A Native Hill

Thoughts in sound and vision

Nate — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:08:00 +0000

Ignorant Pilgrim

Nate — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:32:59 +0000

This passage comes from Wendell Berry’s novel “Jayber Crow”. I’m heavily struck each time I read this. I relate so much to how the character, Jayber, feels here. I love this.

If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line—starting, say in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King’s Highway past appropriately named dangers, toils and snares, and finally cross the River of death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circle or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led—make of that what you will.”

Josef Sudek – contorted trees

Nate — Tue, 17 May 2011 07:20:17 +0000

I’ve loved the work of Josef Sudek ever since I accidentally stumbled upon a large book of his prints in my university’s library. In school, I’d often wander the aisles of the photography section, searching for divine inspiration through the works of old masters. In my discovery of the “Poet of Prague” I found a highly significant influence on my work thereafter. The book was Anna Farova’s “Josef Sudek” and I’ve cherished the copy I bought several years after that day in the library.

Josef Sudek fought three years in the trenches of World War I, and was hit by artillery from his own side, which caused the amputation of his full right arm. From the time he spent in the military hospital, his work shows a new awareness to light around him. Without the use of his right arm, he gave up his training as a bookbinder and decided to pursue photography. From then on, he fully realized his gifting of visual poetry. He had a great sense to see the poetry in all things: the revealing light of the hospital, the confinement and isolation by the Soviet occupation in the 1940s, and seeing himself in his photographing of trees.

In his photographs of these gnarled and contorted trees, many of them seem as if they are self-portraits. He photographs them with an intimacy, love and passion, which we see throughout the years of his work, including a series entitled Vanished Statues. Farova in her book writes, “Sudek loved trees, especially old and damaged ones who seemed to share his own fate. He knew where they grew and would always go back to visit them…. It was nature like this in all its crudity, full of untamed ferocity and elemental vitality that was to become the new focus of his artistic interest.”

I’ve recently been thinking of this recurring motive in his work. As I’ve been trying to find myself in my own work, I’ve naturally come back to the Czech master that’s taught me so much about mood and shadows, lightness and intimacy, and a sort of spirituality that falls in light over us. His work shows an exquisite attentiveness to life. In the subtle beauty of banal objects, Sudek defines himself.

Directions to somewhere.

Nate — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:58:54 +0000

Directions are a fickle thing. Who really knows where one is going all the time? Oftentimes I feel I never know until I get there. There’s too many roadside distractions and attractions, and ambiguity isn’t necessarily a full tank of gas. Who really knows what we want and/or need?

We’re all searching. We’re searching all the time. Sometimes we feel like we know where we are going — but mostly we feel like we’re lost. We’re not lazy, we just don’t know where to go.

Ramblings on Now

Nate — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:51:48 +0000

In photography, the now becomes the past. The moment I press the shutter, the world is how I make it. I can make the past what I want it to be. I am comfortable with the past, with the present I am not, and with the future I don’t know.

Our past shapes who we are. But have we learned from our past? Like a teenager, we want to move quicker through life. Do we appreciate where we have been or where we are now? I have accepted the past but I do not accept the now.

We can’t always always understand things as they are going on, and we usually always know what went on after the fact. Photography helps me take a step back so I know how (and even why) to move forward. Everything we see is something more than it seems. We have to be able to recognize the world around us in order to move forward. We too often want something new to replace the old. In art, we want new art movements, new music genres. In science we want more new “facts” — more truths. BUT have we processed what we know now? We move too fast.

Do we really want to think? Or do we want someone else to discover new facts, so we can follow?

This is why most often new technologies don’t make our lives better, it only changes the way we do things. New technologies in medicine help us live longer, but they do not make us live better.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have something “new” to say. I interpret my past in order to make more sense of my future (to make it better). I am the peacemaker between the past and the future. I make the present the past by making them memories, and I make them memories in order that I may grow by interpreting them.

When we recognize true beauty we cannot help but be changed by it. In our moment of recognition, life is timeless — we are outside of ourselves, and we recognize something greater than this flesh and blood. It is a moment when abstract and logic become one — when we no longer worry about the past nor the future, and the now becomes… beautiful. A life of beauty is a life truly lived.

