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Is it Possible to be critical in a healthy way?

Health is one of those things that is relative. Greek philosophers used the athletes at the gymnasium to make this point. Socrates asked if it would be good for a large athlete to eat the same amount as a small person who is not an athlete, or if the opposite would be appropriate.

The answer is complicated. If a small persons goal is to become larger, then a larger amount of food would be appropriate. If the athlete wishes to maintain their size and ability, larger amounts of food with continued training would be appropriate. The point was to say that what is true is relative and is largely determined by one’s goals for themselves as well as their interpretation of virtue. Or, to put it another way, what is right often depends on what you desire.

St. Augustine wrote about desires acting as an indication as to what we believe is good. The assumption is that most people want what they believe to be good. Even the times that I chose to do something that would make it harder for me to do the things I wanted to do, I was still acting out of a belief that what I wanted in the moment was the most good for myself - maybe even the most necessary.

Because of this, I think of desires in at least two contexts: the general and the particular.

These are some general desires of mine: I want to be a kind parent and partner, I want to live a simplistic and intentional lifestyle, I want my photography work to inspire others to view themselves with lovingly critical eyes and I want to have space in my life to do things that I believe are important.

Specifically, this means that I make certain decisions to support those desires. However, sometimes I’m really tired or in a lot of pain and I might reply harshly to Liz or the kids when they’re talking to me. Sometimes, my really specific desires override those general ones for my life. The point is, I define what is right for me based off of what I want for myself, and reminding myself of my intentions - my general desires - is a skill that anyone can develop.

There might be some arguments that point to universal ways of living that would say that it is better to be kind than it is to be mean, or it is better to give than it is to be selfish. This might be true, but we have to believe this in order for it to matter to us in the first place. It would be nice and neat if we could say there is one right way to live and all other ways are degrees of wrong, but it’s just not that simple. What is right and true is relative to our desires as well as our commitments to our desires.

The way in which we commit to our desires is through belief. How much we believe in the possibility or potential of our desires is what gives them life.

What desires are you committing to? Are they taking you further from your intentions for yourself, or are they aligning with your intentions for yourself?

What is Criticism and Does it Have Anything to do with Critical Theory?

I’ve been told I’m too critical for most of my life. Mostly by religious leaders in when I would point out inconsistencies in their doctrine.

Criticism is generally considered to be bad or negative, and those who are critical are often said to possess a negative personal attribute or characteristic.

There’s something to be said of that, and when I hear criticism for the sake of complaining or “venting,” I’m often left wondering what the criticism actually was.

To me, a criticism exists at the point that our specific desires - you know, the day-to-day ones that cause us to make decisions - start to take us away from our general desires. Everything we do is habit, so if my desire is to be a kinder person, but every chance I get I’m unkind, I’ll build a habit of unkindness.

Where this meets philosophical critical theory is where we are able to abstract actual, or near actual universal truths by which we can be guided. What we abstract from our own experiences as well as from the experiences of others via their testimony about their lives can help us to understand ourselves within a greater context - it helps to take us out of our own minds and places us within the interconnected web of all existence.

Side note: if we introduce some interpretations of quantum mechanics into this discussion, it can get really interesting in terms of the physical interconnected nature of the universe.

The more we begin to understand this, the more we begin to realize that the diversity of desires and the diversity of interpretations of what is right is what makes life so wonderful and is what makes humanity so beautiful. If we were all the same, we’d all think the same, make the same things and life would be boring. Sure, there might be less hate, but there would also be less art, less culture, less connection and less depth to the experiences of beauty in our life.

The ultimate outcome of this self reflection and self-criticism is one that allows us to be more empathetic to the experiences of others and can lead us to think about our relationship to others in terms of Justice.

What if being self-critical can lead to a more Just society?

I believe that it is better to live what many philosophers refer to as the examined life.

Reality exists in two ways…. or, billions of ways, which puts it into flux.

The first way that reality exists is outside of observation - it’s just there. (Note: if one believes in a divine being or mind, then all of reality might always have an observer).

Moons orbit planets that are spinning around stars that are circling black holes while planets - at least one planet anyway - produce a plethora of growth, some of which is conscious and able to recognize itself.

So, there’s all that that we can imagine from a universal or god’s perspective.

