from my tumblr blog

between Salt Flat and almost nowhere

The Truth Is ... I really have no idea what the industry I am training students for will look like.

Journalism is, according to one of its young stars, undergoing an existential change and where that will end no-one knows.

But as Hamish Macdonald told journalism students at QUT today there are a few truths about the industry.

There is a greater hunger for information than there has ever been in the past but how people want to receive that is changing and the industry has to change to meet that. Falling audiences tell us we can't just keep doing more of the same.

Macdonald doesn't purport to know all the answers but he has developed a new way of telling journalistic stories.

The Truth Is? will premiere on Network 10 next month and if the reaction of the next generation of journalists is anything to go by he has a hit on his hands.

Macdonald today delivered a shot in the arm for any student worrying about the state of the industry they are entering, reminding them that more Australians watch the news and the average news viewer is younger than in other countries.

On top of that, the new journalism students - those who check Twitter and Facebook before turning on the radio, television or picking up the newspaper - will be the ones leading the change and they should seize the day.

And Macdonald's top tip for how to get that elusive journalism job - go overseas. The world is your oyster go grab it. The Truth? I reckon they can handle that truth.

Texte souvenir sur la naissance d'une cave existentialiste

Some people think depression is like sadness, unhappiness, grief, negative emotion.

It is the opposite of all these things.

It is meaninglessness itself.

This panel could really stand on its own, but it leads into a further four-parter which I really need to keep together.

after Rodin

“The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it's not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another person--without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.”

― Osho

For quite a while I debated whether or not to upload this to flickr. This is very confessional, and brought tears to my eyes when I scanned it and saw the results.

This is about my childhood and my childhood dreams. That tree is about as old as I am (parts are frequently sawed off so it doesn't destroy everything around it), and I'd spend lonely afternoons lying around the grass, listening to Astor Piazolla on a cassette tape walkman, dreaming of being great -- an artist, a scient, a poet, a warrior, a magician, a king.

I seem to be cursing things as I photograph them; many urban scenes I've posted on flickr have been destroyed to build something else weeks after I took pictures. I don't know how I would react if the Seventh Tree (don't ask) was cut down. I might lose days of work lying on my bed crying about how living means throwing away most dreams to focus on a few and how one is constantly losing almost (and this is a key word: almost) everything that once mattered.

Anyway, there it is -- a representation of my happiest and most meaningful formative moments and of the existential weight that being a dreamer carries, captured in a 36 x 24mm piece of film. This is probably the most personally significant photograph I ever took. Thread with care on this one.

Living in Transit: The Thinkers of a World in Turmoil

War looms over Europe, uncertainty seeps into everyday life, and the weight of history presses upon the present. The world is burning, and yet—there are those who seek understanding, those who bury themselves in the quiet refuge of books, the dim glow of libraries, the solitude of knowledge.

This series captures the introspective minds of young academic women—readers, thinkers, seekers. They wander through old university halls, their fingers tracing the spines of forgotten books, pulling out volumes of poetry, philosophy, and psychology. They drink coffee, they drink tea, they stay up late with ink-stained fingers, trying to decipher the world through words.

They turn to Simone Weil for moral clarity, Hannah Arendt for political insight, Rilke for existential wisdom. They read Baudrillard to untangle the illusions of modernity, Byung-Chul Han to understand society’s exhaustion, Camus to grasp the absurdity of it all. They devour Celan’s poetry, searching for beauty in catastrophe.

But they do not just read—they reflect, they question, they write. Their world is one of quiet resistance, an intellectual sanctuary amidst the chaos. In their solitude, they are not alone. Across time, across history, across the pages they turn, they are in conversation with those who, too, have sought meaning in troubled times.

This is a series about thought in transit—about seeking, reading, questioning, about the relentless pursuit of knowledge when the world feels on the brink.

Where the Thinkers Go

They gather where the dust has settled,

where books whisper in the hush of halls.

Pages thin as breath, torn at the edges,

cradling centuries of questions.

They drink coffee like it’s ink,

trace words like constellations,

follow Rilke into the dusk,

where solitude hums softly in the dark.

Outside, the world is fraying—

war threading through the seams of cities,

the weight of history pressing forward.

Inside, they turn pages, searching

for answers, for solace, for fire.

And somewhere between the lines,

between time-stained margins and fading ink,

they find the ghosts of others who

once sought, once wondered, once read—

and they do not feel alone.

