Krister Axel

The Stone Bishop is a great friend of mine, a very talented musician and as it turns out a very talented graphic artist as well. I love this.

portrait of Krister Axel

visit him at TheStoneBishop.com.

Before:

Just before sunset in San Francisco

After:

Russian Hill

Thanks to Matt Renoir for doing a great job, All For You now has a video and it looks really good. We got digital video in Echo Park and downtown Los Angeles. Good times.

Visit Sky Meet Sea.com for more information.

credits

Super-fancy travel guitar by Go Guitars.

This is a reaction to an RSA Animate video called The Secret Powers of Time where:

Professor Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being…

I would like to make the case that rationality dictates a hybrid philosophy. I think a combination of ‘Past Positive’ and future-oriented is the only logical choice.

Past Positive I think is necessary because it plays right into the most human of needs – the need to leave a lasting impression on the world. Call it an illusion if you will, ashes to ashes and all of that, but as a creative and an artist I know very well that most if not all artisanal pursuits deal with this – that we all want to create something that is worthy of immortality. If you are a painter, you want your art in a museum where it will live (presumably) beyond your own lifetime; if you are a songwriter you want your songs to be recorded by the next generation of artists, or for your own recordings to live on as a shining example of one’s own time period; if you are a writer, you want your work (book, essay, screenplay) to reach an eminent status where it circles back around and influences young minds over and over again – Catcher in the Rye comes to mind, as a great example of that. What an impressive, infinite and immortal work that is. So I think living partially within the ‘Past Positive’ paradigm is essential to that sort of emphasis – to create, and to in a sense curate one’s own archive of materials. Blogging feeds this need in a sense as well.

To be future-oriented is also important – as distinguished from the ‘Transcendental Future’ orientation – because as empiricism will suggest the best way to create a positive future is to be positive. Happiness begets smiling but so too does smiling beget happiness. As Gandhi said – ‘we must be the change that we wish to see’. I think this is one of the most important truisms in our universe. Spiritually, future orientation is the only way to go – that is, if long-term health and happiness are important to you.

So, simply put, a rational and intelligent being will find a balance between these two time orientations. One might argue that a little present-hedonistic is not bad, but keep in mind – pleasures of the flesh are only meaningful when they are additive. Hedonism only positively affects happiness when it is used ‘over the top’, so to speak, where the structure for long-term happiness is already in place. For more on that see Martin Seligman on positive psychology.

Also, see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on flow – I think flow is itself a hybrid present-hedonistic and future-oriented phenomenon.