Do not despise your inner world: An advice by Martha Nussbaum

One of the most poignant letters i read from philosopher Martha Nussbaum on the importance of cultivating a rich inner life.


"Do not despise your inner world. That is the first and most general piece of advice I would offer… Our society is very outward-looking, very taken up with the latest new object, the latest piece of gossip, the latest opportunity for self-assertion and status. But we all begin our lives as helpless babies, dependent on others for comfort, food, and survival itself. And even though we develop a degree of mastery and independence, we always remain alarmingly weak and incomplete, dependent on others and on an uncertain world for whatever we are able to achieve. As we grow, we all develop a wide range of emotions responding to this predicament: fear that bad things will happen and that we will be powerless to ward them off; love for those who help and support us; grief when a loved one is lost; hope for good things in the future; anger when someone else damages something we care about. Our emotional life maps our incompleteness: A creature without any needs would never have reasons for fear, or grief, or hope, or anger. But for that very reason we are often ashamed of our emotions, and of the relations of need and dependency bound up with them. Perhaps males, in our society, are especially likely to be ashamed of being incomplete and dependent, because a dominant image of masculinity tells them that they should be self-sufficient and dominant. So people flee from their inner world of feeling, and from articulate mastery of their own emotional experiences. The current psychological literature on the life of boys in America indicates that a large proportion of boys are quite unable to talk about how they feel and how others feel — because they have learned to be ashamed of feelings and needs, and to push them underground. But that means that they don’t know how to deal with their own emotions, or to communicate them to others. When they are frightened, they don’t know how to say it, or even to become fully aware of it. Often they turn their own fear into aggression. Often, too, this lack of a rich inner life catapults them into depression in later life. We are all going to encounter illness, loss, and aging, and we’re not well prepared for these inevitable events by a culture that directs us to think of externals only, and to measure ourselves in terms of our possessions of externals.

What is the remedy of these ills? A kind of self-love that does not shrink from the needy and incomplete parts of the self, but accepts those with interest and curiosity, and tries to develop a language with which to talk about needs and feelings. Storytelling plays a big role in the process of development. As we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves. As we grow older, we encounter more and more complex stories — in literature, film, visual art, music — that give us a richer and more subtle grasp of human emotions and of our own inner world. So my second piece of advice, closely related to the first, is: Read a lot of stories, listen to a lot of music, and think about what the stories you encounter mean for your own life and lives of those you love. In that way, you will not be alone with an empty self; you will have a newly rich life with yourself, and enhanced possibilities of real communication with others."

Got my Pen!

After weeks of research and soul searching if whether I should get my hands on a Olympus Pen camera or not, finally I am convinced and gave in to my urge of getting that new toy.

With a brief stint in vintage and toy camera collecting, all I know is the Pen series was made by Olympus during the 60's to 80's. It's a fixed-lens rangefinder camera, a focusing mechanism used by photographers to measure the distance of the subject and how the photograph is in sharp focus. It's a little complicated but the photos turn out great especially that one can play with the blur and lighting plus the kind of film used, making it a vintage perfect photo. So this enough reason made me consider buying The Pen.

I got the Ep3 model which is actually a not-so-latest model since the Ep5 is already out in the market. Well given that I have a budget and the EP5 kit doesn't fit the bill so I opted to get it's predecessor with a dual kit the M. Zuiko 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 IIR and a ED 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 lens for the price of a new EP5 with only a single lens kit.

What I like most about this camera is that it takes it's inspiration from the original Pen film cameras of the 60's. It's small, portable and of course it has gone digital with great image quality, quick focusing and the art filters that take on analog cameras using special films and processes that make the picture grainy, black and white, over contrast or what we call lomography nowadays. And what's great about it is you can shoot non-stop without thinking of wasting any film roll. It's like having a hybrid vintage camera!

Now it's my go to camera whenever I go outside, i won't have to worry on carrying heavy gear.

Testshots here.