The second way that reality exists is in our minds. There’s all of the conscious interpreting minds in and of that reality. For the sake of discussion, let’s limit this even more to human minds and human interpretations since those are the ones we’re most familiar with. We each construct a reality, so for ever person, there exists a slightly different reality - one from which they are the observer.

When we are going about our lives and we are doing what we believe to be right, or good, or acceptable at the very least it can create an actual dissonance when our views of what are right and good are challenged. Reality is in flux when we speak of it in the second, more personal, way.

When I was younger I made a joke that I thought was really funny. However, when someone pointed out to me that the joke was only funny at the expense of someone else’s culture and that I was being racist in telling that joke, the reality that I thought was so solid, set and unchangeable instantly went into flux. What I defined as acceptable, someone else defined as unacceptable.

Christians use a term repentance that I quite like it in this context. When I was told that I was being racist with my jokes, the choice that I was faced with was to either defend my current version of reality that would allow such nonsense, or I could allow my interpretation of reality to be adjusted by the convictions of someone else. My reality went from concrete to soft sand. My reality went into flux.

The story of who I was began to change and I had to make a choice to either repent and revise my beliefs about reality, or to stick to them and defend a version of myself that I didn’t want to be and only existed because I had been ignorant to certain truths up until that point. Then, illumination begins to come: I started to realize all of the allowances for racist behavior from those I grew up with and even learned from at church. I remembered certain events from when I was really young of being singled out and attacked because of my race. I began to see how the systems that I grew up in support racism as an acceptable and productive view, which ultimately brought me to an even larger decision: to be part of the problem, or to be part of the solution.

Healthy self-criticism looks more like reflecting on your own experiences in light of the testimony of others. Healthy self-criticism thrives in a culture of clear communication made up of those who are willing to be wrong and care more about general equity and Justice than they do about being right about what they currently believe.

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NATE STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY

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They Who Reveal Themselves Begin To Know Themselves. They Who Know Themselves Explore How To Reveal Themselves.

People have been looking at their own reflections in water, polished metal or stone, glass and mirrors and artists have been making self portraits as long as artists have been making art. Spoiler alert: it’s been a long time!

The way that artists are represented to us today reflect a very skewed social understanding of artist and the roles they have played in human history. Today, many view artists and the art they make as an unproductive part of society. Many believe that there is no value or ultimate good that comes from the artists’ pursuit and ultimately doesn’t have anything to add to society.

There are just too many counter examples to this view, which is often parroted by those who have a surface level understanding of capitalism and its relationship to how we function socially and develop our views of ourselves. The hardcore & punk shows we used to put on when I was younger is a good example of this. The music that we made not only represented us and how we felt about the world, but we were also able to project our ideas about reality into the world and make them real.

All art is self-reflective and should not only cause self-reflection, but can serve as a conduit to self-reflection in the way we interact with it. We can listen to our favorite album, we can look at our favorite photographs, paintings and illustrations. We can explore new forms of art and learn something not only from the art we experience, but through many aspects of the experience. The methods an artist uses, their chosen medium and the content of the art itself.

Doing something - anything - creates a seam in the world, which presents itself to us as something that can be tapped into either on accident or on purpose.

Art has the ability to neatly package social sentiments. So, who an artist is and the art they are producing can often times give insight into that particular culture.

When we bring this all back to the idea of the self portrait - it makes one wonder what the self portrait represents & what purpose it might serve within the context of not only creating (in general), but also within the context of understanding ourselves socially.

The Role Art And The Artist Plays In Human Society

When you look up self portraiture, you’ll find some info that points you to the 1430s and the emergence of the renaissance self-portrait. However, portraits and self-portraits have been found throughout human history. The media used were vast and varying as technologies evolved over the years, but the basic requirements of portraiture were still met.

That being said, my interpretation of portraiture, which considers both the personal and social aspects of art is broad and abstract. G.F.W. Hegel said in one of his lectures on aesthetics that a nation stores its values in its artwork (very paraphrased).

One of the ideas that he was getting at is that we represent our values in our art. We bundle up our sentiments and produce heroes for us to understand the social goal - the ethos. This is why I include sculpture and other art forms within the category of portraiture and even self-portraiture in some cases.

When we look at the statures made and displayed across the United States, we begins to understand this point. What anyone of us aspires to be in this country is clearly laid out within the artwork: an American is to either be or to become a white man uniformed and in middle to late age with some aspirations to be “socially productive.”

