Photography has taught me that the light in which we view things shapes our opinions and actions (or inaction).
But let’s be real—this profound lesson feels like an empty platitude from the moment I open my eyes and attempt a meditation exercise… to the moment I brace myself against the “vehicular thuggery” of public taxi drivers on my way to work. And that’s all before the day has even begun. Woo Sah.
So why do I still lose it 60% of the time? (Okay, fine—more like 90%, but I immediately transmute the remaining 30% into a multilingual creative exercise of swear words and poetic expressions of rage. Balance, right?)
How do I harness the idealistic Photographer’s Vision—the one I use to frame the world—when forming opinions that shape my reality?
Yuval Harari, one of my favorite authors, compares our personalities to systems with natural settings—some default to happiness, others to sadness, and many (too many) to anger. Life then pokes and prods at these settings, pushing them up and down in response to external stimuli. So… am I just doomed to be a human light meter stuck on overexposed?
And if I can’t even find balance within myself, how am I supposed to achieve it with family, friends, community, my country… the world?
Maybe the answer lies outside our internal settings—beyond our own personal echo chambers. Maybe that thing is Philosophy.
Not the kind locked in academia, where scholars flex their intellectual muscles in pursuit of abstract truths. But the kind that helps us develop not just our minds, but our emotions, our energy, our physical presence—the kind that integrates it all into a practical Photographer’s Vision. One I can actually use to navigate this wild world.
Thoughts? Have you ever tried to shift your “default settings”?
