Prune the Dead
For the past year, I’ve been working as a horticulturist in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. Now that it’s officially spring, I’m starting to see the flowers bloom, watching the daffodils flourish as the seasons change and the bulbs I planted come alive. I find it fascinating to live in a city like Philadelphia with so much green space. It reminds me of my childhood, spent in the Wissahickon forest, blazing my own paths and trails, building teepees with sticks, bridges with stones, and exploring the unknown—all on my own. I thrive in solitude and find peace amongst the chaos of urban life here in the park. I feel like I’ve finally returned home, to my essence, to the inner child within me, finding my place in a chaotic city.
Prune the dead
It seems that one of the easiest ways to allow plants to flourish is to simply remove the dead parts. By grabbing a pair of pruners and clipping off the dead limbs of the trees, the dead leaves from branches, or diseased stems and parts of the indoor plants, you give the plant a fresh breath of life—another opportunity to regrow again. When I walk through the park and listen to the sounds of the birds sing, I can’t help but join them. I love singing when I walk into the park, tuning into their frequency. I watch the squirrels run around and jump from branch to branch, watching the leaves wiggle from the trees, observing the patterns of the branches, and how much beauty there is in God’s creations.
When I think of nature as the ultimate creation, and God as the ultimate creator, I remind myself that I too am His creation. Just like the branches looming upon the trees, they reflect back within me—in my lungs, in the shape of the branches that are growing through the veins in my body, similar to the veins of the leaves, where our bloodstream carries nutrients just like the veins within the leaves carry nutrients throughout the trees and the different plants around me. Everything is connected, and we are all one, despite how much the modern world separates us. When you zoom into the tiniest atom within your body, and then zoom out to the galaxy—to the cosmos at large—you realize how divine life truly is, and how magnificent it is to be a part of it. Despite how insignificant you may seem, as a small speck of dust in an open vast galaxy, we all have a role to play.
Reborn again
I recently attended a Bible study in an Amish home in Lancaster, and we joined together, singing for about an hour. With such pure souls, it felt like an unreal movie. I couldn’t believe that they were so open in inviting me into their space to join them. After singing, we talked about different topics from the Bible, etc. But what struck me was this idea of being born again.
I find that being born again is simply removing all the dead parts from your soul and allowing yourself to regrow again, similar to the plants and the way they grow throughout the change of seasons—or when you tend to a greenhouse and prune the dead. I think in order to wake up, in order to be born again, one must recognize the finitude of our lives—that we are flesh, that we cut, we bleed, we feel sorrow, pain, and greed. We lust for the flesh of others, we shout, we pout, and we are imperfect in nature.
We are divinely imperfect, however, and through embracing that imperfection—through recognizing suffering and going through it—we come out from the other side of the fire, born again. You have to be born of the fire, of the spirit, within, by connecting with your inner daimon, as they call it in Ancient Greek philosophy—the essence of who you are.
Strip everything away
You know how when you start a new video game and you design your character from the ground up—giving yourself facial features, clothing, body type, etc.? I think that we should go back to that default video game character selection scene and build ourselves from the ground up. It’s like you have to purge yourself of all toxins, whether they’re physical foods or digital media that you consume.
By removing all the superfluous distractions of the modern world—all of the toxic stuff and all the sludge that we consume—you can purify yourself through stripping away the superfluous. When you strip away the superfluous things and detach yourself from the material things around you, whether it’s the desire for a fancy car, a fancy watch, a particular thing, or a goal of acquiring something, you can rebuild yourself from the ground up, from within.
I feel like we all go through our own trials, our own sufferings, but it’s up to you to use that suffering in order to be grown into something new. I recently read Dante’s Inferno, and I feel as though this epic poem lays out the clear path to that. Dante would’ve never ascended to Paradiso if he hadn’t descended into the Inferno. Or if you even look at the myth of Hercules, and the way he had to be purged through the fire before rising to Mount Olympus—after completing his 12 labors—through suffering, he ascended.