This is one of the many hero archetypes in western societies and the U.S. in particular.

The work of the artist is not only to express who they are and their view of the world through their art, but to also understand themselves within the context they find themselves within. This can become a really interesting conversation if we talk about commissioned art work such as the statues mentioned before, the commissioning of classical music or contemporary pop-music, statues and religious artwork. Some of the commissioned art from the late middle ages and renaissance are still influential on how people understand metaphysics, theology and politics.

I am not a 9th century poet creating self portraiture through my writing. I am not an 11th century knight honing my skills of chivalry. I am not a 4th century b.c.e. painter seeking to understand form and self while challenging the metaphysical argument that art is the second copy of the first copy and is a pointless attempt at reaching the ideal.

What I am, and what I intuit many artists throughout history were, is a self-critical person who is seeking to understand the perplexity that exists when the the perceived meets the expected and the quest one must take to approach what so many claim to lay hold of: Truth.

Where Do You See Yourself?

This, or a version of this question is often asked in job interviews. It’s the first one that I was taught to anticipate when I entered the work-force when I was 14: “where do you see yourself in 3-5 years?”

I remember answering, “hopefully finishing up high school,” during my first job interview at Starbucks.

For many, and definitely for artists, this is more of an abstract question. In the context of the self-portrait I consider this question to be one of the most important questions to answer, and the way in which I answer it is often an item for self reflection and self discovery.

You should know by now that I tend to contextualize (almost) everything within a social or political context. I’ve been doing this even before I was a philosopher. I find great comfort and understanding in abstracting my own experience.

One thing that I tend to do is think of governments in terms of a “self” whose body is made up of those who run it. The allegory is an old one and isn’t original to me, but I think it’s a good one. There are outcomes that have to be committed to so that motives and ultimately actions can be informed.

I’m only using this to then think about where the United States has chosen to display its “self portraits.” The statues and monuments. The paintings and murals. If a nation can be thought of as a “self,” these assorted displays of art would be their self portraits.

Where a portrait is made and displayed says a lot about the meaning of the portrait.

You Are Worthy To Be Seen

As a portrait photographer, I get to create portraits of others. Before we make them, we dive into the reason why they want or need their photos made as well as what the photos are supposed to represent as well as how they would like to represented in the photos. Some folks get more abstract than others, but my process for others and for myself is a very similar one.

At the moment where do you imagine yourself to be in a “natural” state? Is it a room, a specific place, an imagined landscape? What sort of expression are you wearing on your face? What sort of posture does your body have? What colors are around you? What colors are on you? What other aspects do you imagine that might not exactly align with reality? What elements can we add in order to build an image of how you currently see yourself?

These can be hard questions to answer and a lot of people tell me that they feel insecure about being honest about some of these answers because it feels as if the answers might reveal parts of themselves they would have otherwise kept hidden from themselves or others.

I totally get that. I feel the same way when it comes to answering hard, reflective questions.

I have made all of my self portraits within a very small space, with very minimal setup. This feels true to who I am, and until recently, anything else would have felt wrong and untrue.

Lately, I’ve been understanding myself within larger contexts, and I’ve been wanting to share my view of myself within different mediums and within different these different environments.

By the time I set up my camera and stand in front of it, I’ve already considered and (attempted to) answered these questions. It’s never about having a perfect representation of myself, but it’s about understanding myself within the context of not being who I was and not yet who I will be. I am who I am, and my view of myself and my beliefs about myself need to be listened to, entertained and ultimately trusted.

Strictly speaking you may not identify with being an artist. But understanding the space in which we represent ourselves to the experience of ourselves can open us up to be interacted with - reacted to by others. And, in their reactions to us, we can learn about ourselves.

It takes a lot of courage to allow others to see us, and it can be hard to begin to understand what being seen by others means. But, this process of exploring ourselves can be extremely beneficial and can lead us into not only understanding ourselves, but also helping us to understand the greater relationships we have to the people, places and other things in our life.

You are worthy to be seen, if only by yourself.

NEXT WEEKS POST…

Next weeks post is about some of the difference between healthy and unhealthy self-criticism and how living an examined life can lead to a lot of satisfaction and even the experience of joy and happiness.

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NATE STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY

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What Does It Mean To Have Authority?

