Neville Ronan Blog

Last night I drove over to Jax where, she, Maria, and I played with a new fog machine to see what kind of images we could make.

We didn’t really have any pre-planned notions other than to try so once the machine itself started to work, we just looked at each other wondering what poses we could make.

It was definitely an experimentation 101 class and the three of us had no prior experience.

We had to make several adjustments along the way but we got the Lume Cube lights positioned correctly from the outset. The evening breeze was the true mischief-maker as each change in direction caused us to restart from a different position.

When you are experimenting in the company of fellow experimenters, failure never happens. No one gets impatient. Everyone throws ideas into the mix and if you are lucky, as I was, some of the ideas work out.

Here are five of my favorites from the evening (at the end of the blog) and I hope you like them.

As Jax said this morning, when I sent them to her, the images have spawned further ideas in her head for our next attempt. And so the learning process has taken root.

Fog is in many ways a challenging element to work with but great fun once you figure it out. And once you emerge from the fog, it is amazing how clear things can become.

From an evening shrouded in fog, immersed in memories of the last time we did an experimental shoot with Brittany, I awoke this morning to a stunningly clear sky.

And the metaphor struck home on such a strong level.

Fog is a medium of confusion and when we live through fog it is difficult to move forward in a defined path. Things appear suddenly as obstacles or impediments to our plans and we often have to detour to get around them.

Fog can engulf us and linger for an undefined period of time. It can blow in from nowhere and suddenly dominate our life.

Some fog is natural and just falls into the “shit happens” category. Other is man-made and in many ways the latter is the worst.

I don’t mean worst in intensity, because life can serve us up some pretty confusing scenarios to work through. No. I mean worse in the sense that it is unnecessary and often doesn’t accommodate rational thinking.

We like to think of ourselves as rational beings, with the ability to reason but man-made fog often defies reason and therefore cannot be rationally worked through.

For example (skip the next couple of paragraphs if you are a republican), the fog that consumed America for the past four years engulfed the country in a divisive and hate-filled manner. If you are a socially conscious and empathetic individual with a genuine concern for all living creatures and the planet, then you would have spent the last four years wondering how 60 million people could be OK with racism, misogyny, fascism, and corruption.

If you are one of those corrupt racist, fascist, misogynists, then I told you to skip these two paragraphs.

But seriously, the arrival of COVID and the loss of all remaining semblance of normality, added to the fog on a very substantial level and developed a mentality that was just geared to keeping your head down and hoping that you make it out the other side alive.

As an individual, the only possible play for any of us was to wear a mask and half the country couldn’t be bothered, making it almost futile for those of us that do.

Beyond fog on such a national level, there are also many times when we create fog in our own lives by adding issues in that in general are either irrelevant to us or frankly none of our business.

For example, we can live a life where we insert an importance on what other people are doing with their own bodies and we line up outside women’s health centers holding plastic fetuses for shock value.

Can you imagine the life that those people live? They have elevated a social or religious or political issue to where it has become a main element of their lives. They spend a major portion of their time involved in an issue that really has nothing to do with them. They live in a fog.

Or how about the folks that attach such significance to an old flag from a racist past that they fly it at home, mount it on their pickup, wear it as a t-shirt, or tattoo it on their arm.

It was simply a battle flag meant to rally a brave army, but it evolved into a symbol of white supremacy and hate. Why march in cities and disrespect the victims of racism and hate? Why build a life around your involvement in such a hate group?

These folk live in a fog where they allow such garbage to run their lives. For what purpose? At the end of the day, do they get awarded a slave that makes their lives better somehow?

No. At the end of the day they die. Just like we all do.

And like all these fog issues, they consume portions of lives that are never recovered. Some people live in these fogs for years.

When the fog clears there is a realization of what life is really about. And it is very simple.

Love

Love of those around you and love of this planet we live on.

Simple as that.

Our final thoughts are never going to be that we wish we could go one one more march or stand outside one more women’s center.

Our final thoughts are going to be that we wish we could have one more kiss or embrace from those we love. One more moment to share our love with those we care for.

How sad if we wait until our death bed before we finally get a clear view of the meaning of life.

… just a thought.

