That Great Darkness.

The dictionary defines the word 'darkness' as the "absence or deficiency of light". A cursory glance out one's window these days will confirm this as an apt definition. It is that time of year again in which the days grow noticeably shorter and even though we set our collective clocks back and gain one precious hour, we lose one to black skies. What is it about the darkness that so affects our mood? Why is it that the absence of light does so much to mute our inward joy? One answer may be found in perception. Under adequate lighting, people can take in the world in full and undisclosed detail for as far as one's eyes can see, there is no visual mystery. On some level, perhaps light takes away our subconscious fear of the unknown because in the light there is no hiding. As sensual beings, humans are most at ease when their senses are working to their fullest. In the dark, our eyes can be deceived or eluded and we have to mentally fill in the blanks of that which we cannot perceive.

Darkness represents the hole in our perceptions. Philosophically, darkness can also be the holes in our being -- the parts of us we do not know; our fear of that which we cannot know; the inability to face the world outside of our own mental one. Darkness, such as it can be externally perceived, forces one to slowly close both the inward and outward boundaries of awareness more tightly around oneself. Essentially, in the dark we can only see that which is relatively more immediately close to us and therefore the lengths to which we infer our surroundings increases causing us to become steadily more introspective. As social creatures, humans yearn to reach out and be connected to the world around them. If indeed being in darkness causes some to become more contained to their own mind, then it would follow that one would also experience emotional resonance as well. While this emotional response could obviously vary, it would be logical to assume that the feeling of being restrained from the rest of the world would result in a negative way.

The Fall season brings many things with it. Here in Wisconsin, it brings the winter cold. Cold in and of itself could be distilled much the same as darkness into the correlation of human need to be warm and the warmth of being loved or accepted. I'll skip over that dissection in favor of staying on topic, suffice it to say some climates make the great darkness of Fall potentially harder to bear. I truly do believe that the Fall and Winter seasons do cause many to struggle with increasingly difficult moods and feelings. Perhaps this is why the powers-that-be grouped so many holidays in such a close proximity on our calendar. The more reminders we have of what makes life joyous, the less inclined we are to turn in on ourselves. It's been said in fiction for centuries that one of the single most powerful strengths and weaknesses of the human condition is hope. It is hope that drives us to persevere. It is hope that makes us strive for a better tomorrow. It is the more positive and inspiring aspects of hope that I want to emphasize here as it is this exact sentiment that makes the darkness bearable. It is the ability to reach out to others even when you feel alone that illuminates the darkness in ourselves.

We are capable of enduring darkness in the hopes that the light will ultimately prevail, and if you look at it that way darkness is just another moment of your life.

28 x 28: February Twenty-Four

Waterfalls Don't Freeze

Walking in Old Footsteps

The Sun Lit Up the Whole Sidewalk

The Sign Said No Trespassing

No One Sits Here in the Winter

Like a Thousand Crooked Fingers Calling Me In

Chain Link Winter

Before the Sun is Up in this Neighborhood

28 x 28: February Seventeen

Snow Place to Walk

28 x 28: February Ten

Ok, so looks like we're running with the black and white experiment. I can't decide if the black and white is accenting the cold, deadliness of winter or if it's just super presumptious. If I keep going out and snapping stuff, I'll try to vary up my locations. Problem is, it's really cold out most nights and I don't like being out any longer than twenty minutes at a stretch.

Lights Go Up Like Everything Does

Stars Burn Bright

Rails on a River of Snow

28 x 28: February Nine

There's some snow falling today... Just a little bit. Also, I think I may be on a black and white kick.

Snowfall Stoicism

28 x 28: February Six

Winter's Lonely Avenues

Why We Eat the Holidays.

