"I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, For, lo, my own shall come to me." John Burroughs
Hi again. I have been away from here, I have been in primary school. Learning the things that I didn’t learn in the past mainly because I was afraid to look at them. To look at those things that I assumed were correct and those things I did not question because many people around me were saying otherwise and have always been saying otherwise and I was afraid to look further.
I am reminded of what Robert Pirsig wrote in ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’, “The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
After gaining a little education during ‘covid’ I found it too easy to criticize and talk about a number of things that have been happening in our society and world. Things that I thought I knew something about. Things that seemed important and I felt justified in pushing against and struggling with. This Nikontim newsletter was the result of that.
However, ‘I rave no more.’
There are only a few posts left from the old Nikontim newsletter, posts that I felt could go on with my grade one education. A long time ago when I first used ebay I made up the name Nikontim because I called myself a photographer and I used Nikon cameras. So I continued to use that name here and there and it became the title of my Substack. I was bothered a little to use the corporate name, ‘Nikon’, but I had never seen any wokeness in Nikon’s advertising so I kept using it.
I am going to continue this newsletter but it will be different than it was. It will be titled ‘a man’s journey’ because i, am a man, and i, am on a journey.
So, the next post will look and be different. Keep reading if you like - if not thank you for reading some of what I wrote in the past.
Here is another quote from Robert Pirsig to ponder.
“But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.”
Beautiful!! Welcome back!!
My life seems to be about recalibrations, at increasing frequency. Each one brings a new small hibernation and a shedding of various elements. Every day a gift, I count as a possible last.