Since beauty is beyond the body, and time, only the spirit can recognize its presence, and since we are physical beings, we cannot stay in a state for too long to continue to recognize it. The moments fleet until at some point later we become aware of its presence. Recognition takes training but mostly a step away from distractions. For me, I have to leave my house, go for a walk, or go to a coffee shop. Though walks, I can take pictures. By going to coffee shops, I can write — free from the material junk in my house. Beauty takes a stepping back from wherever you are, so we can see the entire picture as it truly is.

Didn’t Like Classical.

Nate — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:10:53 +0000

My first date, we went to see “Romeo + Juliet” at the movie theater. I awkwardly placed my arm around her. I did so though it really wasn’t comfortable (probably for the both of us). After the movie, we talked as we waited in the lobby to be picked up by her sister. Classical music came on over the speakers. She said she didn’t like Classical. I lied to her and said I didn’t either. Her name was Elizabeth — the first of many with the same name.

Thoughts On Thoughts

Nate — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 23:03:21 +0000

I’ve thought often about the use of this site. Part of me is content with the content on this site, though ill-content with my prolificacy. I manage to keep myself busy with various small and large projects across the board from photography, video, design to written words. When first building out this site, I was hesitate about calling it a “blog” and to an extent I still am (though I admit, it looks quite similar to such). Blogs to me seemed uninspired, and sounded like “filler-songs” to those who like whole albums-as-art.

But this wasn’t becoming a full-length album, it was becoming a museum, where good articles came to wait the days away. It was becoming a place which had me feel limited to what I could say. Only the finely edited remarks could make their way out, and It didn’t sound natural. The articles were my ideas, and my views were established within them, but I needed more.

So I began to think of expanding this site not only to “articles” but to “thoughts” — my thoughts. I’ve written down many things in various notebooks and scraps of paper about how to progress further, what to do with my “art” and what to do in my life. This may be an error of judgement, allowing all of the internet to see, but I’ll put it down, and edit later. This all brings me to a first entry I wrote in one of those various notebooks I keep laying around:

Jan was once told me I should photograph like how My Bloody Valentine played. I understood, but not completely. I understood a bit better tonight. If you listen to the album “Loveless,” this concept begins to make so much sense. It’s so noisy — the vocals are pushed back and indistinguishable, and it’s almost as if it were all recorded completely wrong. But it makes so much sense. With all the fuzzy noise and indistinguishable voices, something alive and true comes from it, and all the seemingly wrong sounds come together to form something marvelous. Instead of me trying to figure out what I want to say in “Art” (this is the wrong reaction — I’ve done this too much in my life), I need to just speak and let out all the indistinguishable sounds come out and have faith that maybe some sense can be made out of it — and if not, maybe I can at least have some fun doing it.

The Future of Sudan

Nate — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 20:06:07 +0000

The story of Sudan is a complicated story, so it’s no wonder many are unsure what exactly is happening in Africa’s largest country. It has been an embittered battle fought on many fronts composed of many different tribes, languages, and religions, and lasting for decades. Since 1955, two civil wars have been fought between the north and south. The second ended after 22 years of bloodshed with a peace agreement in 2005, granting Southern Sudan autonomy for six years. On January 9th of 2011, a new chapter will be pressed with ink-stained fingers.

Most of us, when hearing of Sudan, instantly think of the conflict in Darfur, a region that lies in western Sudan. In 2004, then-President George W. Bush labeled the atrocities committed against the people of Darfur by the Janjaweed militia as genocide. This past July, Sudan’s current president Omar al-Bashir was charged with three counts of genocide in Darfur by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Darfur has gained much press, but a big part of the struggle in Sudan lies in the tensions between north and south. The referendum taking place on January 9, 2011 will allow Southern Sudanese to vote on the future of forming their own democracy. There is much excitement over the vote, and the South is largely predicted to choose secession and divide the northeastern African country. The questions are many – whether Bashir’s government will allow the referendum to take place and on time (part of the 2005 peace agreement), if the voting will be marred by voting fraud, and where profits will go from the oil-rich Abyei border state. Salva Kiir, president of Southern Sudan and vice president of Sudan, states that the referendum’s timing is important as there is “a risk of a return to war in case of delay or denial of this exercise, and it would be on a very massive scale.” ^[1]

Sudan’s history has been complex and long. Islamic conquerors and black Africans met with a clash in the seventh century and fighting continued for more than a millennium. In the 1800s, the Ottomans annually raided Southern Sudan from the north and captured countless thousands for the slave trade, breaking the region’s stability and economy.

