Portrait photography

During the blog dry spell one of the changes that I introduced in my life was portrait photography. I had to learn quite a lot about photography in its digital version. I do not have any regrets that the analog way has practically gone away. Digital negatives, digital processing on a workstation, a lot of tweaking and a lot of fun.

Some of the results you can check on my instagram account:

My portrait photos

Polish vineyards revisited

While I mentioned in my other post that the Western part of Poland is traditionally associated with vineyards and has a long history of wine production, there are places where grapes were grown in the Middle Ages. Vineyards were established by the Teutonic Order and were destroyed when the order had to move away so as to the local population not to acquire the know-how. However, the historic beginnings inspired followers in the 21st century.

In August 2018 I had a chance to visit one small vineyard in Topolno near Bygdoszcz, which is a small family enterprise of a married couple who decided  to make their dream come true after retiring.

The last year due to very sunny dry summer is promising unusually high quality taste of the wine, so if you are visiting the neighborhood, it would be a good idea to check this out...

More information (in Polish): http://winnicaprzytalerzyku.pl/

Reactivating the blog...

Life has forced me to leave the blog for quite a while. There was less reminiscing and more acting. I went thru radical changes in my private life — a divorce, moving to another city, finding a life partner, facing the fact that I am no longer just forty. I am back and ready for a whole new chapter in my life and in this blog :-)

Polish Vineyards and Search for Little Bacchuses...

The city of Zielona Góra is synonymous with grape harvest festivities. Going along with the tradition the city authorities decided to sprinkle its old colorful center with little figures of Bacchus that somehow can be related to the location they are placed in. Sometimes the connection is obvious: a Bacchus sitting on a bank wall adding coins to a piggy bank. Sometimes, it is a bit less clear, maybe mocking the tourists with cameras :)

 

 

Although vineyards are no longer inside the city, there are several rows of vine smack in the middle of the city near the palm house...

 

 

In the city crowded with modern amenities: a philharmonic hall, a theater, shopping malls, fitness clubs, assorted restaurants and coffee shops, if you look around a bit you might find details that radiate with the riddles of the olden times, the story yet to be told... You are welcome to get here and write your own ending.

 

 

Your Mind is Your Matrix cont'd.

Your Mind is Your Matrix cont'd.

The movie showed in a very compressed way how Neo trains to become proficient in controlling the virtual reality of the system. We can also beat our mind matrix, however, there is no shortcut — taking the pill is not the treatment proper, it is just the beginning. To overcome your mind you need to blaze a trail against the routes of the old habits and this takes days, months or even years. You need reshape the neural pathways that were created years ago and were sculpted by your daily routines...

Reverse magic of dreams come true

As an afterthought to the summary in Happines entry...

What happens when your dream comes true? You feel happy... for a while. Quite often, and this occurs especially regularly when you dreamed of something — a new phone, car, house, you name it — you just get used to it. The state of joy that you had gradually fades.

This is the way our minds work. We get used to something good (and even to something bad — that is why people can survive even extreme hardships).

If you expect that winning millions on a lottery would make you happy you are bound for disappointment :)

Your Mind is Your Matrix

This is your last chance... You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed, and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
– Morpheus, from the film The Matrix

In the movie Matrix was a virtual reality in which sleeping people were immersed — they were dreaming away their lives supplying the electric power to a mechanical super system. Neo was given a choice of a red/blue pill to get out of the dream world to the real world. Matrix was in a virtual reality that most of the people took for granted and lived by its rules. They accepted them without a hint of reflection. In his journey to awareness Neo realized that the rules are as flexible as he dared stretch them and — later on — make them.

Coming back to reality — we are also dealing with sort of Matrix — Matrix of our minds. Our mind is shaped by what we experience: our education, culture, mass media, family life etc. We live within the world that we accept as natural. Our behavior is the result of the way our minds process reality and react to it. It is not a problem if this is what you accept as good and are comfortable with. Often, however, we behave in a certain way because we feel we cannot do it another way, because it is expected from us or it is plainly done so. These are our matrices. These traditional, compulsive, addictive behaviors that have been programmed for various reasons in our minds.

Are you brave enough to take the red pill? To realize that the compulsions, phobias, wants are real only in... your minds — in your privately nourished matrix?