A quick post

I think it was Camus that said that life isnt about finding meaning, but instead coming to realize there is no meaning...is this the cosmic joke?

Obviously the meaning and the joy is in the flow moments and the moments of accomplishment and the connection with family and friends. Who knows?

We are all on this earth together travelling through space on this spinning globe and everyone seems to be in such depression and anxiety over the journey. Older people like myself find it hard to put all the pain behind them and just to enjoy the moments, although the Adrenalin isn't flowing like it used to. Thats probably because I take pills to block it...haha.

My life is so good here that I have trouble just flowing with it sometimes. No conflicts, no real problems. No negative influences. In the end I am left with a million opportunities and new relationships that are waiting. We can really start living after 40 if we can find the key.

Now its off to another week of work, but that is fulfilling in itself.  One month to Canadian vacation.

Ciao

Photography website is up and running

                               ricklynnphotography.com


I am going back to Canada for a three week vacation. I have been working hard here and have not had much of a mental break, so the timing on this couldn't be better.

I will spend a couple of weeks in Ontario...one week in Toronto at my Aunt and Uncles and then a week up north in the Orillia area, including a couple of days at my old cottage. I will then spend the last 5 days in BC, including a weekend with my close buddy Marc on Denman Island. I will keep my apartment here in Taipei and continue on with this life I have got going here. A life that I would describe as proportionately joyful and with a real shot at a happy ending.

So I just put a photography website together myself... because it was just time.  Not because I want to monetize my art, but because I want there to be a stable place to view my work before I can bring it to a gallery. There are some thought provoking shots in there that grab the viewer, so I am quite happy with the effort. Its a good beginning and I look forward to adding to this site.

I reached my 7 year sobriety birthday last month and its funny how the mind can play tricks on you. Not long after the 7 year mark, my brain started to say to me that maybe I am so strong now...that I could probably handle the occasional beer, and this way I would live normally again with all the possibilities open. It said to me that this would be my final hurdle that nobody thought I could scale, and after I proved them all wrong...I don't know...I would be getting fucked on a patio again.

Insidious, after 7 years and hardly any cravings or thoughts, this starts to tug at my consciousness. Danger...warning...man I had to really deal with it. I had to play the tape through and really get hard core with my mind. No it wouldn't play out like that, it never has...maybe a couple of months of normalcy would be followed by god knows what.

Its all part of the journey. I accept that this kind of inconsistency in my brain is going to happen once in a while, I just will not be a slave to it.

I am in control of my life...and it feels great. Well, in as much control as anybody can have in a world full of chaos. Controlled chaos.

Taipei you are incredible, she is incredible...but I need a short break man, over and out for now.

Honesty

This girl has been a wonderful friend and sounding board since I arrived here. This photo I took of her a couple of days ago with my new 50mm 1.4 lens. I love the way it blurs out the background and the photo really expresses an honesty I appreciate. It reveals something beautiful about her as a person.

Today was my birthday and it's late, but I wanted to express gratitude. For my health, for my wonderful family whose support has been humbling. Gratitude for my old friends and my job here that allows me to make a difference in children's lives.

Also I am grateful for 7 years of sobriety and all the wonderful choices and freedoms that I have had the opportunity to be a real part of. I am a very lucky man.

I will travel back home to Canada for a visit in July and I am excited to bring my camera and experience everything and everybody through new eyes.

Rick

Joan Didion and aesthetic lust in Taiwan

Its funny how I have come full circle with my new/old 35mm camera. My digital killer of a camera is so great, but I realized that nothing can really replace the look of film. This isn't my own isolated observation, it is the thoughts of many photographers. So long story short, I picked one up from a cool older eccentric of  a man and I love it. Here is an example of the different look that is possible.
So I will have a little arsenal going on, I actually have three here. I believe most photographers have many, however I don't want to become an obsessive about it. Lots of fun. Am I really saving the money that I had originally planned on?...no, but who really cares.