What is your realm of authority? Or, what is your realm of influence? What I know from my own experience is that the most random people influence my thoughts, decisions and sometimes even my own view of myself and I often allow the views of others to hold too much authority in my life.

This can get complicated thinking about the fact that what we perceive about others is still a matter of our own interpretation. In a very real sense, it can be hard to get outside of our own heads. 

The word influence means the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself. To me, influence and authority go hand-in-hand. To have influence, it seems that some authority must be granted.

Some of us need to be aware of our influence. It is a fact that if you have children, that you will influence them. To ignore this is irresponsible and can lead to poor outcomes in the future. Same goes for anyone who finds themselves in a position of power or authority. In my life these people have been my parents, my parents’ friends, teachers, pastors, professors, bosses and mentors. 

Let’s Talk About It When You’re Done

We have phrases in our culture such as, “practice what you preach,” or “put your money where your mouth is,” “don’t hesitate,” and others that have similar meanings. It seems that we have a sense that talking about doing something is not the same thing as actually doing it. I also have the intuition that it is better to learn from someone who actually does the things they talk about rather than learning from someone who only talks about doing them. 

I experienced this in college all the time. In my photography and design classes, there was a huge difference between the professors who only taught their subject and those who both taught the subject and were seasoned professionals in their chosen field. 

In philosophy, I had professors and peers who would discuss ideas and their implications and leave it at that - a discussion. Those whom I actually could learn from were those who committed themselves to their beliefs and accepted the implications as consequences, not simply possibilities in a philosophical thought experiment. I didn’t always agree with their beliefs, but there is always something to learn from those who commit themselves to their beliefs.

Those with commitment to their own beliefs create a certain resonance in the world - a cosmic rhythm if you will.

I’ve been guilty of being the wishy-washy thinker. The person who believes one thing, but because I recognize the validity of the perspective of others, I’ve been hesitant to fully commit to my own views. I’ve identified that this stems from a place of being afraid to be wrong as well as being afraid to offend others, which led to a life that was being built for the approval of others.

Committing To Yourself Means Committing To Your Beliefs

Influence goes two ways. I use social media, this blog and other parts of my website to market my photography, my podcast and other aspects of my business. Marketing requires speaking specifically about a certain thing to specific people. In many ways, this has forced me to fully commit to some of my beliefs because when you try to speak to everyone, you end up speaking to no one. 

I’ve had to let go of the fear of offending people because no matter what you believe, those beliefs will be offensive to those who are offended by them. I’ve also had to let go of the fear of being wrong about what I believe, because life is more forgiving than people are. Being wrong is one of the best ways to learn. 

I’ve said some pretty offensive things in my life. I’ve been wrong and put in my place by those who are right. And, every time this has happened I’ve been faced with a choice to either protect the version of myself in the moment, to act out of a sense of self-righteousness and pride; or to revise my views about reality, admit that I was wrong and move on having gained something. This isn’t always clear and may take some careful navigating and guidance, but it often comes down to that very choice: seek to preserve a version of yourself, or seek to understand truth.

Influence Is As Natural As Breathing

I’m sitting on the bank of the Sandy River while I write this blog and I see the way that the water carves the landscape. I can see the way in which the water has created the most efficient path for its own flow. This means that parts of the landscape that once were there, no longer are. This means that the  large, smooth boulders 50 yards down river from me were once rough and gnarled. 

Something has been taken away from these rocks: they have changed, they are different. Different water even passes over these rocks, perhaps water that has never seen this river and these rocks until now. Yet, the flow remains. 

What the river does not do is worry about the rocks. The river does not worry about the landscape. The river simply flows. Change occurs, and time passes. 

There may be a lot that is involved in our lives. There may be a lot of different elements and characters who interact with us along the way. The river has no say as to what will stand in its way - once it was these large rocks that are now smooth and made part of the river, now it may be a fallen tree, the earth from a landslide, or something else entirely.

In this way we cannot control those who are in our lives, yet our goal must remain the same: to explore our journey to our destination. There may be some things that present themselves that slow our progress or even divert our flow. 

However, we have the power to pool ourselves, to gather ourselves up and persist. This may be slow at first, but over time, we will not just wear down our obstacles, but we will take the parts that we may with us and deposit them further down the river. We can make our obstacles apart of ourselves and begin to live in the freedom that comes from understanding ourselves in the proper context to our environment and those who are in our lives. 