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No, not detergents… things that work to deter you from whatever your plans are. But, more about that later.

It was another early start. Poor night sleep led to an early rise and once the little furry friends were taken care of, I hopped in the car with a faithful cup of coffee and drove down to Ballast Pointe, a few miles south of downtown Tampa.

In Lakeland, it was very overcast and rainy. My head was sore and my stomach was sick, and I was insanely tired for just having gotten up, but I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from this journey.

It wasn’t that I needed another sunrise for my portfolio of work … I needed it for my soul. In crazy times like these it is easy to forget to feed our soul and then we go through these patches where life feels merely an existence. And a sad one, at that.

So, all the drive down I sipped gently on my coffee, trying to give my head time to catch up with the rest of my body.

But any feel-sorry-for-myself notions disappeared when I pulled into the parking lot beside a pick-up truck and noticed a young couple asleep in the front while all their possessions were piled high in the back. I guess making America great didn’t include them.

So I quietly finished the ends of my coffee and stepped out without slamming the door and walked towards the pier.

It was still quite dark. This dark:

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But I could tell that the clouds here were breaking up and there was every prospect of a sunrise if things would stay this way.

Anyway I did get a bunch of pics and have attached them at the end of the blog (including one that I altered to put something on the end of the fisherman’s line). I hope you enjoy and at least you get to see the progression from darkness to sunrise.

There were other folks there seeing in the new start to the day, just like me. Fishermen, joggers, cyclists, singles, lovers, families … even other camera guys.

And as I drove home I was thinking about how all of them made the effort to get there in time for this natural event and wondered what obstacles they had to overcome to do so.

At the very least, they had to get out from under the warm covers but perhaps some had to make a special effort.

And I examined my own effort and the issues that got in my way to try to deter me from doing this, this morning.

Deterrents are real and exist on almost every avenue we try to travel. Those who live their lives along a path of least resistance may not even notice them, but I view deterrents as the price you have to pay for doing something.

Sometimes the result is well worth the price and others not so much.

But this life adventure we are on doesn’t come with a money-back guarantee.

And that is fine. As I have said many times before, it is the journey itself that makes life worth living, not the destination.

Some deterrents are internal (not feeling well, tired, or whatever) and others external (detours, car problems, or whatever), and while we should indeed listen to them, we should never allow them to dictate whether we do or don’t embark on that journey.

Weigh them as factors, but that is all.

When we give such weight to them that they disable our plans, then our lives become just a little less and the sun rises for nothing.

… just a thought!

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As much as yesterday morning’s shoot was about darkness, last night’s shoot was about light.

I know that sounds upside down, but welcome to the life of Neville Ronan.

I had time to kill, waiting for a meeting (that eventually got cancelled) and rather than stay at home on the sofa, I decided to head down to Tampa to see what I might see.

In these COVID times, the folks that run Tampa have turned off many of the lights that add so much color to the inner city. I suspect they are trying to discourage people from converging on the city center.

And to a large degree, it worked. The crowds were sparse and those that were there seemed to be heading somewhere else. Unlike me.

I parked over at the University of Tampa on the opposite side of the river and so that became my starting point for this camera adventure.

And as I looked across at the skyline and pondered how the only change was the absence of lights on the river walk, since last I had shot it. None of the buildings had moved, nothing had burnt down, and everything looked too familiar to the last images taken.

So I walked deeper into the university grounds to where their boat ramp floats just inches above the water surface and I threw my energies into just capturing images of reflections of the city, rather than the city itself.

I enjoyed how they came out.

They are at the end of the blog here with a couple of light trace images and one of a people walking-blur to cap it all off. Hope you enjoy!

So anyway, today’s thought then is really all about adapting and being able to think on the fly about alternatives.

I have touched on this before in earlier blog form, I know. But last night’s plans were completely wiped out by lights turned off and a cancelled meeting, yet I still went to bed at evening’send pleased with how I had spent it.

In truth, I am not exactly certain what I was intending to shoot when I headed off downtown, but I thought I would have the riverwalk lights to amuse myself with while there. But that was not to be.

Sometimes we set out in one direction only to find that a factor outside our control, cancels or at least mitigates what we can accomplish.

