Is really starting to affect energy levels. Creativity levels down to zero.
Chris
Quarantine Month #8
Eight months ago today I started work from home due to the quarantine. I want and need the separation. WFH has blurred my work/life/creativity balance and it shows.
Keto Diet Update
LOL
Me Time
- Read
- Practice Mindfulness
- Journal daily
- Exercise
- Reflect
- Love yourself
- love others
- Laugh
- Keep a small circle of friends
- Keep learning
- Gratitude
- Make peace often
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
MacOS Big Sur
After a few downloading issues, Apple finally got it together, so I could install the new operating system. The user interface is slick and responsive.
Social Web vs Social Media
I’ve been online since 1996, and have seen so many websites come and go.
Remember Geocities and chat rooms? Those were the places to be, until they weren’t. A few years later and they were shut down. Your online friends were deleted.
After those there was MySpace. People flocked to this new platform where you could decorate and share “your space” as you saw fit. Everyone posted their photos and music but a short time after that MySpace became stagnant. No one was using it anymore favoring Facebook. There was no way to communicate with your “friends” because no one had each other’s contact information, just the Myspace inbox.
Just like the platforms before it, users have been flocking towards FB, supplying all their information both directly and indirectly. People are still uploading all of their photos, videos and more there and there will come a time when this platform will be obsolete for the next big thing.
My point is do not depend on any one social media company or web service. They will come and go and you won’t have a thing to show for it because they now own your content and will delete it when their servers go cold. It’s time again to think about the long-term use of the web. Have a dedicated home for yourself so you can create, share and contact those who you choose and not an algorithm.
Build your website instead. Rather than inviting your friends and fans to a social media platform, invite them to your personal site. Encourage them to comment on your work, encourage them to provide their contact information so you don’t have to go through a social media inbox to reach them.
Your website should be the place to showcase everything you create. If you do insist on utilizing social media instead of the social web, have those free account be your backup. Have those social media accounts point back to your home on the web. You may choose to use them but you will not be depending on them.
I strongly suggest using the reliable open standards that are not owned by any company such as the internet, email and text messaging.
When using your email, make sure your default mail has a signature, one you can customize to give out your name, contact info and your website address. People want to know how to get a hold of you. Help them out.
Example:
Chris Denbow
Tulsa, OK.
hello@chrisdenbow.website
ChrisDenbow.com + PhotoDenbow.com
I know this is basic, and maybe it isn’t basic. If you’ve been spending your time on social media instead of the social web, it is possible this is something new. You’d be surprised how many people do not know these skills. It is time to retake the internet away from Big Tech and make it for personal use instead.
Down & Out
Started to feel a scratchy throat this morning and I have been resting. No desire to publish a new journal post here today.
11/11 Check-In and Journey’s End
On 2/2 I began my year-long journey to create lifelong habits for myself and throw in some fun intentions as well. The plan is to check in every month to monitor my progress. How did I do since my last check-in on 10/10?
Nutrition & Training
When we decided to do the Keto diet back in June it lasted until September. I made unconscious decisions to put this on hold because…well, pick an excuse. Quarantine has raised meat prices and I live in a food desert. Those keto-friendly places that are nearby charge a premium and fewer portions. Frustrating. Now that I am at the end of this year’s journey and headed into the holiday season, I will enjoy anything I want to eat. But honestly, I can’t wait to hop back on to this diet. I saw and felt the weight loss and believe in it.
Since the gym is closed, I have been doing a few home workouts sporadically and aimlessly. Again with the excuses. Again, I felt the fat loss and want to regain the muscles that have atrophied while sitting on my ass here in the home office. We have no idea when to expect the Apple Fitness software to be released but it can’t come soon enough. I hope it is inspiring.
Yoga & Meditation
Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t get a good workout while practicing yoga. My body tells me every time afterward that this is right. It feels amazing to stretch your muscles and breathe. Meditating comes and goes when I think about it. My Apple Watch prompts me to focus on breathing at least twice an hour and I obey. These are the times when I focus on nothing else but that during the day.
Photography & Writing
Photography- Taking advantage of doing a few portraits has been slowly kindling that desire to go out and shoot this past month. I also traveled out of state to capture some fall foliage before it was too late but had to turn back. Missed opportunities are frustrating. Still, I am planning on traveling to the Texas/Mexico border in March 2021 and pray that the national parks quarantine will be lifted. New Mexico landscapes are planned for this trip too. Stay tuned.
Writing- On November 1, I committed to writing an article here every day as a part of the NANOWRIMO initiative. So far so good, although I did miss a day thanks to an annoying cold/cough. Novel research and development are coming along nicely, as is the character and plot development. I may even throw some micro-fiction out there too.
Journey’s End 11/11
As always, I saw some progress, saw some room for improvement, and had some frustrating setbacks. I have not completed my photo archive project and this is perhaps one of my most frustrating failures. Like everyone else in the world, this pandemic has thrown everyone off. I am grateful for my health, grateful for my career, and grateful for my family.
Happy Holidays and see you next year on 2/2/2021 for another journey.
Curate To Create
If you are like me, hoarding content for future use, it can give off a false sense of knowledge. In my experience, the best way to understand something is to create or produce my content in my style and then share it with the world. I’ve accomplished this throughout the years here and through my photography. I’m still working up the nerve to share my creative writing, however.
To close the loop from curator to creator I go from collecting my notes, snippets from the web and personal thoughts to connecting ideas and application of these ideas. Only then do I find I am ready to create and share.
The Anti-Library
The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.
As a reader, I can tell you that I have been back and forth between paper and digital books. I’ve been kicking myself lately for selling or donating 85% of my library in the past.
It gives me joy to see physical books on the shelf again knowing that I have read a few or have something to look forward to.
Taking the idea of an anti-library further, it dawned on me that I am also curating a digital library of knowledge with links to web articles, books using PDF or everything I have saved as “read-it-later.”
As if I didn’t have enough to read, I recently subscribed to Apple News that includes newspaper and magazines.
The idea that the knowledge that comes from this anti-library is always available and readily accessible in both digital and analog form is beneficial and comforting. The fact that this library is an extension of my research tools is an added bonus.
Photography Slump
This pandemic is killing my desire to create, especially with my photography. There is still a desire and capability but the people and subjects I want to work with just aren’t available at the moment. Portraits require people and people right now are hesitant out of caution. Landscape photography requires access and access is scarce thanks to shut-downs.
No, I won’t be finding inspiration in the same old formulaic suggestions that people like to write about “what to do when in a creative slump.”
Examples:
Look for inspiration in art! Go on a photowalk! Shoot a day in the life or still life! Read your manual, clean your gear, photograph loved one and pets! Enough We’ve been reading that since the early age of the internet.
I especially miss the social aspect of meeting up with other photographers to talk, share, learn and grow from. There is nothing like having a beer with friends while talking shop and then headed out to capture images together.
In the meantime, I suppose capturing images of flowers from twenty different angles will have to suffice.
The Roaring 20s
After World War I and the Spanish Flu one hundred years ago, this country enjoyed a time of both cultural and economic prosperity. After those trying times of war and disease people were ready to live again, and we can look back and see this as we called it “the roaring 20s.”
After this current pandemic is over, I am optimistic that we too will enjoy a more positive time. I imagine we’ll sing, dance, play and enjoy life more after having endured decades-long wars and disease.
I cannot wait to see how we bounce back and enjoy life again.