May 2004 Archives

Quantum mechanics indicates that for all physical events on the subatomic level there exist multiple probable outcomes, and that each of these outcomes exists simultaneously until interference with an outside observer causes one of those possibilities to become the outcome observed. We are always aware of only a single outcome; but since other outcomes were also probable, what caused the choice of one over the other?

Classical physics offered a deterministic model in which all effects follow from the previous state according to physical laws: that the reason for every effect is explained by its cause. The nature of subatomic particles, however, is that multiple probable effects can occur from a single cause. The fact that only one is observed implies some sort of selection.

How does this selection occur? Probability indicates a purely random basis for selection, in which it is as equally likely for one outcome to occur as another. This precludes both determinism and free will: the former because we can no longer determine what the observed outcome will be, and the latter because we cannot choose the outcome selected. We are like a boat caught in a stream that leads us whichever way the waters go; and while we can steer the boat in the general direction of the flow, we cannot go wherever we wish.

If the process of selection among quantum states is random, then we live in a random universe governed by laws that constrain the randomness enough that large-scale concepts of continuity are possible. Although the motion of an electron follows no predictable path, yet the laws of electromagnetic attraction keep it bound within the atom’s structure. The randomness of its movement does not prevent the atom from interact consistently with other atoms to create the impression of a solid object. The selection of one state over another happens at fine enough a level that we fail to perceive our universe as being built upon a framework of chance. It seems to be chance happening within a scheme of laws that make one outcome as likely to produce a viable world as another. The world we see, then, is a consequence of untold happy accidents; neither determined by an initial set of events, nor governed by any intention it follow a specific path. Even if the probability of any event could be influenced by external interference, the final choice is still random, and might be the same as if there had been no interference at all. Our universe was simply likely to occur, and because we now see it, is proof that it did occur.

Considered as a physical system, the underlying randomness of events has selected a universe in which beings exist who strive against randomness. Random selection implies an even distribution of probabilities, so that even if occasional interference alters specific probabilities, the overall, net effect is still random. It favors an entropy in which rare outcomes remain rare and are never more likely to be selected than what is less rare. Life, however, consistently makes choices that follow a specific plan, and thus counteract the random nature of the universe that spawned it. We fight against entropy by creating order, even though we say that entropy led to our creation. If life creates order, and randomness creates entropy, then how did the universe select life? Although a random system is bound to make a rare choice, how it choose something which begins to make its own choices in a fashion directly opposed to its parent? How did randomness come to offer the gift of intention?

It is obvious that our current universe was possible. Whether it was improbable or not depends on whether selection actually chooses one state among others, or if all possible states occur in separate universes, each one imagining its own outcome as the one chosen. If this is the case, and we are equally conscious in all possible worlds, probability has no meaning. Even though one outcome be extremely remote, still it will occur, and the inhabitants of that universe will be as conscious of their result, as we of ours. Probability could not mean that we rarely see any one outcome, as we would see all possible outcomes, always. It only means that the history of any universe – revealed by its probability patterns – indicates how often it chose among certain possibilities.

An example of such revelatory patterns is the stock broker’s con: A group of thirty-two people are picked, with sixteen told that certain stock will rise, and the other sixteen that it will fall. After the stock moves, the sixteen who were rightly informed are again divided, with eight told it will rise, and eight that it will fall. This is continued until one is person is left who perceives the broker as having a flawless understanding of the market.

If each person in this example is a universe, consider how he sees the broker: to the first sixteen people who were given bad information, the broker appears no worse off than anyone else: a fifty-fifty chance of giving the right advice. But as the broker chooses among the group of people, others begin to alter their perception of him. Each time the broker chooses the odds remain the same, but the history of his choices seem to weight the probability that his next choice will also be good. What’s more, in setting up the con this way, it is always guaranteed that at least one person will experience the broker as always having made the correct decision. He is likely then to conceive a higher probability of continued success.