It's the holidays again and, for me at least, that means an excessive amount of opportunities to eat. Why is that I wonder? Firstly, I imagine that having Thanksgiving lead into a whole month of Christmas frenzy can only promote festive treats and festive meals of colorful cookies and candies. Secondly, and this point may indeed only apply to those of us living in the frozen North, winter is not the most friendly time to be going outside and partaking in various tangents. At the very least it becomes that much tougher to convince oneself to get up and go outside instead of just staying in, having a cookie or six, and watching an old movie. Food is such a fascinating social element in human interaction. Simply speaking we eat to give ourselves energy to keep living, but it's not hard to see that food and the consumption thereof has a much greater significance in the lives of almost everyone on the planet. We eat on a first date; we eat when we get together with family; we eat at work to celebrate nondenominational holidays; we eat when we're happy and sad; we even eat when we have nothing better to do -- people eat for so many reasons and factors that the idea transcends the act.

An average human being eats over one thousand pounds of food in a year. On the basic level, our bodies urge us to do this for 'building blocks' needed to grow and repair our bodies and for fuel to give us the energy to go about our business and eat more. But is this the reason we eat, and if so why then do we eat more during the holidays? Some have suggested that many times we eat in a 'zone' of 'biological indifference' wherein we are neither hungry nor sated. The next time you sit down to eat, examine if you're legitimately in need of sustenance or if indeed you are responding to environmental cues. "Environmental cues," you ask? These can be any number of things ranging from the company with which you dine to emotional state and even - surprise, surprise - the time of year (more appropriately categorized as 'social circumstance').

The holiday season in particular fires on all three of the aforementioned cylinders of the eating engine. Obviously during the holidays family is in town, old friends come home, and as previously mentioned there are an abundance of treats and sugars to ingest. If we meet with a group of friends at an acceptable social gathering place like a restaurant, the stigma falls to us that we are required to eat. We do so in most cases without even being aware of what it is we're eating or if we even need it. The very nature of the holiday season can evoke the emotional triggers that cause a flux in eating patterns. From experience the string of seasonal merriment can affect a range of emotions from bliss to absolute melancholy. Being such a staple of our day-to-day stimuli, eating easily becomes a safely habitual haven for those of us overcome by either end of the spectrum of feeling. Our emotional state and the amount and types of food we eat are so closely tied together largely because of a closeness in the experience of existing. In essence we eat to stay alive and we experience emotion because we live. The conflux of the two activities, while seemingly unrelated at first glance, inevitably becomes much more apparent given the greater complexities at work in our minds and lives on a continuing basis.

In most of ones life, eating is never such a pervasive topic in a normal day of thinking, but that is not to say it is not prominent in our thoughts. It is prominent but in an almost subconscious way. It is such a primal instinct that it bleeds through to the more actively engaged impulses in the course of a day. Simply because of this fact eating and, by extension, food affect and in turn are effected by almost every stimuli we encounter be it internal or externally prompted. These reasons are chief among the factors that make topics such as weight-loss and healthy diets so frustrating to corral. While it is easy to assign logic to how we should relate to food; the biological tangle of stigmas, environmental cues, and ingrained behaviors make it a much more complex topic.

So why are the holidays usually such a catalyst for us to partake in consumption? I think it comes down to a perfect storm of stimuli. Christmas time has a way of throwing everything that makes the act of eating part of our daily lives at us in greatly exaggerated amounts. To me, the increased frequency of eating indicates that we are indeed alive and living. If this is the case, it means that things could be worse and maybe we should all be looking forward to a new year and a chance to experience everything life has to offer while we have the opportunity.

Would you believe I write outlines for these kinds of posts?

On the Merits of Christmas Music and Human Happiness in December.

It's that time of year again. Before Thanksgiving can even fade gracefully from our memories, radio stations across the city are ramping up the Christmas tunes for all to hear. For many this is a yearly annoyance. These types are content simply to think of Christmas one or two weeks out from the actual day. And who could blame them? It's a tad unsettling to be driving to Thanksgiving dinner only to be serenaded by 'White Christmas'. Will I eventually be dreaming of a white Christmas? Yeah. Am I dreaming of it on my way to Thanksgiving? Not until I heard that song. And that's really the point. More and more the familiar 'Christmas spirit' is being foisted upon us at earlier and earlier dates. From a purely cynical worldview, one could imply that this push is done largely to encourage retail surges in the weeks leading into the most joyous of days. Realistically this is most likely the most astute assumption. Stores want more customers with more dollars going through their stores earlier and earlier to garner a higher yield when the season is said and done. Me? I like to imagine that the Christmas music is coming on so early these last few years at least in part because we as a society need it. You may notice that Christmas music in general hasn't changed too drastically since you were a child. For some of us that's a couple of decades and for some us it's considerably longer. I think it's safe to say that Christmas music is timeless, and because of that the amount of memories attached to it are substantially greater in volume.

