"The Importance of Being Important"

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Bloemendaal aan zee, today. Dream [ reality ]

Min/max temperature: 7°C/7°C; humidity: 97%; precipitation: 1 mm; sea level pressure: 1012 hPa; wind WNW 43.0 km/h; visibility: 10.0 kilometres; Clouds: Few 548 m., Mostly Cloudy 731 m., Overcast 1066 m

"Foreword. The Importance of Being Important […] During the classic time of Greece a terrible thing happened in one of the temples. One night the statue of Zeus was mysteriously smashed and desecrated. A tremendous uproar arose among the inhabitants. They feared vengeance of the gods. The town criers walked the city streets commanding the criminal to appear without delay before the Elders to receive his just punishment. The perpetrator naturally had no desire to give himself up. In fact, a week later another statue of a god was destroyed. Now the people suspected that a madman was loose. Guards were posted and at last their vigilance was rewarded; the culprit was caught. He was asked, "Do you know what awaits you?" "Yes," he answered, almost cheerfully. "Death." "Aren't you afraid to die?" "yes, I am." "Then why did you commit a crime which you knew was punishable by death?" The man swallowed hare and then answered, "I am a nobody. All my life I've been a nobody. I've never done anything to distinguish myself and I knew I never would. I wanted to do something to make people notice me… and remember me." After a moment of silence he added, "Only those people die who are forgotten. I feel death is a small price to pay for immortality!" Immortality! Yes, we all crave attention. We want to be important, immortal. We want to do things that will make people exclaim, "Isn't he wonderful?" If we can't create something useful or beautiful… we shall certainly create something else: trouble, for instance. Just think of your aunt Helen, the family gossip. (We all have one.) She causes hard feelings, suspicion, and subsequent arguments. Why does she do it? She wants to be important, of course, and if she can achieve this only by means of gossip or lying, she will not, for one moment, hesitate to gossip or lie. The urge to be outstanding is a fundamental necessity in our lives. All of us, at all times crave attention. Self-consciousness, even reclusiveness, springs from the desire to be important. If failure arouses compassion or pity, then failure might become an end in itself. […] Without exception everyone was born with creative ability. It is essential that people be given opportunity to express themselves. If Balzac, De Maupassant, O. Henry, hadn't learned to write, they might have become inveterate liars, instead of great writers. Every human being needs an outlet for his inborn creative talent. If you feel you would like to write, then write. Perhaps you are afraid that lack of a higher education might retard you from real accomplishment. Forget it. Many great writers, Shakespeare, Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, to mention a few, never saw the inside of a college. Even if you will never be a genius, your enjoyment of life can still be great. If writing holds no lure for you, you might learn to sing, dance, or play an instrument well enough to entertain your guests. This belongs in the realm of "art" too. Yes, we want to be noticed. We want to be remembered. We want to be important! We can achieve a degree of importance by expressing ourselves in the medium which best suits our particular talents. You never know where your avocation will lead you. Even if you fail commercially, you might very well emerge from your experience an authority on the subject you learned so much about. You'll be richer in experience -- and if you have been kept out of mischief, that alone will be a great accomplishment. So the gnawing hunger to be important will be satisfied at last without harm to anyone."

Lajos Egri in 'The Art of Dramatic Writing', foreword, page x, xii, xii, first published in 1946 by Simon & Schuster, INC, USA

"The [director] concerned [ was ] rather surprised that I even asked for the [ script ] -- […] asking 'Since when do cameramen read scripts?' -- but only once have I accepted a film without seeing a script (or at least a treatment) first, and on that occasion I sorely regretted it."

Walter Lassally in 'Itinerant Cameraman', page 101, first published in 1987 by John Murray (Publishers) Ltd, London

"Images, music and voice-over move independently.[…] The visual flow is […] varied. [ The ] film interweaves crucial New Wave principles: the pictorial space is moral space; that morality is an unstable equilibrium between audacity and prudence; that morality can be non-judgemental; that morales are not rules, but serious games with calculated risks; and that personal structures only intersect with the political."

Raymond Durgnat in the introduction to Francois Truffaut's 'Jules et Jim', first published in English in 1968 by Lorrimer Publishing Inc., reissued in 1989 by Faber and Faber Limited, London

"With tea, just like wine, you are dealing with terroir. The composition of the terrain and climate are crucial for the development of certain characteristics. Handpicked, traditionally produced tea from a reliable region are at the base, always. Quality tea is affordable luxury. You can drink great tea for the same price as bad wine."

Robert Schinkel in 'Exclusief, informatie magazine Sligro, Nr 15', page 29, published by Sligro B.V.

