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Philosophy
I
will do my best to outline my philosophy of life in the
following paragraphs. It's not your philosophy
of life, so don't act all offended and hurt.
I
can say that I don't have an operating philosophy about
every little thing. I only have ideas and rules about
my little sphere of influence, which I can say is, without
a doubt, very very small. That's fine, and I'm very happy
to remain anonymous at the time being. Not forever, but
now will be fine. Here it is:
Life:
Leave me alone.
I
say that I want to be left alone, but it’s only theoretical.
Jonathan Frazen, the author of “The Corrections”
has written a series of essays and collected them in a book
called “How to Be Alone.” He posits in one essay
that we as a society have forgotten how to be alone. There
are many, many distractions that we can make use of to avoid
being alone. In my case, it is again, the evil television.
I find that when watch less television, and ramp up the
amount of reading and writing I do, my creativity level
goes up exponentially. Leave me alone.
Work:
It sucks.
No
really, work sucks. I concede that there is rarely such
thing as the perfect job. I’m sure that someone,
somewhere out there has found it, but I haven’t
yet. It’s possible that I may still. When I was
in high school, I knew that I liked art, but my father
had a rather negative impression of “starving artists.”
I believed that I found a better way with graphic design.
I could turn work from an activity that I despised into
an activity that I could enjoy. Most of my jobs have given
me some opportunities at creativity, but usually consist
of menial work. I believe, also, that job satisfaction
is inversely proportional to wages.
Art: I’m lazy
I
am the type of person that can accomplish incredible things
when I’m properly motivated. My photography is creative
and unusual when I choose to do it. During high school
and college, my interest was in photography, because I
have a natural talent for it. I excelled at it because
I was motivated by grades and my egotistical desire to
show off. I have friends who are amateur photographers
like myself, some of whom have become very, very good
through years of practice. Others have the same type of
natural talent. Mine is wasted, because as arrogant as
this sounds, I’m incredibly talented, but lazy.
I’ve gone over a year since developing film, and
I can go for a couple of months at a time without shooting.
“What’s your motivation?”
Tipping:
Rich vs. Poor
In
a recent ‘blog, I railed against inadequate tipping
by rich people, and excessive tipping by the poor and
lower middle-class. I believe that society specifies 15%
for tipping. In MY perfect world tipping would be based
on means, rather than some general amount. If you have
less means you tip less or not at all, if you are of moderate
means, you pay anywhere from 10%-20%. If you are wealthy,
you pay more. This is definitely a progressive tax when
it comes to tipping. I also don’t think that tipping
is always mandatory, even when you have means. If you
get extremely bad service, or even just sub-standard service,
no tip. If you get great service and you have the means,
by all means tip handsomely. |
