Arising from a death
like sleep, aroused by a dream. Often a string of thoughts or words
lost between the time to time of moving from horizontal to vertical.
To sleep is to dream and in dreams I am informed, not so much by what
the content was, but what was implied/inferred.
Regardless the
sublimity of revelation, it is lost between my being an inch worm
crossing galaxies of thoughts at the speed of lightning. Merely a
way, not The Way. A process of finding a reason to live another day.
Wondering less why those who when assassinated forgave instead of
laughing humorously at the folly of their executioners. We learn
nothing from destroying our adversaries.
09:36
The world, I will soon
leave you, is changing rapidly and I sense myself a failure at what I
would change. Or, at the very least, protest. World extinction by:
_________. Yet several come to mind blazing: over population,
corruption of air water, land. Obscene profits made from the labor
and resources of people otherwise unable to share in the boon. And
one in particular: The science of war is death. The science of life
is, however, entirely another matter.
I sense, think, feel,
intuit myself as a curator and anthropologist of life interactive,
collaborative, and as it might be ideally given the study of love
versus war. Add, I have in time come to conclude myself an anarchist
as I believe Jesus was; as were all those whose words I closely
follow, seeking what they sought.
In
sincere honesty I can find no label for myself. At one time I was a
photojournalist and currently
am
grieving for a friend who’s life is facing traumatic change. John
Henry White, of The Chicago Sun-Times fame, and I were once roommates
during an
annual
University of Missouri photojournalism workshop. His remarks shared
across the darkened room before sleep have remained seminal to who,
what, why and where I am. He
and his entire department of news photographers we laid off. Made
redundant by video and toy cameras in cellular telephones. It never
really was about the equipment but the vision, version and mind
behind directing what was recorded.
We
the people of this planet are essentially what we consume, for good
or ill, by way of those who now rule. The Merchant Princes who would
be Emperors.
Multinational corporations having destroyed any and all sense of
national sovereignty.
We
who dance to the fiddler’s tunes must, in some sense be willing to
pay the musician a laborer’s wage. Yet the cost has become
distorted to the extend and degree too high disallowing all the rest
of us a life.
I
have faith in the generations to come, who will discover as I have,
the world owes us no livelihood.
Conscious
as I was while teaching photojournalism that there were not enough
jobs going available
for those who wanted them.
So I taught my students to see what they were looking at, on
multidimensional levels, as both still and motion capture. It follows
that we are all captors
of life via imagery. And those who “Serve and Protect” the status
quo and wealthy are nervous that they in their turn will be held
accountable to we the ultimate authority.
A
leg and armless man lay before me with a pointing device surfing the
internet above his head. A Vietnam Veteran with unit patches
displayed; he remains were I left him. Yet never will he leave my
consciousness whenever I see the images of bombast and pretense.
“A
picture is worth a thousand/ten thousand words.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_picture_is_worth_a_thousand_wordsw
Seems cynical now at my age given my knowledge of poetry and
considering The Gettysburg Address. To name but a few words springing
immediately to mind. That in their turn describe better the
abstraction of what things are about. Then too are the numerous
things too small to photograph meaningfully. The spirit moving us for
example. Thinking back to my familiarity with Civil War photography
and retroactively applying what Lincoln said to the meaning/value of
the carnage.
When
I arrived in Chicago I called John Henry White without reply. Later,
on the street, speaking with other shooters, I was informed he was
teaching African/American children and possibly at university level.
Love
as verb, never dies. I love his silence as well as our long ago
dialogs; and our art is about being witnesses to life. How
wonderfully precious it is whether acknowledged as such or not.
Given
that yesterday was “D-Day” and Pam’s son’s birthday I will
close with a remembrance of meeting a giant of a man at the El Paso
Veteran’s Clinic. I did not photograph him since he was astride a
scooter and about to die from pancreatic cancer . . . and . . . yet I
will long remember what he showed me of his scars, the horrors he’d
seen in the Death Camps liberated, or the portrait of himself
decorated by several nations . . . a handsome Mexican American even
now in his nineties. A
paratrooper with fifty-five jumps to his credit.
So
you see John, if you ever read this, remember what you gave me. What
I hope we give to those who follow. To have courage to be real and
address what needs attention fearlessly. . . . Even if we must paint
our prison, cave or tomb, with bloody fingers self inflicted.
130607 EDT 01:10
awakening
©
2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved
