Coming off Klonopin, an anxiety med. Doctors in San Francisco misdiagnosed my natural interest in whether or not I was going to live and thought it was "anxiety". For six months I've been taking Klonopin and because it's addictive I can't stop cold turkey. I need to taper off slowly. So that's what I did. Now I'm taking ½ tab once a day. I stopped drinking. I exercise. I go to the gym. I drink three, four liters of water every day. I sit in a steam room or do a sauna. I shower in the nude with other men. Then we walk around the lockers showing off our admiration. If I didn't have anxiety before, I do now.
Klonopin never did anything so that I could tell it was helping. It was what I didn't feel. I didn't feel like I hated the world or people. I wasn't bitter or nervous. I didn't flip out over small things, only the big ones. I didn't feel like I had somewhere to go or something to do. I don't know if Klonopin made me calm, but it made me think I was calm. It made anxiety seem weak, cowardly and vulnerable. I could have victory with meds. I'd need another victory after that. And another after that. Discomfort comes with the withdrawals. Diarrhea. Headaches. Nausea. Boredom. Irritability. Driving in traffic. Insomnia. Restlessness. I used vicodin and hydrocodone to help get past the withdrawals. Without Klonopin, "BE-HERE-NOW" became "be anywhere but here now!" With it, being here is better than being anywhere else.
There are many days when I have no photos and no words. No creativity at all. I'm not interesting and I'm not interested. I've tried to force it, but that's stupid. A waste of time. So I find something else to do and wait for images to come to me. Taking a picture, getting the shot, right now, is as good as any other. Missing it can be better still. It's not taking the picture that makes it; it's what I do with it. A picture is taken. Shutter snaps. No flash. No focus. No thought. Camera and eye, hand and mind all moving without purpose. Or at least it seems like there's no point.
It's no sweat to take a picture. I don't think about it. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to put any thought to it. I want my hand, fingers, eye, camera, thoughts, everything going on inside and outside to be a conscious unified field of experience without distinctions or classifications. That's the way it really is, anyway. I look at the photos and maybe I can make something out of them. "First you take the picture; then you make the picture." Anybody can take a picture or bang on a piano, but I have to see something to make the picture or turn the banging into a form of jazz, which is the kind of jazz I like to play best. It takes being conscious. Awareness of being aware. Klonopin keeps me a little less than fully conscious. And that pisses me off. I have to work harder at it. Go into my high metabolic zone.
The anxiety comes in not being able to make the picture how I want, when I want, because I want everything and I want it now. But it doesnt work that way. There are many days when I see nothing, when I feel like I'm on a respirator. Life support. The image comes to me only when I can see it, feel it, touch it, smell it, love it and hate it, all at the same time. Being willing to give it up. Knowing when to stop, when to wait, and when to start again. Start-Change-Stop. That's what I'm learning about photography and the metaphysical facts of life.
Klonopin never did anything so that I could tell it was helping. It was what I didn't feel. I didn't feel like I hated the world or people. I wasn't bitter or nervous. I didn't flip out over small things, only the big ones. I didn't feel like I had somewhere to go or something to do. I don't know if Klonopin made me calm, but it made me think I was calm. It made anxiety seem weak, cowardly and vulnerable. I could have victory with meds. I'd need another victory after that. And another after that. Discomfort comes with the withdrawals. Diarrhea. Headaches. Nausea. Boredom. Irritability. Driving in traffic. Insomnia. Restlessness. I used vicodin and hydrocodone to help get past the withdrawals. Without Klonopin, "BE-HERE-NOW" became "be anywhere but here now!" With it, being here is better than being anywhere else.
There are many days when I have no photos and no words. No creativity at all. I'm not interesting and I'm not interested. I've tried to force it, but that's stupid. A waste of time. So I find something else to do and wait for images to come to me. Taking a picture, getting the shot, right now, is as good as any other. Missing it can be better still. It's not taking the picture that makes it; it's what I do with it. A picture is taken. Shutter snaps. No flash. No focus. No thought. Camera and eye, hand and mind all moving without purpose. Or at least it seems like there's no point.
It's no sweat to take a picture. I don't think about it. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to put any thought to it. I want my hand, fingers, eye, camera, thoughts, everything going on inside and outside to be a conscious unified field of experience without distinctions or classifications. That's the way it really is, anyway. I look at the photos and maybe I can make something out of them. "First you take the picture; then you make the picture." Anybody can take a picture or bang on a piano, but I have to see something to make the picture or turn the banging into a form of jazz, which is the kind of jazz I like to play best. It takes being conscious. Awareness of being aware. Klonopin keeps me a little less than fully conscious. And that pisses me off. I have to work harder at it. Go into my high metabolic zone.
The anxiety comes in not being able to make the picture how I want, when I want, because I want everything and I want it now. But it doesnt work that way. There are many days when I see nothing, when I feel like I'm on a respirator. Life support. The image comes to me only when I can see it, feel it, touch it, smell it, love it and hate it, all at the same time. Being willing to give it up. Knowing when to stop, when to wait, and when to start again. Start-Change-Stop. That's what I'm learning about photography and the metaphysical facts of life.