I have been reading a little Joan Didion who is just so real and accurate with her sentiment about everything from the 60s culture to dealing with grief...incredible woman. I have also been reading Augusten Burroughs who is so smart and funny and neurotic that it is always a pleasure to drop by to  his gay, cultured urban circus of a life. Its Burroughs book Dry which recounts his battle with alcoholism that I recently recommended to a close friend who has been battling against addiction for some time now. I have many ideas for this person and I hope I will be able to contribute to their future health and welfare, because the alternative is too sickening to think about. I am trying to break through to them as I write this.

Recently I have photographed one or two attractive models for a project of mine, and it has been one of those situations where you are not really sure what to do with the experience. Unfortunately in the old days of drunken parties and all night benders I accumulated a bit of a reputation as a player or certainly as a guy that loved woman. When you are hammered for 7200 days straight as I was...it is not going to be a situation where you invest in peoples personalities and integrity and you come out the other side smelling like roses yourself. Lets face it, its a fucking mess.

Revolving depression, guilt, shame and apologies, and too many nights spent simmering over things that nobody really cares about, that was my reality back then. There is no point in trying to live in the past repairing a reputation, I feel like the only way out has been to move forward one step at a time for many years now.  Back to my love for woman though. I grew up with three fantastic woman in my childhood house and I loved girls from a very early age;  kissing them and holding hands with them long before I think it was age appropriate. I appreciate woman now for much more than their playful aesthetic, but I still cant help feeling a little gobsmacked when I encounter the raw beauty full on.

 Humans gravitate towards beautiful things, its not a concept, its a fact. Beauty releases pleasure chemicals into our brains and we know in an instant whether a person is beautiful or not. We love people because of the way they make us feel...and because of my past obsession with this reality and my ridiculous need for male validation... that comes with getting looks from the opposite sex most of my life...I am totally screwed up on this level.

Beautiful minds also turn me on! Let me state that I'm surviving with a lot of balance now and that includes my personal relationships with women. I have a wonderful friendship in Taipei and I have been with only a couple of partners since arriving here in Taiwan, despite me embracing the fact that the Asian beauty here is abundant and crippling. I feel that this is an example of balance, but it is really not the example I should probably use.

Now as a photographer I have taken some very interesting photos this year and some of the best are portraits of women. I get so much pleasure from taking these photos. Not some soft core vacuous photos for Instagram, but some real photos of substance, and yes some with an undertone of natural sensuality. I made the decision to treat all of my models with integrity and with a professional touch so to avoid any issues or misunderstanding. So far I believe that each one of them has had a wonderful experience, or at least a tolerable one, they have been happy with the end product.

I am loving my photography. I have taken over 8000 photos in one year, and as I was explaining to someone, it really gives me a focus and keeps me out of potential trouble and yet....my mind wanders. I certainly don't feel like a man over 50 now,  I am still in awe, and yearning  and fixating and loving. I am still happy and unhappy in love and it is spectacular..

The key for me is to offer people something positive if they want to accept it and to never initiate any type of dishonesty or conflict. So far so good. Don Miquel Ruiz might approve, or maybe not, there is still the question of what to do with all this aesthetic lust and craving. Oh yeah, its a work in progress, and I may document it in 35mm...

Feb 21st, 2019

It's been over a year and the old man is still rocking away...on some Island .

Yeah It's been over a year in Taiwan and It is full speed ahead. Well lets consider the fact that there is not much speed going on here at all. My sobriety has almost reached the 7 year mark and that is still really hard to believe , because that situation was so dark and so all encompassing.

I have signed a new contract and have passed a new medical exam so I will officially be here until 2020 now. Why leave? Taipei is such a great city. Sure we have Typhoons and Earthquakes and summer humidity that makes you want to cry, but I do love it. My personal Chinese lessons will begin tomorrow night and I am hoping that I will receive the tools that I have been lacking, because my Chinese language skills at this point are piss poor.

The thing that really turns me on is my photography. I have a full studio setup in my loft apartment now, and the photos that I am able to deliver (via my 42 megapixel mirrorless baby) are quite interesting. Now in Toronto I was doing the odd commercial and I was sober but I was quite stagnant broke and miserable most of the time. It wasn't terrible , but I realized that I only had about 10 really strong years left so I better make some kind of a move. 

It turns out that action is the only cure... not sitting around chanting mantras or visualizing something. It's making a decision based on the data available and then just DOING IT.