We adjust to these situations and while some would stop and cancel plans, that isn’t a good option.

Adjustment to plans is a key way in which we learn … we have to follow an uncharted path, stepping outside our comfort zone and try to find a way forward.

Sometimes the adjustment doesn’t pan out. It leads nowhere or produces a dissatisfaction of some sort and that happens to us all.

But that’s OK

It’s how we expand ourselves. It’s how we knowledgeably know that an alternative is not what we want.

But sometimes, it does lead somewhere and we find ourselves looking at reflected light across rippling waters. And our mind stretches. We begin to see shapes and patterns. We take from it.

And that is a win.

I am not saying any of my images should win an award, but in my mind they are pleasing and at the end of the day, that is my real master.

Our own minds are the key instrument with which we decide to enjoy or dislike something. Other people can tell us until they are blue in the face how wonderful something is, but for it to stick, we need to feel it ourselves.

So, deciding whether an alternative action produced a good result or not is a personal position that we take.

It becomes very much a “glass half-full” moment and one that should be cherished, Remember, it only takes two such moments for our glass to be full.

… just a thought.

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I had been awake for hours and finally rolled out of bed so that I could begin the cat-care tasks of the day.

The first impression was that it was colder than the day before and it immediately gave thought to it being another clear sky.

Suffice to say that this notion accelerated my footsteps and it wasn’t long before the kitties were moved and fed, and yours truly was on his way to the lake, camera in hand and coffee cup within reach.

I know I was just there yesterday, but as I was this early, I decided I wanted to focus solely on the civil twilight that occurs roughly a half hour before sunrise. I didn’t really have an interest in the sunrise itself.

The drive down was solid black. Not a notion of what the skies above me held, although I was quietly confident that they would be clear or mostly clear.

When I hit the lake itself, it was really the first time I saw anything that resembled a horizon and it was a fake horizon caused by lights on the opposite shore.

As I walked closer to the water, there was a splash in front of me … a sizable one and I realized I must have disturbed a resting alligator. I have no idea what size she was, but the volume of the splash made me happy that she was more scared of me than I of her.

The first couple of locations I chose were actually a bust for differing reasons, but as I was so early, I had time to regroup and find a better spot that gave me the view I wanted.

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So I hope you like the shots at the end of the blog. And in the meantime, here is a panoramic that you can browse across should you wish.

It was on the drive back home that I began to muse about the whole concept of darkness and the notions we have attached to it.

I mean, I was happily driving into it without thought one way or the other, but some people fear darkness as if it is something to fear.

Firstly, darkness is merely the absence of light … it doesn’t inherently have anything waiting in it (other than perhaps a sleeping alligator).

But why have we coined so many phrases that try to associate good with light and bad with dark?

“Go towards the light” is the ultimate instruction given to those parting from this planet and is a statement of a heaven of some sort.

Evil lurking in dark shadows is the counter-concept that we have been groomed into thinking from vampire movies to the romantic “ghost” movie.

We humor kids (even grown up ones) that can’t sleep in the dark and we leave a nightlight on.

Western movies show the good guys on white horses, wearing white hats, while the villains apparently only purchase their hats and horses at the dark store.

Humor that is delivered with an edgy element is categorized as Dark Humor, while lies told for a “good reason” are White Lies.

Is it any wonder then that historically, good christians were able to see white folk as pure and black folk as having being marked by satan?

No, the truth is, we as humans have mastered a way to categorize life and its elements by coining phrases that appear fact-based, when they are merely a spin.

True evil doesn’t hide in the shadows or lurk in the dark. Sometimes it takes the form of a white man in a white house who tries to convey his lies as being white ones. “I didn’t want to cause panic” lol

Darkness was historically not a human domain. Our eyes and other senses were never intended to do well in a dark environment.

We breached that domain first when we discovered fire and now live effectively a 24-hour existence.

We have encroached on true creatures of the night, and forced our light into their world. We steal their environment and then drown out what is left with artificial light. Is it any wonder so many millions of sea turtles are lost in the confusion?

Darkness is a haven to many in the world. Creatures that happily adjust to the transition where light no longer dominates the proceedings. Bats, owls, possums all thrive in the darkness and for them it is light that brings danger their way.

