The Abyss Of Choices: My Amorphous Sentiency Revisited

Photo By Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

"Every writer faces an abyss of choices when a blank page is revealed or a new word-processing document pops open. From that moment onward, one that frequently gives rise to chronic procrastination and belongs to the infamous writer's block due to its serious nature, every smudge of lead crafted and every key pecked reflects a series of decisions that drives the narrative in a direction inspired by that weighty inaugural trace. " - Quoted from here

I've been feeling like posting on here, but I could not decide what to say until I stumbled upon this quote. I have so many things to say about so many things that it all gets clogged in my noggin somewhere. It is My Amorphous Sentiency once again.

I just get this overwhelmed feeling when I am bombarded by many disparate thoughts that compete for my attention. It seems as if my brain’s way of dealing with that is to draw a blank. “The abyss of choices” Which way do I go? I have this trouble getting started on art projects all the time. That first step is the hardest. It feels as if every decision nullifies a whole realm of equally exciting possibilities. But what I need to realize is that another realm is opened. I just need to make that jump, make that decision and go where it takes me.

“Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!
And then, something happened. I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.” – Fight Club

I remember one time I was on a walk in the woods with my friends. One of them stopped dead in his tracks at a fork in the path. “What’s wrong?” everyone asked nervously. But I was not nervous. At that moment I knew exactly why he had stopped. “It doesn’t matter”, I told him, “Both will be equally exciting, lets go this way.” We took the left path and had a great time.

Ok, so I’ve talked about how I am thinking about so much, but what AM I thinking about lately? Here is a meager cross section of what’s on my mind lately:

Mike’s study:
Off of Mike’s room, there is a small unfinished room that he likes to call his “Study”. With cold weather surely on it’s way, we decided that it would be a good idea to install insulation and drywall and luckily the landlord agreed and offered to pay for it. We have already gutted the room and cleaned it up. Now we just need to get our materials and do the work. I expect it will be relatively straight forward, but only time will tell. I will post the results.

I may have been Born in 1982, but I’m living in the 70’s
A few weeks ago I made a discovery. I was in the hallway of the CUE building when I stumbled across several thousand old 16mm educational films. I asked about them and I was told that they are up for grabs. My roommates and I have collected a small sampling of about 100-150 films and have since been watching such titles as: “Higher Education, Who Needs It?”; “Schizophrenia, The Shattered Mirror”; “Biorhythms”; “Physical Aspects of Puberty”; and many many more. The “Biorhythms” one was especially interesting. They actually extracted the brain from one moth and transplanted it into the, um, butt of another.

In addition to old movies, I’ve also been listening to a lot of older music such as “The Beatles” and “Cat Stevens” and when possible, I like to listen on vinyl. All the pops and clicks have a certain charm.

I've even been dressing kinda 70's-ish with the corduroy jacket and all. Funny story: After I bought the jacket, I was disappointed because the pockets appeared to be fake. A week or so went by and then Mike discovered that they were actually just sewn shut. So I do have pockets after all, and that discovery really made my day cuz pockets are groovy. The hat is Mike's.


School projects
I am in two photo classes this semester with two very different teachers. One teacher gives extremely open ended assignments. He does not even give us a sheet with the requirements of the assignment. For example, I asked him for a rough idea of how many final prints we should have and he just shrugged and said “a body of work.”

My other teacher follows a extremely tight, structured approach. Even on our “Personal Direction” assignment, she has given us a sheet that lays out the requirements of the assignment and it calls for 15-20 final images. A few of us in the class would rather spend more time on each image and have quality over quantity. But when we asked her about this, she just shrugged and said “the assignment says 15”.
Now, I do sincerely like both teachers, and I feel both approaches have their value. However, you all know me and my philosophy on education. I much prefer the very loose open ended approach, and I think that the inflexible requirement that puts quantity over quality is ridiculous. Leave me in control of my own education!! Especially when the assignment is touted as “Personal Direction”

Art Shows
I currently have one of my scan-o-grams showing in “The Pin-Up Show” at the S.U. Sometime in the next few months, I may also have a show all to myself at the library in my home town. That would be really cool to get a wide sampling of my work in one place.




Love Lost
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that which is on my mind the most these days. One month ago the person who I’ve held most dear in my life, decided that our relationship had gone as far as it could. Since then, a strong feeling of loss has had a strangle hold on my heart. I still go about my life, I still laugh and smile. But I long to hold her close again. She filled the past year and a half of my life with countless special moments that I never want to forget. I fear it will be quite some time until I can sort out this tangled web of emotions, but I know that I will always care very much about her.


In closing, I do very much find that writing here, and more privately, does help me to find those coherent threads of order in the chaos of my Amorphous Sentiency. It helps me take the vague unformed ideas swimming in my uneasy, uncertain mind and make them more concrete and tangible. I was having trouble deciding what to write about, and so I put it aside. Then I stumbled upon some inspiration and grabbed it not knowing where it would take me. But here I am now, probably writing more than anyone really wants to read (I’ll find some images to spice it up I promise). I have to say, it really does mean a lot to me that I have friends and family who do read this blog, even if they only skim and look at the pictures. It helps keep me motivated to keep posting.

I leave you with this:
Let go, follow your heart, and be ready to grab inspiration when it comes your way.