If we too are also following multiple worldlines at every turn, we should be experiencing a similar thing with regard to physical laws. Consider a quantum event with a low probability, such as proton decay. In one worldline the proton did decay, and in that worldline another followed in which another decayed, etc. Since it is always possible for a proton to decay, there is always a worldline in which it did decay – no matter how many times previously it had already been seen to decay. In such a worldline, proton decay is not improbable at all, but common; in fact, in at least one worldline, proton decay must always occur, since this exists as a possibility. There proton decay is not only likely, but a constant phenomenon; while here it is so improbable as to remain undetected. Though improbable is the wrong word to describe this: The perception of probability is the quantum history for each particular universe.

This applies to physical laws, where certain possibilities are given a probability of zero: Here, those possibilities never occurred, giving rise to a law explaining their absence; but if probability has no meaning, then other universes exist which violate that law, where the law does not exist and is replaced by an expression of probability, the way we describe other events in terms of probabilities. There cannot be absolute physical laws if there are multiple worldlines: only descriptive histories that reflect, in the form of physical law, the continued non-occurrence of certain possibilities.

Even if consciousness does not carry into multiple worldlines, and some process of selection, random or otherwise, constantly chooses one reality over another, the implication still holds: It is the function of that choice creating the history of our universe from which we derive the concepts of stability and law ascribed to physical phenomena. Whatever we term as law or constant is but a description of what was chosen before us.

The improbability of certain outcomes gives rise to question now of why they are improbable, since quantum mechanics computes their probability by using physical laws. It is only a problem in the single worldline model, where randomness is randomly choosing between alternatives whose distribution is not random at all. Physical law seems to fix the probability of specific occurrences, allowing the choice to be random but claiming that the context of choice is not. However, if physical law is an outcome of the selections experienced by our universe, it cannot be used to describe the nature of the selection process itself. This leaves a selection process that appears random in its choices, while being non-random in the distribution of those choices. Physical law describes these preferences in terms of probabilities, but other than accept them as universal constants, it does not explain why a random process should be constrained in a non-random way. If the multiple worldlines view holds, the reason is purely historical; but if one worldline is being selected, it would seem that the physical laws have been chosen by whatever process now chooses randomly under their aegis.

This discrepancy of behavior in the case of a single worldline is enough to suggest the possibility of an intention to create the universe now experienced – framed in what we call physical laws, and constantly directed by the aggregate choices made at the subatomic level. And if there is intention behind these choices, it implies a conscious framework directing them for whom one outcome is better than another for reasons entirely specific to that consciousness. What we know as the universe was created, and has been constantly maintained and directed, to the end of yielding a place where independent wills have the capacity to add their own intention to the mix.

The idea that our present universe was created by an active will making choices at the quantum level would give such an agency absolute freedom to act without respect to what we know as laws. Further, if the appearance of life in our universe was a gift of this agency – imparting the intention to counteract entropy in a system that by-and-large operates by expressing itself through probabilities – and if perfect awareness exists on the part of that agency, which is indicated by its ability to effect universal scale results by operations in the smallest domain, then perhaps our intentions are read by this agency and effected by means of cooperative changes on its behalf. For example, if one intends to raise his arm in the air, it raises; but while the process of raising can be explained by medicine, the relationship of pure thought to the physical events necessary to move an arm cannot be. But if intention is heard by the same agency that selects the worldline we experience, the motion of one’s arm is explained as a chain of possible events beginning with some quantum-scale choice that would not have been made had one not expressed the intention.

This relationship between our contingent will, and an absolute Will Who governs the course of the universe, would explain the mechanism of prayer: By expressing our intention, we call upon the willingness of that Agency to select a worldline in which our prayer is answered. From this point forward I will simply call that agency God. For whatever reason, God has willed a universe in which the physical laws seem to hold, though this does not mean that any such laws exist in any other form than a consistency of choosing on His part. This explains miracles, since although God seems to prefer consistency in the matter of physical laws – a plain induction – it seems the intentions of saints are cherished even more. Religious scripture indicates that the greater one’s faith, the more one attracts unworldly powers to himself. If these powers are a willingness on the part of God to select improbable outcomes within our worldline, then faith can be viewed as the fulfillment of intention, which functions on the basic level to move the limbs of our body, and on the highest to cause the selection of improbable quantum states, such as Christ’s promise of the ability to move mountains.