So, whenever we inherit a fear, suspicion, or dread, we should ask ourselves why?

Are we responding to what someone else would have us believe or do shadows deserve our response to them.

Embrace the darkness … it can be a wonderful source of peace and quiet and might well be just moments away from delivering a beautiful twilight.

… just a thought.

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Given yesterday’s loss of sunrise, I woke in the darkness to a resolution not to accept that as a defeat. But rather, to get out of bed early again and see if I might have more luck this morning.

So after organizing the kitty patrol, and making sure all were fed and in place, I grabbed a coffee and raced off into the darkness towards Lake Parker.

There was a distinct chill in the air, which signaled a clearer sky to me, so I had some degree of confidence that I might be in for a better sunrise.

As I drove down the road, recharging my system with a shot of caffeine, I began to make out that it was in fact a mostly clear sky and therefore, the possibility was that I would get something.

Raised expectation is a good motivator and I was definitely in good spirits as I hit lake edge on the west shoreline.

I didn’t even minD that in the first few shots, I stumbled a little to close and my right foot went into the waters. (My toes are still wet as I write this). Undeterred, I continued to capture shots that showed the progression as the sky worked its magic for my lens.

And to make matters better, all the mosquitoes stayed in bed under the blankets because they don’t really do well in these chilly mornings.

So firstly, here are the panoramics that I got and at the end of the blog are all my “regular” shots. I hope you like!

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For the record, coffee never tastes better than on a chilly morning. It was one of my takeaways from the morning’s experience.

The other main takeaway was that my nipples are an effective early warning system … when they are up, I am safe from mosquitoes. Point noted!

Anyway, the main actual takeaway from this morning, was that following up a failure with an immediate second attempt can be a real mood-changer.

Because if/when you experience success with the follow-up attempt, you dismiss the earlier failure as simply a step on the ladder towards eventual success.

No matter the tunnel, there is always a light at the end of it. You just have to be willing to keep going.

There are some people for whom success comes easy and fair enough, I am happy for them.

But for the rest of us, success normally follows on the heals of failure and oftentimes only after several attempts.

Like sunrises, much of the success we crave is not within our control. There was nothing I could possibly have done to create a sunrise and in much of the important stuff, there is nothing we can actually do either. Other than try, that is.

Because trying is what positions us to be in the right place at that right time.

If I stayed in bed half an hour longer, yes, I would have been warm and cozy, but I would have missed out on witnessing such beauty. And the charge that this beauty has given me has lifted my spirits to their highest point in weeks and I am ready for what the week will throw in my direction.

While failure brings experience, success brings benefits and unless we are spending our life chasing windmills, most of us will find that the benefits are ultimately worth the heartaches of having had to work so hard for it.

So, I guess what I am saying is, while staying under the covers is always an option, it isn’t likely to bring you closer to your goals. But by sustained trying, we can get there. No matter how deep the tunnel, they all end.

If it doesn’t then it was a cave and you should have known better than to wander off into a dark cave!

… just a thought!

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It was somewhere around 2 am when Rocky decided I needed to be awake, so he began putting his paw on my face and incessantly purring. I remember giving a half-baked stroke on his back and essentially trying to ignore him.

But by the time, my first text of the day came in at 4:30 (a dear friend telling me her baby just had kittens), I was already well-awake.

It wasn’t exactly how I had planned to begin my work week, so I lay there with my eyes mostly closed in absolute refusal to acknowledge the presence of another Monday.

By the time 5:15 had happened, Rocky was in Marcy’s room with fresh food and water, Marcy in the living room and Marty out on the deck. They had fresh food but no one was really where they wanted to be. But for now, that is all I could come up with.

Moments later, I was downstairs giving breakfast to Coco, Lola, Daisy, Tetsuo, Everest, Lincoln, Beauty, and Fluffy (our latest stray). Chaos reigned and I stood there in the darkness listening to the chomping sounds of eight little cats and kittens.

I checked my phone and it said sunrise would be at 6:49, so I had time to set off for the lake, camera in hand. So, I made a coffee and that is exactly what I did.

Left the chaos and as the first sip of caffeine entered my system, I was leaving the driveway and the day was starting to come into focus.

