goals « MaryElizabethThompson.net

Doing What’s Meaningful

This new background photo was taken at Occoquan Bay NWR. I actually take a lot of photos of tree branches against the blue sky. I think it’s one of the prettiest combinations of colors there is. Just like I love when the bright white moon is up during the day in front of a clear cerulean sky. Gorgeous.

Sometime taking photos of tree branches includes Bald Eagles at Pohick Regional Park.

To me, beauty is meaningful. As is the grotesque. As is oddness. And living things of all species. So I am easily motivated to take photographs of things I find beautiful, grotesque, odd, or alive. (Which encompasses almost everything, which accounts for the outrageous number of photos I take.)

And the grotesque includes the dead fish that eagles leave uneaten on the shore.

Humans are hard-wired to find meaning. It’s part of our nature to puzzle out why things are, to learn about them, to find (or invent) meaning for them. This is part of the intelligence that evolved along with creativity, language, art- and tool-making, and everything else that sets up apart from other animals. Our curiosity about the world, our ability to figure out patterns, discover their meaning, and plan for the future – all this has made extremely adaptable and therefore successful.

I don’t believe that the universe as a whole has any meaning. There is no absolute, over-riding purpose to anything… at least, not one we can be privy to. (Although that doesn’t stop people from inventing them and trying to impose their invented meanings on others.) But we each have the ability to decide or discover for ourselves what is meaningful to us, and to pursue that meaning.

And it is pursuing what is meaning to us that keeps us motivated to get up in the morning, to go out in the cold or the heat or the rain or the snow, to take photos, or make art, or plan for the future. If you don’t find what you’re doing meaningful, then why bother? Why are you doing it? What is motivating you?

When we lose sight of what is meaningful in our own lives, though, we lose motivation. We’re simply going through the motions. And sometimes that’s unavoidable. We all have to do things from time to time that seem pointless, but are required to get to some other goal we’re trying to achieve. But no one should live their whole life in pointlessness.

It is your responsibility – your duty to yourself – to find something that gives your life meaning. What motivates you? What makes you feel good about yourself and the work you’re doing? What are you holding on to? What are you protecting? What are you creating?

Written on February 9th, 2012 , Art, Goals, Nature, Philosophy, Photography Tags: birds, fish, goals, meaning, motivation, photography, psychology

Ooooh, Shiny

One problem with having wide eclectic interests and an insatiable curiosity about everything in the world is that it can then be difficult to stick to any one creative project long enough to get it finished, especially if it is, by definition, a long-term commitment, like a book. There’s always the new shiny thing catching my eye.

As a result, I usually have several books-in-progress, as well as paintings and other projects in various stages of construction and deconstruction, and a backlog of new adventures waiting in the wings.

So how do I do it? How do I keep track of everything and stay on top of all my commitments, especially when classes are in session and I have homework on top of everything else.

The truth is I don’t. Well, ok, I do, but I don’t. What I mean is, during the semester I do almost no art or non-school related writing. Then between semesters, I pour myself into creative projects like a starving women at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

But for keeping on top of all my ongoing projects and tasks, whether school-related or studio-related or household chores, I use a combination of David Allen’s Getting Things Done system with Omnifocus software on my computer and a daily checklist that I create and update in Evernote.

First thing every morning I sit at my desk and review my Omnifocus lists, my calendar, and my goals (short- and long-term), and previous journal entries, and I revise my standard daily checklist to reflect any changes, appointments, commitments, or chores that need to be done. I also mark off the lists everything that I completed the previous day. This takes about half an hour and I’m careful not to let constant tweaking and piddling with the system eat up more time than that. In fact, I often set the timer on my phone for 30 minutes just to make sure.

Then, armed with my plan of action, I can get busy with things in whatever order of urgency or leisure is required to make progress on my goals.

Additionally, everyday I spend some time brainstorming in my journal about future things I would like to create, write about, study, or questions I want to look up answers for, frustrations, problems, successes, and failures. How much time varies with how much I feel I need to record – and the time spent is often scattered throughout day in short bursts as ideas come to me. I count this as part of my creative process, so it’s not time wasted… it’s time creating.

Do things slip through the cracks? All the time. Does everything ever get done? Never. Do I finish much more than I would if I didn’t plan like this? Absolutely.

A couple years ago, before I implemented this system, I felt constantly scattered and pulled in a hundred directions, like a juggler trying to keep 100 marbles in the air at once. I was always losing my marbles and never even remembered what half of them looked like. Now all my marbles are numbered, each one has a place, and I rarely lose them anymore.

Please log in and share with everyone how you keep all your projects, tasks, and commitments straight. Do you have a system?

