and i score...

one day in july...

addicted to going

home sucks. or at least i suck when i'm at home.
not even the fourth day of 40 degree weather counts as an excuse. i get pleasure in getting away, i get things done when i get away. i'm addicted to not being here.

forgotten fear

anxiety overcomes me. i have doubted my skill.
for months i've been looking forward to a three-day solo bike trip, and then two sentences from my father get me thinking about the irrational. and i can't control it. the fear of crashing somewhere in the montenegrin mountains. and i know i won't back down, either.
after 15 years of biking, probably 50,000 kilometers, and not a single traffic accident - i'm afraid of three days of riding. i need to reassure myself. this is who i am, what i've become after years of biking, hiking, studying different outdoor skills and overcoming fears. i cannot be reverting to the scared little boy who thought he'd never reach his dreams involving bike, cameras and far-off landscapes. all because of what his daddy said...
the thing that actually annoys me the most is not that i'm susceptible to the words coming from certain people - that's something i consider normal (to some extent). i'm annoyed by the fact that after a long time i'm not able to control a very simple emotion, which is derailing my train of thought. and i derive my sense of security from the fact that i know i can control my emotional reactions in moments of crisis. and now someone dropped a spanner in my mechanism.
this is about growing up. this is about leaving things behind, but more importantly going places, particularly places other people don't get to. and solely because that is your dream, the one you pursue for your own sake. we never really abandon the child in us...

i think i'll go start packing my bike, two weeks in advance, just to get reacquainted with my old experience, to get back the big picture, which should dwarf my puny concerns...

beneath the starry sky…

it’s been an age-old tendency to gaze at the stars above and ponder one’s insignificance and transience. so it’s no wonder that given the opportunity to gaze at them (there’s to much light pollution at home, and in any case there’s too many other things to do) i revert back to the old way of thinking.
i’m not one of the people that fears death, subconsciously but deliberately ignoring it on a daily basis. it’s there. it happens, and it will inevitably happen to me as well as to you. the question is what do you do with this piece of information. some people don’t get pets for their children because the pet will die sooner or later, and then the child will be heartbroken. but life is not about ignoring such things. people tend to focus only on that ultimate moment, and always associate it solely with grief – but isn’t that the moment when you close your account on earth – and the balance most likely is not in the red!
i wear a dog tag around my neck. there’s only one. it’s a piece of functional jewelry – it contains my emergency information. over the years i’ve been ridiculed for it, but it’s there to remind me of the fragility of my body, the limitations that exist in this world, and of the caution that should be exercised in order not to cut short my stay in it. it’s there as a celebration of life!
too many times have i been in situations where someone has had an accident, mainly involving slightly more challenging sports. us city-folk tend to look at nature as though it’s the neighborhood park – it’s grass and trees and perhaps a hill or two. caution into the wind! and the sea is actually a pool. it takes such a small step away from the narrow path or ski slope to make us see a whole different world. the question always arises whether you can take that same step back.
so as i sit beneath the starry, starry sky, contemplating the various aspects of the big bike trip that awaits me in one month, which ends in this same place, i feel the need to address the issue of mortality, and to celebrate life for what it is – the only great adventure that truly exists. and if i should happen not to make it back from this trip or the next, let the moment be in remembrance of the things that i did do, not that one thing that i didn’t.

natural vs. not...

natural is what we are. regardless of all the technology and pollution, we are still 60% water, and the rest is proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and a crucial pinch of nucleic acids. we are biologically as much part of nature as any other being on the planet – but as a society we tend to mess things up.
so i’ve asked myself so many times – if i tend to live as a biological natural being, should i resist the urge to try and play with my photos? should i take additional advantage of the digital format (the primary advantages being the low price-per-image and small physical size)?
and then since i don’t recognize edited pictures as being part of my work, i find myself with a picture in hand (the result of overexposure) that i don’t know what to do with. so i place it here, where i can raise the question unmistakably – how far should we allow ourselves to go in distorting nature?

being there…

for some people taking pictures is about the absolute expression - this would mean controlling all aspects of what ends up being included in a visual work. i cannot subscribe to such a view. for me it’s about getting THERE, the place where IT is happening. and then the only thing you need is your eye, a camera and the right index finger. so starting the day out with the plan to enjoy my surrounding i ended up with a spectacular day, visiting several places i’d never been before, making several dozen pictures that i wouldn’t object putting my name to, and just taking it easy. that’s what its all about.
and then when i look back at how many times i yesterday praised such days, and when i think about the months to come, i cannot but grin wider than the cheshire cat, and say – i’m loving it!
and when the autumn rains come, and when people start shutting their windows and closing blinds, somewhere, somehow i’ll share the views and places i’ve visited and seen, and it will all be warm again.

wicked tech...

when i was a kid i used to dread the last week of august. that was the time when you were supposed to prepare for school, stand in line for textbooks, say goodbye to freedom and await the inevitable confinement called school. and it was also the time when boredom would lead my mind to stray into its darkest corners, where issues of death and despair lurked.
i yearn for that boredom now. workaholism has consumed my being and i cannot seem to stop for longer than it takes to catch my breath. and that darn technology is there to help me along – such as now. sitting in the yard of my friend’s ancestral home, in a village miles away from anything that might be called a town – i still have the means to put up this entry.
and in the background i hear geese and wind, someone chopping wood. flies buzz around me, oblivious to my indifference. the hum of the fan on my laptop reminds me that there is something unnatural, non-indigenous in this picture. but it is this piece of tech that provides that small outlet where i can tell the world – PLEASE STOP. to smell the roses.