#oregonwriter

Being open means many different things. Open for business, being receptive to different or differing ideas and concepts, or just being inviting and welcoming to those people around us who we don't know well or perhaps don't know at all because we haven't been willing or able to venture beyond our comfort zone. How many of us can honestly look at ourselves in the mirror and tell that person we see looking back that they are open in ways that may make them uncomfortable and even vulnerable enough to contemplate the ideas, concepts, people and inevitability which surround us each day but, for one reason or another, don't fit into our narrative of what it means to be us?

I'll admit that I have my likes and dislikes, proclivities and pejoratives, comfort zones and places I'd rather not go. To be human means to be predisposed to having personal and cultural differences, likes and dislikes, preferences and disdains. But who loses in the end? Who suffers most when we fail to explore the bigger picture and step foot outside our sphere of influence that we place ourselves in by choice, sometimes for no other reason than because that's what our community, family, tribe or preferences tell us we should expect from ourselves? In a few words I believe we all do. The good news is that we have the freedom to choose to change our limiting feelings if we will allow ourselves to. Too often it's those feelings we have which bear no resemblance to the truth, but which we insist on hanging on to, that trap us inside a closed loop of thought and action.

This coming week try a little experiment. Shut out those things that tell you no, and say yes to mentally, physically, socially or spiritually letting yourself be open to exploring your personal sphere of influence that traps you in to one pattern of behavior, belief, prejudice or preference. Try to see things from a different angle. Question the norm, whatever that is, and means, to you.  Exercise that thing called critical thinking, which seems to have evaded and even abandon the grasp of our social fabric through the whole spectrum of thought and action these days. Just start by being honest with that person who stares back at you in the mirror.

They say that charity begins at home. So does trust. Start trusting your own personal instinct more and become a leader in making positive change happen instead of sowing the seeds that have been handed to you like so many magic beans promising the keys to the kingdom of the moral high ground . Have a seat my friend. It's time to open your heart and your mind. You just may find the colors here are more vibrant, and not so varied from your own, than what you have been lead, taught, or forced to believe.

If you seek to improve your skills in everything from the basics to advanced techniques in creating quality images to share with others, I can help. For over a decade now I've been teaching and mentoring, individuals, teams, and groups on the subjects of photography and creatively seeing   beyond seeing. Whether you live locally, or are out of the area, please feel free to connect to find out more by visiting facebook.com/mddaphotoforum or emailing [email protected] If you don't live locally I consult  by email, phone and Skype. Isn't it time you took your passion for camera craft, visual        art, and the very fabric of life itself to a higher level? What better way to live than to share what you love with purpose and meaning?

From coolness to warmth, earth to sky and sand to water we look, seeking to see beyond our horizon. In childhood and adulthood we contemplate memories past and present, walking on the edge of the meaning and purpose of life. Through sunrise and sunset waves of time wash over, beneath, above       and within us while traveling our transit, from then, to now, and beyond, perhaps to distant shores yet to be explored. "Is there meaning?" we ask. The answer comes to us, being what we have known from the beginning,"Only if you create it". - MDD

In 1967 a song titled "Let it Out", but popularly called Let It All Hang Out, by the group The Hombres hit the airwaves. It was a parody of an earlier song by Bob Dylan called "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and based on a 1947 novelty recording "Cegareetes, Whuskey and Wild, Wild, Women" by Red Ingle and His Natural Seven. Later the song was featured on the 1998 box set 'Nuggets: Original Artyfacts for the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968'. The song was the origin of the phrase, "Let It All Hang Out" which in layman's terms took on the pop culture meaning of behaving freely without being shy or feeling worried about what other people  think or feel about you or what you do.

The reality the origins of the song have more to do with being down and out and not caring, just giving in and letting things happen that seem to be beyond one's control than anything else. In truth there's more to the story involving an element of tragedy that includes a truck wreck, dead chickens and a long road trip stuffed in the back seat of a car traveling at break neck speed, once you dig into the whole story. What a fitting analogy for our current state of affairs in this country.

The image I chose to illustrate this idea of exposure blues is fitting in many ways. We, as a society, are often exposed to way too many things these days whether we choose to be or not. Pressure to   conform, perform and reform assault us in far more ways than we often realize. Whether it's politicians pandering for our votes, social media screaming road rage obscenities in our face on the information highway, marketing mavens telling us why we're wrong and how they can make us right, or some guy half way across the globe plotting and posturing to make his brand of ideology the latest in oppressive thought leadership. The airwaves and our minds are packed full and it's just too easy to give up, give in, and let it all hang out. "Carpe Diem" is Latin for Seize the Day. My question is who's seizing whose day and why?

When we let the pressures of negative social discourse affect our daily lives to the point of simply giving up and giving in, instead of doing what we can to make things better for ourselves and those around us, we make compromises that have consequences. Sir Issac Newton is credited with boiling down the scientific idea of gravity so others, not so scientifically inclined, could grasp the concept. In his Third Law of Motion he stated that every action force and reaction force are equal and opposite. Simply put, when push comes to shove, resistance is received in equal amounts in the opposite direction. This isn't unlike the scenes we see played out in the news every day as a group of protestors on one side of a road confronts another group of counter protestors on the other side of the road. Throw them together in the middle of the road and a truck wreck is bound to happen and we'll find dead chickens who simply wanted to cross that road strewn all over the place in the end. Let it all hang out.

When we expose ourselves to such bass and debasing actions that draw us into, and even trap us in a battle, of negative social discourse without a good understanding of the laws of intellectual physics that come into play and sway our emotional intelligence we turn into magnets that attract the most unhealthy actions and reactions instead of repelling them. This results in exposure blues. We don't live in a society of socially oppressed as much as a manipulated society of socially depressed. The outcome only leads to a whole bunch of dead or hurting chickens in the end.

So, before you buy in to the whole let it all hang out attitude of right and wrong, righteous versus evil, my way or the highway, just do it, kill 'em all and let god sort it out, take no prisoners, but I don't really want to get involved, syndrome that pervades modern society ask yourself this. What are YOU really doing to help solve the the current problems that result in your personal exposure blues? In the end we're all just a bunch of chickens trying to cross the road to the other side. So while we're letting it all hang out perhaps we should examine the messages we're sending to others and how that might look to those on the other side of the road. History is interesting in how it repeats itself. We certainly appear to have entered another psychedelic era of letting it all hang out as I view things from the side of the road I'm standing on. Oh, I could go on, but I'll spare you the discomfort of more ramblings and save them for another time. Carpe Diem.

If you seek to improve your skills in everything from the basics to advanced techniques in creating quality images and ideas to share with others, I can help. For over a decade now I've been teaching and mentoring, individuals, teams, and groups on the subject of photography and creative seeing beyond seeing. Whether you live locally, or are out of the area, please feel free to connect to find out more by visiting facebook.com/mddaphotoforum or emailing [email protected] If you don't live locally I consult  by email, phone and Skype. Isn't it time you took your passion for camera craft and visual art to a higher level?