Following the defeat of Sudan’s rulers, an agreement was reached in 1899 that saw Sudan then governed by the British and Egyptian governments. The country, being as large as it is, was divided distinctly into two halves. The north was predominately Arab and Muslim, while the south predominately black Africans of traditional and Christian beliefs. In 1922, the government limited movement between north and south in an effort to control the tensions.

But in 1947, the British government organized a conference in order to combine northern and southern Sudan into one political entity. A British governor in Southern Sudan at the time determined that if Sudan were to ever really become self-governing, “it must not be divided up into small weak units.” ^[2] The British at the time saw the North as more “developed,” and though the North was contrasting culturally, they felt the South would be better off in the end with the North. In 1956, Sudan was granted independence through a joint agreement between the British and Egyptian governments. However, a year earlier in 1955, the first Sudanese war had already started between North and South Sudan.

We have a tendency to see stories as simple rights and wrongs. Even the short history written here of Sudan is a simplistic one. It is not solely Muslim vs. Christian (20% of Southern Sudanese claim Christianity, and 10% Muslim). The conflict goes beyond race and religion (though aspects of this are important to observe here) – it is a story woven of different people groups and their ability to survive and live decent lives. The Southern Sudanese people I spoke to while traveling to Sudan and Uganda in 2006 and 2010 are tired of war. They want peace with their Northern neighbor. Though Bashir is wanted by the ICC, they do not feel that all the people of the North are like him. Mary Tombe, a Southern Sudanese nurse says,

There are many cynics who say Sudan is a married couple in angry divorce, so they are frightened of the violent fights…. But we see Sudan as a mother giving birth to twins – once the labour pains are over, the two children can grow up as friends. ^[3]

^{{ View a slideshow from my 2006 trip to Uganda and Sudan}^}

[1] Southern Sudan Independence Referendum Delay May Reignite War, President Says
[2] Juba Conference 1947 record by the Equatoria Governor (PDF, page 1)
[3] Will independence vote bring war or peace to south Sudan?

Online Distraction.

Nate — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 07:34:18 +0000

Yes, I know. It has been a long time since I’ve written here on this blog. Well, much of the reason that I haven’t is actually a result of the topic that I’ve wanted to write about: distraction.

I wanted to write. Really I did. I also wanted to read the books on my bookshelf. But something was getting in my way. Distraction was my problem, and it still is. Well, I needed someone to blame for it all. Was it the incessant chime of a new email in my inbox? Was it work ringing my cell phone? Was it that next big project I wanted to get done on my computer? Was it the text messages vibrating night and day in my pocket? Was it the movie my roommates were watching downstairs in the cool basement on a hot summer’s day?

Then, I had it. I had my scapegoat. It was right there, constantly on, and constantly connected to me. Distracting me when I hadn’t asked it to. It was technology.

Yeah, that was it. I knew there was a Luddite within me reaching out— especially after naming my blog after an essay of the contemporary Luddite, Wendell Berry. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Neo-Luddism, it may be the medication for this symptom of evil in today’s society. Based on the historical legacy of British Luddites, who infamously destroyed machines of the Industrial Revolution between 1811 and 1816, Neo-Luddism has been awakened to critique the effects of technology on individuals and their communities.

I had my facts*. I had been gathering all of the damning evidence to liberate the masses! “Soon, my dear friends, we will be free! Free of the curse of Adam and Eve’s Apple®! That irritable fruit with its iPhone, iPad, and iPod, cursing us to toil the fields with the swipe of our finger! We will continue to hold our Motorola RAZR with pride once more and bask in its un-smart phone glory! This is where the future lies — it lies within the past!”

Well, maybe not. Something still wasn’t right. I spent hours writing my manifesto against technology. Hours and hours finding the right stance, with the right amount of wit, personality and a proclivity for wisdom. I knew that in order to reach the masses, I must speak in their “blog language.” But the answer was obvious in these facts; many people were seeing the same thing I saw in this new mobile digital era. This was the end-all be-all truth that had to be fought, freeing us from the slavery of distraction… right?