I don’t know what the ideal river would look like. I’ve seen paintings of imagined landscapes, and I’ve sat and looked at the ones around me. I’m not sure that a painter would imagine the small imperfections, the inlets and outlets, the fallen trees amongst the growth, the dead patches within the green fields, or even the decay of dead and dying plants and animals. 

Real life is a full pallet and is often unpredictable. However, I have never found this to ever take away from the very real beauty that is to be found. What I used to imagine as perfection lacked any sense of diversity, nuance and detail: the real stuff, the nitty gritty. All of the small things that make life an exploration rather than an attempt at imitation.

Influence is as natural as breathing. We influence what is around us, and what is around us influences us. At the same time, there are those who wish us to believe certain things in certain ways that simply do not align with our flow.

Not all truth belongs to all things: some truth is only true in certain contexts. So, as we commit to what we see and believe and as we learn to trust our own intuitions, we must commit to ourselves and to those around us to stand true, to adapt, to continue, to flow and to revise whenever we find that revision is our truth.

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NATE STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY

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There was a time when someone was really laying into me verbally. They were hitting me where it hurt: digging up all of my insecurities and what’s worse, they were doing it in front of all of my friends.

I was 15 or 16, standing outside of school on break and waiting to go back into class. I remember having a conversation with myself while this person was using me as their own verbal punching bag.

The conversation I was having with myself went something like this: you have to stop him now because no one is going to do it for you. Yelling at him will only start an argument, kicking him will start a fight, slapping him would shock him and probably make him laugh, punching him in the face could start a fight or worse, get blood everywhere. I knew I needed to stop it in a way so that he wouldn’t try anything again.

I smiled at him, and punched him very carefully in the side of the throat. He went down and he never bullied me, or anyone else again.

Oddly enough, a few months later he and I were friends.

He even joined the drama class (one of the things he thought was so hilarious about me just the semester before).

That was the only time I could remember that I ever punched anyone without giving warning or without someone else attacking me first. A couple of years later, fighting became a way of life for me.

I began to learn three different martial arts, and it saved my life on more than one occasion. There was a time when I would fight for money, which was a different thing because everyone involved was in agreement to fight for sport.

But outside of that, I found myself having to put an end to physical altercation. I even would tell myself (proudly) “you don’t start fights, you only end them.”

Do you want to do this one at a time, or do you want to try and fight me all at once?

This became a phrase that would spill out of my mouth by second nature.

Groups of 2-4 people were trying to fight me so often that one night after a fight when I was 21 or 22, I asked my friend, Joe, why he thinks groups of people are always trying to fight me. He thought it was because I was big and that most guys feel like they have something to prove.

I didn’t know that until he told me. He told me that I likely take my size for granted: I’m 6’3” and at the time weighed a lean 220-230. Apparently that’s big to most people, but just feels like everyday life to me.

He explained that his whole life, he’d been pushed to different physical goals by coaches, teachers, parents or whoever. That made sense to me because I had experienced a similar thing my whole life as well. But, what he added was that for most people, these things that come easy to me, a lot of other people have to work really hard at.

Joe didn’t know this, but I grew up obese and had to work really hard throughout high school to lose over 100 lbs. In my own eyes, I was just an overweight, un-athletic kid who wasn’t very good at anything.

What pushed me over the edge in high school when I punched that kid in the throat was when he started laying into my size and appearance.

This was the first time that I was able to articulate to myself the direct connection between violence and insecurity.

Learn From the Jedi, Not From the Sith

I know it’s hip to love Lord Vader, but I mean, the dude build the death star. Not sure if you remember, but that destroyed an ENTIRE PLANET. Not exactly the type of person to root for in my opinion.

I do have a point - don’t worry.

After high school, I went on walkabout. I went to community college for a couple of semesters, broke up with my high school girlfriend, started branching out and making friends from all over the place.

At one point I had 4 or 5 different groups of friends, none of whom knew each other. I had a group of Christian friends from growing up at church, a whole bunch of friends from shows that I’d hang out with and go to shows with, I had friends who threw house parties, different friends who were all artists and creators, and another group of friends who weren’t in any gangs, but we ended up doing some really sketchy stuff with some of the local gangs.

I felt like I had split personalities. But, I had no idea how to cope with it.

