have been examining with a camera for so long.
The following were questions which challenged me as I wrote the text:
•What does being human mean?
•What makes us truly human?
•What does it mean to be truly good?
•What does it mean to live a life consistent with goodness?
•What pursuits or actions define me?
•What drives me?
•What do I really aspire towards?
•What does the role of love,
beauty,
truth,
honour
and kindness mean in my life?
All the above need attention and answering for me to be comfortable in my skin but also to find the truths about us as a species.
It’s difficult in that I not only need to respond to these questions in my private world
but also for my still evolving understanding of how my photographs and films can be used and for whom and what? Inform, stimulate responses or thoughts or other’s moral and intellectual self-examinations, and who am I to attempt this? And why is it important?
I believe, or perhaps have to believe that Alain’s ideas and also mine are in part dedicated to aligning one’s own being and beliefs with those of others in society dedicated to democracy, justice, truth, freedom, equality and kindness. And so, I wonder:
What is the relationship between me and the unconscious whole of society?
Therefore what are the rights of each individual within this schema?
There is a Yiddish word, the same as the German word ‘Mensch’ but meaning more than ‘man’ or ‘mankind’; it means ‘to be filled with humanity’ and in that way it is un-gendered and egalitarian.
Try this: ask yourself ‘is there one word you can use to describe who you think you are?’ This is not easy if you are to be enquiring and truthful. It offers challenges and surprises. Once you land on a word, ask, what may underlie the meaning or importance of that word.
Keep asking ‘why’ until there are no more ‘whys’ left to ask.
When I tried, it was easy to say, I am a ‘photographer’. Quickly I understood that was superficial. It’s what I do but not who I am. I then tried ‘American’ and then ‘Jewish’ but neither word spoke to me as being actually what is at my core. They add cultural colouring to who I am. I remembered that as a teenager and into my twenties I was described (or perhaps accused) as being a ‘romantic’ or an ‘idealist’. But again, I felt these adjectives were just that, words enhancing an inaccurate noun. Finally I reduced much of what I am and have been to ‘moralist’. It sounds stuffy, closed, judgemental, self-concerned, being superior etc, but somehow, it holds its place in me….have a go.
A mention from this week which will be elaborated next week about how we have succumbed to the barbarian’s new normal.
Go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00202r1 and start listening to an interview which starts at 1.31.30. It’s with James Elder of Unicef who is in Gaza at the moment.
This must offend all of us at the most profound level of our humanity.
It clearly expresses why we as citizens must enforce our humanity on the psychopaths who lead us into war.