Samsung NX 100 †

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Haarlem, today. A camera [ is a camera ]

Min/max temperature: 13°C/22°C; humidity: 72%; precipitation: 0 mm; sea level pressure: 1023 hPa; wind: North 3.1 km/h. ; Moon: Waxing Crescent, 48% illuminated

Camera's come and go, with the speed of light. You practically can not unpack the box or a 'newer, faster, cheaper, mega-pixel promising, super latitude ' model is shouting for attention -- and if you hate photography -- but like showing off with the newest stuff, the biggest lenses, that really is all that matters. Advertising people give you the reason to feel good about your new investment  ("If you do not buy it, people will not like you anymore!") -- so you buy and feel good, at least for a couple of hours -- and it drives the market. Everybody with a bit more sensible-sense knows that is nonsense. It is not in the latest marketing craze, it is in stuff that you trust, know how to handle, feel comfortably-uncomfortable to work with. The more it breaks down -- over the course of a productive life -- the more it is held by 'wires', the more you are able to establish a 'relationship' with your gear, repair it, keep using it, have it function as an extention of your-self, making it your own, the better of you are, the more you learn, the better you get. "In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister, Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben." This proces keeps repeating itself until it becomes a 'piece of cake' -- to start all over again! "Transcend and include..." That is not to say that the market of products and services is bad and corrupt -- on the contrary, it is not good nor bad per sé. Everybody knows that. The amazing thing is, a whole lot of excellent, useful stuff is designed, produced, marketed and sold. Equipment that actually is made to function, and last a little longer than the time required to walk out the store or being delivered to your door -- that has durability, sometimes even a lifetime. The art is in knowing what you need, knowing where to find it and learn to work with it, get the best out of it. Do you want to feel free to create or be a puppet of the market? It is not productive to denounce the market (it creates angry people). It is better, more healthy, to learn to recognise and use the few good things that are available, in the achievement of the goals that you have set for your self. To feel free to create! To feel free to create! As opposed to be a slave and work for stuff you really do not need and that sure as hell does not need you. This is the 'art of separating people from their money' game. Some people really need an airplane. But some people for sure do not need another new phone. Don't judge, be conscientious.

The Samsung NX 100. The lens broke a few months ago, but -- miraculously -- with scotch tape it kept functioning with an intact back-focus. More or less. With the first generation battery and delivering an impressive organic-look -- I have always loved Samsung camera's (from the Samsung NV-8 onwards) -- even their phones make better pictures than others around. The NX-100 is/was a beautiful camera with a mechanic shutter, trusty, simple and robust. Been 'everywhere' with it, under extreme circumstances: hot, cold, wet, dry, indoor and outdoor. Last week the shutter failed and since Samsung discontinued the production of this camera -- and all other of its camera's in general --  time had arrived to move on to another model, even brand (a used digital camera by a classic manufacturer, which does not start with an "S" for sure!) Here is my final salute to a marvellous modest piece of equipment.... All images on this website -- and many more -- are made with the camera pictured above -- with the exception of this image ofcourse.

Mental health is all: In conversation with Jeremy Corbyn

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 (click to play flick)™ 

'In conversation with Jeremy Corbyn, documented by Ken Loach' is 59 minutes and 36 seconds good stuff to experience: unity of form and content. Jeremy Corbyn leads by example. Ken Loach supports the case. As his last film 'I, Daniel Blake' does. 

From the transcript, Jeremy Corbyn: "So whilst on one level we’re talking about a series of policy issues, mental health, housing, health, education, war and peace, environment and so on, it’s also about a level of consciousness and understanding and while social media is a great way of instantly and rapidly communicating with people, it often can be superficial and cannot go into the sort of life experiences that we’re talking about here that help to form our opinions. And so I’m not quite sure how it can be done, but let’s work out ways of doing it, because I want this sort of thing to carry on, I’m sure you all, I hope you all do as well."

Spirit of the Game

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Kennemer Dunes -- path to the sea, sunset, today. Confidence [ create scope ]

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"[ question: ] Do you also believe that physical training equals mental training; trough tough physical training we train the mind? [ answer: ] Trough tough physical training we develop discipline. We develop the ability to concentrate on a task. Physical training is essential for mental training. Physical training will lead to neuro-plasticity; it will grow the brains connections; it will grow the brain matter. That is just one aspect of it. At a physical level, physical training will grow your brain. And that has been proven, science is behind that, backs it up. Physical training, when you get into more complicated things, like gymnastics or learning the olympic lifts or learning new and different things […] training [with ] constantly varied functional movements, done in a unique way, every single day, with the big four skills of mental toughness placed into that; develop things like Courage, and Honour, and Discipline; that will develop mental toughness. […] Once you get beyond that, beyond that initial layer of 'I can tough trough something' […] 'I got the physical and mental skill to drive trough a task' ; true mental toughness is […] to develop great vitality over the quality, quantity and directionality of your thinking mind and then integrate your whole mind, so that you can use all of the vast skills that you have. So you can develop [your] 20 times potential, so that you can win on the battlefield of life, kick ass, and take names, develop front sight focus; so you focus on the right targets, the right time, and you win. And you win not for the benefit of yourself, but for your team, for your community, for all -- ultimately -- humanity. […] World centric win, with front sight focus, comes from winning in the inner domain, winning in the mind; before you step into the battlefield […]"

Mark Divine responding to my question in his FSF (Front Sight Focus) live-seminar on his Youtube channel, streamed live on Januari 23, 2017