The nature of nature is very clear about this concept. Anything I don’t use nature has a way of taking it away. It could be physical attributes like muscles, or mental acumen. The point I am pondering is that should it be a guiding principle on how to live my life or there is a room for something that I use less and still not make it useless.
Is this nature’s way of telling me that living a life of rat race is a necessity? Or is this innate trait is what drives us to live a life constantly chasing tomorrows. Scared to stop lest we become useless. Then what about reverse? When something has become useless, nature compensates by strengthening other elements in the system. If one were to lose eyesight, nature enhances the other senses. So why is that I am not able to apply this principle to my living? Why is that I am always stuck in the rat race. I should walk away from the sweat, tears and agony of the pursuit of happiness and seek other things that enhances other aspects of my life.
The lens setup you see is from circa 2006. That was my first digital point and shoot camera brimming with all the bells & whistles of a very high end digital SLR. That camera cost me 4x a typical P&S camera, but it was way ahead of its time. It has EVF, tilting view finder, full manual control, video recording, albeit limited to 640×480 and only 2 minutes, and more interestingly a facility to record 30 sec. audio with image so that you can say where you took it or whatever fancies you. It had a 7x zoom and Minolta quality. Then I had added a custom bracket to attach a Olympus Tcon 300, a 3X zoom, and another Tcon14B to add another 1.4x. So my final focal length was a whopping 840mm zoom lens on a P&S camera. Most importantly, this little gem had live view and by practicing taking ETTR images, I have learned about shutter speed, aperture and iso relationships looking at the histogram. It took about 5 years for the mainstream to provide the info. and not all the top models provided the feature since it requires an electronic view finder, not optical view finder.
The above image was taken from atop Diamond Head, Waikiki, Oahu. The light house was about couple miles (at least) out. I lugged the then heavy contraption to the top of the Diamond Head on a hot day. Not a bad picture for a P&S camera, IMHO. One below is taken with the same set up in front of my home, handheld, and the image is straight out of camera, since I do not have Picasa anymore on my new computer, and all the changes are left behind on my old computer. Not bad for a P&S camera contraption. This was circa 2006.
Since then, I have moved on to DSLR and this gem of a P&S and this set up has been used less and less. Is it useless? Intellectual in me says so, and is it used less? I have not taken the setup out in almost 15 years.
The meta question that is hanging like a sword of Damocles over my head is that have I become useless now that I use less of my hard-earned career/life experience?
I go through tide and ebb of my retirement, mainly because it happened and not necessarily out of my own volition. It was something I was mulling over a time but did not muster courage to pull the trigger. Since it was thought of, but not deliberate on my part, the nagging feeling of letting myself down, pops up during the ebbing moments. Though the tides of this living outweigh the ebbs, nevertheless the ebbs keep popping up. I am self-aware that this is only in my head space and has no bearing upon my physical, financial and to a large extent my emotional reality. In fact, post retirement my health has improved considerably. It took a bit of getting used to the loss of paycheck and associated self-esteem, the former has resolved due to a reasonable retirement strategy and some reprofiling of my financial obligations and consequently restored my emotional health. I am not bemoaning any aspects of my life, but it is the constant churn about could I have used more and not less of my skills, and associated feeling of becoming more and more useless. So, by all typical “keeping up with Joneses” metrics one would use to measure a person’s life/achievements, I did not do too badly. The nagging feeling about falling short based on my own expectations keeps coming back. I am still ambivalent about this ebb. Is it because the retirement did not happen out of my own volition or is it that I fell short of my expectations and hence did not end my career on a high note? I guess that is one of those dragons I need to slay alone. If I never slay that dragon, I suppose I need to learn to live with it for the rest of life.
As for my photography goes, though my earlier equipment which I used to learn the “fun”damentals of photography is rendered “useless”, though the camera is still functional, I have moved on to DSLRs and use the aforementioned P&S is now used less. As nature would compensate for losing a particular ability by enhancing other abilities, I did find ways and means to enhance my photos. When I compensated for what is by now used less set up with a beefier alternative as shown below, I did overcome of the uselessness resulting from using less.
Oh, by the way I was rewarded well by the afore mentioned compensation.
A far cry from my early P&S days. I will be the first one to admit that I may be drawing a false equivalency between my photography equipment being rendered useless because it is being used less or vice versa, and my personal angst about how I felt compelled to take a path by external factors. Does everyone who is “forced” to retire like a cop or a teacher or a government employee feel the same way? Does misery love company {in this case}? Well, it is what it is, as the saying goes. More questions than answers. Something gnawing in the deep folds of my head: what if I gave myself permission to new possibilities and open to what the day has to offer?
Epilog: You may think I am being (over) dramatic about my emotional state. You may even take it to its logical conclusion and say I am trivializing depression and related mental health issues. My sincere apologies if you feel that way. It is not my intention to trivialize mental health disorders, but far from it. What I wrote here is what I felt/feel, and it is real to me and for me.
