All kinds of things are going through my mind since I wrote about my recent equipment purchases, and I guess at least some of those come from people who think they are my mommy and are in a position to ask me why I need those things, and can’t I do it with less expensive gear?
It’s interesting how that goes – I mean the challenge of “can’t you do it with less? are you cool enough?” I guess the original challenge came from Satan himsef – “do you really need God’s presence with you every single moment? can’t you do it on your own? can’t you do it with less? are you cool enough?”
And then it’s an infinite progression: do you really need siddhis if you have hands? Do you need good conditions or you can do it in bad ones? Do you need a proper house or you can live in a trailer? Do you really need the trailer, or you can live in a tent? Do you really need a new car, wouldn’t a used one do? Do you need a BMW, what’s wrong with Skoda? And if you keep proving that you can do with less, you get to see your enemy giggle as you struggle in endless misery and deprivation while he can say it was all your choice, because you could, in fact, just tell him to fuck off at any point.
Yes, I can do photography with super inexpensive equipment, and in fact I did. If that part ever needed proving, it was proven long time ago, and I don’t see why I should keep repeating the exercise. I did it with a 50 EUR film body with a 50 EUR lens from the 1980s on film and the result looked like this:
I also did it with the E-PL1 pocket m43 camera with its collapsible kit lens:
Yes, I already did it with less. It can be done. However, I disliked the experience and refuse to repeat it if I have a choice, because I also used some of the most expensive and high-quality cameras and lenses in the world and I liked the experience a lot; it’s just that I couldn’t afford them at the time. Today, the question I’m interested in isn’t “can I do it with less”, but instead “what’s the absolute best equipment I could get, that would be the best match for what I want to do, where getting more would actually detract from practicality and overall experience?”, which is the point where I got the best 35mm gear instead of the medium format Hasselblad. Because, why not? That’s my answer to “why”, and “can’t you do it with less?” – “why not”, and “why would I even have to, or care to?”
The answer is to take the absolute best, not because you deserve it or you proved you can’t do it with less, because you choose to and you can, and the best of all is God. Choose God above all, and if someone tries to challenge you to try to do it with less, tell him to fuck off, and ask him, who chose less and is less, how is it working for him?
There are always enemies who would want you to have less and who would love to get you in a game where you try to make it work with less, to their great satisfaction. God knows there are bastards who are still following me like vultures checking whether I died yet, or at least if I’m showing signs of spiritual degradation and fall, so that they can feel justified in hating me. They would really like to see me live in a cardboard box under some bridge, trying to make it with least possible, while they laugh like hiyenas.
So, fuck you, that’s why. The choice for the best should never even have to be justified, because choosing the best when it’s an option just proves that your mind is working properly.
ps. Also, I just thought of a very simple way of putting it. Hardship occasionally needs to be endured, but it should never be invited.
BTW, Disqus recently turned on ads on all accounts that refuse to pay them excessive sums of money (basically, half of what it costs to maintain the server) to remove them. This is absolute bullshit and blackmail and I recommend that everyone uses adblock on my site in order not to see their ads that are spamming the comment section, if it's technically possible, and I'll try to find a functional replacement that is not abusive. (edit: blocking those ads works great in Chrome and Firefox, but not so much in Safari, I'm trying to find a solution; edit2: solution is not to use Safari, because apparently it either interferes with ad blocking extensions or doesn't allow the really effective ones)
Art for the joy of creating is never a waste. Too much art is made with making money in mind. Nothing wrong with making money but it taints the process of pure creativity IMO. I once asked my "spirit guide" (who I later discovered is Bhairava) when I was starting to try to connect with them why I'm having so little worldly success with my art if that's what I was being encouraged to do and it felt right. The answer was "it's doing something on another level." What that something is or what that other level is, I haven't figured out yet
This is not the argument I intended to make. My opinion on wastefulness is that it's a wholly relative matter, ie. if you're doing nothing useful, your existence itself is wasteful, and if you're doing lots of useful things, basically incarnating higher substances and principles, the question doesn't even present itself. If anything, the very concept reminds me of Judas Iscariote and his offensive statement that the anointment gifted to Jesus should have been sold and money given to the poor, which in my opinion would in itself be a sufficient reason to send him to hell even if other, more pressing reasons didn't present themselves later on.