A friend challenged me to give up my laptop and cell phone for a mere 36 hours. “Yeah, here’s the solution to my distraction,” I thought. I had been following all the articles I could on how the digital world has taken us away from something real within ourselves and from our relationship with others. So, the best way to overcome this evil force was to withdraw from it, or at least limit my time in its abyss.

I started my “digital fast”. Almost instantly once turning off my phone, I felt myself tensing up. I was disconnecting. No one would speak to me in those 36 hours. How could they? I had turned off ALL means of communication to my generation: no Facebook, no email, no text messages, not even a phone call. There was a fear left within me: I was going to be alone.

I admit that it’s a bit dramatic. I have roommates to begin with, and so I would be alone as one can be alone with others. I found myself with new time on my hand. There were no longer any emails to write and voicemails to respond to. I was here … in this moment … with myself … alone. Later I found myself immersed in the shelves of Powell’s Books downtown, picking up a worn book with a very 1970s’ cover graphic of autumn green and orange colors reading, “Reaching Out | HENRI J.M. NOUWEN”.

I had heard many things about this Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer, Henri Nouwen. I’ve heard how many friends adore him both as a person and as a writer. He had been on my list, so I here I was finally reading it. I’m usually tempted to skip the introductions and forewords to books so I can go straight into the heart of the book, but this time I didn’t. As I read these short introductory pages, I was instantly drawn in, and even found myself underlining large sections of the short passages. He knew exactly what I was talking about and had the key, written there in 1975.

As I read more and more, a real sense of awareness came to me. It turns out that this whole struggle wasn’t technology’s fault — it was mine. The problem lay deeper with me. Getting rid of my laptop, my internet access, and cell phone wasn’t going to fix my problem of distraction. These were symptoms of my issue, but they were not the disease. We are a symptom-based society, and not a core-adjusting one. Here, Nouwen writes:

When we have no project to finish, no friend to visit, no book to read, no television to watch or no record to play, and when we are left all alone by ourselves we are brought so close to the revelation of our basic human aloneness and are so afraid of experiencing an all-pervasive sense of loneliness that we will do anything to get busy again and continue the game which makes us believe everything is fine after all.

Wow. He goes on to write how the individual constantly lives in the tension between two poles: the polarity of loneliness and the polarity of solitude. We have become such an individualized society seeking constant forms of validation of clever tweets and Facebook comments that we have lost ourselves. We have forgotten to give space to form a connection and understand our personal self.

How telling it was of me to feel “alone” when disconnecting my laptop and mobile phone. I wasn’t excited to enjoy my now freed up time. I felt lonely.

We are lonely. We allow ourselves to be distracted so that we do not feel alone. The whole point of social medias and all of this digital connectivity is to be distracted. We want to be distracted. It’s why we leave our doors open in our offices and to our rooms. We want people to walk by and ask what we are up to, or if we’d like to go to lunch. Only in times when people are annoying us do we feel that we want to be left alone, but when we are lonely we’ll return to embrace community. Nouwen, however, asks us to embrace our loneliness. “By-passing loneliness, hostility or illusion will never lead us to solitude, hospitality and prayer. We will never know for sure if we will fully realize the new life that we can discover in the midst of the old.”

Now, I still live with the chime of my inbox and the vibration of my text messages. And as romantic I may be for a different era, there’s no leaving behind this modern world of smart phones and social networking of any form. Technological progress doesn’t make life better, it just changes the way we live it. But the question is, will I leave the space to hear from myself every now and again?

When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters proud of his extensive correspondence has not heard from himself this long while.

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

This is bad for your health.

Nate — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 07:27:01 +0000

Facts:*

Your Brain on Computers – Attached to Technology and Paying a Price | NYTimes.com
The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In | NYTimes.com
The Medium is the Medium | NYTimes.com
Taming the Digital Distractions That Make Your PC a Time Waster | NYTimes.com
Going Offline in Search of Freedom | NYTimes.com
First Steps to Digital Detox | NYTimes.com
Frontline: digital nation – life on the virtual frontier | PBS
Is the internet making us quick but shallow? | CNN.com
2010: Year of digital distraction? | CNN.com
Parents obsessed with their mobile device | CNN.com
I’m quitting the Internet. Will I be liberated or left behind? | Slate Magazine
Multitasking – Switching Costs | American Psychological Association
Scaling the Digital Divide: Home Computer Technology and Student Achievement | The National Bureau of Economic Research

All articles written in the past year.