Further, there is no difference other than choice, and acceptance of the choice by God, between the changes that move mountains, and those that move an arm. Because we tend to think of physical law as inviolate, and physical mobility as resulting from our own, private volition, we find it difficult to imagine events arising without reasonable causes. Quantum mechanics allows for such possibilities however, even within our scheme of physical law, such that acts of faith are more improbable than they are impossible. And if something is merely improbable, then it falls upon the process of selection to choose whether we experience in our worldline. If God wills it, we shall; and so it becomes as likely than an individual of faith will influence that selection, as for it never to occur if no one asks. The key element is that the world we experience is brought into being, moment to moment, by the intention of a Will Who hears our thoughts. The faith dynamic is that our thoughts and prayers can influence the same decision making process by which this creation was brought into being. It does not run counter to physical law, but appeals to the common parent of law and miracle both.

An individual of pure intention, then, with complete faith in God’s ability to effect whatever outcome He desires, and fulfilling whatever criteria God considers when granting a prayer, has the conditional ability to shape our worldline. This ability is the utmost, consummate power, since it draws upon the same agency Who created the universe. The power of faith is limited only by God’s willingness to heed its call; and since His power is not in any way limited, there is no reason to put a limit on faith. Insofar as a thing is possible, whether or not it is probable, it may be granted, since there is no law God must adhere to in considering its fulfillment.

If God stands behind the chain of events, with our universe the direct expression of His will in the modality of physical creation, then the faith dynamic add another element to human consciousness in this creation: To affect the shaping of the worldline through acts of will, the degree of effect being proportional to one’s faith. The more one has faith – which includes trusting God, and keeping faith in the covenant by which God may trust him – the more one’s contingent powers will be, and the more fully they will exist as a being of spirit, than merely the physical carriage of that spirit. “O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say Be,' and it is, and thou shalt sayBe,’ and it shall be.”12

These past two weeks I have been traveling between California and Arizona (a full day of driving so far). I’ll be back in San Francisco area next week – at which point I hope to get more quality time for writing. But until then, a few photos of the desert.

This movie was playing in an arts theater in Tempe, Arizona. A girl in a specialty shop told me it was about quantum physics; and since the poster sounded interesting, I figured it was worth a try.

What surprised me most was that this movie played like a dramatized version of my earlier essay, The Faith Dynamic. I found this astonishing, since I’d figured no one else was thinking along those lines.

I give the movie 8.5 out of 10. The confluence of ideas is partly why it affected me so strongly (some of the lines were nearly quotes from my essay), but the friend I saw it with enjoyed it, too.

In keeping with the theme of the movie, I wonder if my own efforts to understand these things hasn’t resulted in my opportunity to see this film. You’ll have to watch to understand better what that means…

Globes of moonlight float along the water,  
fishes nibble at the morsels of light;  
I lean against the railing, hands pressed down,  
closing my eyes to remember the sight...

Sail on, lonely barque, carry me far --  
Loose my spirit on the darkened seas!  
I'll hear no more of heaven and earth:  
only waves crashing and the constant breeze.

People say that life is not black and white, but is made up of varying shades of gray. If we imagine that between black and white there is a line dividing the two, perhaps “gray” is just our drawing that line in a different place than Truth does. If what we call white is really black, or black, white, the two overlapped appear gray.

Grayness is then a consequence of incomplete knowledge. In terms of the absolute, perhaps everything is clearly separated between good and evil, though to our eyes, or the eyes of others, understanding that difference can often be difficult.

This does not invalidate morality, however. Some believe that “grayness” over-reaches the apparent simplicity of any moral code; that the complexities of real life makes morality a thing of church and children’s schools. But the proper course is to take a humble stance, and never cease trying to comprehend where the line may actually lie. Each step we take clarifies, but does not solve, the problem of incomplete knowledge.

