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⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-04)
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A shorter gemlog for rambly things.
I did the thing and bought a film camera. I already have two digital cameras, which I've used for a couple of years by now, and I went out and did the hipster thing anyway and bought a film camera. It's an absolute tank, with what feels like a fully metal body, and the only electronics in it are for the light meter. Everything else is manual, including all the exposure settings -- no autofocus, no program mode or aperture priority. It is even older than I am and it's an absolute chonk.
I went to shoot what should hopefully be a trouble-free test roll (Kodak Ultramax 400) and already I love it... though I'm not sure if I love it more than digital, for both cost and postprocessing reasons. Shooting film for the first time has also made me realise how some implicit assumptions have shaped my practice.
The roll just went off to the lab to be developed and scanned, so we'll see what happens.
I met up with a friend for dinner yesterday evening and while we were catching up he mentioned he couldn't see himself working for the rest of his life. Not just in the sense of wanting to retire one day, though that's an ever-more distant goal these days, it seems. He just hated being an employee and having a boss over him.
I wonder if there's any research on the psychology of being an employee. There's a bunch of critiques lurking in the background -- alienation of labour, the insecurity of wage slavery, etc. But the thing that comes to my mind most of all is the tanka by Takuboku:
Whoever made me bow
Even once —
I pray they all may die.
His other poems are relevant as well, as is his life: he wasn't rich, he struggled to stay afloat, and he died young (at 26, from tuberculosis). A bunch of these themes come up in his tanka. Lovely, but melancholy, reading.
How strange it is that we care about freedom and equality in politics and society; almost everywhere, really, save for our labour and our livelihoods, for most the single largest bulk of our lives.
I haven't written here much lately, I know. The usual excuse applies -- work has been particularly bad over the past two months and a bit, enough that I'm a little burnt out now, even though it's eased up somewhat. At the lowest point, it was difficult to even consider the things I needed to get done without a wave of resentment. Since then things have settled down somewhat, and even if I still feel somewhat disillusioned, at least I don't actively have to prevent my gorge from rising everytime I consider my to-do list.
There are some consequences that I'll have to deal with, but that's just how it goes. I would feel more anxious about it if I wasn't burnt out, so at least there's that.
EOF