Observing Moments
Tag: life
The Traveller
Declutter & Re-Fuel!
Look at this mess!
I’m feeling drained!
Do either of the above thoughts ever go through your mind?
It doesn’t matter whether you are a student, run a business, work a job or are retired, there comes a point where certain aspects in your life get cluttered or you get close to burning out, or indeed burn out. I’m yet to experience the ‘retired’ lifestyle but I talk to many people who end up being so busy in retirement, they can’t work out how they used to fit their job or business into their lives!
At different times in my life, these questions have raised their head.
My wife & I are in the process of decluttering, which was mostly brought on by the fact that we moved house. It is amazing how much less we have now (in terms of clutter) than we had previously, and we are still in declutter mode. For example, over the past 3 years we would have easily given away a couple of hundred (or more) books.
This process is continuing and is spreading to other areas. For instance, I reviewed my Facebook Friend list the other night. It had grown to over 500 people, and as I looked through the list, I saw people I had not connected with for years, I saw others who are always being negative on Social Media and others whom I wondered why/how we connected in the first place?
The Friend list now stands at 472 and it may drop lower.
We also need to look at our priorities in life. We can only do/be involved in so much.
I’ve reviewed the groups/associations I was a member of in the past 12 months. I’m now a member of only one Toastmasters Club. I just dropped out of an Art Group as (due to other commitments) it would be difficult for me to get there on Tuesday nights.
For the first time in 30 years, I am not a member of any Photographic Society/Camera Club. The Photographic Society I was a member of, I found it increasingly difficult to get to as we had moved further away from it. There is one 8 mins drive away now but I dropped out of that 2 years ago as my photography interests have moved in a different direction anyway.
Another area that needs decluttering is my mind…
I’ve always been a ‘verbal/visual’ person. As you would see from this blog, communication is what I love, with my interests being photography, public speaking, writing, poetry and painting. On top of that we have our marketing business.
As with most people’s mind’s, there is a lot going on up there and it comes out via one of the outlets above.
A few years back I purchased a book called “The Complete Artist’s Way” and actually it contains 3 books in the one volume.
The books are:
– The Artist’s Way
– Walking In This World
– Finding Water
One of the techniques discussed is called ‘Morning Pages.’ ‘Morning Pages’ is ‘stream of consciousness’ writing and it is done when you first get up in the morning. Writing down whatever comes into your head, e.g. negative thoughts, how you are feeling, to-do items etc ‘gets it out of your head’ and frees up your mind and assists creativity. I started doing them some time ago but unfortunately allowed ‘life’ to get in the way and stopped doing them.
I just started doing ‘Morning Pages’ this weekend again, and I can feel the benefits already!
In Part 2 I will look at things I am doing or am looking to do to re-fuel for this continuing fantastic journey of life.
Written by David Johnson
13 August 2016
For more information on ‘Morning Pages’, please click on the link below.
http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/
Veins Of Light
Thoughts Into Text
I AM
There’s No Business Like Snow Business!
This post was inspired by a friend’s recent ‘Snow-misadventure…’
Back in the 1980’s, I was part of a 18-35years Church Social Group and one of adventures was to the Snowy Mountains in southern NSW, Australia. It was one of those hurried 3 day weekend trips that saw me (briefly) on Ski’s but mostly on a Toboggan, which (for me) at the time was a lot more fun, that is until a had a slight ‘run-in’ with a creek. That was my first time in the Snow. I was satisfied with that. Visit to the Snow ticked off the list.
The very next year (1984) I was invited back to the Snowy Mountains by a small group of school friends who were planning to go for a whole week. Sounded fun so I agreed.
We stayed at Jindabyne and travelled to the ski fields from there. Jindabyne is basically the closest town to the ski fields but is not actually in them.
The previous year I had an hour ski lesson but I thought it was prudent to have another, and so I did, only this time it was snowing fairly heavily and to this day I wonder if I perhaps missed some ‘key technical points’ that would have helped immensely later on?
Most of my friends had Skied before and one friend in particular, David was a bit more experienced but he decided to hang back with me whilst I was endeavouring to ‘glide’ down the run called the ‘Pretty Valley Triple’ at Perisher Valley.
Needless to say that after a short time, I thanked David for staying with me but said that he would probably have more fun if he went on and left me to my own devices as I didn’t want him to get bored…
Off he glided down the hill…
Thinking back to the Ski lesson, I remember the lessons on how to ’Snowplough’ (or stop) & they taught us about weight control/which way to lean if we wanted change direction. It seemed fairly easy where we did the lesson. It was relatively flat ground.
Thinking back, I would have weighed about 55Kg and was 185cm tall so I didn’t have a lot of weight to throw around.
When you fall skiing it’s not as soft a landing as would think and in my first journey down the Pretty Valley Triple run I fell seventeen times. What would you do?
I went back up to try again. This time I only fell seven times, an obvious improvement, though the 24 clashes with Mother Earth had left me bruised and battered. Somehow though, I had managed to miss every tree.
My mistake that day wasn’t that I had fallen 24 times attempting to ski, it was the fact that I made the decision to return my gear to the ski hire place and go to the local bar for three beers (muscle relaxant). I haven’t skied since….
On pondering why I stopped, I remembered I hated the icy weather, the ski boots – I found them painful to wear around the ankle section of the leg, much of me was sore & I was skiing on my own. Given that and the ‘person I was as a 21 year old’ I can see why I gave in.
It is easy to look back and say ‘I would have done it differently’ but I can honestly say that if I was the person I am now, I would have gone back up and maybe only fell 3 times and so on… That’s not to say that I would be down the Snowy Mountains skiing every year, but it would be fun to have the option…
My wife, Susan has mentioned ‘going to the Snow’ a few times over the years as he has skied before. At 53, I wonder if the time for skiing has passed?
I would still like to go back to the Snow but this time it probably would be a photographic expedition, but you know what they say…’never say never….’
Written by David Johnson
23 July 2016
June 30
Viewing Life
Back in the year 2000, my wife and I were touring around southern NSW and visited (among other places), Yarrangobilly Caves. They are but one of a number of beautiful examples of limestone caves here in Australia.
We received a guided tour that day and apart from the memory of the caves, I remember a conversation I had with the tour guide as he, like me, was into photography for a great part of his life. This was until one day, after a 20 year love affair with the medium, he gave it away, citing that, ‘he was tired of looking at the world through a rectangle…’.
I didn’t think of this again until recently when I began reflecting on my photographic journey. Unlike the tour guide, I have not given up photography (as I will love it till I pass from this world), however I now have other interests as well and these days I am a bit more selective of what I photograph with my DSLR (and at this point I’m refining my ‘Light Inspired’ photography business as well). My phone is with me just about everywhere and images from that end up on Instagram.
Starting my photographic journey in 1982, I too have looked at the world through a rectangle via 35mm and through a square via a medium format camera. When I wasn’t with family, friends or at work, I was involved in photography in some way, shape or form since that time, either photographing, developing, printing, editing, reading about the subject, attending a Camera Club (or two) or judging photography. The ‘other’ interests I speak of are Toastmasters/public speaking (since 2008), drawing/painting (since 2010) and writing/writing poetry (since 2013).
Whereas once I would only be thinking and communicating about the world via photography, I now attempt to do this in a number of ways (depending on how I feel that I want to communicate it) and it is a lot of fun.
Life is about having experiences, fun, creativity, overcoming challenges, helping others, growth and communication.
I now enjoy seeing the world in different ways, not just through a camera. In some ways, I feel like my journey has just begun…
Written by David Johnson
June 2016
Special Gift
Communicating Creatively 