Fast forward to 6:49 and if the sun did break the horizon, I cannot attest to it. The skies were engulfed in thick grey cloud and there was barely a hint of light anywhere that I could see.

And this is what I traded breakfast for? How disappointing.

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The cup of coffee that I had brought with me was pretty much gone by this stage and with the added joy of mosquitoes buzzing too close for comfort, I decided to retreat to the comfort of the car and call this a day.

And so as I drove home, I mused about how so many trades in life tend not to pan out.

I mean, we continually trade things for something else on a daily basis always on the assumption that what we are trading for is better than what we have. Yet in all truth, so many are not.

I mean, Rocky desperately wanted out of my bedroom and raced in to Marcy’s room only to find that she wasn’t there and now he is stuck there for a few hours.

Marcy eagerly wanted out of Rocky’s room and ran downstairs to the living room, but there is no one to play with, so she too is disappointed.

And Marty wanted out of Marcy’s room, only to find himself out on the deck now when he would much rather be inside.

Dissatisfaction is a motivator in many ways and it propels us forward in unknown directions. We make a “move” decision based on our reading of our current position and weigh it against the possibility of something different.

But there is a reason why “the grass is always greener on the other side” is such a well-worn phrase.

Being content is not the same as being stagnant and there is a peace that comes with it that can in its own way be very fulfilling.

Not every movement is forward and not every change is for the good.

But our nature is such that we routinely take for granted whatever we have and imagine or even crave for something different.

We make our “change” decisions based upon flawed hope rather than logic and find ourselves regretting the decision, more often than not.

The Declaration of Independence gives us the right of the pursuit of happiness, so we are very much entitled to do so. But too much focus is on the pursuit and less so the happiness.

We might well already have found happiness in the comfort of our pillow and the darkness of our room.

I should have stayed in bed.

… just a thought.

The evening that Brittany passed, I took my sad ass down to our favorite sunset spot on the east side of Lake Parker.

It is a little concrete pier that extends out over the water by perhaps 200 feet from the shore and gives a lovely vantage point of wherever the sun might be falling on the opposite side of the lake.

For a couple of years now, it has been my go-to sunset spot that didn’t involve an hour’s drive somewhere.

The skies were crystal clear and the air was fresh. And the sun dropped with all its splendor without the aid of nearby clouds to exaggerate red and violets.

It was a simple sunset; simple and pure.

Brittany and I had gone there many times, generally with her hoop and music, sometimes with a beer, and always with a mutual joy in watching the official end to a day.

This time it was different. Apart from the sadness of the day’s earlier news, there was genuinely a loneliness that swept in from the lake and muted the glory of the moment.

I thought. I remembered. I savored. and for a moment I imagined her watching the sun disappear with me. Hence this pic.

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But in reality, I couldn’t quite get there.

At the bottom of the blog, I show the sun’s progression and hope you enjoy these shots.

But the main thought that I was left with, was a simple and profound one. There is no going back.

We can wish with all our heart, but nothing we can do in our present or aim for in our future will ever take us back. And the reason is simple. Time changes everything. It keeps ticking away and ten minutes after a moment, that moment no longer is the same.

I remember wrestling with that whole concept first when I lost my Dad and then my Mom. The loss stole what my heart felt was my home. Ireland, with my parents.

Whenever I visited over the years prior to their deaths, it always felt like I was going home.

And that is because their presence there masked the realities that time was changing the landscape that had fashioned all my memories from there.

So, when they were suddenly gone and the mask was removed, it laid bare the realities that the Ireland of my youth only existed in my heart.

And there is a sadness that comes with that realization, particularly to emigrants like myself. We make our choices, move at will, and one day realize what we have lost in the process.

Had we stayed in our home land, we would have absorbed the changes on a gradual basis and likely not recognized the loss on the scale that it now suddenly hits us.

There is an old saying that “you can never go home”. And the truth is profound. The word “home” though refers to anything in our past. It isn’t simply a place. It’s a place in time.

Incidentally, because that place in time only exists in the form of a memory in our heart, we oftentimes gloss it up a bit. We remember it the way we want to and discard the bits that don’t fit with our memory. Which in turn makes it even more impossible to return there, because the truth is that it likely didn’t really exist in the first place.