The power of art
For the past two years straight, I’ve listened to the Wanamaker Organ every single day at 5:30 PM. I find the trifecta of art to be the combination of music, sculpture, and architecture, as I believe them to be the highest forms of art. There’s something so special about the Wanamaker building, that unfortunately just closed this past weekend. I remember being a little boy, sitting under the Eagle sculpture, watching the light show. My grandmother also worked in the beauty department.
However, this daily show became my muse—my main source of inspiration recently. Looking up at this high ceiling, in front of an eagle, it felt like the bird was flying my body up to a transcendental height, like I could climb up Jacob’s Ladder or something, haha. I think this is the power of beautiful art. When a man decides to build a giant sculpture or a piece of architecture, they’re striving to ascend upwards. Through building something beautiful and grand, it can inspire greatness in humanity itself.
When I stand in the center of the Wanamaker building and listen to the organ sound and look up at the high ceiling, it reminds me that I can strive to move upwards—despite being bound by gravity. There’s something so special about art and its ability to uplift humanity to a new height.
The street is a mirror that reflects back at you
When you photograph life, of course you’re putting four corners around it—but recognize that the image is a reflection of you. The images we make are a reflection of our inner soul, let alone a depiction of reality. I think the power of street photography is the ability for the individual to have a voice.
You may feel like you have nothing to say, or no special ability to create, but through simply picking up a camera and going out there in the world—like a big kid, just photographing your inner-child-like curiosity—you can reveal your soul and give yourself this powerful voice through the medium of photography.
This, to me, is the beauty of art—and specifically photography—as it is so easy. All one needs to do is pick up the camera and walk out their door. There’s just so much to do, to see, to explore, to photograph in our life. So pick up a camera and champion that simple fact. Go somewhere new today. Talk to a stranger. Photograph in a new way. Embrace the spirit of play through the act of making a photograph. Through that spirit of play, your soul will reflect back at you from the streets itself.
Build a strong foundation
So for the past two and a half years, I’ve been building a strong foundation. I’m just getting started. When I think about a foundation, I think about our abdominal muscles—our core. Perhaps this is where all of our strength truly lies. Of course, we have two legs that carry us through the world, but it is our core—that tight abdomen area—that holds our spine upright and gives us the ability to stand, move, and do all the different things that we carry out in our everyday lives.
Yesterday at work, I was removing a tree trunk from the ground. You have to get a shovel and dig around it, revealing the roots that connect to the soil. By grabbing a pair of pruners and clipping the roots—or a chainsaw and trimming the dead—you can wiggle that strong trunk out from the earth and pull it from the ground. It really does require a lot of physical force to remove the foundation from the tree—the trunk itself.
The trunks of trees are what hold them standing upright for decades, and even perhaps hundreds of years for certain trees. It’s quite fascinating how strong a tree is, and the way the trunk and its core are rooted in the ground through a network of veins and roots—like arteries in our heart—keep everything together.
Agility and mobility
I recently enrolled in a boxing class, and I’m blown away by how much it works your core. Punching the bag and moving left and right requires a lot of agility and mobility in your core and in your physical body. There’s a lot of coordination involved with boxing, as I’m starting to learn after only two classes, and it’s very much a new practice that I’m looking forward to mastering.
I think what I seek most in life are more grand physical challenges. I want to take on new physical challenges, because as my muscles grow, as I become physically stronger, I become mentally sharper and spiritually more awake—and have the ability to go out there to create.
Through physical movement, agility, and the ability to go out there to explore—with power at the forefront—you can become the ultimate creator, or the best photographer you can possibly be. Because ultimately, the more you walk, the more you see. The more you see, the more you photograph. And the more you photograph, the more curious you become, to go out there and continue pressing the shutter.
And so, with that said, as much as photography is a visual game of putting together the foreground, middle ground, and background—as we have two eyes connected to our brain that allow us to see and perceive the world with sharp visual acuity—at the end of the day, photography is a physical pleasure. It requires you to move your physical body out there in the open world, on the front lines of life, close to humanity.