Written on January 17th, 2012 , Miscellaneous Tags: creativity, goals, psychology

Bluebird of Happiness

Last January, I set myself the goal of seeing an owl, an oriole, and an American Bittern during 2011. I hadn’t seen any of them before. So I started going birding more often to look for them. I saw both the owl and oriole before March. I also had the happy surprise of photographing a possum at Burke Lake Park in January! (Another first.)

I tried to find a bittern for a while, but then got involved in bird banding which took up all my time in the spring and much of the summer, along with my summer job at Prince William Forest Park. I saw a few other new birds close-up (especially during banding season), but I never did see a bittern.

This year, I didn’t set myself specific goals of which birds to see or what animals to photograph. But I did tell myself I wasn’t going to just have 2 or 3 for the entire year. My goal now is to have 2 or 3 new birds or animals per quarter. The goal is just to see them. But if I get photos, that’s even better.

Yesterday, I set out to Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge to redeem both my reputation as a birder and as a photographer. Well, not exactly. You see, I go out every time only to see what I see and to explore without any pressure. It’s supposed to be fun, not goal-oriented or competitive.

But I did hope to actually see a bird this time, and perhaps even the Brewer’s Sparrow, and get a few clear decent pictures of something – anything – even tree bark. I was prepared to keep my camera set to manual and to take the extra second to adjust everything properly before snapping the photo.

I got everything I’d hoped for and then some. Thanks to the other bird watchers I met up with at the refuge, I got a glimpse of the Brewer’s Sparrow. It wasn’t a great view – partially obstructed by yellow grass – but I saw him. So that was cool.

And although it was overcast at first, later the sun came out and I got some really nice, clear, if distant, shots of a hawk (a first), and some bluebirds, including this one who refused to look at the camera, but I got him anyway. The sun was on him, and he posed there for some time before he got tired of me and flew off.

I also got some distant shots of a bufflehead duck on the pond and some really close-up shots of a possible juvenile mockingbird that I’m going to get confirmation about from some other birding friends.

So I’m happy.

Written on January 13th, 2012 , Nature, Philosophy Tags: birds, goals, photography

(Re)Learning the Lesson

I have concluded that the problems with the photos I took over the last several days are due to a couple of things. In the first session, there must have been just enough of a breeze and/or just enough of a wiggle when I clicked the shutter to blur everything, especially considering the long lens and the distance. I concluded this because in each image the shutter speed is plenty fast, so I have to attribute it to other things.

In the second session, some of the pictures are fine, but most are blurred. ALL of the blurry ones have shutter speeds slower than 1/100th of a second. Which means: camera shake, particularly since I didn’t use my tripod.

I think all of my problems, too, can be attributed to me forgetting what my photographer friend taught me last summer.

She taught me how to use the Manual setting on my Canon rather than relying on the Av setting. But these last couple times I went out, I thought I’d simplify things and I regressed to using the Av setting. I think that was a mistake. I should have stuck to using the Manual setting even though it takes a second longer to get ready the camera before I snap the picture.

After she taught me how to manually adjust the aperture, shutter speed, and exposure for each photo, I could tell a definite difference in my photos. Everything about them was better and my whole photography experience was happier.

Next time, I’ll keep the dial to Manual.

It’s just sometimes, especially after a long break, we all forget some of the basics that we thought we’d learned. Although the learning curve is shorter and quicker the second (or third, or fourth) time around, we need those lessons to be reinforced.

We can never stop making mistakes. But hopefully, eventually, we spend less time making the same basic mistakes over and over. And then we make room for new, more advanced, mistakes.

Of course, if you’re like me, you’re always trying new things anyway, learning new lessons, climbing up new learning curves, making new mistakes in order to learn. There is no learning without mistakes, and, if you play your cards right, no mistakes without learning.

As long as you’re learning from your mistakes, then I say… keep making them! Make as many as necessary to get where you want to go.

Wherever that is.

Written on January 12th, 2012 , Philosophy Tags: goals, photography

Happy New Year!

2012 is here, and how time flies. Time for new resolutions already. Funny… many of them look a lot like the old resolutions.

In 2012, I resolve to share with my R2N readers all the things that interest me, especially art, literature, nature, and philosophy, which, to me, are inseparable. I am inspired by nature to make art and write, both of which express my nature-based philosophy of life. So I can’t really do any one of these without the others tagging along.

I resolve to make more art, in a variety of media, and to do more writing, in a variety of genres, and to release these objets d’art out into the public.

I resolve to get out and see more art, go regularly to museums, exhibits, and galleries, as well as attend other cultural events. And then blog about it on R2N.

I resolve to train my body to perform the distance goals I’ve set for myself, specifically to hike the 18 mile Bull Run-Occoquan Trail this summer and to ride the Backroads Century with my husband next fall.

What have you resolved to accomplish in the new year?

Written on January 1st, 2012 , Miscellaneous Tags: goals

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