It is one of the reasons why a hate family pictures and in particular pics of children. Everyone smiles in those pics. Even little Johnny at the back is told “smile for the camera” and he does.

So, years later when we look back through those pictures and see all the smiles, we imagine them to be happier than they were. Little Johnny may be serving five consecutive life sentences for a mass murder, but aaah look how happy he was back then.

The search for “home” in that respect is very much a search for the holy grail and for many of us it can become a lightning rod for disappointment and frustration. Despite our best efforts we will never find it again.

And the reality is that we shouldn’t.

Life is a progression. From start to finish. Going backwards is a fools errand because it defeats the purpose of the progression. Life is to be a journey and a journey that we develop through. Gaining new experiences. Some good and some bad. But all the time moving forward.

Home and the people there, are best served in our memories. Memories that are cherished, polished up, warmed a little, and served ready for our soul to consume at times of upset or sadness.

I have been feasting on mine all week.

And the wonderful thing about that kind of soul food, is that no matter how much you consume them, they are always still there for the next feeding frenzy.

… just a thought.

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Yesterday the world lost a very special young lady and I lost a very special friend.

No one should leave the world at 29 and least of all people that bring such joy and life to those they share their life with.

Brittany was one of those people. The kind of person that we, who live in her afterglow, yearn for. She was such a source of joy that love followed her every move. Anyone of us lucky enough to experience her fell in love with her soul.

Because her soul was life-giving, caring, and gentle.

She was wiser than her years by far and many evenings were spent shared on the sofa locked in animated argument over political or socially dividing issues. Her mind was every bit as beautiful as her body was and I loved her for it.

She filled my heart with many memories that will be held very special within me for the rest of my own life.

She lived with us here for a while, she worked with our little company, she walked trails with me, modeled for me, went to the movies with me, and watched sunsets with me.

So, yesterday evening, upon hearing of her death I took myself off to the spot where we watched so many sunsets and watched yesterday disappear below the horizon on my own.

On many occasions, she would bring her hoop and play with it as the sun dropped, listening to the strains of her music interrupted only by the incessant sounds of a shutter clicking.

She didn’t mind … my camera loved her almost as much as I did. And my picture library is filled with some wonderful images that will (at least for a while) be painful to see.

She occupies a month in my calendar for 2021; the one I had just sent off for printing. And I know August will be bitter-sweet for me in so many ways.

I don’t believe we ever really recover from certain losses in our life. Some of them leave such a hole that time can’t even put a band-aid over, let alone heal. The hole that Brittany leaves in my heart will never be filled.

Nor do I want it to be filled. It is a marker for the piece of heart she took with her as she left this world and I give it to her freely.

Rest in Peace, Brittany … the world is a little less bright today.

I got up to walk to the coffee machine a few moments ago and looking out the office window, saw some of the furry creatures that own my heart, just hanging out on the steps that lead up to the house.

I paused for a moment, mid-step and just soaked in the scene.

It’s an absolutely gorgeous day outside and while I sit in here at the PC trying to figure out if there is anything that resembles a business-life after COVID, these little guys are just soaking in the moments and breathing in the fresh air.

I sneaked out, with my camera to catch this shot, and unsurprisingly, was caught by one of the sentries as I took up a shooting position at the rear.

I should have known. You can never sneak up on a feral kitten, even when they are stuck in mid-dream. It might have been a crunch of a dried leaf under my step that gave me away, but once their wariness was satisfied that I meant no harm, I was still allowed to take this shot for you.

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As I sat back down at the PC and called up the image from the camera, my inner-self smiled at the moment and at the same time castigated myself for the stress I am under.

You see, it’s easy to absorb all the stresses of COVID, and its work impact, the impending election tomorrow, and the hateful stances of many of my fellow Floridians.

We can easily internalize any of these issues and turn them into an issue that drives our mind, wrecks our sleep, and makes us feel generally ill.

And in truth, up until this moment under the stairs, I admittedly have done.

But pausing from my miseries and looking at the calm and restful moment that sat in front of me, quickly pulled into perspective how silly all of that is, when there is a life to be lived that is full of fresh air, warm sunshine, and an occasional lizard to chase.