And the stronger you become—the stronger your core, your foundation, both physically, mentally, and spiritually—the more you possess the ability to move with agility and mobility throughout the world, and to articulate the chaos and put order to it with your frames. So what I’m trying to say is: create a strong foundation. Get in the gym. Do some push-ups, some pull-ups. Do something. Move your physical body. And through that movement—and through increasing your strength—everything else will fall into place.
We are human batteries
Our body is the battery. Just like a phone that needs to get charged each night, we too need deep sleep. I can’t help but stress the difference I feel between getting deep, good sleep as opposed to restless nights. I can’t remember the last time I had an off day of sleep, as I’ve been making it such a priority to just simply get to bed as early as possible.
By getting to bed early, I wake up with vigor and vitality—and I’m ready to conquer the day. One of the things I’ve realized about myself is that my mental battery gets drained way more easily than my physical battery. For instance, you can give me a shovel and I’ll go dig 100 holes in the ground right now. But if I have to sit in a meeting for two hours, I’ll be completely mentally exhausted and feel like I need to take a nap.
It’s quite fascinating, really—maybe we’re all built differently—but this is just my personal experience. I think it’s important to be mindful of how you spend your time, what you pay attention to. This is the ultimate currency in the universe. It’s the reason why we call it “spending” time and “paying” attention.
Perhaps it is ultimately our perception that shapes our reality. So by perceiving and viewing beautiful things—with beautiful art, having beautiful conversations, surrounding yourself in beautiful nature—you will have a beautiful and flourishing life. But if you’re paying attention to doom and gloom, boring celebrity gossip, negative news, etc., you’ll be living in a living nightmare.
I honestly think we create hell for ourselves on earth—but you can create paradise on earth through what you pay attention to, how you spend your time, and whether or not you get good sleep at night.
I think the craziest modern-day phenomenon is how little time we spend in nature, under the sun. We sequester ourselves inside the four corners of rooms, cubicles, offices, in order to generate money—as this is our currency. But we neglect the way we’re spending the time to actually generate that currency. Because ultimately, we’re degrading our physical bodies by sitting down for eight hours a day and not even getting the sunlight that charges our soul and gives us the power to go out there and live our lives.
It’s quite dark when you look at it this way—almost like the city is this big prison, and we’re all so comfortable in our little prison cells, like zoo animals. Or maybe the new idea is “Zoom animals”—stuck in Zoom calls inside all day.
You are a creator being
We were all born artists, but the modern world sucks it out of you. Reclaim your innate ability—the DNA qualities that you possess as a creator. Pick up a camera. Start making things. Start tinkering. Start experimenting.
What I’ve realized in my personal journey is that I needed to destroy my old ways of doing things in order to become creative again. For instance, I feel like I hit a wall with my photography, shooting in color. But ever since switching back to black and white, I’ve tapped into an infinite way of making new photographs.
It’s like I tapped into this endless stream of becoming—and have the ability to create at any time of the day. By carrying a Ricoh GR digital compact camera in my pocket all the time, I never have an excuse not to make something. It’s like I had to cut all the dead limbs from myself—all the dead parts—in order to grow new fruits again and produce new photos.
Treat photography as life affirmation
When I photograph, I’m simply saying yes to life itself. If you treat photography like life affirmation, everything becomes rich with meaning. I think we’re all seeking “the meaning of life,” but I believe it is up to us to give life meaning. It’s you who gives life meaning.
Through photography, every fleeting moment becomes rich with meaning. It does not matter how mundane or boring things may seem—I can always find something to uplift in a photograph, a new way to say yes to life itself, giving meaning to the most mundane situations, people, places.
What I’ve found is, by reminding myself each and every day that I will die—or could die any moment—life becomes so much more rich with meaning. If you simply treat each day like your last, almost like each night when you go to sleep is a miniature death, and each morning, a miniature birth, you become filled with gratitude. And this abundant feeling puts you in a flow state of production—not just in terms of making photographs, but also in how you carry yourself throughout your everyday routine in life itself.
You stop taking everything so seriously and find yourself moving full of purpose, with vigor in each step—saying yes with each click of the shutter.