Jeanette Sky wrote a piece on the roots and boundaries of psychology and 'shrinks'. The backdrop: a statement by a shrink that "affluent women spend to much time chatting with their therapist - they should shut up and let the doctor get on with curing all the really crazy people" (not a direct quote or translation, but the intent is there: daily troubles are less worthy of curing than serious madness and trauma from war/famine/...) So, this begets the question:
Can you fix madness by talking about it?
Or is therapy more about the everyday bumps - getting someone to listen without predjudice, or a least get the illusion that someone is listening (ref the movie where the "secret" to being a shrink is simply repeating the last part of the clients statement, but as a question: "I feel unloved by my mother" "Your mother?" ...) And if the main driver is getting the patient to reflect on her current situation and the past, would a blog be just a good? The illusion of listening is replaced with the illusion (or dream/hope?) of someone reading it - and being influenced, taking the time to reflect on the words and the message.
[filling my head with the beats of: Can't Truss It - Public Enemy ] - a fitting song on the morning of the most anticipated US election for quite some time [fun img]
Does this blog keep me sane - or am I writing because I am sane? Cause and effect. Or simply an added outlet for ideas that I wouldn't normally discuss with the people I normally talk to? Because they wouldn't care or understand - or because they might disagree? When I started the blog the goal was to raise questions rather than answers, post about ideas and events rather than products. Looking back it has evolved - being partly a place to list and link to cool stuff I want, and partly a dumping ground for half-baked ideas and reflections. And thanks to hello there are even some pictures.
...and that makes for a jump to another theme: when is a photo no longer a photography? Because the root of the word is all about light inteacting with chemical compounds. So image or picture might be more suitable in a time when it is digital start to end (from my camera, to the memory card, via the portable reader/hd, to the computer - and out on the net, then down to your computer and on to the screen. But the screen is light. So is there any point in drawing the boundary? Well, it is useful to think about the change from painting, to photography and now to the digital world. From texture to bits. How does that change the way we view and interpret images? Do we still trust them? Can they shock us? Celebrity porn or Abu Ghraib?
(sidenote: the Blogger spellchecker does not recognize the word "blog" ... self-denial?)
...and the sun is bringing out the colors of autumn...