Three Haikus

Night falls on paper,

books stacked like silent towers,

thoughts burn in the dark.

Tea cools in the cup,

a poem lingers on lips,

war rumbles beyond.

Footsteps in silence,

the scent of old ink and dust,

pages turn like ghosts.

ooOOOoo

Reading as Resistance

These young women do not read passively. They underline, they take notes, they write in the margins. They challenge the texts and themselves. They read because the world demands it of them—because, in a time of conflict and uncertainty, thought itself is an act of resistance.

Their books are worn, their pages stained with coffee, their minds alive with the urgency of understanding.

1. Political Thought, Society & Liberation

Essays, theory and critique on democracy, power and resistance.

Chantal Mouffe – For a Left Populism (rethinking democracy through radical left-wing populism)

Nancy Fraser – Cannibal Capitalism (an urgent critique of capitalism’s role in the destruction of democracy, the planet, and social justice)

Étienne Balibar – Citizenship (rethinking the idea of citizenship in an era of migration and inequality)

Silvia Federici – Caliban and the Witch (a feminist Marxist analysis of capitalism and gender oppression)

Didier Eribon – Returning to Reims (a deeply personal sociological reflection on class and identity in contemporary Europe)

Antonio Negri & Michael Hardt – Empire (rethinking global capitalism and resistance from a leftist perspective)

Thomas Piketty – Capital and Ideology (a profound analysis of wealth distribution, inequality, and the future of economic justice)

Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism (on why it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism)

2. Feminist & Queer Theory, Gender & Body Politics

Texts that redefine identity, gender, and liberation in the 21st century.

Paul B. Preciado – Testo Junkie (an autobiographical, philosophical essay on gender, hormones, and biopolitics)

Judith Butler – The Force of Nonviolence (rethinking ethics and resistance beyond violence)

Virginie Despentes – King Kong Theory (a raw and radical take on sex, power, and feminism)

Amia Srinivasan – The Right to Sex (rethinking sex, power, and feminism for a new generation)

Laurent de Sutter – Narcocapitalism (on how capitalism exploits our bodies, desires, and emotions)

Sara Ahmed – Living a Feminist Life (a deeply personal and political exploration of what it means to be feminist today)

3. Literature & Poetry of Resistance, Liberation & Exile

European novels, poetry and literature that embrace freedom, revolution, and identity.

Annie Ernaux – The Years (a groundbreaking memoir that blends personal and collective history, feminism, and social change)

Olga Tokarczuk – The Books of Jacob (an epic novel about alternative histories, belief systems, and European identity)

Édouard Louis – Who Killed My Father (a deeply political and personal exploration of class struggle and masculinity)

Bernardine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other (a polyphonic novel on race, gender, and identity in contemporary Europe)

Maggie Nelson (though American, widely read in European academia) – On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint (a poetic, intellectual meditation on freedom and constraint)

Benjamín Labatut – When We Cease to Understand the World (a deeply philosophical novel on science, war, and moral responsibility)

Michel Houellebecq – Submission (controversial but widely read as a dystopian critique of political passivity in Europe)

4. Ecology, Anti-Capitalism & Posthumanism

Texts that explore the intersections of nature, economics, and radical change.

Bruno Latour – Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime (rethinking ecology and politics in a world of climate crisis)

Andreas Malm – How to Blow Up a Pipeline (on the ethics of radical environmental resistance)

Emanuele Coccia – The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture (rethinking human and non-human coexistence)

Isabelle Stengers – Another Science is Possible (rethinking knowledge and resistance in an era of corporate science)

Kate Raworth – Doughnut Economics (rethinking economic models for social and ecological justice)

Donna Haraway – Staying with the Trouble (rethinking coexistence and posthumanist futures)

The Future of Thought

These are not just books; they are weapons, tools, compasses. These women read not for escapism, but for resistance. In a time of political upheaval, climate catastrophe, and rising authoritarianism, they seek alternative visions, radical possibilities, and new ways of imagining the world.

Their books are annotated, their margins filled with questions, their reading lists always expanding. Knowledge is not just power—it is revolution.

A letterpress printed card reminding us all that not everything needs to be an existential crisis. Red envelope by Paper Source.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

~Edgar Allan Poe

She has a wonderful sense of diconnected identity if not down right existential despair.

