What is good.

What makes a good person, a good person? Is it the way they react under a bad situation, or the promise they make to themselves to react under a bad situation? 

A december 14th, 2020 wonderment. 

Bill Cunningham: the street fashion photographer

I found this piece handwritten in an old journal as part of my graduate program in one of the courses that demanded constant reflection. I can’t exactly remember why I thought to write about Bill Cunningham at the time when he was still alive. Was it my unrealized obsession in fashion or was it how he was simply iconic and changed the fashion industry? 

Year: 2014
Location: San Diego

***

(Source: https://nyti.ms/2PBNeJk)

Bill Cunningham, born in Boston 1929, is an American fashion photographer for the New York Times. Before becoming the well-known icon that he is, he was a Harvard student. For some reason, Cunningham dropped out of college and moved to New York where he became “Bill Cunningham; the street fashion photographer”.

His interest in fashion began when he was a journalist, writing and photographing, at Women’s Wear Daily. As part of his new hobby, he wandered around the streets of Manhattan anonymously taking photos of fashionable people walking around. He then published a collection of photos in the Times in 1978. Soon after that it became regularly issued. New Yorkers started to “get dressed for Bill,” as Anna Wintour said, the editor of Vogue Magazine.

Fashion icons would eagerly wait for the newspaper to come out every week to see Cunningham’s photos of street fashion. 

Like any New Yorker, Cunningham lived in a small apartment where there was no kitchen or any rooms for that matter. His bed placed in between filing cabinets which took most of the space (also happens to be the only room in the apartment). Every day, he would wake up, ride his bicycle and look for a standing-out outfit to photograph. 

With a theme in-mind, he would sometimes focus on a vibrant color, or a certain print popular that day. Other times focusing on certain accessories like bags or shoes on both men and women. 

***

It is amazing to think about this person who dedicated his life into this inspiring project that motivated and encouraged young photographers around the world to follow his footsteps. Today, you would see a number of Instagrammers recreating his concept, bearing in mind that Bill Cunningham was the mastermind behind it and he would die in 2016 knowing that he changed the fashion world. 

Overcoming Conflict

One of life’s greatest challenges has got to be coexisting with others. Otherwise, the end of Jean Paul-Sartre’s play, The Exit, wouldn’t have been as jaw-dropping. 

Whether it’s a close or distant family member, a co-worker, a stranger in the street … if you are human and living today, you must have experienced conflict with another of your kind.

Having said that, I've come to the conclusion that there is only one way to move past conflict -that is by communication. To actually sit down and hear what the other has to say about his or her backstory is found to be the most effective. And to sit down to resolve your matters really depends on how open and comfortable you are with yourself. Whether you accept change, constructive criticism, or hearing out your flaws. Just how much are you willing to quiet down your self-important sense of self and listen to the person across from you saying what sounds like offensive words to you. That is the moment when you know you crossed the line of fear into facing yourself with all there is.

It is truly amazing how one can learn so much about him or herself by just going through what seems like the most uncomfortable moment of what you would rather avoid altogether. 

Avoiding conflict may be interpreted as cowardice or lack of openness. However, I believe the reason why people avoid conflict is because they haven’t yet found peace within. People avoid conflict because they are not ready to hear about that unknown part about themselves. The blind spot. The one seen by everyone except by the most important person in this journey we call life: you.

I’ve been reading A New Earth by Ekhart Tolle, and although it sounds cliché, the book like any other book has an interesting perspective about overcoming miscommunication with yourself and others. First of all, it took the word ego to a whole new level. It is not the same Freudian ego that is known globally (the book actually states that). It is the ego that controls all the familiar sentences and thoughts our mind tell us on a daily basis.

Basically everything, literally everything out there in the real world, depends on your own perception about yourself. And that self-perception is another misinterpretation of the word ego. Ego is literally in control of your hypothetical driving wheel that Incubus sang about in 1999. Once you read how ego sneaks into your life, actions, relationships, reactions is when you can put an end to it. 

However, this self-awareness makes me wonder if there’s anyone left out there who is willing to invest in self-improvement and knowledge. In this fast time and age, are people willing to reflect and actually devote time into communicating with others in order to make relationships work?

It seems like the majority of people are so engrossed with being self-centered and careless about others. It has come to a point where by a touch of a button, we can remove that person along with its conflict in a matter of seconds.

Shall we rise above ego and keep working on those relationships? I know I’ll try.  

Skinny Love

"You're in a relationship because you need help, but that's not necessarily why you should be in a relationship. And that's skinny. It doesn't have weight. Skinny love doesn't have a chance because it's not nourished." - Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.

http://youtu.be/UrMmr1oMPGA

On a Wednesday

Here I am… one of those people who are constantly tapping letters on their keyboards on a random coffee shop. People passing by, glancing at those around me and myself, and as they walk by the window, suddenly in slow-motion, I track their eyes, they take a look around, and fancies the idea of us; of doing something productive, while they’re not. Now we meet eyes, they think I’m typing something important (I am able to read their thoughts, because I’m an intuitive person (I’ve been called that once)) while in fact, I’m typing this useless piece of empty lines. The funny part is that your eyes are still r.e.a.d.i.n.g to the right.

**

I slept at 19:30 last night. It was still sunny outside, ready to rise on the other side of the world; I could see it through my moving window-shutters. I like my bedroom shutters. I’d wake up in the morning to see the sunlight glittering through those moving gaps caused by the air conditioner. I love mornings. And that is why I skipped the night, and pulled a-twelve-hour sleep, only to skip school the next morning.

Sometimes you just need to vacation from your empty life, with more empty time.

**

The last time I spoke to my closest friend was when I killed her Disney fantasy of love- as I was the reason behind telling her that womanhood isn’t what we all thought it was. It’s more than that …

I’m not sure whether I did the right thing, or the right thing… Somebody needed to snap her out of it anyway; she’s lucky I was the one to break it down to her. Otherwise, it would’ve been cruel coming from somebody else. Right?

**

In any case … if I had wasted your time on my journal, why don’t you listen to this.. Simmer yourself down a little?

goo.gl/xs2O5x

May 9th

When asked for free writing:


"I don't know how writers do it; having to write something everyday. Or artists; having to constantly come up with creative things. How do these people find inspiration so easily? Or am I mistaken it for hard-to-come inspiration?
I've been writing everyday- excluding weekends, for almost three months. And my mind is empty, so is my blog. Pouring my thoughts out means hallowing myself from the inside. Sharing cryptic, sometimes caliginous, somewhat rich-in-words may be imperil, in some cases. For you can read through me, and I don't like being sought through; I become unzipped, metaphorically and physically- if it makes sense.

Today is one of those days; I feel inarticulately mute. Empty..."

On a Saturday

If you spend a draining long day of staying in bed, you can only surely hope to gain your health back to go on with your own noteworthy, interesting life. And where should you do that? On a Saturday- at Ray Street between University and North Park Way, San Diego.

The minor -rather chilly yet warm in dotted yellow bulbs- humble, closed street is crammed with artsy kiosks, and the previously existences of scenic Art Galleries. You will see people from different ages piercing their eyes, rather sharply, through the sometimes-dull paintings, other times splendid, fewer times inspired. Most of them are usually tediously oblivious of Art 101.

If you get tiresome from the quiet, dreary yet amusing, time, you will find a semi-jalopy, antique food truck. Sometimes it will serve sweet and sour Chinese sauces, other times urban American, but today was fresh Thai food.

As you walk around, and watch artists marketing their young, experimental works, there’s a four-group band covering old music in a more metropolitan way. It’s calm, it’s preppy, and it’s superior to a warm, undone-for-days bed.