Going For It

I’ve sat on this long enough. As soon as I am able, I’m going to travel to places related to Jack and William’s lives. I will have my best and most characterful cameras with me. I’m going to photograph their homes, their graves, the sites of their highest and lowest points in life, places and things that evoke memories in me.

I’m going to publish a photo book. I’m finally coming forward with all this. If it gets me ridicule and accusations of making it up for money, I’ll point out how long I sat on this and how I refused to use my claims to promote my science fiction despite having written way more material in that genre (I have never published a photoessay before).

At first my thought process was “you shouldn’t profit from a miracle, and you shouldn’t promote your claims for money because no one will take you seriously.” And I resisted taking the easy road of claiming Phil’s legacy to sell fiction. I followed the I Ching’s advice on the whole Phil thing. But now when I read the I Ching about my plans for this photography thing? It’s giving me the signal to barrel forward. It’s signaling that I should look to gifts from above and receive the material benefits they might bring.

Also, I am terribly, dangerously unhappy in the US and I want to settle in France, The Netherlands, or Germany. And I could get noticed in France. I’ve loved that place for many a lifetime. I do have concerns about how access to trans healthcare might be though and that might push me into DE or NL. But I feel like I could do worse than becoming an American photographer living in France. I speak the language well enough that I probably won’t starve and I have a French-sounding name which means I could assimilate really well in time. My name is conspicuous in the US but it’s rather common over there.

I’ll quit teasing and tell you my name when the photoessay is out but you could probably dig it up if you’re bored and want to really comb through this blog for clues (surprised nobody creepy has done that yet; I always figured I’d end up some kind of spectacle on the Internet and have to just stop posting and forget about ever talking about past life stuff honestly in public again).

I think just having a chance to not only visit these places, but tell that story in an emotive and evocative way, will be a nice place to bring this all to a close and begin a chapter in my life beyond the lost years this blog represents. I’m ready to turn the page and find a new life.

Maybe for fun though, I’ll drop some hints in the form of ARG-style clues on one of my other blogs every so often. I bet nobody will even bother to solve them.

Shiva’s Dance

The Hindu god Shiva is said to dance frenetically in a graceful balance of creation and destruction. Much the same way as Abraxas was said to be at the crux of being and not being, and Jakob Boehme’s “unground” was the field through which things were created and destroyed.

It’s acknowledged, then, in many philosophies that creation and destruction are complimentary, and that which creates may also destroy and vice versa.

In my present life, I have a good eye for shooting. I’m not going to win any competitions but I’m sufficiently deadly even at longer ranges. My eye is great at judging straight lines, distance, and differences in light and color.

But what makes me deadly also makes me an artist. And while I’m still a long way from maxing out my ability, it feels much the same whether I’m shooting film or bullets. A gun in my hands is just a lethal camera. Shiva creates, Shiva destroys.

And I feel like the camera completes a balance in my life I couldn’t have figured based on past lives. I don’t remember much about cameras in any life before this one; I suspect Jack probably owned a simple box camera and Phil probably had a 110 or 126 camera (I seem to remember having one of those harmonica style 110 cameras). Yet it was my parents in my current life who taught me the art of photography.

Some images from a recent roll of Agfa APX 400, shot in a late 1970s Pentax K1000:

Photos Coming Soon

A while back I dropped off some film rolls. Black and white film takes longer from the lab but I will share the photos I took with the 1916-ish Brownie as soon as I am able.

I will say though: the Brownie is too fragile to use as my go to for lo-fi medium format photos. I will be using the FPP Debonair (similar to the Holga) for lo-fi work in the future.

Is it a violation of my promise to ask for help getting to Ypres if I can show that I’m serious about producing a photo essay of my trip?

With photography you don’t have to hype it. The image speaks for itself. Anyway, it’s not like I’m claiming Ansel Adams as a past life.

Seriously thinking about it. Let’s see what comes out of my medium format experiments.

In the meantime, check out this gorgeous pair of shots I took on 35mm!

Pentax K1000, CineStill 800T, f/22, 15s exposure

I won’t link my photography blog yet but I might soon. Changing media from prose to pictures is freeing.

Detachment

By detaching myself from the outcome of writing some great novel, I have actually been able to dabble a little bit in writing with some fresh ideas to liven up some stale projects.

What I am learning about detachment is that it is outcomes we become attached to more than anything.

I am not attached to the person, I am attached to the outcome of being with them all my life.

I am not attached to the prize, I’m attached to the outcome of winning it.

I am not attached to the object, I’m attached to the outcome of it not breaking.

By letting go of the idea of being recognized as a writer for my work’s own merits, I nonetheless have added merit to my writing. Recognition be damned.

The book I was working on that was heavily inspired by what the shitstorm of anamnesis and psychological abuse did to me in 2011-2013 was getting stale because:

1. I had not figured out how to integrate any new ideas in a while, and
2. I had gotten pings of interest from publishers but, being small niche fiction publishers, they couldn’t justify publishing something that long, so I was ruthlessly cutting it until the prose was getting incredibly sparse and soulless just to tell the whole story.

The first problem has resolved somewhat. I’ve added some ideas that have been inspired by events that transpired since I stopped work on the book more than a year ago. I’ve decided to revive some ideas I abandoned at a publisher’s suggestion to cut length.

I’m going to write the book I always wanted to write. I’m going to self-publish it, and I’m going to spend a little to promote it. But I’ll finish in my own time and I’m no longer looking to make a career out of this. Right now I’m more interested in seeing if I can get anywhere with all these old film cameras and lenses Dad sent. Wait til I get some shots with the Graflex!

Big Change

This has been a long time coming, but the suicide of a friend who was a much greater writer than myself in 2021 and the general lack of new inspiration since discovering past lives has led to a point of stagnation where writing is painful to me. Almost to the point where sitting down and trying to do it feels like self-harm.

I took the advice “open a vein and bleed” a little too personally. My trauma – past and present – became my muse. I bled from wounds centuries old and some only years or decades old. It became less about healing the more I had to revise my work to make it worth publishing.

I tried to keep going, in my friend’s memory, but have produced very little new material since then. And I have reached the conclusion that after three years of finding no joy in my writing whatsoever, I don’t think it’s coming back.

I’m walking away from writing as my main outlet for self-expression. I can put my feelings into photography and it doesn’t require me to get bogged down in years of trying to polish increasingly rough, half-baked ideas laden with recollections of painful memories.

My past life as Philip K. Dick, if indeed I was him, doesn’t obligate me to be the same person in every way. I already proved to myself and my friends and family I could still write mind-bending SF like I did back in the day but at the end of the day my heart’s not in it any more. Photography is helping me connect with my emotions in a healthier way, getting me active and motivated. And it could be more lucrative if I stick to the fine art aspect of it.

Still not feeling right about promoting any of my written work here though that may change. Some of my written work is out there for free already. At any rate, expect a photo essay in 4×5″ and 35mm when I finally get to Ypres.