I guess it is my hope that somewhere out there playing Christmas music is a way to cheer people up in what is otherwise a dismal time of year (especially in my hometown of Milwaukee). The sun goes down at 5pm, the weather is becoming increasingly unforgiving, and the rush and stress of the holiday season can take a toll on a person. Christmas music, if given enough thought, can be a reminder that if we slow down and really take in the season there is a lot to be joyous about.

Personally, I didn't really embrace the Christmas music push wholeheartedly until last December. For whatever reason I was listening to the festive music for a good month and a half before Christmas ever happened. Generally in years past, thanks in large part to my time served in the retail shopping world, I loathed the idea of having to be reminded that increasingly angry customers with increasingly insane demands would soon be pouring into my checkout line and berating me. This year, as an extension of last, I have decided to attempt to let listening to holiday music a whole month before the holiday become a tradition. While not the most original tradition ever generated; for me it represents a time where I'm going to try and redouble my efforts to really appreciate the season and the winter to the full extent. As with any tradition, it will likely take a year or two more before I am fully confident I'll even want to embrace this tradition. For the time being though, I have decided to allow myself to drop my defenses and give in to what I would in years past considered 'cliche'. Sure, my attitude is pretty much exactly what retail chains everywhere are banking on to make some extra scratch in our hobbled economy, but so help me if somewhere years and years ago this music wasn't written to bolster the holiday spirit for the sake of bolstering it.

It's that last sentiment that I am placing all of my childlike Christmas hopes upon: That the world is inherently good, and that even though things can seem bleak, things are ultimately what we make of them. Christmas can be one of two things. It can be a stress-filled couple of weeks fraught with anger and frustration, or it can be a time to revel in the unnaturally cheery facade of everything around you. Personally, I plan to make it my own and enjoy it because in personal experience it will be over before I know it. And that's all having to listen to Christmas music this 'early' in the year really is; an invitation to attach your own personal emotions and memories to a time of year that is otherwise pretty unbearable. So in the meantime I'll be listening and getting in the spirit of the season, whatever that may be. And who knows? While I may be shuffling into someone's pre-planned scheme to get me to spend my money; if I come out of it with even a smidgen of personal joy isn't that more than worth it in today's world?

'White Christmas' - Bright Eyes

Diversion: Dinner Parties and Shiny Shores

The new post I'm writing is proving extremely difficult to get through. It very much feels like a school paper which means, I imagine, the few of you who do end up reading my humble rantings will probably become fewer. Anyways, in an attempt to keep new content rotating onto these intertube pages I have decided to slip in with some MORE sunrise pictures (because I'm staying up longer and longer and sleeping less and less) and a few snaps from a recent dinner party I hosted for my friends at my apartment.

Firstly, here are some sunrise shots from a new but favorite location, and taken with a much fancier camera. As everyone knows, the fancier the camera, the better the pictures you take. Right? These pictures fall right into my 'World in my Mind' series in that I've tweaked them passed the point of being realistic outside of my own brain. Honestly though the scene was pretty magic before I got my fingers on them.


On this one I only slightly tweaked the contrast levels and I also desaturated the picture. I took some color out because, while the picture does not convey this, it was absolutely freezing out Wednesday morning. I feel like taking away some of the color made it feel like less of a warm, cozy morning at the beach.


I didn't really mess with this one so much. I just upped the red and darkened the shadows. Like I said, it was cold out, but looking at these pictures off my camera it really could be a warm day.


This last one I didn't retouch at all. I snapped this as I was leaving the lakefront, and honestly I can't think of a better way to start a morning.

Last order of business is a quick snapshot of this spaghetti casserole thing I whipped up for a meal for some people. It's not quite scenery, but I feel like it definitely classifies as art.