In 2012, I somehow afforded two tickets to Hawaii, gave one of them to a person I was interested in dating at the time and we went with my best friends Mike, Bekah and Ray. On this trip, I fell off a cliff and broke my spine.

During the next year of recovery, I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about who I am without my body.

At this point, my knowledge of history was high school level, plus a few books I picked up at the library - nothing too scholarly at all though. I did have a huge knowledge and devotion to the Star Wars movies and universe, though.

I remember pondering - meditating on really - the way the Jedi approached fighting. The Jedi did not go out and start fights, pick fights or even be fast to fight. They were there to put an end to conflict by absolute force if necessary.

I remember wanting to be able to wrap my mind around ushering in peace by using violence. While I was letting my spine heal, I picked up a book called “Star Wars and Philosophy.” This was the first philosophy book I had ever read and at the time would have told you that Plato was an explorer from the middle ages. The fact that I didn’t know who Plato was still makes me laugh!

The authors and editors of the book made comparisons between the themes and characters in Star Wars to historical philosophical traditions. The section on Yoda and the Stoics is what set me toward philosophical practice for the rest of my life.

I began to try and wrap my mind around taking seriously that which is within my control. That, in a very real sense, if you find yourself being in the midst of conflict and it is within your power to do something about it, it is good for one to be as prepared as they can be for these situations.

Yoda taught Luke to focus on his training, to focus on being sure of himself rather than letting the fear of losing his friends draw him into a battle for the sake of battle. The goal for Yoda and his historical counterparts, the Stoics, is to understand that our individual goals ought to be serving something beyond ourselves.

Some people take a fatalistic interpretation of this sort of thing, which is to say something like, your goals ought to align with what you’re purposed to do, or something like that. The assumption is that God or some other force has already written your life, it’s just about not fighting fate.

I think that’s a lazy way to go through life. Whether you believe in God, or whatever else, human choice is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. To give up your choice is to give up your power - no matter how limited your choices may seem.

Most of us learn to view ourselves in a very low way. We think so lowly of ourselves and begin to think that our lives, our choices and our actions are so insignificant, that we don’t need to always engage in reality around us. What will be, will be.

But, life is actually significant, and the freedom of choice that even a child possesses has the power to rock the universe. Life before death.

Your life and all of its constituent choices weren’t insignificant, they actually created new realities. I’ve found that it is not the weight of the choices that most of us are missing, it’s simply the lack of recognition that we are actively involved in each step of our own lives. We do indeed have autonomy.

Because of this, when Luke asks Yoda if his friends are going to live or die, Yoda replies, “difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.” Because what we choose to do CREATES the future - choice A leads to a slightly different future that choice B and choice C and choice F might change it more significantly.

So how do we make choices? Or, how do we make the RIGHT choices?

How do we know when to stay and finish our training, or to leave to attempt to save our friends? How are we supposed to make these judgements?

Conformity Is The Defeat Of Purpose, Progress And Self-Development

I learned that what you can do is just as important as what you will do. I learned that what we are drawn to, and what life has shown us to expect should not be ignored.

Almost every fight I had been involved in (other than the arranged and fair bouts), was in defense of someone else. I was being attacked, others were being attacked, etc. I found myself needing to be of use in the aid of others. I know I’ve saved at least two peoples lives, for example.

We have a tendency to want to make truth universal, and it just isn’t. It can’t be. The only universal about truth is that truth obtains in circumstances that allow truth to obtain. The actual occurrence of truth looks different every time it obtains. It is true that my coffee is on the desk as I write this blog - this isn’t universal - it’s just a fact of my actual experience.

So, to be prepared for violence might not be a universal truth, but it has been the truth of my life. I’ve found that it is my responsibility to be prepared for these circumstances. And, with more and more experience, the less and less physical altercations occur, but it has still been a fact of my experience - a truth of my life.

Our lives are truly individual, yet we will find companions along the way: Kindred spirits.

And, what I can only imagine as grooves in the universe don’t exactly guide our lives in a fatalistic way, but can help hone our truth. Or, what Deleuze refers to as ‘planes of immanence.’ It is to recognize that we are not unique to the universe. That the millions and millions of choices made by those before us have set certain futures into motion that we are now a part. That we are both a result of what came before and the cause of what is to come in the future.

