I get a lot of questions from young people in India…
and this one is kinda typical:

I am a 2nd year mechanical engineering student.
Will i become a successful engineer??
Will i get a good job??
Here i have a lot of stress.
Pls help.

Jung said that our western european consciousness is just a peninsula of Indian consciousness…
Maybe, when it comes to stress…everything is upside down…
I doubt it…but you can read my answer to the question here:

kristo

Rosarium Philosophorum

Check out my new dream interpretation at kristo.com…

“Okay, this has been really interesting and I would love to know what all this means. I went to a seminar about a week ago on hospice care and dying….”

kristo

Pennsylvania c. 1996 road trip to ny through the mountains

When I was still practicing as an OB/GYN, getting out of town for any length of time was next to impossible, but I always made time to get together with my family for the Labor Day weekend… This photo might have been taken in 1996, which was the first year I quit practice and could afford the luxury of driving back roads all the way from Chicago to NY to look for images…and didn’t have to arrange for any patient coverage…
Hey…the Interstate may be efficient…but it kinda kills your creativity…

And oh, yeah…
This isn’t my family.

Driving through the mountains outside of Altoona, I saw this scene and just knew that there was something compelling in it. As you can see, I really didn’t know WHAT that compelling image might be, but this first shot looking for it was taken from the passenger seat.
It’s not all that much of a photograph.
Just a snap, really.
But great photos don’t ordinarily happen by snapping the shutter just once…
At least I didn’t do the one thing that completely kills a photo for me (after botching the focus, that is)…
I didn’t cut off anybody’s feet.
Hooray!

Pennsylvania c. 1996 road trip to ny through the mountains

I didn’t stay in the car, either…
Moving in closer with a 50 mm lens, which is what I normally do, constitutes a definite invasion of personal space…
But that’s where the image is gonna be found, if it’s gonna be found anywhere…
You can see that the first color photo shows this pair to be more engaged with each other than what I was able to capture… My fault, entirely…but it’s not exactly a fault…it just goes with that more intimate, 50mm territory…
Unfortunately, my people skills, which are normally lame enough, can be just awful while I’m holding a camera… so this lady had every right to stiffen up…
Not that I was obnoxious…but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t particularly talkative or reassuring…
Damn photo’s outta focus, too!
Ugh!!!!!
I still have dreams where I’m having just an awful time trying to focus my camera and compose a shot…
It always bugged me that I couldn’t figure out exactly what that dream activity was supposed to symbolize…but then my lack of focus in a few too many areas of life is something of a double edged sword…
(one of those edges being awfully blunt, of course…)
Hey…I’m glad that in this digital age there’s no more need to carry around 2 cameras…if only for the sake of B&W vs. Color film…

Pennsylvania c. 1996 road trip to ny through the mountains

I guess I only took 2 photos of the baby…since I didn’t want to bother this lady any more than necessary…and well…at least this one’s in focus…

Introversion & Extraversion

Hooray…I found it!
No feet were cut off or otherwise maimed in the making of this photograph…
Nobody was even inconvenienced…
No… really…
Well..okay….not exactly…
I can certainly empathize with the Introvert…
Takes one to know one…

kristo

I’ve just posted a new free dream interpretation on kristo.com

The dreamer says: “I saw two cats, they had been tied together front to back with wire….”

Just know that there’s more to this catfight than meets the eye…
for one thing, it’s another, classic ouroboros dream…
as for the rest…
Read my full interpretation of the dream here