Yes there are definitely times when things happen on a very subjective level. We suffer injury, crash our car, lose our job. Things of that nature that happen directly to us.

And when they do, they deserve our attention and we are completely correct in licking our wounds.

But in truth, the vast majority of things that cause stress and upset in our lives are external things that we allow to cross over into our lives as though they were internal. Our football team loses, our choice for president loses, some idiots rant online about a topic that is entirely alien to our way of thinking.

This is where perspective really plays a part in how we manage to overcome and ultimately put into the correct box each of these issues and leave them for someone else to worry about.

I struggle when faced with what I consider idiotic stances and policies on a range of social issues. The fact that I am a flaming liberal living in a red state, means that I come across this shit on a routine level.

And I do admit that there are many instances where the idiocy gets under my skin and causes an irritation.

But at the end of the day, that is all these external issues are … irritations. They are not real pain. Two close friends each lost a parent in the past couple of days. That, my friends is REAL pain.

So, it is important that we quickly understand what our perspective is when we encounter a situation. Does it affect us directly? Does it affect those we love directly?

I am not saying we cut our empathy to the point where we become republican, or anything even remotely that extreme.

But I am saying we need to dial our sensitivity level down a little to where we don’t go to bed in tears because the Rays didn’t win the World Series.

When we feel every stress and worry about every issue, we lose focus on the issues that are important and personal. The issues that perhaps we can actually do something about.

Keeping things in perspective is an age-old phrase that means as much today in this over-saturated news-rich world, as it did when the phrase was first coined.

… just a thought.

For whatever reason this morning, I was hunting through old images and came across this shot that I had taken in 2015.

I had been invited to shoot a pagan festival in the farmlands around Lakeland and remember driving down an unlit narrow country road to a place I had never been before on a Halloween evening.

For a few moments there wasn’t even a distant sign of a building anywhere. It was just me and my car, driving into an unknown darkness.

I didn’t even know any of the people that were supposed to be there, because the guy who invited me wasn’t going to be there for another couple of hours but had just told the landowner that I was coming.

This is one of those stories that could easily end “and he was never heard of again”. And that thought sat vividly towards the front of my mind.

Once I found the farm opening, I saw a handful of parked cars and could see the celebration a hundred yards or so beyond the farm house.

When I reached the group, it was about 15 or 20 strong and I found and introduced myself to the farmer. “Jim sent me” sounded as lame then as it does now in writing it, but I got a warm handshake and introduced further to a couple of the organizers.

Though they certainly did make me feel welcome, I mostly stayed on the peripheral taking pics of the fire spinners and here is my favorite from the night.

Now in truth, there was very little about that moment that was remarkable or even that kept it in my memory. It took stumbling across these images to even remind me of the event.

But as I breezed through the images this morning, they reminded me of something that I am missing and quite possibly something that we all yearn for … simpler times.

Being 2015, it was obviously before COVID and it was also before the Trump normalization of hate and racism that is currently so pervasive.

And yet, 2015 isn’t really that long ago.

But in these five years, how the world has changed and how sad our lives have become because of it.

I am not trying to be political and while I am mildly hopeful of a change at the top soon, I remain concerned that now that the scab has been picked off the hate and racism, it will still engulf us for years to come.

People are so polarized now and they have been openly allowed to vent their hate, that there may be no easy return from the precipice that we have been led to.

Do all the bigots, racists, misogynists, suddenly become decent human beings again just because of a change of administration? Somehow, I doubt it.

There has been a cultural shift that has damaged us all and the lives we are trying to live. And it has resulted in mutual intolerance to where each side is convinced of their righteousness, without a need to listen or understand.

Like most of my friends, I do not believe “there are good folk on both sides” when it comes to certain issues. Some issues are very much black and white.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to listen to them, or try to understand where they are coming from, and try to bring them into the fold.

We need to begin inclusiveness and education as a way of calming the hate and putting out the fires that have so effectively been stoked.

Only then do we then begin to return to simpler times.

So, simpler times is a wonderful goal to aim for when times are anything but simple. They will often equate to a mere phrase that is a cornerstone of all humanities, of all religions, and of all dreams.

Peace on Earth

… just a thought!

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