Since each person draws their line in a different place, not only does there exist a gray area between ourselves and Truth, but also between each person in the world. This lesser grayness has a different size and shape between every two people, according to how much the individuals differ in their understanding of right and wrong.

From this it is easy to understand why the world appears complex. If everyone took their “black and white”, and overlaid it upon everyone else’s, and then placed this against the backdrop of Truth, there would be such an amazing gradation of hue that every shade of gray is represented.

Does such a gradation imply that Truth is imperfect? If we understood life, we could adjust our line appropriately, but as it is we base what we know on our schooling, our family, our beliefs, etc.

When we match our image of black and white against another person’s, we see that there will appear a zone of gray. Intolerance begins when we accuse the other person for the existence of this grayness. Since we feel right in our beliefs, we assume it is their fault that grayness has crept into the picture. And they, for their part, think the same of us, which leads ultimately to argument and misunderstanding.

With respect to one another it is useless to ask who is responsible for the gray areas. The only constructive inquiry is to compare ourselves with the True image, and discover how to correct our own understanding. If everyone does this, naturally we will reach agreement some day.

Until that time the existence of grayness should indicate that there is much yet to be learned from life. None of us knows how close he is to a full understanding of Truth. Not until the day all grayness has finally vanished.

Nor does one need to obsess about pain for it to be effective. It is the body’s guardian, and a helpful friend, when you think about it. The damage done to the body of a leper is exactly because they feel no pain (the nerves are damaged by the virus).

In a similar way, the Fear of God is like the soul’s guardian. The Bahá’í Writings call it a “shield”, and an “assurance of victory”. Do we like it, or seek it out? Of course not. But when we’re in a situation that could turn out bad for us, at times when our own understanding is not fully developed, it is fear of God that keeps us safe. As with pain, it’s not something that needs constant attention. If one is healthy, and not endangering his spirit, he needn’t feel it at all. It only comes into play when needed – if it has been cultivated.

This is utterly different from anxiety or terror, which have no true basis, and occur at unnecessary times. The fear of God, on the other hand, is based on our respect for God’s authority, and should come into play only when it is required: at those moments when we are tempted to ignore God’s command. Then the fear of God is like a friend, preserving the future against unwise choices in the present.

We fear God for own sakes, just like fearing a doctor. Without such a fear we might take his counsels lightly – at our own peril. Having a deep respect for authority, such that it engenders fear if we consider defying it, can be an excellent thing if: 1) The authority is a true one, with our best interests in mind; and 2) if we are not yet mature enough to understand its decisions. In those cases, fear is the only thing to keep us on the right track when sorely tested.

Since the age of four, it was noticed by doctors that I did not pay attention to things the same way as other children. When the psychiatrist would give me an interesting toy to play with, I became so involved that I did not see the other toys he tried to tempt my attention away with. And if the toy was not fascinating, I quickly lost interest, and could not give it any consistent focus. They also noted my high levels of activity, excitability, and difficulty in calming down. These days they call this collection of traits ADHD, or: Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.

The term “deficit” is misleading, however, causing many people to misunderstand what ADD really means. Having had a whole lifetime to think about it and come to terms with it, I’ve finally boiled down the essence of ADHD to this: Normal people can decide what they focus on, for long periods of time, if they deem it important; a person with ADD cannot. Maybe I can pay attention for a little while (say, 15-30 minutes), but then it becomes too emotionally painful to continue. It feels stifling, oppressive, turning into a strange kind of agony that is difficult to describe. The pain is enough to affect my value judgments, causing me to care less and less about the consequences of not paying further attention, until finally I am in such a state of wishing to be elsewhere that I get distracted by my own thoughts. My brain start to fantasize about random things, involuntarily, in order to help me escape my acute sense of boredom. Before I know it I am off in some other world, having lost all touch with reality. That’s when, after hours have passed, I finally snap my head up and remember there was something I was supposed to be doing…

My ability to focus is directly related by my level of interest. This is not unlike the condition of a child. However, even children, if sufficiently motivated through positive and negative enforcement by their parents, can be directed to perform large-scale tasks, such as homework. When they grow up, these same children can learn how defer their interests to satisfy the demands placed on them by society. They develop an ability to pay attention to what is important, putting off their interests until they have more time. This is a large part of what becoming an adult means. It allows one to fit productively into society, an effective and smoothly flowing machine built up of the common effort of everyone moving toward a single, unitedly determined purpose.

