I Don’t Measure Time, I Count Cities and Photographs.

My favorite Marxist meme that my students are tired of hearing from me.

What if time is not only an illusion (according to Albert Einstein), but indeed a capitalist idea so that the human race will resort to things such as life insurance, bucket lists, anti-aging creams, and obviously, clocks?

If that’s the case, then I think I’m a major victim of this idea.

‘Time’ by Angkasa Murka

How do we then measure the passage of time? Or better yet, is there a need to measure time?

Before Marcus Aurelius and Albert Camus rise from their graves, let’s get to the point.

I don’t attach certain achievements with age, and I never will. At some certain age, some people want to get married and start a family. Some people want to save a specific amount of money. Some people want to have a house and a car. Some people want to be at a certain point in their career.

As an artist who just tries to maximize this one life that I was privileged to have, I don’t care about the passage of time. I care more about the art I make, the places I visit, and the photographs I take.

The creative life is not linear. It’s not a straight line from point A to point B. It’s more like a loop, or a spiral, in which you keep coming back to a new starting point after every project. No matter how successful you get, no matter what level of achievement you reach, you will never really “arrive.”

Austin Kleon

There are over 10,000 cities in the world. One film roll has 36 shots (or 72 shots if your camera is a half-frame). The emergence of the digital camera allows me to take an infinite number of photos. There is no limit to how many art works I want to make.

Why measure time, then?

Image credits here.

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