Sometimes I get into a very thought provoking mood. Talk to my wife. When I'm in that kind of mode, I tend to think deeply. Okay, extremely deeply. Usually, these things don't lead anywhere. They don't end up with the cure for cancer or anything really significant. They usually take me places that make me wonder about my role on this ball of rock called Earth. Do these things impact you much? I guess not. For the average photographer, none of these thought provoked rantings have little to explain about or contribute to photography. But, if you're really into deep thought... Who knows.

One of the most pretentious things I've heard is a photographer at a workshop, actually it was one of the instructors, go off on a tangent and somehow relating the meaning of life to still photography. Wow... now that's a leap. No, we won't be going or trying to discover the true meaning of being, or even the meaning of life. What we'll touch on here is nothing really except to talk about stuff. If you're a fan of George Carlin--a moderately famous comedian from the 1980's--you may remember a hilarious stage set about stuff. He goes on to say things that pretty much hit straight home. Pretty much talking about "he who ends with the most stuff, wins". While the set is funny enough leaving you hurting from laughter, it pretty much hits home. Most of us are all about having more, more of anything. You look at most of Americans, you'll see our whole society is made up about having more. It's all about stuff.

What's this got to do with photography? It's related if you let me get there.

The pursuit of more stuff is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. The more stuff you get the more stuff you want. It's about more, more, more, and it's never about being satisfied, complete, or happy with what you've got. It's about the pursuit of more and more stuff. It is never about getting somewhere and saying "I have my stuff and I am happy". It is always about more, more, more, this pursuit of stuff. Okay, you're saying to yourself. So, what if it's all about stuff and pursuing more of it. So what if it's always about more. What's so bad about that? Nothing really if you really get down to it. Relatively thinking, there's lots of merit to having more. There's lots of goodness to stuff. More might make you able to do more. Stuff, and more off it, might make you able to do things you might never been able to do. Shoot, having more is down right attractive in the right venues. It's pretty easy to see that stuff is good and more of it is better.

Here we are, pursuing our stuff. What's that got to do with the cost of tea in China? Well, nothing if you aren't worried about sleep walking most of the day. The inexorable pursuit of stuff doesn't mean anything unless you want to be more than what you are, more than your stuff. In this case, the pursuit of stuff, or the mindless following of it does mean a great deal to those that don't want to do what all the other zombies are doing--chasing after more stuff. The pursuit of stuff being such a mindless activity that avoiding it can mean everything to someone that wants to be more than the sum of their parts. Knowing you're unintentionally pursuing stuff can mean everything under the moon if you're catching my drift.