I am Spirit, formless and free;

[Supriyo]

<p>Julie,<br /> True, if the argument is just between you and me, but my statement is backed by multitude of literature from psychologists and philosophers, whereas yours is backed at the moment just by your assertion alone. If you claim I have to take your word on this because it is your unique experience, then you also have to prove that you are entirely different from other human species, which is probably impossible. However I am open to your argument if you can convince me that what you are claiming is plausible. I am not disrespecting your position, I am just not convinced about your claim.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>You first. Show me your evidence that there can be no such thing as a few hours of un-influenced experience.</p>

[Supriyo]

<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind</a></p>

<p>Sorry for the unprofessional citation of wikipedia, but there are lots of peer reviewed references there.<br>

I have never seen any source that claims the influence of the unconscious (or the subconscious) mind can be shut down for a few hours. If you can show me, I will be very interested to read.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>My unconscious mind is unconscious. It can neither prove nor disprove anything.</p>

[Supriyo]

<p>The theory says, your unconscious mind is shaped by your past experiences, and it influences your conscious mind whether you want or not.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>you'll just have to take my word, since it is my experience of which I speak</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I take your word about as seriously as I take the word of a religious wing nut who claims God speaks to him directly. Anyone would be a fool to take the word of everyone who claims authority over certain details about their own experience. The only authority you have is knowing what your experiences feel like. You have no authority over what they actually consist of.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Supriyo, but you don't know when, how, why, or in what kind of way, etc.</p>

<p>Fred, you're simply wrong.</p>

[Supriyo]

<p>Yes, of course Julie. This is a theory. Some people accept it, some don't. But there is prior literature on this subject from specialists. Likewise, can you show me, if there is a school of thought that claims that the influence of the unconscious mind can be turned off under certain conditions. I can tell you, that Hindu philosophers believe that in a state of meditation, one can shut off all layers of mind and bring out the soul which sits at the root of one's mind, the atman. However the state of meditation is a state of physical inactivity. So that would not be relevent to your situation.</p>

<p>You asked me to go first and show evidence. I have done my best. It doesn't matter if you accept them or not. They are just evidences from prior literature. Now I think it is your turn to show me literary evidence that reinforces your claim.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Julie, you can keep claiming I'm wrong and keep trying to base that solely on my having to believe that you know everything and all there is to know about your own experiences. But that's not a dialogue or a coherent argument. It's just a child screaming in the dark. Supriyo and I have offered backups to our arguments which you either sidestep or ignore. We've given examples that you can actually look at. You, on the other hand, can only keep it masked behind your own wall of isolation, the things only you have access to. You want me to have faith. I don't. And aside from blurting out that I'm wrong, you've used no reason and make no sense.</p>

[Supriyo]

<p>Julie, I think you are being betrayed by your own ego, which asserts "I am right and I know it!". Had you stated that this is how I feel, and I may be wrong, it would have been much more acceptable. If you can really shut down your own ego on demand, you can gain great advantage in this debate by doing so now, because we cannot do that even if we want to.</p>

[Supriyo]

<p>Yes, and that is a hypothetical statement. I am wondering whether it will ever happen in reality, and how to know it has really happened except the photographer's assertion that it has.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Phil, I'm sure you recognize that quotes of famous photographers are good indicators of how they feel but not necessarily good indicators of how things are. I like the quote of White, love reading what he has to say about photography and his experience, and like seeing how that plays out in his photos. But it's not (and I'm sure not meant to be) a description about the role of influence in human existence, spiritual or otherwise.</p>

[Supriyo]

<p>OK, sorry for the misunderstanding, and thanks very much for sharing the quote. I think I saw a few works by Minor White before, but haven't read his writings. I would be interested to read them.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>I was simply using the Minor White quote as a response to the original post and thread title.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Got it. Too bad, though. I'd love to hear what your response would be in your words.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Supriyo, I claim that I know more about my experience than you do. I can't help it if you find that alarming.</p>

<p>You seem to think that the "unconscious" proves that I can't be free of influence. Earlier you claimed that the influences in question are cultural. It's my understanding that the unconscious and culture are generally at odds with one another. A liberated unconscious would be indication of that one has slipped the bounds of culture.</p>

<p>If you claim that unconscious (raw! primitive!) appetites are "influences", I would say Yes! Exactly! When I say "Open" I mean open.</p>

[Supriyo]

<p>I am not sure what "liberated unconscious" means. Is it ever possible to be free of cultural influences? Even an isolated human who leaves in forest out of contact with civilization bears a culture in my opinion.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Supriyo, I claim that I know more about my experience than you do. I can't help it if you find that alarming.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's as alarming as someone claiming they'd be as good an obstetrician as their doctor because they experienced their own birth. Experiencing something and knowing it are two very different matters. Understanding how experience works is not the same as describing or experiencing one's experience. That shouldn't be a hard distinction to understand.</p>

[johne37179]

<p>Photography, when done well, is a means of extracting images in the imagination and sharing them with others.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Julie - "For me, this means learning how to mentally shut up and listen. Learning how to get out of the way. To be perfectly quiet and just (try to) be purely open. Blah, blah, blahing and bawling about beliefs is anathema to getting out/into what the camera can do for me. When I can do it, the rewards are marvelous."</p>