For a person with ADD, however, this aspect of maturation never occurs. Nor should it be imagined we don’t want it to occur! The ability to decide one’s focus is so appealing, many take drugs in pursuit of this ability. Normal people seem superhuman to us, who can simply decide on a task and finish it, even if it takes days or months. If only I could choose what I spent my time on… I can already picture many of the things I would do.

But it doesn’t work that way. Not taking medicine keeps my mind active, agile, full of interesting things. Having a constantly shifting focus means I am always seeing new things, even within my own head. I like this experience, however much it prevents me from achieving what I see. It’s like wandering around in a forest and exploring, compared to settling down in one place and building a house. Exploring is more interesting; building a house takes too much concentrated effort. I may have sleep under the stars, but hey, that’s just the way it is.

I stopped taking medicine in my early twenties. Medicine made it possible to finish school with passing grades, but it also left me relatively uninterested in life. I had few interests, few friends, and learned very little in all those years. I date the beginning of my real education at around age nineteen. Until then, I simply did what I was told, and only enough to pass tests and get back to playing with my computer. I may have learned how to program during those years, but life was not about living back then, but just getting by.

In the years that followed – the unmedicated years – I learned an important lesson: ADD makes it impossible to sustain a collaborative effort on equal terms. This fact got me fired once, and it even led to a divorce. The inability to hold my focus on anything uninteresting has devastating consequences in terms of other people’s expectations. Why couldn’t I pay attention? Did I not care enough? After all, many people, if they care enough, can pay attention to the most boring things. If they care enough, normal people seem capable of almost anything. Obviously, if I could not pay attention for even one hour to a boring subject, it must mean I didn’t care.

This conclusion, so easily framed in the mind of someone without ADD, is impossible to argue against. There is no way to say, “Yes, I do care, I just can’t pay attention”, because to most people, caring and attention are practically synonymous: caring means paying attention: one pays attention because he cares. The focus of the average mind is determined by a rational process of applying one’s will to whatever that mind has elected to pay attention to. And that choice is based largely on what the person cares about; ergo, attention relates to significance.

This belief cannot be argued because it is commonly accepted as the very standard by which choices are to be judged. Because I don’t pay attention to something, I do not care. It doesn’t matter what I feel for the subject, the belief tells all concerned what my real feelings are. It is impossible to care and not pay attention. Since this possibility does not exist in a normal person’s universe – in fact, it is so unthinkable as to border on the pathological – it is not something I can argue against. Without a common ground, I find myself fighting a paradigm with no place for my words. I am, in effect, asking people to accept a world unrelated to the one they’ve lived in for so long.

The outcome of this is that, in the view of many, I simply don’t care. The projected reasons for this lack caring are numerous: laziness, complacency, immaturity, insufficient discipline, etc. The list goes on. Some have tried escalating their punishments to induce compliance, but this is notoriously ineffective against ADD. It just leaves us battered, and the other person’s wishes remain unfulfilled. In every instance, such a relationship either ends, or both parties begin to understand what is going on.

My last manager was remarkable in this respect, and I must give him credit here. In the beginning he tried very hard to bend me to a common, manageable mold: to arrive at work when my co-workers did, to complete my assigned tasks on time. It reached the point that one day he implied I would lose my job if I didn’t find a way to work like everyone else. It was a very hard time for both of us.

