Test prints: Ashton Worthington.
“I fully realize that no wealth of position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice; therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealously, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude towards others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself.”
—Napoleon Hill, 1883-1970
The 2011 pages of Superbiate & Son described a liminal period between a timeless-but-outgrown archive of commercial photographs and another, deeper place in my heart.
“Place”… Maybe a poor choice of word. All I’ve come recognize in life are spirals.
(But it suits that sentence construction.)
Walk long enough and one finds the beginning again and again, beginning and end always underfoot. Whenever I stop to review the past few years I know the velocity, and it has a certain sadness. There’s only so much you can carry on a trek, and there’s only so far that the companions met along the way can travel. We’re all trying to find our own best truths in this too-short lifetime, and that everyday miracle of aligned paths – no matter for how long – is one worthy of celebration. And release.
Understanding how to reserve a space for life’s spiral by living with open hands; learning to wear an open heart for the benefit of those around me; forgetting fear. These are major aspects of the essential education 2011 brought, and it came the hard way. The Dalai Lama’s 18th rule for living spells it out clearly enough:
“Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.”
To look back and understand the gift, to record the wish for another chance in the sand, and to let the ocean wash the regrets away. Rededication.
Serenity comes. Clarity follows. Energy renews, and tending to the garden of my life through 2012 and beyond will need all of this (and so much more).
From this post onward I’m going to use Superbiate & Son to annotate my creative life with an eye towards absolute authenticity. Taking the time (but not too much) to clarify my thoughts and process into something publishable will be an important exercise for me, and hopefully the product can prove useful to my small-but-real readership.
In particular if you’re on the run-up to taking your own leap of becoming. Whatever your dream may be, do know that you’ll someday have to leap to reach it.
And you’ll have to do it alone.
But don’t worry about it too much: there’s plenty of company, up here in the air.
