Batteries Included
Each human eye initially transmits upside-down images to the brain, which in turn, rotates these images to the way that we understand and remember them. Everything we see is actually turned 180 degrees, all the time.
The brain, depending on the physiology of that person, will see colors slightly more differently, will notice more or less details, or not notice some things at all, compared to another person.
A person’s history, heritage, upbringing, social class, and educational level, among other things, will further affect that person’s perception of the originally upside-down, slightly off-color, variably detailed images.
Taking photographs of images will add another set of lenses, curves, perspectives, and a different physical process by which the images are reorganized and disseminated.
In order to preserve as much of the original visual information that was taken using the above process, continuous tone film is used, or the images are saved in uncompressed digital format.
And then we run it through a Photoshop filter.
According to the Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen:
Consciousness, attached to the senses, leads us into error by causing us to take the world of appearances for the world of reality, whereas in fact it is only a limited and fleeting aspect of reality.
I asked my designer friend recently, “What do you think we spend more time on, creating or formatting?”
She said, “Formatting, because it’s easier than creating.”
Whenever I begin to think about writing something new for this blog, as opposed to doing a visual redesign, I ask myself:
On writing: “Do you really want to continue killing yourself for days and days, sometimes weeks, to try to hatch an original egg of thought, which you probably won’t be able to do ninety-nine percent of the time, since you’re part of a civilization that thrives on the commercial repurposing of ideas?”
On visual redesign: “Or wouldn’t you rather spend a weekend taking a real life photograph of yourself, running it through some Photoshop filters to make it less uninteresting than other people’s pictures, sprinkling some clipart and stock images throughout the visual composition, and creating something that looks fantastic, according to current design trends? By doing this, you can make your blog seem fresh, even if you don’t write anything new.”
As if I’ve ever written anything new. As if.