We are someone else’s future. Unfortunately, that means we might have to pick up some of the pieces and clean up the mess. This means that there might be entire classes of people affected by certain ways of viewing the world. What many of us often refer to as “out of our control,” are these things that we are now just having to clean up.

I found myself surrounded by extremely oppressed and marginalized people who were struggling to find meaning in the ways that they had the ability to. I found myself being raised by people who did not recognize their association to these circumstances and chose to take a position of superiority rather than camaraderie.

The story became one of elevating one’s self rather than becoming comfortable with one’s own nature. I was taught that I ought to work to change myself rather than develop the potential deep within. I was raised in a culture that valued conformity more than it valued learning to spot the talents of its members.

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NATE STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY

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Silence can be thought of excluding noise. When we think about this in terms of our own emotions, or maybe “getting space” or whatever it is - silence can have a lot of positive meanings.

When I think of what I have to do to be silent, or to create spaces of silence in my life, I have to do just that: Make particular spaces that support that. That means that in my mind I will begin to divide times of silence and times of sound (so to speak).

When we set these rules up in our lives, we see the benefits and sometimes want to share our views of the world. And, this can often times lead to creating standards that we then begin to think ought to be applied to all, and after time the assumptions begin to take the shape in terms of views of human nature.

My view is that we can learn a lot from silence. But, when silence is used as a weapon and speaking up is only allowed in certain spaces that are controlled by the dominant power, then we need to reevaluate our views on keeping silent.

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NATE STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY

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CHALLENGE THE NORM PODCAST

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What does legacy mean to you?

What is the legacy that we leave behind; or, what is the legacy that we’re contributing to?

I believe that the way we live our lives shape the legacies we create, contribute to, perpetuate or destroy. Our activity will have some impact, either large or small We are also recipients of some sort of legacy, whether general or specific. We are the inheritors of our political legacies, for example.

An example given for the definition of the word legacy usually include this passing on of attitudes from one group to another: “the war left a legacy of hatred” (Cambridge Dictionary). We see these examples all over the place: rivalries, divisions, civil wars, genocides, etc. There’s a generational perpetuation of certain attitudes about the nature of reality. And, the important aspects of our histories, or social myths, our folk lore and whatnot will emphasize those aspects and qualities that will keep it alive. Culture is parasitic - it feeds on us, but needs us to survive; Or, it can be a vibrant representation of a flourishing community of healthy individuals - mentally, physically, spiritually.

We tend to fight a lot about the “issues,” yet many of us have a hard enough time controlling our tempers.

I believe we’ve put the cart before the horse in a major way.

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NATE STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY

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I’ve been learning about change in my life. Whenever I’ve thought about change in the past, I’d thought about grand movements - the wearing away of mountains by weather: that sort of stuff. And, if I thought about change of the past, I’d consider historical epochs and thematic shifts in human history (told through the perspective of some historian no doubt). Such is the modern struggle.

However, I’ve begun to think of change in terms of “what comes just before.” Just as when we go from sitting to standing, there are some adjustments to be made. Sometimes these adjustments are minute, while other times they are quite major; nevertheless, there still needs to be room for these progressions in our lives, and the more we can be aware of them while they’re happening, the more we can experience and be involved in our own lives.

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NATE STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY

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What do you focus on?

What are you interested in?

What do you like about yourself?

On my journey to learn about how we challenge and shape norms - both social norms and the ones that we create for ourselves in life - I think I’ve started to narrow down some questions about learning about who we are.

I believe it is the things that we focus on the most that are indicators of who we are and what we ought to be paying attention to about ourselves.

What are the things that we think about when we are walking around, doing dishes, commuting, or whatever it is when you’re sort of mindlessly thinking?

What are you focusing on when you do that? And, what about all of that seems interesting to you?

That’s so awesome, don’t you think?!

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NATE STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY

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This is another check in episode, and I’m thinking through what the show means and where it’s headed.

As I’m learning more about focus and being present, I’m learning that to be the change I want to see in the world, I need to really learn how to focus on myself and worry about myself and what I do, and not so much about others and what they do.

So, I’m thinking that this show should be a discussion with people about how they’ve learned to worry about themselves.

Listen to what I’m thinking, and let me know what you think as well! If you have any ideas or want to be involved (or both) - get in touch and let me know!

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NATE STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY

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