I have had some challenges here. I had to have a small operation to fix a small heart situation that popped up, and the recovery went kind of wrong. I had to get cut open a second time and this time I was fully awake. This situation looks like it has resolved itself. 

Life continues to be very good. I am grateful and although I don't believe in God  these days, I feel that the Universe has aligned itself with my life in a way that is working quite well. 

I continue to teach children each day and it can get very tiring but I think I am making a difference. I am not the best teacher out there, but I really love it when I can connect and make a 7 year old laugh or have a couple of them chant my name when they see me. \

Personal life? Yes there is one. I will keep it private for now. I have been very lucky. The old man is still rocking away. New Orleans will probably win the super bowl, the Leafs are playoff bound and the Freddie Mercury movie just won best picture at the Golden Globes... Its unbelievable!!!

The puzzle is coming together magically...

These images are popping off the screen with my new camera. A little bit of timing and grace and a lot of technology.

Life continues to amaze me here in Taipei. My mother is coming to visit in two weeks which will be her first trip in many years to Asia, She is 74 and has expressed a wish to go on the back of my powerful scooter up the side of the local mountain..and I will carefully oblige. I anticipate her having a great time as long as I do my tour guide job and live with a little compassion.

After all the self help books that never really took me anywhere wonderful, I have come to the realization that nobody out there really knows anything. Nobody knows why we are rotating in space at 1000 miles an hour for absolutely no apparent reason. All the so called experts on meditation and reincarnation actually admit that they have spent many years trying to quiet their minds but haven't really attained it except in spurts. All the so called reasons as to why we are going to come back in a different form by way of Karma or go to heaven and live there like kings etc..all these ideas are pure conjecture and have not basis in fact.

What am I rambling about? We have to find a beautiful distraction or two or three and find a way to live with ourselves in harmony while we are here. This whole journey for us and for everybody throughout history maybe absolutely meaningless. Obviously I agree with the idea of  right action and not actually causing anybody harm while I am here.

However, in the context of finding meaning ...I am very glad to be doing something about it from Taipei, such an unbelievable life journey I am on here. Teaching these kids can be really great some days and the pure independence of this adventure is really the theme for me. I have maybe a good 10 years left of solid work years here and I can go in so many directions from there. Photographs have been a really fun thing. Helps me to not dwell on things like my Defibrillator and my heart issues or my constant battle ( now almost 7 years of Sobriety) with abstinence.

Let me pull a few more pieces of the puzzle together and a few more creative projects and personal relationships and we will have real liftoff of a life that I can actual be proud of after so many years of ..well...shame and sorrow.

Rick

Photographs are saving my life...

I'm obsessing with a full frame 42 MP mirrorless camera that I am going to get.  My photography game has started to become more proficient and I am really enjoying  just becoming immersed in taking some honest, striking images.

Taking these photos helps me forget about my age, or my physical limitations or my lack of real finances.  It is so damn therapeutic its ridiculous. Why didn't I pick up on this in my 20s when we had that darkroom.

Living here in Taipei is grand.  I am working my ass off teaching everyday, but I believe that I am making a difference in some students lives and they are enjoying me on some level.  Most days anyway, when I don't have to be this disgusting Dickens like taskmaster from hell.

I just watched an documentary on Henry Cartier Bresson that was incredibly inspiring.  He was called the most significant photographer of the 20th century and when asked about it he just modestly laughed and said it was just a bullshit label.

This weekend I will go for a train ride and stay over night in a modern hotel on a farm area in the mountains somewhere that I picked out of nowhere.  I am sure the photographs will be mouth watering, although does anybody really want to see another closeup of a tulip or a scenic shot of a mountain?

Its the shot of people that really gets you. You have a visceral reaction to human beings, and I love capturing them up close. Not to Dianne Arbus their asses, but to catch a moment without their ability to put up that mask.

Next week I will travel by high speed train alone to the south of Taiwan for a few days to take a rest and vacation by the beach which will be equally grand.

I have a great girlfriend who is sweet and honest and unpretentious but the issue remains that she is not allowed to travel with a man until she is married. So I will be travelling alone for the time being.

Here is a sample of a photo I shot that I love: