Motor-Vate

Dear J-

I did find the offending nail yesterday and upon pulling it out was treated to the sound of deflation. Better yet I had the tire off the rim and the tube patched in fifteen minutes yesterday which I promptly celebrated with too much pizza and not enough sleep in a haze of self-congratulation. Point is sometimes we create our own obstacles to success; we go above and beyond in finding requirements to nitpick and end up creating headaces down the road inadvertently. Me switching jobs has meant that I’ve been afraid of asking my boss for anything, whether it be vacation or approval of certain documents. I’m less effective as a lame duck than I thought.

We believe that we go to work and want to do the best that we can as long as we can help it. Me, I have problems with effort sometimes and diffuse concentration: I feel like the dogs of Up (squirrel!) sometimes, folks asking for this and that which doesn’t seem too bad until you get down to actual due dates and deadines making your feeble efforts seem laughable. What was I doing, again? It shows on the bike sometimes too. I had no excuses this morning like yesterday (mostly flat tire, heavy load of salty snacks — pretzels and peanuts) yet I still didn’t get up remarkably early or put too much effort into pedaling.

Sometimes I worry that consistency is key but then I’m reminded that all those efforts fall by the wayside when, as they say, one oops wipes out a whole pile of attaboys. Perhaps it’s a question of motivation: like posting every day or a picture a day or anything else it’s going to consume some effort and you’d better have the right reason for doing what you do. If you’re posting by rote or to sagtisfy a checklist that’s fine and it does help but ultimately you’ve got to be doing it for yourself, not to satisfy someone else. What did you hope to accomplish before when you said you’d do XYZ? Remember that and th world is yours.

Mike

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Photo Note

Dear J-

I find myself looking around, these weekends lately, at other people’s cameras and wondering what they’re running with. By now it’s no secret that most of those black plastic lumps dangle off the end of Canon or Nikon straps and depending on where you go (Zoo, Sea World) there’s a gray barreled or red or gold-striped lens hanging off it too. Then I remind myself that it’s not the equipment, it’s in the vision, and not to wrench my arm out of its socket trying to pat myself on the back here but the exercise of taking around a camera with a prime lens has helped immensely — I’ve got a rough idea of what the picture should be before the camera comes to my eye, and the final act of pushing the release is just a formality at that point, confirming lighting and focus point.

I’m not sure if it’s been obvious but I’ve been trying to put up at least one picture — good bad or indifferent — per day so far this year. Call it a New Years resolution if you want, but it’s another try at bringing a camera everywhere which has helped me already. As far as going too far afield for photographic inspiration, it’s proving that there’s nothing not worth taking a picture. The world keeps opening up in unexpected inspiration lately.

Mike