How to grieve the end of fall. It’s a miniature grief, but one that matters if we really attend to it. If we pay attention, we can learn a little about beauty, development, grief, and hope.
Category: Meaning
What are you doing with your life? Meaning is the center, and the ultimate question that life poses. This is my work toward answering it.
Why does it matter? What have I found in seeking The Good, The True, and The Beautiful?
These posts are my notes about answering the big questions of life and art. Also, for the more pragmatic, posts about the importance of pursuing meaning for quality of life.
At the highest level, these are the questions that these posts are trying to answer. But usually by using examples from creativity and art, especially photography.
- Q: Why should I pursue meaning?
- A: So your life doesn’t suck.
- Q: What meaning should I seek?
- A: The best and truest good that you can identify.
- Q: What should I do when I find it?
- A: Trade everything in and go for it!
- Q: How do you know?
- A: By suffering through the consequences of pursuing something less for years. And realizing that it was a compromise without a payoff.
CAUTION: Inconsistencies
I strive for integrity, and I am trying to create a coherent journey through a lot of different specifics that I sometimes find I have to re-interpret. So this isn’t the whole story, and some of it may not all fit together all the time.
Also, though I favor a clear, assertive writing style over a dithering and equivocating one, I don’t have all the answers!
This is an invitation to join me as I work this stuff out… with some error, some fear and some trembling, and hopefully some moments of synchrony, epiphany, and insight.
Categories
On community: can you love your place?
What does it take to belong to a community intentionally? It is easy to engage mindlessly and make a mess in our communities, and then to just leave when we don’t like the results. How can you start to engage more constructively
All kinds of things find their way into a river. Things people don’t want. Sometimes, we also find ourselves dealing with things cast off by other people. But that is not who we are.
Categories
Why you define your own creative success
Even though I am trying to make the most beautiful images possible, I have defined success in terms of volume — for important creative reasons.
Categories
Turning over a new leaf
I am finally launching a public photography website after years of thought, anticipation, and sometimes trepidation, I am excited to announce Theodore Tollefson Fine Art Photography! it’s the New Year and…