"Drunken Light" - A Series of Photographs and Musings

We danced in the light of the drunken moment. We poured ourselves some wine and we forgot about the present.

But forgetting the present is also to forget the future and the past; without a past there can be no future, no present.

The past contains the seeds for the present, the future, the ability to exist.

And this is the sad reality of it all. We deny the past of so many, so many different people are denied their past. How can they have a future? How can we have a future?

Because in denying others their past, and their future, we are also denying our own. For an illusionary "pure" and "uncontaminated" identity (past, present, future) is not only harmful to the those denied access to it, but also those doing the denying.

The (South) African philosopher Siseko Kumalo beautifully wrote:

"the humanity of the oppressor (whiteness), is itself obfuscated owing to the modes of oppression, which dehumanise the oppressed and the oppressor."

The humanity of the oppressor, those denying others their past, also loses their humanity in the process. The past of the oppressor is also lost in the process of denying the other their own past.

And this is the tragedy of it all. While the oppressor denies the oppressed access to their past, denying them also a future and a present, the oppressed walls of any organic unfoldment of their own future. Their own past becomes a mode of suppression, not only to others, but themselves as well.

The light, not allowed to drunkenly dance in the glass, is restricted from flowing over the edge, mixing with other elements wholly unknown, potentially dangerous, but also productive, creative, generative, and artistically.

Is that not the irony of life, that radical and unconditional reciprocity is the only real way to harbour and cultivate everyone's humanity? (Is it also not funny that this sentence feels like a new way of dictating my own opinion?) The reason: when I give, I give without dictating to receive back. But I also accept with the same in mind. But once we place a halt in the process, I give with the expectation of receiving something specific back, the radical reciprocity ends.

For if we deny the other their humanity, how are we expected to be granted humanity by others?

I hope that the wine dances like light in your glass.

For now, happy photographing.

All of the musings and writings are my own, unless stated otherwise. The photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 50mm lens.