Thursday, February 26, 2009

There are no followers...

That's what it says: "There are no followers.  Be the first!"  Over there, just to the left of this text (or just to the left until I manage to crank out another entry here).  

It sounds like a philosophical statement; maybe a Zen saying*.  There are no followers.  What does that mean?  Where is the front?  Could you be a leader, but in the middle?  "There go the people.  I must follow them, for I am their leader."  Google Book Search shows that attributed to French revolutionary Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, according to Respectfully Quoted by Suzy Platt, of the Library of Congress.  (One website attributed it to Gandhi, which shows why the internet cannot be trusted.  Trust me.)

So I have no followers, yet I write.  Do I care?  Well, yeah.  But I also make pictures with no particular outlet or viewer either.  I have about seven rolls of film in the darkroom, waiting for processing.  (And that's film -- remember that? -- not the easily run off digital.)  In a way, that's also a purpose of this blog: to find an outlet for all that stuff.  But what if an outlet is not an inlet?

I think the tree falling in the forest makes noise.  It may even make a lovely noise ... or at least an interesting one.  Does it matter that no one hears?


*Koan.  Damn, that's the word I was looking for.  Koan.

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