Then, for a reason I will never fathom, everything changed. I still don’t know what happened in his life to produce this change, but he suddenly had a completely different attitude. He told me I could get to work pretty much when I wanted to, as long as I met my deadlines. And he relaxed those deadlines when he knew the task didn’t interest me. He even kept me “in reserve” for the kinds of jobs I excelled at. He defended my behavior in meetings, and told others that the key to a successful team was learning how to manage the strength of its various members. I was flabbergasted. His change of outlook caused even me to learn a lot about myself. It was the first I could see myself as a worthwhile member of society if put to the right use.

It was because of this that my private despair ended, and I started looking for ways to succeed outside the ordinary models for success. I questioned the ideas of “success” and “productivity”. I wanted to know what society really needed, rather than just what it asked for. Wasn’t there a place for someone like me, who can start a hundred things in a single year, but not see a single one to completion? Coming up with ideas and inventions is not very difficult, but executing them is worse than pushing nails into my eyes. I can’t explain the nature of the pain, but at times I’ve imagined death would be far preferable. Because death would mean peace. That’s how bad it feels.

Maybe even, people like me are intentional. Perhaps God feels monotony is not a recipe for success, and individuals are needed who are unable to fit the mold. It certainly causes suffering for everyone involved, but don’t we grow through suffering? Wouldn’t a relentless, smooth efficiency cause people to stop thinking about how to change things – exactly because everything worked so well? Thus the need for people who are driven, not by external goals, but by their passionate interests. We couldn’t follow a straight line if we wanted to: Our nature prevents us from becoming what society desires (even, a lot of the time, what we desire), thus we feel compelled to look beyond such goals, and wonder if maybe something else wouldn’t be more worthwhile.

This is why productivity is no longer the name of my game. It does bother me, often, how unproductive my life really is in terms of what I could accomplish. I’ve never made it through higher education, never wrote the books I wanted to write, never documented my programming efforts, never been anything but a distraction to the groups I’ve joined. There have been so many disappointed people left in my wake, and so many hopes of my potential dashed. But for all the flakiness, people still find me interesting to be around; they still like me, even knowing that my commitments are not terribly reliable. So it is that the social exchange works, and that people with ADD really have something to offer: because there is more to life than meeting quotas and building another bridge. We need those people who feel driven to pursue their odd, random interests; who can contribute color to the beautiful mosaic humanity has so diligently designed.

This is my take on what it means to live with ADHD, and why I truly believe that not only do we have a rightful place in society, as we are, but if others recognized this more of us could leave behind our medication and begin to cooperate on much more beneficial terms – for all involved.

All of my life people around me have focused on the “bottom line” (using their own particular definition). I think this has become a problem for those of us in the West, owing to the ways we tend to define “effective” and “successful”.

All around me, everywhere, I encounter people saddened, either by life, or by the lack of spirit in their community, or by conditions in the world at large. At the same time, everyone is clamoring for things to be done: they want everything to produce a specific end result: and they believe better structure and more resources is the answer to the problem.

Are they? How much can we accomplish without joy and unity? The world has countless resources, why aren’t its problems solved? There are many people showing forth extreme productivity, then why are people still unhappy?

This is an issue I think we need to plumb to its depths, because there exists an unspoken ambivalence with regards to flights of the spirit in our community. I for one believe that mysticism is ultimately practical, because only the joyful heart can attract other hearts. As `Abdu’l-Bahá once wrote, “Who can share the Cup of Everlasting Life, who has himself not tasted a drop?”

Some recent events, here and elsewhere – which need not be dwelt on – simply give voice to this undercurrent. We sometimes prevent ourselves from engaging in the exact kind of activities which uplift and create spiritual resources, because we cannot define the immediate material products of those activities. Is this right? When we look to the end of things, what kind of end should it be?

To me, if the people around me feel confirmed in their Faith, if they are illumined in spirit and recommitted in their hearts, this effect will yield fruits that themselves will yield fruit, since it creates fertility in the mind and heart. It begets creativity, and the willingness to persevere. Requiring numerical or demonstrable results is what we’ve been doing for the last hundred years, and look where we are! We know things must change – that we don’t even begin to represent our future World Order. Perhaps our restrictive attitude towards unspeakable questions is one of those things that needs to change.