Now Lecture III vol 1 p 56 to p 70 in Vol 2.

Next define the sign and the three trichotomies.

i kept the lens distortion, i like what it adds to the composition and a bit of fallibility humanises the image

A little existential crisis to start the year.

Danish existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard died at the age of 42 at the height of his fame. He was laid to rest in Assistens Kirkegård Cemetery in Copenhagen (Kierkegaard's last name does sound like the word for cemetery in Danish, i.e. 'church-garden'). He was buried together with members of his family. This photo shows one of the memorial stones in the family plot, with Soren Kierkegaard's name below two siblings who died aged 12 and 25. The writing below Kierkegaard's name is a poem by an 18th century Danish Christian hymn writer, Hans Brorson, that Kierkegaard wished to be inscribed on his tombstone:

"It is a little while

then I have won,

then the whole struggle

with one disappeared,

then I can rest

in rose halls,

and incessantly

my Jesus speech"

Small.

an existential, situational, and normative death.

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Brian was in an existential funk.

Get up, take the subway, go to work, take the subway, go to bed… what for?

He never realized that his very presence gave us strength, as he was proof there was real porpoise in life.

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SOMA - Crafting Existential Dread

Progetto Arcevia 2.0/12

In 1972, Italo Bartoletti initiated Progetto Arcevia, a vision of an existential community which simultaneously enriched the local community of Palazzo d’Arcevia (Italy) while at the same time providing a site for creatives – artists, philosophers, architects – to come together and collaborate.

40 years later, Bartoletti’s vision has been embraced by a group of young London-based designers, Unit +. In September 2012, five members of Unit + journeyed to Riserva Privata San Settimio, the very site that Bartoletti first cultivated for Progetto Arcevia, and which is still owned by his family today. Using experiential and live mapping techniques across a range of different media (conceptual documentaries, sketches, models and a fairy tale inspired comic book), Unit + explored, documented and analysed their impressions of the site.

Through their dynamic engagement with all aspects of the Riserva, they experimented with colour-coded navigation systems, a proposal for a ‘floating’ meditation room and a towering sundial. Through the support and enthusiasm of Bartoletti’s family and the Riserva, Unit + will return in Spring 2013 to initiate these projects.

Crucial to Progetto Arcevia 2.0/12 is the fact that the fundamental ideals remain the same; Unit + are committed to operating as “a thought factory and creativity lab”, a team that values collaboration and cooperation. Their work at the Riserva in 2013 represents not only a continuation of one man’s vision, but the revitalisation of concepts that are intrinsic to collaborative design.

August 19, 2016 at 01:52PM

The olive tree has not only an existential meaning for the Palestinians, but it is part of the family as well. The fields are inherited from generation to generation. During the olive harvest in autumn, the whole family comes together and collects the valuable livelihood.

During the 41 years of occupation, the Israeli occupation forces uprooted hundreds of thousands of olive trees. The most beautiful were taken and planted in Israeli settlements - e.g. in Maale Adumim.

The more I learn about myself, the more I fear myself. I’m told I should remain neutral. A Switzerland of the mind.

Seen at a prominent junction near San Telmo, Buenos Aires, Wall grafitti in Spanish language with an existential message which translates roughly to 'we are the species in danger of extinguishing everything'

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Oh how I loved this book! Tina is assigned to keep a diary for her Existenstialism class at a Southern California high school - and she bares all. Wry commentary on her life as a teen girl (crushes and all), and some cultural idiosynracies experienced as a young East Indian female living in America. I would love to buy a copy of this book, just to color the gorgeous illustrations!

An existential message on Turlington Hall.

Blogged

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Secretary Antony J. Blinken participates in a high-level meeting on Addressing the Existential Threats Posed by Sea-Level Rise in New York City, New York, September 25, 2024. (Official State Department photo by Chuck Kennedy)

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soothing existential angst in the Cutlass

I reply, Nobody ever dreamed of denying that what is general is of the nature of a general sign; but the question is whether future events will conform to it or not. If they will, your adjective ‘mere’ seems to be ill-placed. A rule to which future events have a tendency to conform is ipso facto an important thing, an important element in the happenings of those events. This mode of being which consists, mind my word if you please, the mode of being which consists in the fact that future facts of Secondness will take on a determinate general character, I call a Thirdness.