Days like today drain from me the energy with focus, because the only way to get through it is to put all available focus on the constant stream of work to prevent the back-log from building up. I think I ended the day net equal – I didn’t end with any new outstanding tasks, but I traded that off with not getting anything done on the long-term scale. So I still have the back-log, but at least it didn’t get any larger.

That’s what tomorrow’s for, with an off-site meeting all day to go over one of the Next Big Projects. In doing that, I’ll completely neglect the regular operational maintenance of the day and have to get through it the day after.

To the point of the subject line, the energy is so far spent – almost purely at a mental level – that I find myself feeling lethargic and even pained. Not muscularly sore, but so depleted as to have nothing meaningful left. My chest literally hurts under the aftermath of this kind of through-the-wringer stress.

I have Friday off though, which I’m sure will help me recover to some degree. But it still leaves me wondering, where can meaning be found when I’m incapable of creating it for myself? It’s not going to be found online, or falling into my lap. Which means I have 2 choices – suffer through it, or go do something about it.

I’ll do what I can, because that’s a part of my personal philosophy. It’ll still hurt, but at least I’ll feel justified in having done all I can to better my own situation.

Even if it kills me.

Sincerely,

The Whiner.

My wife is a wedding photographer. She has a wonderful innate talent that’s startling to behold, but difficult for her to explain. So far as she knows, she just takes pictures as the situation warrants and the opportunity presents.

I’ve always admired graphic design and photography. I took several classes toward this vocation back in the day, and have a fair idea of how it all works and what it takes. I lack ability though, having no gift in the realm. Like the quote from the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: “At last I realized I had taste, and style; but not talent.” I can tell my wife exactly what makes her pictures good, all the various contributing elements and how they combine to create the overall impression within the image itself.

At which point she shrugs, and goes back to taking pictures.

Not to sound cheesy, but it at least allows me to see the world through her eyes in a very literal way.

She shot a wedding about 4 weeks ago, and has just finished all the post production work (special effects, retouching, color proofing, etc.). 2 days before these were scheduled to go to the printer, she was informed by the mother of the bride that her son (obviously the brother of the bride) had committed suicide the weekend before.

They seem to be handling it well, though it certainly does have a large impact on their lives. He’s had drug trouble in the past, and where he was in life did not allow him to see personal value through the veil of mistakes and guilt that was ever present on his mind. With people getting married around him, and happiness abounding in social association, this turned inward with the low esteem to the thought of “Who would ever want me?” This was left behind in his journals.

We did some final retouching, and not yet beknownst to the family (unless they’re reading this) I spent another 2 1/2 hours after the fact finding the best pictures with him in them and doctoring the extraction to get the best composition. We didn’t do a lot of individual portraiture of the attendees (only the bride and groom, I’m afraid) but he was in a few family pictures. Being digital, and only taking up a little bit of the space, he was not represented in sufficient resolution to be enlarged much. I did what I could, but even at 4″x6″ it’s still going to be obviously over-blown from what the level of detail should support.

But these are the last real pictures that were taken of him; human decency dictate that I use whatever means necessary to try and make the most of that for the family. It sounds small, and perhaps it is; they don’t even know me, the few I’ve been introduced to probably wouldn’t even remember my name. I can’t give them anything more: I don’t know them, don’t know the deceased, and can’t gauge the impact of any other gesture. I’m offering a slightly clearer memory from the immediate past of something highly prized and now gone. Does the thought count? Hopefully. I can scarcely fathom the void this has left for them.

With so many ambiguous and contextually sensitive pronouns in the last 2 paragraphs, it’s apparent to me that the text isn’t flowing. This means I should stop for now; this is appropriate, that it should be to linger at this stage of the thought. Abrupt, and unfinished, without satisfying resolution; but having done what I could.

If you happen to be a family member or know the deceased, unlikely though it is that anyone from such a small connected sphere should stumble across this, I mean no disrespect by bearing this in the open. No personally revealing information has been provided despite the potentially intimate tone. However, if you find this at all disquieting please contact me and I’ll edit or remove this post from circulation.

paul@paultomlinson.net

I had a nice, long, draft to put up here tonight. I found myself drifting from the intended “Time for a Mid-Life Crisis” topic though, into dangerous territory. I’ll probably post it some time in the future, but it introduces too many elements in my environment that are toxic to its well-being.

I need that environment, so I’ll hang on to it in the back of things until a later time.

I sneezed into my hankerchief and it made an MTV logo. Want to see it?

Fine, I didn’t want to show you anyway!

– Paul

Some people really rub me the wrong way. This surprises and unnerves me, because one of my primary goals in my conduct is to understand the reasoning and motivations of those I associate with. Doing so allows me to review the activities and reactions of that individual in the context of the environment as he or she is aware of it.

This does not mean I agree with that person, become an apologetic for them or allow my position of intended reasonable-ness to be trampled in the event that the person is unreasonable. It is to allow me a justified detachment of “this is what this person thinks and why,” which alleviates an immediate perplexion of, “how can a person possibly assert this view or action in a sane universe?” This latter question has the “sane universe” construct which maps to my own relative perspective in similar fashion.

A person then, in this approach, becomes an encapsulated entity in the manner that they are inserted into my own comprehension and excused from knowing how to operate therein effectively. In exchange, I allow the person his or her own idiosyncrasies and dismiss the related weird manifestations as the ramblings of an individual with these particular oddities.

This typically works, everyone gets to be themselves, and I feel comfortable in my judgment and treatment of others.

Despite this though, some people really bother me. I’m not hard to get along with, and still make the effort, but in some instances I find myself unable to attain that professional separation from the annoyances. Most likely in this case it is because there will be fall out from the object behavior that will affect me; an example being a new boss with passive-aggressive tendencies who has a hand in shaping my professional environment.

I feel a direct structural impact to the world I inhabit as a result of something that I would normally be sheltered from. I could bridge this gap through additional detachment from the environment, but that puts me in a reactive position to buffer a potentially unreasonable assertion from them and abandons something to which I’m attached. It would be easy if I didn’t care, but I like the environment and team I’ve been constructing and I don’t want it fussed with.

All the same, in this case I think abandonment is in my favor anyway. I wonder what the next environment will be like?