How We See Others Matters Greatly

Are They “Individuals” or “Persons?” In the early 1960s I was photographing quite a lot in Cincinnati’s Findley Market downtown. This woman turned and saw that was pointing my camera at her, so she turned and posed. I took the shot, thanked her and we moved on. After writing my post, “The Typewriter and Authenticity,” […]

Making “Authentic” Decisions

Those in Alignment with Self (Soul) Let’s begin at the beginning. Oh, actually we can’t—the soul is immortal, so there was/is no beginning. Okay, so I’ll fast-forward, ignore previous incarnations and just focus on this one. There too, the word “beginning” needs to be qualified, because decision-making—if it’s to be “authentic”—begins prior to assuming a […]

The Typewriter And Authenticity

Every Page a Lasting Fingerprint Browsing at an antique fair, I was attracted to this typewriter with crooked letters, yellowed keys and options no longer used on computer keyboards (ribbon, margin release, fractions, cent-sign). In 1575 an Italian printmaker named Francesco Rampazetto built a machine that impressed letters on paper. Centuries later, variations on his […]

The Illusion of Control

What can we do in the face of unsettling change, eroding confidence and civility? The world has tilted in the direction of uncertainty. Social, economic and cultural norms are shifting and many are being dismantled.[1] Droughts, tornados, fires and flooding are becoming more frequent and severe. Technologies are evolving faster than the wisdom to manage […]

God by the Side of the Road

 Everything alive has a unique purpose Bristle Grass (Setaria species) I used to walk or drive by thousands of these and similar weeds every week. I barely noticed them, much less knew their names—until I singled this one out to photograph. A review of my catalog revealed that I had long been pointing a camera […]

Perspective and Perception

From where we are looking, what is our view of the world?   Being six-foot-five, I’ve always viewed the world from a slightly higher perspective than most people. For instance, I see the tops of furniture and people’s heads, and I can see farther in a crowd. No big deal. But that each of us […]

Flow

It makes a huge difference where we’re planted “Going with the flow” is an expression that suggests it’s a better life strategy is to align with rather than resist what’s happening. As guidance for individual behavior, paddling with the “current”—in the context of home, work and relationships—is certainly easier than paddling against it. In this […]

Love

Metaphysical gravity Something we are?   Jesuit paleontologist and philosopher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J., wrote that love is “The affinity of being for being.” Affinity recognizes love as an energy that’s not only a human experience, it’s also intrinsic to the universe. In support of this, engineer and futurist, R. Buckminster Fuller, often said […]

Faith

Grasping lightly can lift us up; grasping too tightly holds us down   Dictionaries generally provide two definitions for the word “faith,” one being the trust or confidence we have in someone or something, the other a strong belief in God or a doctrine of religion irrespective of evidence. This image of a mother holding […]

Belief

We move in the direction of our beliefs Life isn’t ever a straight line on a single track. Rather, it’s a progression along many tracks with lots of switching going on. Although I have switched “tracks” purposefully, there were many instances, probably more, where a switch occurred and I didn’t see it coming. The analogy […]