The World In Grey
Because Black and White is kinda whack
In my first post, which you can read here, I shared my experience with travel. For a quick rundown - I grew up following my parents around the world on work trips-turned-family vacations and moved to another country at a young age. I then spent my teen-college years road tripping and backpacking through continents.
As a photographer that now focuses on conservation, I’m yet again taken all across the globe - this time, to the most remote corners of the earth, in search of threatened ecosystems and endangered wildlife.
While conservation is the main reason for seeking out remote destinations, another is that I simply find a deeper connection with the night sky, forests, and birds, than I do with other humans. There’s a certain calmness and peace that’s otherwise unattainable when I’m on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from the closest town and no cell reception to speak of.
Now, just because most of my travels are solo, and I prefer the company of nature, doesn’t mean that other humans aren’t part of the experience. After all, only human technology can get me to where I need to go, and only humans will purchase the images I create from those destinations.
Beyond that, I naturally meet and interact with other humans along the trail, at the campsite/hostel, at rest stops along the road, on the plane, in the airport, at the bar, or wherever else. As I’ve journeyed throughout the world, I’ve experienced all sorts of people, cultures, ideologies, and ways of life.
It’s through this collective experience that I’ve come to understand - humans are complex, multifaceted, and stuffed with nuance. To sum it up in a quote:
“No! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers... You get it? We both have layers.” - Shrek, 2001
To bring this back to a point - it’s that nothing is ever really all that black and white. The human condition is an unceasing and unrelenting rollercoaster of experiences, good, bad, and inbetween.
Let’s take myself, for example.
I’ve spent the first part of this whole thing touting myself as some tree-hugging-ecowarrior-animal-lover-artist-type. And, well, yeah, that’s true. But, it’s also true that my second largest passion behind nature and conservation, is motorsports. Undeniably, motorsports runs off the back of the oil industry - one of the leading causes of and contributers to climate change - the very thing that is destroying my primary passion for nature.
It’s ironic, it’s hypocritical, it’s a weird fundamental juxtaposition in my personality. It’s left me neither on one side or another, but somewhere in the middle; in the grey. I’ve learned many of us reside here, in the grey. Humans are so complex and so full of little intricacies, it seems near-impossible for someone to be entirely one way over another in every aspect of their life.
And that’s not to speak ill of us humans or anything so profound. It’s simply to reiterate that we’re a handful. We may form two sides of a fence on any given opinion, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find that how far we are from the fence is another thing entirely. Throw in another opinion and we’ll be sure to see some fence-crossing taking place.
I can’t help that the roar of an engine, smell of gasoline, and excitement of watching machinery pushed to its limit puts a giant smile on my face.
I also can’t help that listening to birds sing, watching bears fish, and sitting atop a glacier does exactly the same.
In my previous post, I described how I’m a tech enthusiast, but I dislike technology. More specifically, I dislike what its become in 2024. But, you know, for hyperbolic effect.
I still love technology, I still keep up with it. But it does feel like a shell of its former self, with every new product being the exact same thing but some number mostly meaningless to real world application is slightly higher this time. So it’s not today’s tech that I’m in love with, it’s the tech of yesteryear.
I get I may be a special case. After all, I’m the same person that cancelled every single subscription service I paid for, and ditched every single piece of wireless technology (without the option of a replaceable battery) I could in favour for a wired alternative.
But again, this illustrates just how far on the other side of the fence I am on this one aspect of technology. I’ve decided to go this far, for something so specific in an already specific niche, just because of some arbirtary moral ground I’ve decided to stand on. Humans are just weird. We’re too complex to fall prey to the false dichotomy of one side or another when it’s really a never-ending spectrum.
As someone that is invested in the photography world and has to maintain some form of social media presence under the guise of commerce, I am exposed to the opinions of the internet.
Many will say “use this lens, this camera, this editing technique to take good photos.” You pop in the comments, and theres a billion people saying otherwise. That in itself kinda proves my point. There is hardly ever going to be a true “best possible device/technique” for XYZ, because what people consider the best is overwhelmingly different in the first place - there will always be another side of the fence with some extremely valid points.
Alright, we got a little off topic there.
This was supposed to be about my struggle in balancing my two conflicting passions - where leaning one way or another isn’t an option for me. Both sides of the fence are crap. So knock it down, right? That’s nice and all, except I’m not a chemical engineer, so creating a biofuel that is green AND runs on existing ICE engines to make all cars clean isn’t exactly in within the scope of my extremely limited skillset. Nor do I (or seemingly, anyone) have the funds to take on big oil.
So then it’s just about doing whatever you can, in your own way. For me, that’s donating to or working with organizations and causes that I can get behind. Obviously, there is still this tinge of residual guilt every time I go to a race track or hop in a car. But with my work, I get to make what feels like a genuine impact each time I sell a print or partner with an organization.
Would be nice if I could come up with that miracle biofuel though.
Thank you all for reading!
What about you? What two of your passions have conflicting interests? How do you deal with them?
Well written! I love to eating tasty food and I also want to be a heathy weight.