But this is spoken according to my own prejudices, and my own history. This list was created so people would not feel alone, and would ultimately become confirmed and strengthened by consorting with people of a similar spirit. From this, they could shake off their burden of silence, and become more exuberant toward life, and carry this over into their work and their community. This has already happened for me. You cannot know how much joy and happiness your responses and support have added to my life. In a way, it has drawn from me five times the commitment of energy that existed before, because I am now empowered by your spiritual support and connection. In worlds unseen our souls consort, and we whisper to each other of secrets and mysteries. Just knowing there is a place like this where I can say such things, causes me to sigh with joy.

What are your thoughts? I’m not asking what needs to change, because that is the old approach. We need a new approach. Everything we’ve tried before has not attracted the Kingdom. I want to know what will unlock your soul, what will enliven you, what will engender the conditions of true productivity and result. The genuine mystic, in my belief, can attract the power of the Holy Spirit to such an extent – through prayer, devotion and labor – that their mere presence acts as a magnet of love and rejoicing, and everyone, spiritually, is affected for the better. They do this by reflecting the bounties of God through an ever-purer heart, for as Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “… a single breath from the breezes of the Day of Thy Revelation is enough to adorn all mankind with a fresh attire.”

We must cast off the approaches of the past, which sometimes are indeed nothing more than words designed to comfort the ego; we must also reject old titles people would place upon us to prevent our transformation. “No bond shall hold them back, and no counsel shall deter them.”

Let us define ourselves by consulting on what our intentions are, why we pursue the course that we do, and what our special response to the yearly call of the House of Justice will be. Our life exists to serve and nurture the Cause of our Beloved; how could anyone possibly impugn a contrary motive?

Finally! I can show some images of my home town, Pacifica, California (which is about four miles south from the city of San Francisco). I’ve done web searches before to find images of Pacifica, but couldn’t turn up much. So here is my own gallery, with a few pictures from the part of town where I live.

Also, these photos represent another stage in my camera education: Most of them were taken in aperture priority mode, where I was able to manually control the depth of field. I then transferred the RAW images into Photoshop CS, and played around with the white balance, color curves, lighting levels, used the healing brush, etc. I am addicted to that program already! and have found it very easy to turn marginal photos into just what I was looking for.

I have also winnowed the collection of Aptos pictures to my true favorites, and added another set of photos from a picnic this past weekend in Scotts Valley (a town about one hour to the south).

A friend and I looked after a mutual friend’s kids for a little while, so we walked them down to Hidden Beach, in Aptos, California. This collection shows photographs of that beautiful part of the California coast.

Of the photos taken, all of them were in done in one of the various “Auto” supported by my camera, the Canon Digital Rebel. I finished reading the manual last night, but haven’t yet tried adjusting things like the shutter speed and exposure. The Rebel has various automatic settings for different subjects; most of the photos in the collection were done in landscape mode, with a few done as closeups or portraits.

It has been a very easy camera to use so far, with none of its features “getting in my way”. I even turned off the digital preview in order to pay more attention to the shot itself, taking multiple shots if I really cared about the image. The pictures of the shoes above was the second of two shots taken in the same mode. The first version was too blurry, however, because apparently my hands had moved. It showed me how useful multiple shots are! Out of 150+ photos, a third made it past the cutting floor.

The shoes are owned by one of the little girls we took to the beach; and that was exactly how she left them behind her, before she ran to rescue more seashells from the encroaching waves.

Today I took the plunge and bought a camera (digital) for the first time in my life. The only other time I was able to take pictures for myself was back in pre-adolescence, when my mother gave me her old 110 telephoto – that soon afterward broke. I have never been a big fan of photography, preferring to record images in my head than transfer them to film. But one interesting point was made in a website I found: about the fact that looking for a good picture can sensitize you to the aesthetics of your environment, just as in the difference between hearing good music, and listening to it to find its unique beauty. We’ll see if that comes true. Until then, one of my first pictures: a long-time programming and traveling pal, Pat the Bunny.