<p>This doesn't happen to me very often, but when it does I take it as a blessing to feel free of something that Julie generously outlined for us from her interior-scape, to wit, "beliefs".</p>

<p>In <a href="

isn't, in some jumbled up sense of things, Tom Petty free from the very influences that produced him? (Neil Young, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton - My Back Pages) I feel it is so, honor Julie in expressing her sense of things and recognize that sure, Tom Petty isn't 'free' when all counsel is from our Rashomon sense of how the world works. How does the world really work? Anyone?</p>

<p> </p>

[Uhooru]

<p>And yet, I look through your often very moving and insightful portfolio and there's a coherence and personal sense of vision that goes beyond whatever degree of awareness or non-awareness you experienced.<br>

Why thanks Fred. I think I stated things in a way that was perhaps confusing. Its not just awareness or non-awareness. The aspect I'm talking about is inherently intelligent and cogent at whatever level it operates. And when it operates, its not like you are unaware, you don't pass out and walk around in a daze. Its just awareness has its own concerns and theres a deeper intelligence that sometimes happens at levels your normal awareness isn't tuned to, and every now and again, it seems to manifest itself when taking a photo. Its certainly not limited to that by any means. </p>

[Uhooru]

<blockquote>

<p>And yet, I look through your often very moving and insightful portfolio and there's a coherence and personal sense of vision that goes beyond whatever degree of awareness or non-awareness you experienced.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Why thanks Fred. I think I stated things in a way that was perhaps confusing. Its not just awareness or non-awareness. The aspect I'm talking about is inherently intelligent and cogent at whatever level it operates. And when it operates, its not like you are unaware, you don't pass out and walk around in a daze. Its just awareness has its own concerns and theres a deeper intelligence that sometimes happens at levels your normal awareness isn't tuned to, and every now and again, it seems to manifest itself when taking a photo. Its certainly not limited to that by any means. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>In <a href="

rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this</a>, isn't, in some jumbled up sense of things, Tom Petty free from the very influences that produced him?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No, he's not. I doubt he'd claim he is and I doubt he'd want to be. I hear the reverence with which Dylan and others talk about the influences that have had such profound effects on them. Your description or your thinking does seem to be jumbled up and that's the problem. With a more clear approach, one can see that one's own freedom is not dependent on rejecting all influence. Freedom doesn't demand that, unless you're talking about some untenable purity of freedom which would only be the purview of the myth known as God, and I'd just assume leave Him out of this.<br>

<br>

Listen to the song to which you linked. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Lies that life is black and white<br />Spoke from my skull, I dreamed</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's not EITHER influence OR freedom. Recognizing, honoring, and coming to grips with influence is part of our freedom. It's usually denial that enslaves us.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Fred - "Recognizing, honoring, and coming to grips with influence is part of our freedom."<br /> <br /> I agree with that. <br /> <br /> At the same time, I recognize that influences can appear in my inner dialog as "Blah, blah, blahing", that is, as negatives that may get in my way at times to one degree or another. So when Julie writes "...to learn how to let the camera's eye be the only eye -- and let <em>that </em>current run my show.", I take that as her describing a "coming to grips with influence". And the result for her she writes as being "...forgetting myself, losing track of time and place for one or two or three hours while I am immersed in an activity that I love intensely." I read her as equating being free of some negative "stuff" as being free of "influences". <br /> <br /> I remember an interview with John Mellencamp where he said that at first, all he seemed to be able to write were songs that sounded way like Stones songs. At some point he realized that he didn't have to write a Stones song and things got better for him. So I interpret his statement as a coming to grips, but I'm sure he still likes the Stones songs.<br /> <br /> With respect to photography, say bird pictures I've done, I really couldn't get many high value 'hawk eating' photos, or hawk photos at all and thought, well, finches eat. It just isn't as dramatic for the viewer to see a finch with a seed. So part of it for me is to get the viewer out of my mind to better enjoy exactly what it is I'm doing and I got to appreciate finches more. If I had read a lot of photography books thinking that was the standard to work to, I'm sure with my personality it would have been deadly to enjoyment. Why did it take so much work to arrive at enjoyment?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>At the same time, I recognize that influences can appear in my inner dialog</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, but I've been saying all along it's not our awareness or lack of awareness of influence that I'm talking about. For influence to be influence, it doesn't have to be apparent to us or consciously at work. It doesn't have to be part of the inner blah, blah, blah dialogue. Of course we can put ourselves in position to forget about or consciously ignore influence, to lose track of time and be immersed in something. I'm not questioning that. But none of that means influence isn't still at play.<br>

<br>

Here's a way I might pose it. Any of us can let go of influence in the many ways you, Julie, and I have described. But I don't think influence fully ever lets go of us.</p>

[Supriyo]

Charles,

 

I will let Fred respond, but will only add that by giving the example of hawk feeding being appealing to viewers, you are

referring to prejudice. When I think of influence, I think more of styles or vision (although we are not always free of

prejudices). Subscribing to prejudice is always a negative thing, but blending somebody else's style with your own can be

synergistic and pathbreaking.